1983-11-22

GOVERNMENT ORDERS


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: I should indicate to the House at this time that the Chair is in a position to arrive at a decision in the choice of the motions on the Order Paper which are now before the House. If Hon. Members wish to make a comment at this time, the Chair is prepared to hear them out.


Mr. Nielsen:: Mr. Speaker, could the Chair indicate what it might be disposed to do without argument, because we might save the time of the House by doing that? I am prepared to make argument but it will take some time. Normally we get an indication from the Chair with respect to these matters before calling for submissions.


Mr. Deans:: Mr. Speaker, I think that is a reasonable request. I would also like to hear from the Chair what its predisposition might be without actually making a ruling, because I am equally prepared to argue the point.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: The Chair should indicate at this time to Hon. Members that it is disposed to call the motion standing in the name of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis). The Hon. Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) on a point of order.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, Standing Order 62, which in essence provides for three supply periods and 25 allotted days during those periods, is an innovation in the rules. The Standing Order provides that those days are available for the moving of motions by the Opposition. In each of the three semesters, not more than two of those motions will have votes attached. In the supply period ending December 10 are five such allotted days. In the spring semester there are seven and in the summer semester there are 13.
[DOT]	(1110)
I point out the rules provide that these allotted days are intended for the Opposition. While there are two Parties on the Opposition side of the House, there is one Opposition and that is Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, sometimes called since the days of Mackenzie King the Official Opposition. But the
right to those allotted days is the right of the Opposition, not the Opposition Parties but the Opposition.
Since the invocation of the Standing Order providing for this supply process, it has been the practice of the Opposition to divide the allotted days in a fair way with the New Democratic Party, with the other Party that sits on this side of the House. In all cases, in arriving at that decision there have been several factors taken into account, but the chief one is that the allotment has been determined on the basis of numerical representation on this side of the House. That criteria would be applied and I have so assured the Hon. Member from Hamilton Mountain in this instance.
The total of 25 allotted days, the global number of allotted days available and provided to Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, the Opposition, the Official Opposition-whatever you want to call it-following the unwritten interpretation on which we have always proceeded as being fair, should be divided by 30 per cent and 60 per cent, or as close thereto as we could come to it. In my view, if you want to look at the rigid and strict interpretation of the Standing Orders, we need not apply any allotted days to the New Democratic Party. The same thing applies to the votes. On some occasions though, having given an allotted day to the NDP, we have withheld a vote until well on into the final supply period.
When we first came back to this interminable session of Parliament we started into the spring semester where there were still some allotted days that had not been allotted in the supply period that had to be disposed of. I take it from where the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain comes that by using a calendar year he may be advancing the argument to you, Mr. Speaker, as he has to me, that in this calendar year we have not yet reached that one-third position. If you take the calendar year he is, of course, correct. But if you take the supply cycle which commenced when we returned, then he is not correct.
I have examined the history of the allotted days, commencing with the period ending December 10, 1980, through to the period ending June 30, 1983. Of course, in this semester we are in now, this will be the fourth allotted day. In the event that this historical work has not been done for you, Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to make this examination available for your perusal. In all cases Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, the Official Opposition, has allotted days to the New Democratic Party in keeping with that fair approach over the period from February, 1980, which was the hangover period, through to June 30.

November 22, 1983
Supply
I submit that the Chair should not instruct the Official Opposition on how it must deal with the division of the allotted days to which the Official Opposition is entitled during supply periods. 1 suggest to the Chair that the discretion of the number and the discretion of the timing are discretion lying within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Official Opposition in the House.
The Chair is confronted with not only two but three motions on the Order Paper with respect to allotted days. One is in the name of the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty). I will cite them in chronological order with respect to the time they were accepted for filing by the Chair. As 1 said, the first is in the name of the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe, the second is in the name of the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands and the third, which was tabled yesterday, is in the name of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap. As I understand it, after having failed to obtain unanimous consent to put the motion yesterday, it was then filed with the Table. In any event, the motion was filed subsequent to the motion filed by myself on behalf of the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands.
There are some numbers which should be taken into account in exercising your discretion, Mr. Speaker, under Standing Order 62(4)(c). Based on the fact that New Democratic Party Members in the House constitute approximately 23 per cent of the Opposition, according to practice they would be entitled, in our view, to roughly six of the 25 Opposition days in any given year. We agree with the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain that this would be their normal entitlement. However, he is wrong in the manner in which he has chosen to calculate these days. He will be making his own argument in that respect, as he has in a letter to me which requested the allotment of one of these five days. The letter was delivered to me by hand after I had already filed the motion of the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands.
I want to emphasize that the first supply period in this session was an extended period ending December 10, 1980. Therefore, the calculation of the annual allotment of supply days should begin in the fail trimester; that is when it should begin, not on January 1. On this basis it can be seen that last year Members of the NDP received six Opposition days out of a total of 25, which is their fair allotment.
We are now about to commence the fourth day in the fall trimester, the first trimester of supply for the purpose of our calculations. Although the first four supply days have been taken by the Official Opposition, there is no obstacle which prevents the NDP from receiving a share of the remaining 21 days, accepting my submission that we start in the fall trimester. I have indicated to the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain that we are prepared to give those days to the New Democratic Party, as we always have in the past. Indeed, just before coming in here I gave him that undertaking. However, this is done at the initiative of the Official Opposition, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, or the Opposition, however you want to call it.
[DOT]	(H20)
If we operate on any other principle, there not being any specific divisions set forth in the Standing Orders, then what we would be doing would be negating the idea that there is an Official Opposition in this House with some exclusive rights by virtue of being that Opposition. What we would do if we depart from the practice of allowing that discretion to remain with the Opposition would be to give a minority Party in the House the right to decide at any time when it will elect to have an allotted day.
I might point out that while there are three motions on the Order Paper attempting to use the fourth allotted day, the NDP, in making the submission that they are now entitled to have their motion considered before two others filed in priority, are making a presumption with respect to the disposition of the final day in this trimester. That argument happens to be academic, because not even the Chair knows what disposition is going to be made with respect to that day coming up on November 28.


Mr. Malone:: Nor does the House Leader.


Erik Nielsen: Nor does the House Leader at the moment, as my colleague points out. There is nothing in our Standing Orders that requires the Opposition-and 1 submit that the majority on this side are the Official Opposition-to make any division.
Second, we have functioned in the past on the basis of fairness but without any requirement technically in the Standing Orders to divide those Opposition days on the basis of numerical representation in the House. We have done that on a global basis. We have allotted a little less than one-third out of the 25, not out of the five in the fall trimester, the seven in the spring trimester and the 13 in the final trimester. We have not approached it that way. In the past we have operated on the basis of the 25 days being divided. Nor is there any obligation, with respect to the two votes in each of those semesters, as to when those votes are going to be allotted.
The strongest argument I make to you, Mr. Speaker, is the right of the Official Opposition to exercise that discretion. It has not been abused in the past. Even though there is no technical requirement for allotting any days, we have been fair throughout. Even the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain will agree with that. They have never been dealt short on a fair division of the days, but that discretion rests with us and, with great respect, with no one else.
[DOT]	(1125)
Even if that argument does not find favour with the Chair, there is the argument that if any discretion is to be exercised under Standing Order 62(4)(c), then that discretion should be exercised on the basis of the time of filing of the motion. There are two motions that were received by the Table prior to the motion of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap, the one filed by the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe which we prefer not to have called today, and the one filed by myself on behalf of the Hon. Member for Kingston and the
November 22, 1983

Islands. 1 did not note the time that it reached the Table, but it did reach the Table, I believe, prior to the commencement of yesterday's debate. Perhaps I am a few minutes out on that one way or the other, but it certainly reached the Table before the motion of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap.
On that basis, Sir, with great respect, I suggest to the Chair that it allow the practice to continue whereby the Official Opposition has the discretion to determine when the New Democratic Party will obtain its allotted days of the total of 25, having operated on the basis of the semesters as they come up rather than on a calendar year. We are following practices that have not been abused in the past. I can assure you, Sir, that as long as I have any power to make recommendations for my caucus with respect to the allotment of those days, that practice will not suffer any abuse in the future. I can assure you, Sir, that the New Democratic Party will, as it has in the past, obtain its full allotment both of days of a total of 25 and of votes.
I would strongly suggest, Mr. Speaker, that you exercise your discretion in favour of calling the motion of the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands even if it is only on the basis of its having been filed in priority.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I ask only for fairness and I concede that we have had no reason to complain up until now. In fact, I can recall at least one occasion and perhaps two occasions where, at the request of the Official Opposition and in order to facilitate its own particular requirements of the time, we took an Opposition day. I can recall that on two occasions there were other events occurring outside of the House that Hon. Members of the Official Opposition were desirous of attending. On those occasions we accepted the day although, quite frankly, it would not have been a day of our choosing if we had had any choice at all.
I would like to deal with some of the arguments raised by the Hon. Member. To begin with, if one were to accept the argument put forward by the Hon. House Leader of the Official Opposition that the time of filing should be a predetermining factor, then of course we could today file half a dozen motions that would then sit on the Notice Paper throughout the entire period of supply. That would give our motions priority if one were to accept that argument. Of course, that argument cannot be accepted. The time of filing does in no way interfere with the right of the Speaker to determine the business to be called at this point in time.
I put to you, Mr. Speaker, that contrary to what has been said by the Hon. House Leader for the Official Opposition, it is not solely the responsibility of the Official Opposition to determine which Party will in fact be allocated the day for the purpose of supply debate. Quite clearly, the Standing Orders give that right to the Chair in cases of doubt and in cases of dispute. It is therefore incumbent upon the Chair to make a decision in circumstances such as these and is not incumbent upon the Official Opposition to dictate to anyone how that decision ought to be made.
Supply
I am operating on the basis of the provisional Standing Orders which are in place for a calendar year. If so, I can only assume that one must argue about the right of individuals to be recognized, the right of certain processes to be followed, within the calendar year. There will be a new calendar year starting in January next, hopefully with the continuation of the provisional Standing Orders, and we would anticipate that we would get our share of the allotted days during the calendar year 1984.
One argument made by the House Leader of the Official Opposition is that the Chair does not know who will be granted the fifth allotted day. As the House Leader for the Official Opposition would no doubt affirm, I want to make it clear that I raised that matter with him before we filed the motion. I raised it last week, in fact, and asked whether or not we would be receiving one of the three days designated by the Government House Leader. The response was an unequivocal no. I then assumed, I think quite rightly so, that it was the intention of the Official Opposition to utilize each of those days for their own use. That would mean that out of the five allotted days during this period, we would not receive any. Not only would we not get a voting day, which I am not going to argue about at the moment, but we would not even get a day at all.
I waited to see whether the Official Opposition had in fact filed the motions, which they did to take up each of the days, before I filed on behalf of my colleague, the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap. I was hoping that perhaps as a result of communications I sent to the Official Opposition House Leader, they would see the fairness of giving us one of the five days. I say, Mr. Speaker, that one of the five days would be less than one might reasonably expect given the numerical breakdown of the Opposition, but we understand that you can only break it down according to an even division. You cannot get part of a day. So we are prepared to accept less than what we expect we might be entitled to as a result of the numerical breakdown in the Opposition.
If, however, we were not given the day today, it would mean, since we now know the Official Opposition intends to take the final day also for themselves, that out of the 25 days in this calendar year we would have received five. That is clearly less than we would be entitled to and it would mean we would be denied the opportunity of putting forward a motion which we frankly feel is of some considerable importance.
On the basis of fairness, we are asking for no more than we should reasonably expect to get. Having waited, hoping the Official Opposition might change its mind, I think we dealt with it in a reasonable way. We waited until the motions were clearly there for both days before we decided to file, in the hope that maybe the Official Opposition might change its mind.
I would argue very strongly that it would be a bad precedent for the Speaker to determine that the Chair has no jurisdiction in determining which of the two Opposition motions-three in this case but two that we are arguing over-should be be

November 22, 1983
Supply
called for debate today. The Chair would be derelict in its duty if it accepted the argument of the Official Opposition House Leader that, by virtue of being the Official Opposition, they and they alone should have the jurisdiction and discretion.
Quite clearly, the Standing Orders, and I need not cite them now, give the Chair the obligation of making such a decision. Nowhere in the Standing Orders or in Beauchesne or anywhere else that I can find is there any reference to there being some discretion to be exercised solely by the Official Opposition in the determination of the allocation of Opposition days. The only reference to allotted days is in the following way, where it is said that although technically the business under discussion is Government business, motions given precedence on these allotted days may be moved only by Members in opposition to the Government. It makes no reference to whether they sit in the Official Opposition or whether they sit, as my colleagues do, in a third Party in the House of Commons.
1 concede that we have not been shortchanged over the course of the last two or three years, but I appeal to the Official Opposition House Leader to consider in the interests of fairness that we would be receiving considerably less during this calendar year than we would be entitled to. That is no guarantee we would be given an appropriate number, although the House Leader says that he will make every effort to persuade his colleagues that we should. We are not asking for more than we would reasonably be entitled to, given the numbers in the House as broken down by the Parties represented here. We are not asking for a voting day, although we might feel it would have been appropriate to have allocated one for this Party during this particular point in time. By granting the day to the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shus-wap's motion, we would be receiving what would be fair during this period consistent with what has gone on in the past.
1 would ask that the Chair continue with the preliminary ruling the Chair has given, recognizing that allotted days are not only for the Official Opposition. The decision we are asking for is not in any way an attempt by us to abuse the Standing Orders. Though we may in fact be a minority in the House of Commons, we are surely entitled as Members of the Opposition to receive consideration on matters such as this. I point out that it is not precedent-setting. Quite clearly, the Standing Orders give the Chair the discretion to allow for a matter such as this to be resolved by the Chair. I ask the Chair to uphold the preliminary ruling the Chair indicated it was about to make, and give the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap the opportunity to discuss during this important session a question of vital importance to many people in western Canada, in fact many people across the country.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I have called for and now obtained precise times for filing which I think should be taken into account in your consideration in this matter. There is something 1 am going to have to raise on another occasion with respect to the parliamentary documents here, parliamentary publications. The Order Paper lists all three motions which have been filed, one in the name of the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe, one in the name of the Hon.
Member for Kingston and the Islands and one in the name of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap, in that order. While I realize that the Projected Order of Business is not an official parliamentary publication, nonetheless we find only two of them listed. The first one under No. 112 is the motion filed under the name of the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands, and No. 113-and I point that order out to you, Mr. Speaker-in the name of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap. Our motion, the one in the name of the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands, Mr. Speaker, was filed at 2.50 yesterday afternoon and was witnessed by the deputy principal clerk of Journals. So clearly that has priority.
I would point out, Sir, that we are embarking on pretty dangerous ground when the Chair, if it does, exercises discretion under Standing Order 62(4)(c)-and I say this with great respect-in ordering, really, what are the internal affairs of one side of this House. I might also point out to my hon. friend, the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain, that last year his Party received two voting days, which is 33 per cent of the voting day entitlement, notwithstanding the fact that his Party by numbers is entitled to only 25 per cent. One-quarter is the entitlement.
On the basis of that timing, Mr. Speaker, since the motion of the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands had been filed at 2.50 p.m. yesterday, well before the motion of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap, plus the fact that the Projected Order of Business lists it as No. 112 as opposed to listing the motion of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap as No. 113-obviously, the Table gave it priority-plus the fact that on the Order Paper our motion appears as No. 2, whereas the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap's motion appears as No. 3, once again, I would strongly suggest that the Chair allow the Opposition to proceed with the motion of the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands.


Ian Deans: Briefly, Mr. Speaker, and dealing only with the point the Hon. Member has raised, I cannot for the life of me understand how the argument can be made both ways. You cannot on the one hand claim that he or she who files first should be given precedence, while at the same time claim that the Official Opposition has the right to decide. You cannot have it both ways.


Erik Nielsen: It is not both ways.


Ian Deans: It would seem to me that if the Chair were to take the position that the person who files first will receive priority, then we could quite legitimately file at the beginning of each period in advance of the Official Opposition and keep them from getting any precedence. That would be ridiculous.


Miss MacDonald:: That sounds like you.


Ian Deans: The Official Opposition likewise could file and make the argument that, since it filed first, it was entitled therefore to have all of the days. 1 do not see how anyone can make that kind of argument. The reason the Official Opposi-
November 22, 1983

tion was able to file first was that we were not prepared to file until we were sure that it did not have in mind to give us one of the two days.


Erik Nielsen: Nonsense!


Ian Deans: We were awaiting some indication that perhaps the Official Opposition would change its mind and that we would be able to have one of the days. We had to wait until we were sure that both today and Monday next were going to be taken up by the Official Opposition, that it had that intent. Otherwise, the House Leader for the Official Opposition could then legitimately claim that we had no knowledge of what was going to happen on the subsequent day of Monday next, and we therefore were moving without justification to ask for something which those Members themselves might otherwise be prepared to see us have. Therefore, I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the time of filing is irrelevant.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: There being no further comments, I will now proceed with my ruling on the matter.
1 should point out initially though that the Chair is again faced with a situation whereby Hon. Members-if 1 may put it in these terms-agree to disagree among themselves. As the Hon. Member for Yukon so rightly pointed out, it is not for the Chair to meddle in those affairs, and the Chair respects that entirely. However, there are three motions standing on the Order Paper under today's supply proceedings; two motions are sponsored by Hon. Members of the Official Opposition and one motion is sponsored by the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap.
The Chair finds itself in the unenviable position of having to exercise its power of selection under Standing Order 62(4)(c). However, the Standing Order places a clear duty on the Chair to make a choice under such circumstances. It is a clear duty imposed on the Chair by the Standing Orders. The Standing Order is very clear and explicit about the Speaker's power of selection in this situation, and I will read Standing Order 62(4)(c):
When notice has been given of two or more motions by Members in opposition to the government for consideration on an allotted day, the Speaker shall have power to select which of the proposed motions shall have precedence in that sitting.
I draw the attention of the Hon. Members to the words "by Members in opposition". The Chair is clearly in the presence of a situation where Parties disagree among themselves. The argument that the Chair should take into account the time of filing may be an argument which the Chair certainly would want to look at, and has looked at, but it does not appear to be the paramount factor in the case this morning. Past practice indicates that Parties in opposition to the Government, other than the Official Opposition, have received their share of allotted days in any supply period. Since this is the fourth day of a five-day period, and taking into account that three of the days have been used by Hon. Members of the Official Opposition, it is my intention to put to the House the motion standing in the name of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap.
Supply
This ruling is consistent with the duty of the Chair to give special attention to the protection of minorities. Should debate terminate before the ordinary hour of adjournment later today, this does not prevent the House from moving on to one of the other motions now standing on the Order Paper.


ALLOTTED DAY, S.O. 62-FORESTRY
Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap) moved:: That the Government respond to the emergency in the forestry sector by:
1.	creating a new Forestry Ministry with the mandate to advance the
Canadian forestry industry; and
2.	convening a conference at the earliest opportunity of responsible Federal
and Provincial Ministers to address the challenges presently facing the forestry sector,
He said: Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that, apart from the very eloquent argument put forward by my House Leader, the reason that we in the New Democratic Party felt it was so important-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order. The Hon. Member was recognized to make remarks on the motion now before the House. I do not believe he should reflect in any way upon arguments advanced previous to the ruling, or the ruling itself.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate those comments. 1 would like to say that we were very anxious to have this motion before the House today for three substantive reasons. One reason, of course, is that we are talking about such a major industry in our country, a major industry which certainly deserves more attention than it has received in the past.
Just to take a moment or two to present in some context the importance of the forest industry, I would like to remind Hon. Members that it is an industry which results in a $23 billion income to this country on an annual basis. In terms of our balance of payments, it plays a more significant role than all of the exports from mining, combined with all the exports from agriculture, combined with all the exports from fishing, and then combined, Mr. Speaker, with all the exports from the automobile industry. That is some idea of the size of the exports from the forest industry of this fine country.
It is an immense industry, Mr. Speaker, which employs somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5,000 different companies from one end of Canada to the other. It employs 300,000 Canadians directly in the forest industry and at least a million other Canadians in related industries which service the forest industry in one form or another. It is an incredible sector of our economy.
As well as the forest industry itself, which includes the sawmills, logging operations, pulp and paper mills, plywood mills, shingle mills, shake mills and other aspects of the forest industry that are directly related, one must not lose sight of the fact that we are talking about forests today and the importance of Canadian forests. We have to remind ourselves

November 22, 1983
Supply
that we are also talking about the tourist industry, recreation industry, hospitality industry, and indirectly the fisheries industry, and of course the very important area of wildlife preservation. We are not only talking about the forest industry in the traditional sense, but of an industry that touches the lives of every single Canadian in one form or another. It is an industry that stretches through every Province in this country and is involved in every territory. It is of immense proportions.
The reason we wanted to get this topic before the House today, in light of its immensity, is that the Minister responsible for forestry, the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Caccia), is going before his Cabinet colleagues this week asking for additional funds. He has promised the Canadian Forestry Service the sum of $130 million to assist in federal-provincial agreements for this year. We all recognize that that is an inadequate amount of money, but nevertheless it is an increase. We want to highlight the importance of this industry. We want to give the Minister of the Environment responsible for the Canadian Forestry Service every encouragement to go into that Cabinet meeting and to fight for these additional funds.
Perhaps the most important reason that we have decided that this topic ought to take precedence in the House today is the fact that the only other day in the past 600 days that this House has sat when forestry was on the Order Paper for discussion was May 30, 1983. We have set aside only one day out of the last 600 days in this House to discuss Canada's number one industry. If it was just to discuss an industry that was healthy and wealthy and going well, that would be one thing. But this is an industry that has dire problems today. It is experiencing serious difficulty and challenges. These challenges are something that we cannot wait around to address a year from now, a decade from now, or later on in the century. These are problems that must be addressed today virtually in an emergency situation.
Individuals who are knowledgeable of the forest industry, and I suspect the Minister himself, who is a professional forester, and any individual who is involved directly in the forest industry, whether that person is a faller, a scaler, an employee in a logging camp, a sawmill or pulp and paper mill, will know full well that this industry is in serious trouble today. There is no getting away from that fact, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to take a moment or two to support the statement that this industry is in serious difficulty today. The other day Kenneth Greaves, the president of the Ontario Forest Industries Association, said that we must quadruple our investments in this industry if it is to survive and meet the challenges of the nineties. The country of Sweden is one of the most progressive nations when it comes to dealing with the forest industry. While we struggle to set aside two or three hundred million dollars a year for reforestation and research and development, Sweden is prepared to set aside a billion dollars a year to support and husband that industry.
The Swedes have provided us with a lesson that we certainly must follow to get away from the mining of our forests. We must take this industry much more seriously. Sweden is a
major competitor in world markets and at the moment is generally outdoing us on the world markets. In the years to come there is certainly no question that the country of Sweden and a number of our other major competitors will be marching past us in terms of lumber and newsprint sales. This is something, Mr. Speaker, that we must work against and address immediately.
Jack Walters, the director of the U.B.C. forestry research centre in British Columbia, has said that our forests are in an absolute shambles, that it is a tragedy of the first dimension. He is a professional forester who understands the seriousness of the problem only too well. Michael Innis is a spokesman for the largest producer of newsprint in the world, Abitibi-Price. Mr. Innis has said that Canada is gradually running out of wood.
Mr. Speaker, the short and long of this is that we are harvesting/ more trees than we are replanting. If we were farmers talking about the future of agriculture and we saw that 75 per cent of the topsoil was simply disappearing each year, the farming sector, the agricultural sector, the food sector would become alarmed. Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what is happening today. The topsoil of our forest industry is being blown away and we are not doing a thing about it. As a matter of fact, some Provinces, like that illustrious Province of British Columbia, are cutting back on the number of seedlings that they are putting into the ground annually. Specifically, Canada harvests 800,000 hectares of forest land annually. We replant 25 per cent of that land. Natural planting occurs and lifts it up to something in the neighborhood of 40 per cent. That leaves a shortfall of somewhere between 50 and 70 per cent of the land harvested annually in this country not being replanted. If that is not forest suicide, Mr. Speaker, I do not know what is.
The figures put before us by every single organization involved with the forest industry tell us that we are running out of merchantable timber in this country. Considering the importance of this industry, it is something that we should indeed become alarmed about. That is why this motion urges the Minister of the Environment responsible for the Canadian Forestry Service and for forestry to call together his provincial colleagues in a working conference to deal with the challenges that face this industry, not only in reforestation, sylviculture, fire protection, disease prevention, marketing problems, but all of these combined. We have got to sit down and address the situation. Recognizing that this industry cuts across every Province and territory, I believe it is up to the federal Government to provide leadership in this respect. That is why this motion is calling upon the Minister to stand up and join together with his provincial colleagues and provide the necessary leadership that this industry so sorely needs at this point.
The Science Council of Canada just recently presented a magnificent report for Members of Parliament and others. The report says that we are destroying or wasting, on an annual basis, 6,000 square miles of forest land. I would like to talk about the encroachment of subdivisions, the movement of farms into some of the forested areas, the flooding of valleys,
November 22, 1983

the unleashed disease and pests that are invading our forests, hydro right of ways and road building.
The head of the IWA of British Columbia makes no bones about it when he says that we are running out of timber in this Province. We are at a crossroads with the industry. Mr. Speaker, the other day it was brought to our attention by a number of the lobby groups in the forest industry that now the furniture industries of Ontario and Quebec have to import maple logs from the United States. It is absolutely unbelievable that our wooden furniture industry must now import logs because of the casual approach that we take to our forest industry. 1 hope the Minister responsible will respond to this particular point made by the professional foresters. The information that has been provided to us by the Association of British Columbia Professional Foresters suggests that:
The number of person years available to research in the Canadian Forestry Service has declined by more than 50 per cent since 1968. This has occurred during a period of higher demands for more information and new technology to be applied to the forest industry. Increased research is required in almost all phases of forests and forest management.
At a time when we should be doing more research in this very critical industry in order to remain in a competitive position with competing nations around the world, what is the Canadian Forestry Service doing? It is cutting back the amount of funds provided for research in this largest Canadian industry. I suggest that the saddest comment on this issue is provided again by the British Columbia Professional Foresters. Our current spending on silviculture by all parties, including federal and provincial Governments as well as the private sector, amounts to approximately $240 million a year. This is less than 1 per cent of the total value of the annual forest production in Canada. Less than 1 per cent is being invested in silviculture. Again, this is something which competing countries such as Sweden consider to be a mindless position for governments and industry to take.
The figure which makes us acutely aware of the seriousness of the problem is the amount of money that we set aside for the Canadian Forestry Service. This past year it was $70 million. In the same ministry and by the same Minister, $146 million was budgeted for the Atmospheric Environment Service and $275 million for Parks Canada. While one does not have anything of a disparaging nature to say about money being spent on climate and weather monitoring and Parks Canada, I do say that it is nothing short of a national disgrace that the federal Government spends twice as much money monitoring weather as it spends on our forest industry. I suggest therein lies the crux of the problem in terms of lack of financial support that this Government is presently giving to this critical industry.
One could go on and on outlining the serious problem facing Canada's number one industry. The other day Members of the House found out, much to their disappointment, that the assistant deputy minister responsible for the Canadian Forestry Service has left the employ of the federal Government after working for it for a number of years. One can only speculate
Supply
why he left but this was a person who was attempting to do a great deal to heighten the role of the Canadian Forestry Service in this country.
The federal Cabinet had promised, a year and a half ago, that it would set aside at least $130 million for this year and on an annual basis. That was 18 months ago. I suspect that this individual was waiting month after month for that money, having been given that commitment, only to find no money of any substantive nature coming to that critical department. I suspect that that individual simply gave up in disgust. He could not stand before his professional colleagues in the country and say that he is responsible for the Canadian Forestry Service as assistant deputy minister responsible for the major resource sector of our economy and the major exporter in our economy but was unable to get the funds that were promised to him. How could such a person who was a legitimate professional, knowledgeable about the state of the forest industry in this country and knowing what was happening to it, with the compassion and commitment of a professional forester, stand idly by and watch the demise and decay of our forests, based on the lack of interest and negative attitude presented by the Government? That is why we are asking the Minister to bring his colleagues together?
We are also asking the Minister to lift up the role and importance of the forest industry in the Government's eyes. After all, we are talking about the major industry in this country which employs the equivalent of the entire population of greater Vancouver, 1.3 million people. But to what is the industry relegated? Do we even have a minister of state responsible for this area? Is there a deputy minister? There certainly is no minister. There is an assistant deputy minister in the Department of the Environment, which is really an agency. The federal Government is clearly overlooking a role that it should be taking up.
I appreciate the fact that forestry is a provincial responsibility. However, there is also provincial responsibility in other areas for which there are federal Ministers responsible. I do not pretend that creating a Ministry of Forestry will solve the problem overnight. I will not even suggest that creating a Ministry of Forestry at the federal level will provide most of the answers. But it will send a very clear message to the industry that the Government is serious about forestry and is committed to the forest industry in terms of providing an appropriate infrastructure and financial support system to it.
It is quite clear how the forest industry feels about the role that the federal Government is providing. I do not want to suggest for a moment that I am necessarily casting any dispersions or negative comments on the role being played by the Minister because I think most Members understand that we are dealing with a situation where most Members of the House and the Cabinet come from urban areas. They have been raised in the urban tradition and perhaps they lack some appreciation for the forest industry, which tends to be rural by definition.
In closing, I suggest that the federal Government must provide a federal department, as called for by the Science

November 22, 1983
Supply
Council of Canada, to provide leadership in research in such areas as basic research, forest production and, most importantly, to ensure that adequate forest protection research is conducted. As well, the Government should work for additional federal-provincial research agreements. I believe the Minister told us the other day that there are federal-provincial agreements in place with only two or three Provinces. There is some difficulty with the major producing Provinces and that certainly must be overcome. As well, the Science Council of Canada calls on the Government to stimulate investment in research, provide priorities and co-ordinate research opportunities, to develop more support for forestry schools and also to provide more long-term funding for university research.
1 urge the Minister to give serious attention to our call today for the creation of a Minister of Forestry and to consider a meeting of Ministers responsible for forests as early as possible.


Mr. Halliday:: Mr. Speaker, it is not difficult to accept and commend the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) for his ideals and goals with respect to the forest industry. In his remarks he mentioned Sweden several times and compared us to that country.
Would the Hon. Member indicate to the House whether he would prefer to see Canadians go the route of higher taxation in order to achieve this billion dollar input into the forest industry, which he laments we are not doing, or would he prefer to see us go the route which Sweden is increasingly taking, which is asking their people to become more involved in their own social programs by increasing their contributions as individuals to their social programs?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, 1 appreciate the opportunity to respond to that question because it is a critical one. How do we involve people in the forest industry in a more meaningful way? I will respond by making two points very quickly.
First, we will not become a competitive country in the forest industry until we involve all employees in a meaningful way in the forest industry. To a large extent, we are still of the neanderthal viewpoint that there are bosses and there are workers in the forest industry. Our competing countries no longer possess that attitude. Until we democratize the workplace and involve all employees in a meaningful way in the production of our forest products, we will not develop to our maximum in terms of competitiveness and productivity.
A first step in the right direction that we could learn from our colleagues south of the line in the United States of America is profit sharing involving all employees, not just senior executives. This would be a major step toward real democratization of the workplace.


Mr. Thacker:: Mr. Speaker, I have a follow-up question to my friend from Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis). It seems to me there have been some very major efforts to democratize the work force but they have for the most part been resisted by the
leadership of the Canadian Labour Congress. Would the Hon. Member be prepared to agree that there is a need for a change of attitude at the highest leadership level in the Canadian Labour Congress on this labour-management democratization?


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to that question. I am not aware of any leader of any of the labour unions of this country that has not advocated such a position. I have yet to see a single incident-and 1 watch this very closely-when management has made a genuine offer of involvement that was not taken up by the employees. I have yet to see a single incident when such an officer was turned down.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Are there any further questions or comments? The Hon. Minister for the Environment.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Minister of the Environment: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity for this debate. It will be difficult to say things very novel in view of the debate that took place yesterday, but I will try. 1 also express the hope that a debate of this kind will take place in the respective provincial legislatures across Canada.
I was pleased to notice that the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) did recognize that there is in the matter of forestry a very heavy and important burden to be carried on by provincial jurisdictions. Perhaps 1 might also be so bold as to express the hope that a debate of this kind will also take place by boards of directors in the forest industries that have benefited so far. If things are done properly in the future we will continue to benefit if this industry and resource is managed properly. It seems to me, however, that the Hon. Member is engaging in a doubtful exercise of mixing figures when he begins to compare a federal responsibility like the weather services with expenditures made in forestry, which is a joint responsibility. I would urge him not to do that.
The Hon. Member also seems to overlook the fact-and I wish he were more au courant as to what is happening-that we do have a number of agreements in place in addition to the ones with Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. These are agreements made jointly, federally and provincially, under DREE some years ago which have resulted in a contribution by the federal Government to the Provinces in the neighbourhood of some $80 million or $82 million a year.
I am looking for a moment at the motion before us today. The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap makes two propositions. One is the creation of a new ministry. Long speeches could be made on this subject. If the creation of a new ministry will result in the planting of one more tree, I would be quite positive to that kind of proposal. But it seems to me today that, given a golden opportunity to do so, the Hon. Member from Kamloops-Shuswap failed to make a good case for the creation of a new ministry. He really did. I did not hear in his remarks any substantiating evidence that by creating a new ministry our country would benefit through the planting
November 22, 1983

of trees in large numbers and better forest management. The Canadian Forestry Service is there to perform that service all the time. Its ability to perform that task has been enhanced in recent years, as I will try to demonstrate in a moment.
The second part of the motion deals with the convening of a conference at the earliest opportunity of federal and provincial responsible Ministers. Here again, I would like to bring to your attention, Mr. Speaker, and to the attention of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap-because he does not seem to realize it-that a conference of this nature took place on September 14, 1983, in Winnipeg. I could even put on record the agenda of that meeting where we discussed the forest sector strategy in Canada. That was a big item in Winnipeg in September. We discussed employment in forestry, pest control, water bombers, softwood lumber contravening duties, fire research, the Canadian Institute of Forestry resolutions and even the restructuring of CCREM. Finally, we discussed the launching, which was itself an important development in joint federal-provincial ventures, and creation of the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Therefore, if I look at the motion and at the reality, I must reject the motion put forward by the Hon. Member.
In addition, two years ago, as you will recall, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) announced a significant reorganization to more closely realign policies and programs for economic development, keeping in mind the needs of major economic sectors including the forest sector. Under this reorganization the responsibility for negotiation and management of federal-provincial forestry agreements was transferred to the Canadian Forestry Service in the Department of the Environment from the Ministry of Regional and Economic Expansion. This decision of two years ago, I am sure the Hon. Member would know, was followed by a period of consolidation which is still continuing. We are still, therefore, in the process of consolidating after having hired some 100 new people and started negotiations toward new agreements in the light of those expiring in the future. We have also expanded and reinforced our regional offices to perform that duty. As I pointed out yesterday in this House, you may recall, Mr. Speaker, this Government has responded and continues to respond to the challenges facing the forest sector.
As a first step we felt it necessary to establish a national system for the collection, analysis and dissemination of forestry data in furtherance of intensive forest management policies, planning and programs. This work is being conducted as a component of the Petawawa National Forest Institute. The financial resources approved for this program for the period 1981-1982 to 1983-1984 total some $5.7 million. It enabled us to produce the 1981 Canada forest inventory.
We have committed ourselves to enter into agreements with each of the Provinces in support of programs to meet the reforestation needs of the forest sector in Canada as a subsequent step. As 1 mentioned yesterday, two agreements have been signed, one with Nova Scotia worth $30 million in federal funds over five years, and another one with the Province of Prince Edward Island, which was signed in July of this year
Supply
for a period of five years in the amount of $15 million in federal funds. Then we have provided an additional $16 million to enhance the agreement with Newfoundland.
Also we have prepared a private woodlot development policy which provides the basis for private woodlot programs in federal-provincial forest agreements. This was consequent upon the urging of several Hon. Members on our side particularly those from New Brunswick. Given the high unemployment in the forestry sector, last year we began a job-creation program by using Section 38 of the Unemployment Insurance Act. The Canadian Forestry Service provided some $34 million to top up the benefits of UIC recipients which under the program delivered some $140 million. It has provided some 14,000 jobs, representing a quarter of a million weeks of employment in the particular area of forest renewal.
I would like to stress that this program was particularly successful in British Columbia. Unfortunately, in June of this year that Province decided to curtail its involvement in the program, sharply reducing its effectiveness. In terms of forestry research and development, we have supported Forintek and we have approved the research and development component of this strategy. We have provided $5.5 million to the Canadian Forestry Service for research and development in the current fiscal year. Also we have already committed funds for the expansion and upgrading of Canadian Forestry Service research labs across the country.
The House may recall that yesterday I made reference to the Pacific Forestry Research Centre which received $14 million; to the Great Lakes Forestry Research Centre, where some $13 million was allocated; to the Laurentian Forestry Research Centre, where $10.5 million was allocated; and to the new Maritime Forestry Research Centre, where some $22.5 million was made available. In addition, some $17 million has been provided for the expansion of pulp and paper research facilities in Victoria and Pointe Claire. We have provided some $10 million to the Maritime Forest Ranger School as part of the forestry complex in Fredericton.
When it comes to human resources, we have anticipated well what might happen in requirements in this field and have made available and provided over $15 million to expand the pool of professional forestry manpower. This money will provide for forestry scholarships, contract research and development, and summer student employment for some 300 students per year. Most of this money will go to Canadian universities, particularly to the six forestry schools across the country-the University of British Columbia, the University of Alberta, Lakehead University, the University of Toronto, l'universite de Laval, and the University of New Brunswick.
Another area of increased activity has been in the field of international trade. We have developed a reasonably successful program of overseas market development of British Columbia forest products under the agreement between the federal Government, the Province and the British Columbia Council of Forest Industries. This program is expected to be expanded to

November 22, 1983
Supply
other Provinces, and negotiations are under way by my colleague, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Lumley).
I could recite other elements which have been triggered in supporting and giving momentum to an approach which is so badly needed. The upgrading of the Canadian Forestry Service to the assistant deputy minister level, together with the transfer of responsibility for forestry agreements to the Department of the Environment, have helped to increase the focus and importance attached to the forestry sector within the federal Government. We must now allow the time and the opportunity for forestry initiatives to be further advanced without another organizational disruption.
The figures I mentioned earlier, whether they are taken in block form over a period of years or whether they are taken singly year by year, amount to somewhere between $700 million and $800 million which is being or has been injected into the forestry industry. Also I mentioned before the fact that forestry ministers meet every year. They met as recently as September of this year.
As I explained yesterday in the House, the strategy we have put together includes the programs the federal Government would implement to meet the challenge and the needs in the forestry field. The ongoing consultative process at the present time takes place through the CCREM annual meeting, where ministers of forestry meet and discuss issues on an agenda of the kind to which I made reference a moment ago. We met in September to discuss forestry matters. In the same month, in Winnipeg, CCREM met and discussed forest fire controls and pesticides. The Canadian Forestry Advisory Committee is composed of provincial, industry and labour representatives. It is another forum for the consultative process. The Department of the Environment, including the Canadian Forestry Service, holds annual public meetings across the country for the discussion of environmental concerns which include forestry. A federal forest sector strategy committee, which co-ordinates all federal forestry activities, chaired by the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Canadian Forestry Service, is another place where the consultative process takes place on an ongoing basis.
As well, there are constant informal consultations between provincial colleagues and myself. Actually, the whole federal program is now based upon a continuing and evolving process of consultation. A good example this year was the Canadair CL-215 water bomber program which was the result of a federal-provincial task force that called for increased forest fire protection. The Special Recovery Capital Projects program provided an excellent opportunity to respond to this particular problem. There are formal committees for discussion as well as informal ongoing consultations; there is no question about that. They have resulted in the present federal actions which were developed in a truly co-operative manner.
Therefore, 1 would conclude that what the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap suggested is already happening. There is an ongoing process. I would conclude my remarks by underlining that the importance of the future of the forest industry and its importance as a resource in our country will depend upon
the initiatives taken at the federal level, by a number of provincial Governments, and by all participants in the forestry sector. If there were not this kind of awareness of the problem, as already outlined by the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap, if there were not a co-ordinated effort between the employers and the unions, the provincial and federal Governments' even changes of a structural nature by creating additional ministries or redesigning the whole structure of the federal Government would not result in any additional trees being planted for the benefit of future generations.


Mr. Fulton:: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Minister would like to respond to the facts put out by his own Department, upon which the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) touched in his speech. They indicated that only five cents on the dollar brought in by the federal Government, and in fact by provincial Governments as well, is put back into forestry. That is what we are trying to address in the debate. In this session of Parliament, the single largest industry in Canada has never been raised by the Government side. This is the second time the Opposition has raised it in the close to 600 days of this session of Parliament which has gone on for almost four years.
With five cents return on the dollar in 1979, and since $3 billion was brought in by the Government in 1982 dollars- and I think we can expect it was double that-does the Minister think the amount being spent by his Government on forestry and forestry-related projects is adequate?


Mr. Caccia:: Mr. Speaker, I suppose that a similar argument could be made looking at other industries. Agriculture could probably claim a similar ratio. Maybe a similar ratio could be established by other sectors in our economy. Evidently each industry or sector at this time feels that it has to be more and better recognized by the public sector. The final result is a competitive claim on public funds. That is what this debate is about.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, let me give the Minister an example so that he can respond more directly. In Cape Breton, where the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. MacEachen) has a seat, over $100 million a year is spent in the heavy water plants for the nuclear industry. There is no use for that heavy water in Canada. For three years it has been produced without any exports or any use in Canada. I, and I believe most Canadians, consider that to be a tragic waste of our tax dollars.
Within his own Ministry at this time, less than that is being spent on forestry. Canadians in areas of Canada such as British Columbia, who see their forest industry going down the pipe, want to know whether the Minister thinks that five cents on the dollar, when the Government is harvesting all those tax dollars from British Columbia, northern Ontario, the Mari-times and some areas of the Prairies, is adequate. Even comparing it to the nuclear industry which brings no direct
November 22, 1983

revenue to Canada, does the Minister honestly think that is a good return to taxpayers and the resource industry?


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, I would be inclined to conclude that people whose jobs depend on the plants referred to by the Hon. Member do not consider that expenditure a tragic waste of tax dollars. It keeps their jobs.


Mr. Darling:: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is aware of my grave concern for the environment. Yesterday I asked a question with regard to acid rain. A serious contributor to acid rain is nitrous oxide emissions from automobiles. We know that is very detrimental to our forests. The Minister is also aware that Canada is three times as lenient as the United States in this regard. The Minister hopes to sell a much stronger acid rain program in the United States.
I know the Minister will have to talk to his counterpart in Transport, but is he prepared to recommend to Cabinet that Canadian emissions must be brought in line in order that we will have a strong card when talking to our American colleagues. Has the Minister given consideration to that? Could this not be put in force for the 1985 models? A great many Canadian-built cars meet the American standard emissions because they are exported to the United States and sold there. This involves a cost of about $200 per vehicle, but that could be included in the selling price. It could be available for the 1985 cars rather than four or five years down the road.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order. The Chair will allow the Minister to reply to the question, but I remind Hon. Members that questions and comments must be germane to the previous speaker's remarks and not introduce a totally new topic. However, I give the Hon. Member the benefit of the doubt. It may be that the Chair did not listen as attentively as it should have to the Minister's remarks, but in my opinion this is a different subject.


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, I would hate to be perceived as contradicting you. The Hon. Member has a point when he links the issue of nitrogen dioxide, NOx, with damage to forest growth. In that respect he could be understood. 1 thank him for his eloquent plea. I made good note of what he said. My answer is yes, I am proceeding in this direction. It is a long road. Limitations cannot be imposed in a very short time. The time frame will have to be more than two years. I hope the efforts I am making on this subject will come to fruition soon. I will make an announcement at the appropriate time.


Mr. Oberle:: Mr. Speaker, before I make my contribution to the debate, I want to ask the Minister a question. On several occasions over the last week in Question Period and yesterday in debate he was asked about the forest agreements with the Provinces and about the auction that is to take place this Thursday. Can the Minister confirm or deny that his two colleagues, the Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) from Manitoba and the Minister of State for Economic Development (Mr. Johnston), will attempt in this auction to lop off the Manitoba agreement the sum of $50 million because the benefits of that money cannot be forecast? They are unpredict-
Supply
able. They are nebulous. Trees only mature in 60 years. If you make a direct grant to a pulp mill or saw mill, it creates jobs right away.
Can the Minister confirm or deny that is the type of competition he is facing in this auction and how is he responding to it? Is the Manitoba agreement going to be deprived of $50 million? When will that agreement be signed? What does the Minister have to say about it, particularly since he made such a strong commitment yesterday and on previous days that he will make his best efforts to ensure that these funds will not be depleted?


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, as much as I would like to be forthcoming to my colleagues in this House, and I consider myself very deeply rooted on the floor of this House as a House of Commons man, I have to draw to the attention of the Hon. Member that I am bound by an oath of office whereby I cannot divulge matters that are before Cabinet. While I fully understand his desire to know, I hope he will understand my inability to give him a straightforward answer.


Mr. Yurko:: Mr. Speaker, in speaking about and bringing before the House the meetings with CCREM, the Minister brought back memories. I would like to pose a question to the Minister. As far as I remember, the Ministers of Agriculture were not often represented at CCREM meetings. The forestry industry involves production, conservation, marketing and employment. It is a renewable industry similar to agriculture. Some of us wonder why it is not related to a much greater degree to the agriculture sector of the economy of Canada.
I remember a suggestion that forestry should be combined as a ministry with agriculture so that one might consider a ministry of agriculture and forestry. This was given consideration at the provincial level. I want to ask the Minister, in his responsibility for forestry, about his contacts and liaison with the Department of Agriculture. Are they constant and extensive in the area of joint research, marketing and the many other areas where the two industries have a common heritage and common objectives, because they are both renewable industries? They both deal with renewable resources as opposed to the non-renewable resources that we deal with in the nation.


Charles L. Caccia: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member is making an excellent point. Perhaps I should say that my contacts with agricultural representatives are not as frequent as perhaps they should be in light of the point raised by the Hon. Member, and I will keep that point in mind. I certainly have frequent exchanges and conversations with the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) but the basic conversion of interest is a question which the Hon. Member has outlined very well and which I will keep in mind in my future work.


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, I shall follow up the question I posed to the Minister. My sources tell me that $50 million will be lopped off the agreement that he is about to sign with Manitoba. That $50 million
29068

November 22, 1983
Supply
is money that was earmarked for forest renewal in that Province. The Minister's answer was that he cannot reveal Cabinet confidence, and I appreciate that. However, I take it that his answer is in the affirmative and that that money is being lopped off the agreement.
The Minister from Manitoba and the Minister for Economic Development in the federal Cabinet have begun initiatives to reduce the amount that would have otherwise have been committed to forest renewal in the forestry agreement. I think that that is a tragedy, Sir, and I suppose that I commiserate and sympathize with the Minister because he may have his heart in the right place. However, he certainly does not sit in the right place around the Cabinet table and consequently does not get his message across to the Cabinet. It is perhaps for that reason that it is timely that we should for the third time this year debate the subject of Canada's forests. It is unprecedented, Sir, that today, for the first time this year, we will devote a full day to this important sector of our whole economy.
I welcome the initiatives taken by my hon. colleague and friend, the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis). He has put before the House a motion that is both timely and pertinent. However, I cannot help but ask myself where Members of the NDP were in 1979. At that time we were criticized for not having a clearly thought out strategy. It took us a little longer than perhaps it should have taken to lay before the House our strategy, the Throne Speech and the budget. When we did so, Sir, there was one component of the budget and the Throne Speech about which there was no doubt at all and that was our policy on forestry. There was no question or doubt about the commitment that we had made at that time to begin the painful and tedious process of rebuilding the Canadian Forestry Service. I wonder where Hon. Members of the NDP were at that time.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, they chose to join the Liberal interventionists across the aisle and defeat a Government which had set out a policy which would have respected the history of the country and the potential for economic growth in this particular sector of the economy. They rejected that in favour of certain other objectives.
There was a motion on today's Order Paper that dealt with one of those other objectives. That motion dealt with unemployment. Hon. Members of the NDP like to think of themselves as the champions of the unemployed and particularly of the young unemployed. That question was on the Order Paper today and NDP Members have now chosen to deprive us of that important debate in favour of a debate on forestry. I will not argue with them, Sir. I would like to talk about forestry for a whole week, but I sometimes question where their priorities are and just what kind of political games they are playing.
Nevertheless, I appreciate the belated interest the NDP Members take in this subject and welcome their contribution to the debate. I have no argument with anything that has been said by Members of the NDP so far with respect to the importance of the industry and what should happen in terms of assuring that the industry makes as great a contribution to our
economy and our social well-being and contentment in the future as it does presently and has in the past.
Members of the NDP feel that in order to achieve that objective it would be necessary to hold meetings with the provincial Ministers. Well, Sir, I must admit that these meetings would probably be very productive. Incidentally, the Minister is quite right: these meetings are now taking place. This is one area in which we have experienced quite an enlightened and effective form of co-operative federalism because such meetings have been held on an ongoing basis. The last such meeting was held on September 14. If my friend, the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap, does not know that, it is probably because his interest in forestry came late. He can certainly be forgiven for that.
Forestry is not an area in which the federal Government would be intruding on provincial jurisdiction even though the resource does belong to the Provinces. Provincial Ministers come to the Government and beg it to play the traditional and very significant role it has played in this very important area of forestry. As you know, Sir, forestry not only represents the most important industry in the whole country but has attached to it as well whole range of very important social dimensions. A whole range of important environmental and ecological considerations must be taken into account when one talks about forestry.
Indeed, Mr. Speaker, the fresh water and clean air generated by our forests that we in the country enjoy and breathe are not things which respect artificial political boundaries. Therefore, there must be an over-all co-ordination by and involvement of a central agency in this important area. I must agree with my friend, the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap, that it would perhaps be better if there were a federal Minister of forestry who could meet on an equal basis and with equal authority and jurisdiction with his provincial counterparts to talk about some of these important things which I have mentioned.
When we consider that matter, Sir, it may be helpful to go back and consider a little bit of the history of the Department of Forestry as it relates to our present circumstances. It was in 1899 that the House for the first time established a Department of Forestry. That Department was likely established because of the keen interest shown by Sir John A. Macdonald himself in this area. As you know, he expressed a concern for the forestry industry and his words were quoted extensively in the House yesterday. He was concerned in 1877 about the imminent danger that he saw of our forests being totally depleted and this most important of our industries being destroyed.
We have now discovered all kinds of innovative ways to push back the frontier, to build road and rail infrastructures in order to gain access to the far North and discover that there are trees there. We have learned to harvest trees everywhere in Canada. However, in the Ottawa Valley, which I suppose is the area which concerned John A. Macdonald, forestry is no longer a main preoccupation. Other industries have now taken hold in the area. In this particular city, the industry of
November 22, 1983

Government is now the main preoccupation which benefits the economy of the region. However, we cannot build in all parts of Canada a House of Commons and put into place governmental structures to replace the prime resource industries.
We have built roads and gained access to trees wherever they stand in Canada and there is literally no place else to go. That is why all of a sudden there is the realization of an impending crisis in our forests. We can no longer build roads or railways, there is no place else to go and we are experiencing shortages of merchantable timber in every region of Canada. We have now discovered that in the last 50 or 100 years we should have done what other countries have done ever since they began harvesting their forests, that is, farm our forests instead of mining them. That means whenever you cut a tree, either for clearing or selective logging, you take great care to ensure that another tree or two are put in its place. It would not hurt to plant two in case one did not survive.
In 1949 Canadians were acclaimed throughout the world as leaders in the forest sciences. We had established research facilities and recognized, at least up until 1949, that our forests would in the foreseeable future always be our most important industry. That has been restated in this House over the last couple of days.
In 1960 we established a Ministry responsible for forests. As you will recall, Mr. Speaker, that was three years after the election of the Right Hon. John George Diefenbaker. It was a Conservative Government which felt that forestry is very important and should therefore have a full Department of Government. The forest industry is of a very cyclical nature. We have our ups and downs. Indeed, the Department of Forestry had its ups and downs. The ups continued from 1960 to 1966 when it vastly improved federal-provincial relations. So for those who argue that a federal Ministry of Forestry would be an intrusion in provincial jurisdiction and take away from good relations with the Provinces, quite the opposite was the experience when we had a federal Minister of Forestry between 1960 and 1966. It resulted in the expansion of forest research facilities and a growth in staff to more than 2,000 persons. The top ranking official was a deputy minister. There was a growing awareness throughout the country at that time of the importance of our forestry sector, so 1966 was when we reached a peak in the structural profile of forestry.
Then under the Liberal administration forestry was merged first with rural development. The top official was reduced to an assistant deputy minister. In 1968 forestry was absorbed by Environment Canada. The top official then became a director general and staff reductions began. Forest economic institutes were closed and federal-provincial agreements were phased out. That is from 1968 to 1978, and that is where our problem started. I can show Hon. Members the results because they are here for everyone to see. My colleagues will elaborate on some of the consequences of what emerged as a deliberate policy of ignorance and neglect of this, our most important industrial sector.
Supply
In 1978, as you will recall, Sir, because you were with me here in this House, a federal Minister of the Environment who was to preside over the demise of the Canadian Forestry Service announced that the federal forest laboratories would be privatized. There were more staff cuts, which continued until the total manpower complement of the Canadian Forestry Service was reduced from 2,000 to 1,000 people. In 1979, that ever so brief period of enlightenment when we had another Progressive Conservative Government, we began the painful rebuilding of the Canadian Forestry Service and we started with the reappointment of an assistant deputy minister to serve the Minister of the Environment.
Let me say that I do not think forestry is well placed under the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Caccia). There are entirely too many conflicting interests, responsibilities and jurisdictions in that Department. For instance, if we wanted to begin farming our forests we would have seriously to think about the effective and responsible use of insecticides and pesticides. Would you think for a moment, Mr. Speaker, that we could take chemicals away from agriculture? Well, we cannot take chemicals away from forest farming. But if we want to restore our forests to their former health, we will have to make effective and responsible use of insecticides and pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and all those kinds of things.
Even though it is said that the Minister has some kind of educational background in forestry, his priorities are of course very much on the other side of his responsibility, on the environmental side. He has no time at all even to listen to any of the scientific community who urge him to be very careful in the way he deals with the Provinces and in the manner his Department assesses, regulates and controls the use of chemicals in our forests. So you can see that the Department of the Environment is not a good place for forestry.
The proposition has been advanced that maybe it should be combined with agriculture. Well, there are some very obvious mutual interests between forestry and agriculture and maybe that should be considered. I would commit to you, Mr. Speaker, that when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) decides to give Canadians a chance to choose a new Government, and when a Progressive Conservative Government gets back into power, we will immediately, as a matter of the highest priority, begin where we left off in the process of rebuilding the Canadian Forestry Service. Whether it will be a Ministry on the first day or not, I do not know. Certainly I hope the process will be accelerated and we can get back to the peak we reached in the 1960 to 1966 period where we had a full Minister.
I am becoming rather partial to the idea that a resource Ministry would be ideal because 1 do not necessarily think that mining is ideally placed with energy. There are a number of conflicting jurisdictions there as well. But the mining sector has a lot in common with the forest sector.
We talk about isolated communities in the north which depend entirely on one industry, be it mining or forestry. We talk about international trade, or about a clearly defined role for research and development which the federal Government

November 22, 1983
5.0. 21
has in both these areas. Therefore mining and forestry would be a compatible role for a federal Ministry. We might want to give consideration to all that, but the status quo is not acceptable, certainly not to me and my colleagues in my Party, and as it appears now to our friends from the NDP.
Sir, if 1 may call it one o'clock, would you permit me to finish my remarks after Question Period?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: I should perhaps at this time inform the Hon. Member that he has one minute of allotted time left.
It being one o'clock p.m., I do now leave the chair until two o'clock.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.

[Stage Direction]
[ English ]

Mr. Geoff Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, while everyone is talking about the program "The Day After", the day after, a program which many Canadians did see, I am more concerned, two days after, about the program that hundreds of thousands of Canadian football fans were not allowed to see. The volume of complaints from fans in the Hamilton-Toronto viewing area about the Eastern Conference final game blackout testifies to the insensitivity of the Canadian Football League and the CRTC in permitting these blackouts.
Consider these facts: Fact one: The Eastern Conference final was sold out at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium 72 hours in advance. Fact two: The CBC French network carried the game for those lucky enough to be on cable companies receiving Radio Canada. Fact three: The National Football League has established a policy which allows a blackout to be lifted if tickets are sold out 48 hours before game time.
I find it ironic that Canadian football fans are forced to grasp a signal out of the air, by driving to Buffalo, cramming into a beer parlour with an American satellite feed, or climbing onto their roofs to rotate their antennae, all because the CFL refuses to come out of the dark ages and enter the world of progress in 1983.
Those Eastern and Western Conference finals are as much national institutions as the Grey Cup game itself. The CRTC
should instruct the Canadian Football League to lift those final game blackout provisions, beginning next year.


WESTERN GRAIN TRANSPORTATION ACT
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, press reports tell us that the Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) and his colleagues celebrated the demise of the Crow by imbiding Old Crow bourbon whiskey. It would appear, on the surface, that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) may have offered up the Minister of Transport as a sacrifice by abruptly shuffling him into the responsibility for the Crow. It may well be that his colleagues were really drinking Old Crow to his demise since he must, by now, have guessed his fate at the hands of western voters come next election.
A young Transport Minister came out of the west;
The Prime Minister really gave him the test.
"Rob the Old Crow", Himself said with glee.
So the Minister started climbing the tree.
Even with an axe your chances are slim.
You can't cut down a tree, when you're out on a limb!


THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
Mr. Ray Chenier (Timmins-Chapleau):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to point out to the House the unacceptable conduct of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney). I refer, Mr. Speaker, to a statement made yesterday by the Leader of the Opposition in which he called the Hon. Member for Laurier (Mr. Berger) a monkey.


Some Hon. Members:: Order!


Jacques Raymond (Ray) Chénier: What kind of language is this, Mr. Speaker-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The rules governing Standing Order 21 do not permit personal attacks on individual Members of the House.


CANADA WORKS PROGRAM
Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits cruel and unusual treatment or punishment, but the Liberal Government is inflicting cruel and unusual treatment upon Canadians whose only crime is to be unemployed. Two weeks ago I met with young workers on a Canada Works forestry project. They had received training in basic forestry, operation of power saws, and safety procedures. When I saw them they were busy spacing trees for faster growth, which is very important and necessary work for our forests. However, some of these young

November 22, 1983

workers have now been laid off, not because they were bad workers and not because there was no work to do, but because they had exhausted their unemployment insurance.
The project was not really job creation. It was only a topping up of UIC. At the very time when these workers lost their unemployment insurance, they also lost their jobs. At the very time when they had developed the necessary skills for their jobs, they were laid off. One of these workers said he would have to leave his rented apartment and move in with his in-laws. Another worker said he had nothing to look forward to except welfare.
What twisted and perverse methods the Government uses in its so-called job creation! At the very least provision should be made for these workers to continue until the end of the project's life. 1 call on the Government to take action which will create real jobs, at real rates of pay, so that working people can have a real future.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Douglas Fisher (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, inflation has dropped below the 5 per cent mark to 4.9 per cent. This represents our best anti-inflation performance in 11 years. The co-operation of the people of Canada, acting together in their own best interests and in the best interests of the economic health of our nation, has helped move Canada from economic stagnation to economic recovery in little more than a year. The six and five voluntary restraint program offered by the Liberal Government has been a key to this downward trend in inflation.
The inflation rate in October of 4.9 per cent is a demonstration that the 5 per cent target of the second year of the six and five program is a manageable one. The 4.9 per cent inflation rate in October is a confirmation that the six and five program is not about loss, as the opposition Parties would have Canadians believe, but offers new vigour and growth for our economy. That 4.9 per cent is another ray of sunshine burning through the clouds of doom and gloom which the Opposition uses to try to frighten Canadians into adopting the Opposition's economic policies, which would mean recovery for only a few well placed individuals.


THE ADMINISTRATION
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Government has brought the once buoyant united Canada to its knees. Today Canada is in a shambles. The National Energy Program and taxation have all but destroyed the oil and gas industry. The Gestapo Revenue Department is sucking the last drop of money out of small business, including farms'. O. 21
ers, causing hundreds of bankruptcies. Bill C-155 is paralyzing agriculture in the West, killing the potential of cattle and hog raisers and processors. Babies of the unemployed are crying for milk.
These socialist Liberals have killed the incentive to invest, have driven capital and jobs out of the country and, at the same time, through F1RA, have discouraged foreigners from investing in Canada. A million unemployed, thousands with no UIC benefits, are desperate, a situation leading to divorce and even suicide. So bad has this administration become that even a Liberal who is on the so-called Campagnolo Reform Committee told Maclean's magazine that the Liberal Party, and I quote:
-is tired, arrogant, self-serving, self-satisfied and irrelevant-
Cabinet Ministers are telling the unemployed to "starve" until the Speech from the Throne comes up, and even the Liberal President, Iona Campagnolo, is panicking. She set up a committee to "review, renew and reform" the Liberal Party. She should have told them to "embalm, encoffin and bury" the Party. I call on the Liberals to come out from behind the smokescreen, resign, and let a new leader, Mr. Brian Mul-roney, and the PC Party take over the Government-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member's time has expired.


NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday saw the election of the tenth Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories. In extending the congratulations of this House to the successful candidates, we would do well to recognize that, without exception, every Member of the new Legislature supports the concept of responsible government for the people of the Territories and an end to the vestiges of colonial rule retained by federal authorities.
Let us therefore join the new and re-elected Members of the Assembly in adopting their position, which is that espoused by the Official Opposition, namely, that the people of the North should have control over their own land, their own lives, and their own destiny; that they should be entitled to the same democratic rights and privileges as southern Canadians; and that the heavy hand of the Department of Indian Affairs be removed from their affairs.

November 22, 1983


POLITICAL PARTIES
Hon. Bud Cullen (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to call to the attention of the House that there has been some criticism of the Liberal policy on the NEP. 1 think we should look at the fact that the Tories have modified their stand on most issues according to which part of the country they are speaking from, or to what they think Canadians want to hear. The energy issue is no exception.
Last week in Calgary the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) outlined what his Party would do if it formed the Government. He said it would dismantle the "confiscatory and punitive provisions of the NEP." He said it would change the federal Government's exploration incentive program to include foreign companies. The Leader of the Opposition was not thinking of the good of all Canada. He was thinking about the gaining of western votes. Meanwhile a Member of the Tory Party was telling a group in Ottawa exactly what they wanted to hear. He said the Conservatives supported the Canadianiza-tion of the oil industry.
The next day in Edmonton the Leader of the Opposition decided not to repeat the controversial statements which he had made the day before in Calgary. Now the Tories own energy critic cannot outline the Conservative energy policy.
We would like to know where that Party stands on the energy issue. The Leader of the Opposition and his Party's members are doing a great disservice to the people of Canada by creating confusion about a National Energy Program that is working. Canadians are informed, and they want answers.


MEDICAL CARE
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservatives in this House have been noted for their silence about the concern that Canadians have about extra billing by physicians and user fees for medical and hospital care, and the need to preserve and strengthen the principles of medicare. This silence has only barely hidden the fact that the reason they do not call for action to stop these user charges is because they privately prefer the commercialization of health care for philosophical reasons.
The PC Party health critic, the Hon. Member for Provench-er (Mr. Epp), has once again proven the old adage that it is better to be suspected of something than to open your mouth and prove it. In a recent report to his constituents he has clearly given away his Party's preference for extra billing and user fees by asking leading questions on both these topics.
On user fees he wants to know whether "heavier users" of health care, perhaps those who visit a doctor more than three times a month, should pay more. This is even more mean spirited than that which the Alberta Government proposed. It
is in favour of deterrent user fees that are charged only for the first few times. The Hon. Member for Provencher goes much further than this. He does not just want those who are mildly sick to pay for health care. He wants to put a special burden on those who are really sick and who may be asked by their doctors to come back often for close attention.
On extra billing the Tory health critic explores the idea of making extra billing acceptable by allowing it to be deducted for income tax purposes. This will be of no great comfort to the poor and others for whom regressive mechanisms like tax deductions are not beneficial-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member's time has expired. The Hon. Member for Hamilton West.


ABORTION
Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, a constituent of mine is employed by Canada Employment and Immigration and, as such, is a member of the Canadian Employment and Immigration Union, which is a component of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. The PSAC is affiliated with the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress. Both of these organizations have passed resolutions urging the liberalization and legalization of abortion in Canada.
Since my constituent's moral and religious beliefs are totally opposed to abortion he has asked his union to divert his dues to a charitable organization, but it has refused. A section of the program administration collective agreement allows only people who belong to a religion which forbids membership in unions to divert their dues. As he is Roman Catholic he does not qualify under this section.
Mr. Speaker, it is of concern to me that the Canada Employment and Immigration Union would not allow my constituent to divert his dues to a charitable organization. Therefore, I would like to recommend that the Canada Employment and Immigration Union either withdraw its support for the abortion resolutions passed by the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress, or seek to ensure that in future contracts members whose religion is opposed to abortion are allowed to divert a portion of their union dues to charitable organizations.


METRIC CONVERSION
Mr. Bill Domra (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report to the House that today the Premier of Nova Scotia, the Hon. John Buchanan, has made the decision to revert back
November 22, 1983

to miles per hour on all highway signs in the Province of Nova Scotia.
I would also like to report to this House that the federal Government, after forcing, by Order in Council, the retail grocers of this nation to go to kilograms, has decided to keep the federal stockyards of Canada, from Montreal right through to Prince Rupert, using imperial measurement on every pound of red meat we import and export from this country.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


William Henry (Bill) Domm: A word of congratulations should also go on the record to the Minister responsible for the Post Office. After forcing all of the gasoline dealers across this country to go to litres the Government has decided to continue to sell at its own Canada Post at the main post office branch in downtown Toronto, all gasoline by the gallon.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance in the absence of the Minister of Employment and Immmigration. It has to do with unemployment. Incidentally, the House would be debating this subject today if it were not for the fact that it does not rank in the order of priorities of the NDP.
The Economic Council of Canada today, in an appearance before the Standing Committee on Labour and Manpower, forecast that unemployment would remain at around 11 per cent well into 1988, and indeed would increase in actual numbers. Given the fact that we have had a peek at the "cafeteria of job creation programs", and it is more like Mother Hubbard's cupboard, can the Minister give the House an assurance that whatever programs are introduced in the Speech from the Throne to create new jobs, they will be operable during the peak unemployment months of the winter?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, rather than look at forecasts put out by one organization I would have hoped that my hon. friend would have looked at the statistics that have been released this morning by Statistics Canada. These statistics show that, for the first time since 1972, inflation was down to 4.9 per cent last month. This is the first time we have inflation below 5 per cent in over 11 years.
As far as employment and unemployment are concerned, my hon. friend knows that Canada has been creating jobs faster than any other industrialized country this year. This record is one that we maintained during the seventies. During that decade Canada was creating jobs faster than any other indus-
Oral Questions
trial country. That is the record and the performance that we, as a Government, want to pursue. We want to create jobs faster than anybody else and bring unemployment down as fast as we can. As to the forecasting question, I disagree with it.


CANADIAN AND UNITED STATES FIGURES
James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, could the Minister explain to the House why Canada is still approximately one-quarter of a million jobs behind, since the commencement of the recession, as compared with the U.S. which not only has picked up the 1.5 million jobs lost, but has in fact created a million new jobs in the economy. How does the Minister explain that, and Canada's poor performance?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member knows that the number of young people coming into the work force in Canada is proportionately larger than in the United States and the growth in the participation rate has been faster and larger than in the United States. Although we are creating jobs faster than anybody else we cannot bring unemployment down as fast as we would like because of the large increases in our manpower.


YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT-IMPACT OF CAREER ACCESS PROGRAM
James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, the only program now in place which addresses jobs for young people is the Career Access Program which called for $90 million to create 31,000 jobs. That Program did not become operative until the end of September. We have had about a month or two of experience with that Program. Can the Minister tell the House how many jobs have been created under this Program, and can he give the House an assurance that whatever new programs are to be announced in the Speech from the Throne they will in fact become operative immediately so that their impact can be felt during the period of peak unemployment?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member refers to one particular program. He does not refer, for instance, to the Summer Canada Program that was in effect last year and also created thousands of jobs for young students. Rather than referring to a single program, I would point out there have been several programs addressed to youth which the federal Government has financed.
I would also like to remind him that about 40 per cent of the jobs created under the general job-creation programs of the Government of Canada have gone to young people. Thus, all the programs we have are addressed to Canadians at large, and young people are benefiting from them.
In addition, we have a number of programs addressed specifically to young people and, as my hon. colleague, the Minister of Employment and Immigration, has said, he is reviewing those progams in order to try to ensure the young

November 22, 1983
Oral Questions
people of Canada will get the maximum impact and the maximum beneficial results from our money.


James Aloysius McGrath: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member has had two. A brief supplementary.


CANADA WORKS PROGRAM
James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Incidentally, the Minister's last statement will come as news to the 550,000 young people who are still unemployed.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration reduced the constituency allocations under Canada Works by one half, by $100,000. At the same time he expanded the Program to include the private sector. The consequence of that is that there are millions of dollars worth of applications now coming to Members of Parliament for their signature. What advice does he have for Members of Parliament who now have to explain to the private sector that there are, in fact, no funds to fund their programs?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I would have to correct a slight inexactitude in the Hon. Member's statement. It is not that the funding has been reduced by half to $100,000, it is that the minimum funding is down to $100,000. Above and beyond that there is an allocation which is basically rooted in the labour surplus rate which exists in each constituency, so that there are many, many constituencies which receive far more than $100,000, indeed up to $3 million, which is the upper limit for a constituency. Therefore, whether there is a reduction in comparison with last year will depend on whether a constituency is one in which there is a high labour surplus rate or not.
I will take the Hon. Member's concluding remarks in relation to the funding for the Program as a representation that more funds be provided, and I will give serious consideration to that representation.


EMPLOYMENT
Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the same Minister. I am sure the Minister has read, as I have, the leaked outline Speech from the Throne which comprises a so-called "cafeteria" of job-creation gimmicks. Will the Minister commit to the House that this cafeteria of so-called job-creation programs is not
simply rearranging or renaming programs, or rechanneling the funds, simply to give the impression of activity purely for political reasons, and to raise the expectations of those who are out of jobs right now?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, I would make two replies to that question. First, I believe the programs which we have presented now, and perhaps the new programs that we will be presenting, are programs of great importance and substance and not simply rearrangements or cosmetics, in the Hon. Member's words. I think he should also recognize that there are very substantial funds already being spent.
It is not simply a question of doing things that are new. Something over $350 million is being spent each year on training. Close to one-half a billion dollars is being spent on job creation, and $140 million on employment counselling and placement services. There are well over two million young people in this country who, over the past year, have used services provided by the Employment and Immigration Commission.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: It sounds like the Government is planning again to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.


REQUEST FOR NEW POLICIES
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, surely the Government must realize that this last recession was a warning. It was a very serious recession, but not nearly so severe as the next recession will be if fundamental policy changes are not introduced in the next Speech from the Throne.
With current unemployment as it is, how can the Government think only of tinkering with job-creation programs such as a conservation corps, cleaning of trails in the woods, and wage subsidies, when it should be proposing far more extensive policies to address the problems of the technological revolution, the new competitive position of countries like Brazil and Korea, and the very serious problem of the complexity of the Canadian tax system?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, we are not rearranging programs. We have undertaken intensive efforts to find new approaches by, yes, using existing money more effectively, and finding new approaches in support of employment, particularly on the part of young people in this society.
The Hon. Member criticizes that approach. I suggest to him that it is far more effective than that which was followed by the Government of which he was a member, which suggested closing down Canada Works and Summer Canada.
November 22, 1983


NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS
Miss Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Deputy Prime Minister who will know that there are at least two great dangers facing us from the nuclear arms race. One is the spread of nuclear weapons around the globe, and the other is technical advances in these weapons which make limitation and verification virtually impossible.
In light of the Prime Minister's efforts to promote nonproliferation, can the Deputy Prime Minister tell us if the Government is now fully committed to efforts to end both horizontal and vertical proliferation of nuclear weapons? What new steps is Canada prepared to take to end such proliferation?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member should be convinced that the Prime Minister is presently making a major effort to bring about the very objective which she is seeking in her question today. As 1 stated in my reply yesterday to a similar question, there does not seem to be a shortage of good arms control proposals. There seems to be a shortage of an ability of willingness to come to an agreement.
It has been the view of this Government that the principal reason for that stalemate, or situation, is the worsened East-West relations. If we can improve the state of that relationship then there may be a possibility for countries to look at arms proposals in a different light.
1 do not, for a moment, depreciate the importance of specific proposals, but 1 do not think that is the real deficiency presently in the international climate. There are lots of good proposals around but, strangely enough, despite their merit, they are not being implemented. We have to ask ourselves why is that.


REQUEST FOR HALT TO CRUISE MISSILE TESTING
Pauline Jewett: Mr. Speaker, since the Prime Minister himself has said that he is pursuing efforts to create a greater degree of non-proliferation, I am assuming both horizontal and vertical, will the Deputy Prime Minister not now, on behalf of the Government, consider very seriously ending Canada's participation in the production and testing of the Cruise missile, since the Cruise missile itself will lead to both vertical and possibly horizontal proliferation? If he will not do so, will he then at least allow us to have a free vote on the subject?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, 1 think the question of the Cruise missile has been debated very extensively, not only in the House but in the country. I, and other representatives of the Government, have given the explanations for that policy. Happily, it is supported by most
Oral Questions
Members of the House of Commons. In this case the NDP finds itself in the minority because it does not share what I consider to be the larger consensus in the House in support of the Government's policy.


Pauline Jewett: That was a vote of confidence, and the Deputy Prime Minister knows it. We believe that what is lacking is the legitimacy of the Government's position because it does not have House of Commons support.


REQUEST FOR DEBATE AND FREE VOTE
Pauline Jewett: Mr. Speaker, I repeat and add to my question. In the Speech from the Throne that will be coming before us soon, will the Deputy Prime Minister consider bringing forward a commitment at least to try, if he wishes, to give legitimacy to what the Liberals, and apparently many Tories, want, by allowing a full debate in the House, followed by a genuinely free vote?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is somehow attempting to cast aspersions on the votes which Members of Parliament cast in the House in the course of their duties. I do not cast any aspersions on these votes. I think they stem from the convictions of Members, and 1 do not share the Hon. Member's cynical outlook. I think she wants more to liberate herself from the situation rather than to liberate Members of Parliament from party policy and party principles.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF AUSTRALIA, DR. HARRY JENKINS, AND WIFE
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: May I call to the attention of the House the presence in our gallery of distinguished visitors, the Speaker of the House of Representatives of Australia, Dr. Harry, Jenkins, and Mrs. Jenkins.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. It concerns a survey that was released on Sunday by the Family Service Association of America. It shows that unemployment has become the greatest threat to family stability in Canada and the United States, it points out that agencies surveyed say that unemployment and the related

November 22, 1983
Oral Questions
financial stress have aggravated wife battering, child abuse, problems with alcohol, drugs, depression, and loneliness. Is the Minister aware of this report? Is the Minister also aware that every day he postpones job-creation programs he is adding to the suffering of families that are already in desperate straits?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, no, 1 had not been aware of that report. I thank the Hon. Member for drawing it to my attention. I do share the kind of concern which she has expressed and which the report, I gather, indicates of the social and traumatic effects that high levels of unemployment have. I have myself spoken out often on that subject. It would be wrong for her to suggest, as I think her question implied, that we are delaying the implementation of employment programs. That is not the case. We are spending something well over $1 billion this year on job-creation programs. We are not holding back. I do hope, and I suspect in the context of the Speech from the Throne, that we will be able to indicate to the House some suggestions and proposals about how we may do an even more effective job in spending government funds for these purposes.


Mr. McDermid:: It had better be good.


John (Moody) Roberts: We are already assaying to accomplish and achieving considerably successful results.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, my concern is with the social and human costs of unemployment. The Government is not taking them seriously, and the New Democratic Party would not even agree to debate them today.


SOCIAL AND HUMAN COSTS OF UNEMPLOYMENT
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I want to address my supplementary question to the Deputy Prime Minister, if I could have his attention.
I have spoken about this report that has just been published and the correlation between unemployment and the desperate costs of human suffering. Is there any effort under way by the Government which the Minister represents, any real effort, to calculate the social and human costs of unemployment? Is that kind of study or correlation being carried out by the Department of Health and Welfare or by the Ministry of State responsible for Social Development?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Hon. Member's concern. I believe we all understand that unemployment does create hardship, economic hardship, social hardship, that can be seen by any one of us in our work in our constituencies. I do not believe it is necessary to have studies in order to demonstrate that fact. It is obvious.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Just ignore it.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: That is why the Minister, in his answer, has indicated that at the present time this Government, because of the hardship caused by unemployment, is devoting
such substantial sums to the relief of the unemployed and to alleviating the problems of unemployment. I appreciate her precise interest in knowing exact correlations. I will inquire whether any specific studies of that point are being made. But on the larger point I acknowledge, and we all do, the impact of unemployment on the social condition.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: It has got very much worse in the past few years.


CROWN CORPORATIONS
Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Deputy Prime Minister. Last week the Government tabled a report which outlines the salary ranges for Governor in Council appointees. Will the Minister explain to the House why Americans can find out the exact salaries paid to heads of Crown agencies which do business in the United States, and Canadians, who pay those salaries, cannot?


Hon. Yvon Pinard (President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, last week, when I tabled a very detailed report on salary ranges of employees appointed by order in council, I was merely observing the provisions of an Act of Parliament, and in the circumstances, I fail to see why my hon. friend is upset that the Government has acted within the period provided under Section 13(1) of Bill C-124, the Public Sector Compensation Restraint Act. I wonder why he is so shocked about the fact that we have observed to the letter the provisions of that particular section of the Act.


NUMBER OF EXECUTIVES IN CANADA POST CORPORATION
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, in view of the Minister's detailed knowledge of that report, I would like to make a suggestion to him. The report indicates that, for positions outside the Treasury Board guidelines, the salary range is from $63,000 to $228,000. There are 16 agencies reporting 39 positions with employees in that salary range. Can the Minister explain to the House and to the Canadian people why 18 of those positions, almost half of them outside the guidelines, are Canada Post employees? Why does Canada Post need so many highly paid executives who are outside of Treasury Board guidelines?


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, once again, when we provided details on salaries of people appointed by order in council, we had to observe the provisions of the Act that was passed by Parliament not long ago. As 1 indicated earlier, the Act is very specific. It pre-
November 22, 1983

scribes that we are to table a report containing the names and ranges of compensation of the persons concerned. Last week, for positions for which there is no salary range, we gave the minimum and maximum rate of pay for employees appointed by order in council, for whom there is no specific salary range. We therefore had the option of not publishing those figures because there was no salary range, as required under Section 13(1) of the Act, but in order to respect the intent of this particular Act and the Access to Information Act, we decided to give the maximum and minimum figures I just mentioned, and I think my hon. colleague has no grounds for complaints. The Government, in fact, bent over backwards in tabling such a detailed report, and if my colleague would take the trouble to read the report from beginning to end, he would realize that it contains far more information than the Government was obliged to provide under the provisions of the Act concerned.

Oral Questions


INCOME TAX ACT
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance who, along with his Government colleagues, has been asking Canadians to make sacrifices over the last two or three years, in digging us out of the recession. He has also imposed additional taxes upon most Canadians. However, at the same time, Revenue Canada tells us in the last few days that this year there were more winners of the golden loophole award for taxation than ever before; 239 Canadians earning over a quarter of a million dollars per year did not pay a single cent in income tax in 1981. Will the Minister explain to the people of Canada, as he is calling for equality and a fair level of sacrifice by all Canadians, why his Government allows this to occur with our taxation system?


CANADIAN RADIO-TELEVISION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION REJECTION OF SASKATCHEWAN CABLE COMPANIES' APPLICATION
Mr. Jack Masters (Thunder Bay-Nipigon):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Communications.


An Hon. Member:: Turn on the mike.


John Gerald (Jack) Masters: Mr. Speaker, I sympathize with the operator, having come out of that discipline, in his difficulty finding the right switch.
According to an article in The Globe and Mail recently, it was indicated that the rejection by the CRTC of an application by Saskatchewan cable companies to receive American network signals from Canadian Satellite Communications Inc. would have a serious detrimental effect on that company. Would the Minister please comment on the impact of this decision on CanCom, and on the equalization of broadcasting services in general?


Hon. Francis Fox (Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, the interpretation put on the CRTC decision by The Globe and Mail is indeed an erroneous one. I think it is important that it be restated quite clearly that the Government's thrust for extension and equalization of viewing opportunities across the country remains a high priority for the Government and that the Government sees CanCom as one of the major vehicles to help attain this objective.
I would also like to add that the rejection of the application by the CRTC was based on deficiencies in the application. My understanding is that the Saskatchewan cable operators will be applying anew for this service.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I refer my hon. friend to the budget which 1 announced last April 19. In that budget, if he remembers, he will have noticed that we geared the benefits of tax reductions in favour of low income people. For instance, workers will be able to benefit from a significant increase in terms of the tool allowance going from 3 per cent to 20 per cent. That will mean that several hundreds of thousands of Canadian workers will be benefiting from this kind of advantage. We did the same thing with the extension of the Child Tax Credit and with the provision for child care expenses. I could go on enumerating a number of benefits which have been geared to low income people.
As far as the specific point raised by the Hon. Member is concerned, he knows that, depending upon what happens in a particular year, where particular individuals have suffered for instance large losses either on the equity market or in other ways such as in their business operations, they are entitled to claim those losses against their income. In a particular year we may have an individual with high income not paying taxes, but this individual will be called upon to pay taxes as time goes on and as the losses he can claim disappear.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Of course those who lose their homes do not get similar types of tax breaks.


REQUEST FOR ABOLITION OF CANADIAN OWNERSHIP SPECIAL CHARGE
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, considering that the Minister is asking Canadians to support a consumer-led recovery, would he consider in the months ahead removing the Canadian Ownership Special Charge and leaving the federal tax reduction as it is, to allow Canadians to retain $7.4 billion in their pockets to participate in the recovery program?

November 22, 1983
Oral Questions


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I explained my position on this matter in my last budget. 1 may remind the Hon. Member that funds thus collected will be used to finance energy self-sufficiency in Canada and Canadi-anization of the oil industry, an objective I am sure the Hon. Member strongly supports. This tax will therefore be used to expand Canadianization of the oil industry and also to ensure Canada's energy self-sufficiency.


PUBLIC WORKS
Hon. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works. Yesterday, like so many other people, I noticed the Government promised to build a fifty million-dollar office building in Hull in order to relocate a number of public servants. Since the Government already has more than 47,000 square meters of office space in the City of Hull, I wish the Minister would give the real reason why his Department or the Government is pursuing this plan, although the federal Government already has enough office space.


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member knows perfectly well that in a Department like mine, space requirements cannot be met instantaneously. We have to make projections and that is what we have done. The Hon. Member may be interested to know that Bell Canada now wants the space where the Department of Finance and Treasury Board are located and will continue to be, but only for a few months, for its own employees. This means we must look elsewhere. An other example is that of the temporary military facilities at the base in Rockcliffe, which will have to be moved elsewhere in the National Capital Region. In any case, we have made projections, which I find eminently reasonable, that indicate there will be a space requirement, and we want to maintain, more or less, the one to three ratio that was accepted several years ago, and that is why we want to build another building on the Hull side.


FEDERAL GOVERNMENT COSTS COMPARED WITH PRIVATE SECTOR COSTS
Roch La Salle: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary. Since the people concerned, those who invest in construction of office buildings, are very worried about competition from the Government, can the Minister give the House the assurance that the rates the Government will be paying will not be more than what the private sector is offering to pay at this time? The Minister knows perfectly well that in Montreal, with Campeau or in Hull, with Teron, good friends
of the Government. . . Could the Minister give the House the assurance that the Government will be getting a price that will at least be similar to, if not less than, the going rates in the private sector?


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, I would rather not endorse the Hon. Member's mathematics, but I can inform him that tenders were submitted in the summer of 1982, that they were analyzed, and that those selected were in line with the usual tenders and costs for this kind of building.


ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Hon. J. Robert Howie (York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice. Has the Minister taken a decision on the implementation of any of the recommendations of the Federal-Provincial Task Force on Compensation for Victims of Crime? Will he be proposing statutory changes to deal more justly and humanely with victims of crime in criminal procedures before our courts?


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, the brief answer is yes, but may I be permitted to add that this report on victims of crime, the so-called Sinclair report, is a very well written one which I hope will be widely studied by Hon. Members of the House and by the public. There are many kinds of steps we must take to ensure that our law properly reflects the concerns of victims and concern for other interests. I am pleased to assure the Hon. Member and the House that the Government will be moving in this direction legislatively, and that we will also be continuing discussions with the Provinces to try to bring about fuller concern for the plight of victims in our society.


J. Robert Howie: I thank the Minister for his answer.


TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS
J. Robert Howie: Mr. Speaker, the Minister knows that there are 79 recommendations. Will he tell the House whether the nature of his amendments or changes will be extensive in terms of number or substance?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Mr. Speaker, of those 79 recommendations, my recollection is that only something like ten are directed to the federal Government. We will be moving on most of those recommendations, and some of the others require some discussion with the Provinces. Most of the recommendations, as I recall, are directed primarily to the Provinces.
November 22, 1983


CRIMINAL CODE
Hon. Jim Fleming (York West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of Justice. 1 am wondering whether he can confirm news reports this morning indicating that Cabinet has approved amendments to the Criminal Code which will make it possible to take greater or more effective action against the dissemination of hate literature. At the same time, could the Minister indicate whether those changes, if indeed they have been approved, will remove the necessity of getting the permission of a provincial Attorney General to lay a charge of hate mongering?


Erik Nielsen: Privileged information.


Mark R. MacGuigan: Mr. Speaker, I would say to my hon. friend, who has for long been concerned about this matter, and in his previous role was very directly involved in helping to bring about racial peace in our society, that I will be making a statement on the subject this afternoon in committee. I am not at liberty at this point, before the Speech from the Throne, to release details of what the Government will do.


Erik Nielsen: Leak. Leak.


Mark R. MacGuigan: In particular, in this case we want to await the recommendations of the committee before which 1 will be appearing, to know just how to move. But I would indicate that there is certainly a disposition on the part of the Government to ensure that the law on hate propaganda is effective.


EMPLOYMENT
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. It is with regard to this week's report of the B.C. Association of Professional Foresters. I am sure the Minister is aware its conclusions are that 20,000 permanent forestry jobs are threatened or are likely to be lost as a result of hydroelectric projects in British Columbia, and that an area considerably larger than Prince Edward Island has been or is about to be flooded by the B.C. Government. Since the B.C. Government has indicated an intention to sell firm contract power to California at a cut rate, does the Minister not think it is in the nation's interest to have studies of the real cost in lost jobs and losses to the environment before that occurs?
Oral Questions
including the Minister of the Environment, who is responsible for forestry and see if there is some appropriate response that either he or I should make.


ENVIRONMENT MINISTER'S POSITION
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I will direct my supplementary question to the Minister of the Environment, who seems to be the one responsible. Since it is clear, certainly to British Columbians, that B.C. Hydro is a corporate monster quite out of touch with reality, last year being the second largest borrower in the world bond market, will the Minister tell this House and British Columbians whether he supports and endorses B.C. Hydro's proposal to export cut-rate electricity to the United States?


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Minister of the Environment: Mr. Speaker, I will be glad to look into this matter when it is brought to my attention in its full complexity and detail.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: In the interest of recognizing as many Members are possible, Members will now be recognized for single questions.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS
Mr. Robert Wenman (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Privy Council. According to projections of the 1979 U.S. Congressional Committee on the effects of nuclear war, a nuclear attack only on the United States would result in the death of over two million Canadians from fallout alone. For the 23 million Canadians remaining, the federal Government commits a crime against its own people by withholding currently printed and stored information on survival. In view of the reality of modern technology that has reduced warning time to minutes rather than 30 days, and that preparations for civil defence 30 days prior to any proposed hostility would be destabilizing and inadequate, why does the Government of Canada not launch a major civil defence information program now?


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, it is true that the consequences of a nuclear war are disastrous and that if a direct attack were launched on North America, the chances that Canadians would escape such an attack would be minimal.


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, this is obviously a question of great significance touching many other areas of responsibilities than mine. 1 will be happy to take the point which the Hon. Member has raised and discuss it with other colleagues,
However, I can inform the Hon. Member that our emergency measures planning includes provisions that we are trying to improve and which will help warn people who would be far from the centres of attack. We are also seeking to upgrade communications systems for informing the population through

November 22, 1983
Oral Questions
available electronic facilities. We have a number of nuclear shelters and we are trying to build more. We are working closely with municipalities and provinces, through our civil defence organizations, in order to inform and increase the awareness of Canadians. 1 can assure the Hon. Member that everything is being done to make as much information available as possible, even if a nuclear attack were to have the disastrous consequences he mentioned. In fact, 1 think the best way to prevent this is by supporting and encouraging those who are trying to get the two world powers together, in an attempt to bring about nuclear disarmament.


AIRPORTS
John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. Has the Minister of Transport met with his colleagues, the Minister of National Revenue and the Minister of Employment and Immigration, regarding the disastrous results for people entering or re-entering our country at our major international airports, such as the line-ups which result when going through immigration when there may be a problem with a certain person coming into the country. Will the Minister, in conjunction with his colleagues, implement the recommendation that there be separate lines for returning Canadians, those from the United States, and others entering our country?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Transport):: Mr. Speaker, as 1 recall, the proposals put forward in the report on illegal immigration have been referred to different Departments to examine their feasibility, and certain pilot projects are being examined at the present time. I will undertake to consult, as the Hon. Member suggests, with the other two members of Cabinet to determine if and when they may be implemented.


PETRO-CANADA PROPOSAL TO BUILD OIL-SANDS PLANT AT FORT McMURRAY, ALTA.
Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Wilbert Hopper, the Chairman of Petro-Canada, has stated that Petro-Canada is seriously considering and investigating the prospects of building an oil-sands plant in Fort McMurray. He also stated they are not prepared to go ahead or even consider building a plant unless the Government is prepared to make certain tax and royalty concessions. What is the Minister doing about this?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, such discussions are under the responsibility of the Minister of Energy. As the Hon. Member has indicated, this would involve
the co-operation of both the Government of Alberta and the Government of Canada. We have shown in the past that the two Governments can co-operate in this regard. With respect to a specific proposal that the industry may put forward, the actual negotiation of the specific agreement would be under the responsibility of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.


APPOINTMENT OF LOTTERY CHAIRMAN
Hon. Steven E. Paproski (Edmonton North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fitness and Amateur Sport. If she would return to her seat, maybe we could give her a little publicity. Mr. James Gow was appointed gambling czar and head of the federal sports lottery. Will the Minister advise the House what qualification he has for this $85,000 a year job, besides being a Liberal flack?


Hon. Celine Hervieux-Payette (Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport)):: Mr. Speaker, I think Mr. Gow, who has just been appointed by the Prime Minister as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Sports Pool Corporation, is a very good choice. He is a very competent person. He has worked with my Department as Chairman of the Sport Advisory Council, and as such, he is respected by the sports community and all those who work in this field.


AIRPORTS
Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. On November 4 the Minister of State responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board turned the sod to start construction on the long-awaited terminal building at the Prince Albert airport. Unfortunately, on November 10 East-West airline service to the city ceased when the temporary licence held by the Aero Trades Airline expired. Can the Minister inform the House what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the new terminal does not turn out to be a white elephant?


Lloyd Axworthy: Mr. Speaker, these are two very separate issues. I hope the Hon. Member will recognize the important investment we are making in creating jobs in this area with the new terminal for that region. As to the question of which airline will be able to fly in and out, any airline that meets the licensing requirements of the CTC will, of course, be approved. That really is the question. If there is an appeal to be heard on that, I am sure we would
November 22, 1983

be prepared to give it full consideration. At the present time it is a matter that will be judged by the CTC.


HOUSING
Hon. David Crombie (Rosedale):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister responsible for housing. As the Minister will know, in its most recent report the Economic Council of Canada recommended that the Government bring in a system of shelter allowances for needy families looking for assisted housing. That recommendation was repeated this morning in the Labour Committee. Will the Minister confirm that the Government will bring in that program in the Speech from the Throne?


Roméo LeBlanc: No, Mr. Speaker, I will not confirm that. We are releasing, in fact I think this very week, the evaluation of the social housing program which had been ordered by my predecessor and which is now ready for publication. From that should come changes which could examine alternative options like shelter allowance, but I am not necessarily committed to that form.


ENVIRONMENT CANADA
Mr. J. R. Ellis (Prince Edward-Hastings):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport, but I would hope that his colleague and seatmate, the Minister of the Environment, would listen as well because I am not entirely certain of the division of responsibility for the sourcing and delivery of aviation weather reports. On behalf of private pilots everywhere I would like to complain about the lack of availability of weather reports. There is no question that that information is available, but in fact it is not easily accessed by private pilots, particularly those in major centres.
Before a plane takes off, we of course ask the pilot to check the weather reports. 1 wonder if either Minister could first tell me who is responsible for the delivery of this information and, second, how that Minister would go about making it more easily available to private pilots so that they do not have to wait for that information for an hour to an hour and a half.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Minister of the Environment: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is quite correct in saying that pilots do call upon the services offered by Environment Canada's meteorological services and depend very much on them. Our services have been strained because of budget cuts. If the Official Opposition will support increased budget allocations,
Motions
we will be very glad to expand and/or enhance those services at any time.


PETITION
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. 1 have the honour to inform the House that the petition presented by the Hon. Member for Erie (Mr. Fretz) on Monday, November 21, 1983 does not meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.
*****


Mr. Harquail:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order which relates to what 1 feel is a very important historical event for all Members of the House. I am sure all Members will agree, when they recall the passing 20 years ago of the thirty-fifth-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The Hon. Member is not making a point of order. He might well have availed himself of the opportunity of making a statement under Standing Order 21 in order to discuss a historical event. However, his point is not a point of order.


Maurice James Harquail: Mr. Speaker, 1 have a point of order.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: If the Hon. Member has a legitimate point of order, the Chair will entertain it. However, a reference to a historical event is not a point of order but should be the subject of a statement under Standing Order 21.


Maurice James Harquail: Mr. Speaker, may I then seek the unanimous consent of the House to make my intervention?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does the Hon. Member have the unanimous consent of the House?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS

['Agreed.']
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Motions. At this point, shall we have the usual intervention made by the Hon. Member for Yukon and the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain?


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I have been giving this matter a great deal of thought, and 1 hope that perhaps in the not too distant future we might arrange a meeting among the House Leaders to deal not only with this question but with others as well. However, in light of my normal attitude of co-operation,

November 22, 1983
Order Paper Questions
I am prepared to allow the waiving of the reading of all of the motions for today.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair expresses its appreciation to the Hon. Member.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, 1 have certainly been suggesting this for the last two weeks and it has been persistently refused by the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain. 1 would assume that his reason for agreeing to it today is self-motivated by reason of the fact that it is an NDP motion that is being debated.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, if I were to take the words of the Hon. Member at face value and if he meant what he said, then I would simply have to revert to my normal practice. My agreement has nothing to do with self-motivation but 1 do believe it may well be that we could work out a more civil way of dealing not only with this particular order but with other orders that require the Speaker to read into the record each day the names of Hon. Members who are not yet prepared to proceed with matters standing on the Notice Paper.
Motions stand.
Dr. W.H. Gauvin	Director, Advanced Technology Noranda Research Centre Pointe-Claire, Quebec
Dr. N.C. Lind	Professor of Civil Engineering University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario
Dr. O.R. Lundell	Professor, Chemical Engineering York University Downsview, Ontario
Dr. K.J. McCallum	Dean of Graduate Studies University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Dr. A. Pearson	Former Director (retired) Electronics, Instrumentation and Control Division Atomic Energy of Canada Limited-Research Company Chalk River, Ontario
Dr. J.T. Rogers	Professor of Mechanical Engineering Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario
Mr. W.M. Walker	Vice-President, Engineering British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority Vancouver, British Columbia
Dr. G.C. Butler (ex officio)	Chairman, Advisory Committee on Radiological Protection



[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. John Evans (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 4,832, 4,833 and 4,926.


Mr. Mazankowski: 1.	Is there an Atomic Energy Control Board Advisory Committee on Nuclear Safety and, if so (a) who are the members (b) what is the (i) background or expertise (ii) term of appointment of each member (c) what remuneration, such as salary or travel expenses, do the members receive and, for the length of each appointment to date, what amount did each member receive (d) what other funding, if any, is provided by the Government?
2.	(a) What are the terms of reference of the Committee (b) what matters did it consider in the fiscal year 1982-83 (c) how often did it meet and how often is it required to meet (d) what reports and/or recommendations did the Committee publish in the fiscal year 1982-83?


Mr. Dave Dingwall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Atomic Energy Control Board reports as follows:
1. Yes, the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Safety was established by the AECB in 1980.
(a) Dr. H.E. Duckworth (Chairman)
Dr. R.E. Jervis (Vice-Chairman)
President Emeritus University of Winnipeg Winnipeg, Manitoba
Professor, Nuclear and Radiochemistry and Chairman, Research Board University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario
Dr. W. Paskievici, Chairman, Institut de genie nucleaire, Ecole Polytechnique, Montreal, Quebec, resigned in January, 1983 and Mr. C. E. Tupper, former Administrator, Environmental Health, Nova Scotia Department of Health, Halifax, Nova Scotia, resigned in April, 1983. Replacements have not yet been announced.
(b)	(i) All the Committee members are senior professionals in the fields of engineering and science, (ii) The Committee members are normally appointed by the AECB for two years and may be re-appointed. The term of all current members expires March 31, 1984.
(c)	See below.
(d)	There is a provision in the Committee's current year budget for funds of $25,000 to support background studies. However, such expenditures have not been made to date. Certain secretariat costs such as office supplies, stationery, etc. are covered by the AECB.
2. (a) Terms of Reference:
(i)	To advise the AECB on principles, standards and general practices related to the safety of nuclear facilities and other major nuclear activities regulated by the Board.
(ii)	To advise the AECB on any general or generic safety matter associated with the sitting, construction, operation and decommissioning of nuclear facilities (as defined in the Atomic Energy Control Regulations) and the production, handling, transportation and disposal of prescribed substances, including; recommendations on proposed regulations, licensing policies, standards, and guides; interpretation of new information related to nuclear safety and advice on its relevance to the
November 22, 1983

Board's regulatory function; recommendations on nuclear safety related research and development supported by the Board; recommendations on "appropriate" or "acceptable" levels of safety for the various activities regulated by the Board, and on methods of defining and demonstrating these levels; and advice on major safety issues arising from the regulatory process.
(iii)	To establish, with the concurrence of the President or a designated officer of the AECB, subcommittees or working groups to carry out committee work.
(b)	In 1982-83, the Committee considered the following topics: basic safety requirements for nuclear power plants;
Order Paper Questions
principles for the management of radioactive waste; the role of human factors in nuclear safety; the perception of risk; review of the AECB proposed program for research; a policy on quality assurance for nuclear activities; and the concept of negligible dose.
(c)	The Committee met five times during 1982-83 for a total of seven days. Also, the working groups met several times. The Committee is required to meet at least two times per year.
(d)	In 1982-83, the Committee did not publish any formal reports other than the revised version of ACNS-2, "A proposed statement on safety objectives for nuclear activities in Canada", which was subsequently endorsed by the AECB.
1980-81	1981-82	1982-83	Total	Members	Honoraria	Travel	Honoraria	Travel	Honoraria	Travel	Honoraria	TravelDr. H.E. Duckworth	$2,100.00	$4,119.65	$3,362.50	$2,377.86	$3,150.00	$3,228.15	$ 8,612.50	$ 9,725.66Dr. R.E. Jervis	1,050.00	859.04	2,087.50	1,362.36	2,003.25	1,632.01	5,140.75	3,853.41Dr. W.H. Gauvin	1,050.00	634.79	1,675.00	1,613.85	1,575.00	1,002.65	4,300.00	3,251.29Dr. N.C. Lind	-	-	800.00	784.70	2,812.50	2,054.83	3,612.50	2,839.53Dr. O.R. Lundell	1,225.00	1,038.80	2,200.00	1,765.90	1,800.00	1,294.75	5,225.00	4,099.45Dr. KJ. McCallum	1,400.00	1,816.25	2,200.00	3,126.30	1,800.00	4,099.25	5,400.00	9,041.80Dr. A. Pearson	1,050.00	1,514.38	3,950.00	3,672.81	3,487.50	1,888.79	8,487.50	7,075.98Dr. J.T. Rogers	2,100.00	590.01	5,837.50	1,737.29	8,156.25	1,525.49	16,093.75	3,852.79Mr. W.M. Walker	525.00	2,029.65	1,325.00	3,811.75	1,575.00	5,147.96	3,425.00	10,989.36Dr. G.C. Butler	-	-	-	2,355.58	-	632.30	-	2,987.88Dr. W. Paskievici	2,100.00	655.90	3,837.50	3,456.67	2,812.50	1,581.42	8,750.00	5,693.99Mr. C.E. Tupper	-	1,903.80	-	1,570.71	-	1,742.82	-	5,217.33
Note: Members are paid an honorarium of $225 per day for those days on which they are performing the duties for which they were appointed.


Mr. Mazankowski: 1.	Is there an Atomic Energy Control Board Advisory Committee on Radiological Protection and, if so (a) who are the members (b) what is the (i) background or expertise (ii) term of appointment of each member (c) what remuneration, such as salary or travel expenses, do the members receive and, for the length of each appointment to date, what amount did each member receive (d) what other funding, if any, is provided by the Government?
2.	(a) What are the terms of reference of the Committee (b) what matters did it consider in the fiscal year 1982-83 (c) how often did it meet and how often is it required to meet (d) what reports and/or recommendations did the Committee publish in the fiscal year 1982-83?


David Charles Dingwall: Atomic Energy Control Board reports as follows:
I. Yes, the Advisory Committee on Radiological Protection was established by the AECB in 1979 and a Standing Subcommittee on Risk Estimates was formed in 1980.
(a) Advisory Committee on Radiological Protection
Dr. G.C. Butler	Former Director (Retired)
(Chairman)	Biological Sciences Laboratories
National Research Council of Canada Ottawa, Ontario
Dr. T.W. Anderson
Dr. P. Lachance
Dr. B. Lentle
Dr. E.G. Letourneau
Dr. A.M. Marko
Dr. E. Mastromatteo
Dr. J. Muller
Head, Department of Health Care and Epidemiology
University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia
Responsable, Programme de sante des travail-leurs
Centre hospitalier de l'Universite Laval Quebec, Quebec
Head, Nuclear Medicine Civic Hospital Ottawa, Ontario
Director, Radiation Protection Bureau Health and Welfare Canada Ottawa, Ontario
Director, Division of Health Sciences Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories Atomic Energy of Canada Limited-Research Company
Chalk River, Ontario
Director, Occupational Health Inco Limited Toronto, Ontario
Former Head (Retired)
Special Studies Services Special Studies and Services Branch Ontario Ministry of Labour Toronto, Ontario

November 22, 1983
Order Paper Questions
Dr. J. B. Sutherland	Head, Nuclear Medicine
Health Sciences Centre Winnipeg, Manitoba
Mr. R. Wilson	Director, Health and Safety Division
Ontario Hydro Toronto, Ontario
Subcommittee on Risk Estimates
Former Head (Retired)
Special Studies Services Special Studies and Services Branch Ontario Ministry of Labour Toronto, Ontario
Head, Department of Health Care and Epidemiology
University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia
Director, Health and Safety Affairs Celanese Canada Inc.
Montreal, Quebec
Director
Department of Epidemiology Alberta Cancer Board Edmonton, Alberta
Former Head (Retired)
Populations Research Branch Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories Chalk River, Ontario
Head, Radiation and Biology Branch Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories Atomic Energy of Canada Limited Chalk River, Ontario
Technical Secretary Atomic Energy Control Board Ottawa, Ontario
(b)	(i) All the committee members are senior professionals in the fields of engineering and science.
(ii) The committee members are normally appointed by the AECB for two years and may be re-appointed. The term of all current members expires March 31, 1985.
(c)	See below.
(d)	There is a provision in the committee's current year budget for funds of $25,000 to support background studies. However, such expenditures have not been made to date. Certain secretariat costs such as office supplies, stationery, etc. are covered by the AECB.
2. (a) Terms of Reference: Advisory Committee on Radiological Protection
Dr. J. Muller (Chairman)
Dr. T.W. Anderson
Dr. G.W. Gibbs Dr.G.B. Hill
Dr. H.B. Newcombe
Dr. D.K. Myers
Dr. M.R. Avadhanula
(i)	To advise the AECB on matters relating to health protection concerning ionizing radiation.
(ii)	To advise the AECB on any health aspects of exposure to ionizing radiation related to the activities of the Board, including such matters as:
Interpretation and application of the recommendations of the international Commission on Radiological Protection and other international bodies concerned with radiation protection, including review of proposed regulations.
Interpretation of new information on biological effects of ionizing radiation that could have a bearing on radiation protection standards.
Research and development related to radiological health and protection.
Broad or generic radiation protection issues associated with the licensing activities of the Board.
Subcommittee on Risk Estimates
(i) To provide expert advice on the health risks from exposure to ionizing radiation.
(b)	In 1982-83, the Advisory Committee or Subcommittee considered the following topics: proposed revisions to sections of the Atomic Energy Control Regulations pertaining to limits for exposure to ionizing radiation; criteria for the protection of the public in the event of a nuclear emergency; assessment of ionizing radiation as a factor causing cancer in exposed individuals claiming compensation; intake limits for radon and thoron daughters for uranium miners; review of the AECB proposed program for research; review of the risk to the foetus from exposure to ionizing radiation; the concept of negligible dose; relative biological effect of exposure to tritium; and advice to the Board on responses to queries from the public.
(c)	The Committee met five times during 1982-83 for a total of six days. Also, the working groups and task forces met several times. The Committee is required to meet at least once per year.
(d)	In 1982-83, the Committee published: ACRP-1, "Risk Estimates for Exposure to Alpha Emitters", and ACRP-2, "Risks of Low-LET Radiation as Given in BEIR-1I! and Previous Reports".
(c)
1979-80	1980-81	1981	-82	1982-83	Total	Members	Honoraria and Travel	Honoraria	Travel	Honoraria	Travel	Honoraria	Travel	Honoraria	TravelDr. G.C. Butler	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-Dr. T.W. Anderson	Not applicable (N/A)	$ 700.00	$1,648.30	$1,400.00	-	$ 450.00	$ 995.40	$2,550.00	$2,643.70Dr. P. Lachance	-	-	879.15	-	$ 338.05	-	2,132.02	-	3,349.22Dr. B. Lentle	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/ADr. E.G. Letourneau	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-Dr. A.M. Marko	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-Dr. E. Mastromatteo	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	1,125.00	-	1,125.00	-Dr. J. Muller	267.55	1,225.00	1,353.90	3,525.00	515.45	2,587.50	1,017.55	7,337.50	3,154.45
November 22, 1983

Dr. J.B. Sutherland	1,240.50	525.00	1,239.75	975.00	Order Paper Questions 1,125.33 1,800.00 3,739.80	3,300.00	7,345.38Mr. R. Wilson	605.35	-	268.03	-	214.35	1,575.00	1,358.62	1,575.00	2,446.35Dr. G.W. Gibbs	N/A	700.00	225.83	1,800.00	-	450.00	248.2 6	2,950.00	474.09Dr. G.B. Hill	N/A	N/A	N/A	-	-	-	-	-	-Dr. H.B. Newcombe	N/A	525.00	412.80	1,100.00	-	2,587.50	290 .70	4,212.50	703.50Dr. D.K. Myers	N/A	-	-	1,225.00	-	-	-	1,225.00	-Dr. M.R. Avadhanula	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Note: Members are paid an honorarium of $225 per day for those days on which they are performing the duties for which they were appointed. Public Servants receive no honorarium.


Mr. Mazankowski: 1.	Is there a Canadian Saltfish Corporation Advisory Committee and, if so (a) who are the members (b) what is the (i) background or expertise (ii) term of appointment of each member (c) what remuneration, such as salary or travel expenses, do the members receive and, for the length of each appointment to date, what amount did each member receive (d) what other funding, if any, is provided by the Government?
2.	(a) What are the terms of reference of the Committee (b) what matters did it consider in the fiscal year 1982-83 (c) how often did it meet and how often is it required to meet (d) what reports and/or recommendations did the Committee publish in the fiscal year 1982-83?


Hon. Pierre De Bane (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: 1. Yes. (See list below)
2. (a) The Committee advises the Corporation on such matters related to trading and dealing in cured fish or the by-products of fish curing as are referred to it by the Board.
(b)	No meetings held in 1982-83, therefore, no matters considered and no reports.
(c)	Required to meet at least once a year at a time determined by the Chairman of the Board, normally during the winter period. Since the CSC had no Chairman from December, 1982 to April, 1983, no meeting was called.
(d)	Nil.
Canadian Saltfish Corporation Advisory Committee
Background	Term	Remunerationand	of	since date ofCurrent Members	Expertise	Appointment	AppointmentDr. C.R. Barrett	President-College	3 yrs.	Chairman	of Fisheries St. John's, Nfld.	Jan. 21/82	W. Flowers	Fisherman	3 yrs. March 15/81	615.43A. Alexander	Fisherman	3 yrs. March 15/81	222.00E. Miller	Fisherman	3 yrs. March 15/81	351.89Mrs. G. Nadeau	Plant Manager	3 yrs. March 15/81	388.94
Chairman's honorarium $150 per day. Members $75 per day plus half rate for travel time. There now exists seven vacancies on the Committee.
(d) No other direct funding is provided; however, certain secretariat costs, such as office supplies, stationery, ect., are covered by the CSC.


John Leslie Evans: 1 would ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary have been answered. Shall the remaining questions stand?


William J. Yurko: Thank you for recognizing me, Mr. Speaker. I am threatening to use a red flag in order to be recognized. 1
wanted to make a comment with respect to the reading of the motions on the Order Paper and simply-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. We have proceeded to a different stage of the agenda. We would have to revert to the motions stage by unanimous consent. Perhaps the Hon. Member could hold his comments until tomorrow when I am sure he will have ample opportunity to make them.


William J. Yurko: Mr. Speaker, 1 do want to indicate that I am not recognized when I should be recognized.

Supply


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions stand?
November 22, 1983


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Riis:
That the Government respond to the emergency in the forestry sector by:
1.	creating a new Forestry Ministry with the mandate to advance the
Canadian forestry industry; and
2.	convening a conference at the earliest opportunity of responsible Federal
and Provincial Ministers to address the challenges presently facing the forestry sector.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle) has approximately one minute left to finish his speech.


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, I will use the final moments allotted to me to sum up what I said to the House before the lunch break. The Minister, in his speech, confirmed and confessed to the tendencies of the Government and the Provinces to delay what he calls major efforts to save our forests and delay the decisions that must be made in order to postpone or forgo the impending crisis in our forest industry.
I had also pointed out to the House that the present Minister is doing the same thing that the predecessor of a former Liberal Government had done, which was to continue to preside over the demise of the Canadian Forestry Service. The appointment of the Assistant Deputy Minister in 1979 was an initiative taken during the short term of the Conservative Government. We now see that the Assistant Deputy Minister has once again resigned his post in frustration because there is no encouragement for him or for anyone to work in pursuit of the objectives that would pay dividends to all Canadians in the future through the Canadian Forestry Service.
The Government is simply pursuing the wrong priorities and delaying the pain associated with the demise of our forest industry that will be felt by future generations.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member but 1 must inform him that his time has expired. Is there unanimous consent to allow the Hon. Member to continue his remarks?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, i have a question for the Hon. Member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle). I am sure he is aware of a speech given a little over a year ago by Les Reed of the Canadian Forestry Service. At that time he was bemoaning the actions that were taken to that point by the then Minister. He said the following:
Figures presented by my Minister, the Honourable John Roberts, at a recent meeting of the CIF Central Ontario Section indicate that the United States has about one graduate forester per 8,000 ha of forest land; the world on average has one per 12,000 ha; and Canada has one per 80,000 ha.
In light of the Hon. Member's last comment, would he indicate what kind of increase in staff and budget he would like to see in the Canadian Forestry Service, keeping in mind that he said in British Columbia a week ago that he would like to see at least 60,000 public servants fired as soon as a Tory Government took office?


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, 1 am pleased to answer that question. Incidentally, the statistics the Hon. Member quoted are somewhat wrong. A combination of Sweden, Norway and the U.S. would have one forester for every 15,000 hectares, whereas we have one for every 450,000 hectares.
What my friend should anticipate, if it is the decision of Canadians to ask Conservatives to manage the economy, is that there would be an entirely new set of priorities. We look at the forestry, mining, fisheries and agricultural sectors as the producing sectors of the economy. We would not delay decisions so that we can avoid depriving future generations of the benefits of our natural resource strength. There will be a rearrangement of priorities.
In 1960, when the Progressive Conservative Government established a full Department of Forestry, and in the period up to 1966, there were 2,000 people engaged in the Canadian Forestry Service in pursuit of very legitimate federal objectives, such as research and development, forest renewal and protection. As the Hon. Member knows, there are today 1,000 people in the Canadian Forestry Service. One American company, Weyerhauser of the U.S., does more in forest products and genetic research activities than the entire Canadian Forestry Service. We would turn that around. There would have to be a strengthening, as we demonstrated in 1960 and 1979, of the Canadian Forestry Service. There would be an increase in morale and therefore an increase in the productivity of the Department, which is simply lacking at this point.


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am always glad to get answers from my colleague from northern B.C. Perhaps he could be a little more specific as to what the Tory policy is on how big the increase would be in the Canadian Forestry Service. Would it be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, or quintupled? Can he say whether or not he thinks five cents on the dollar is adequate, which is what occurred under both the Liberal and Tory administrations, and at what level there would be a return of tax dollars to R and D and to the forest sector directly?
November 22, 1983


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to tell my hon. friend without equivocation that a return to the source of 5 per cent of revenue generated for the federal Government is simply not enough. If the Hon. Member would like me to tell him what the Progressive Conservative policies would be, I have a simple message for him. In the period leading up to the election it will be the policies of those people opposite and these people on my left who supported them in 1979 when they defeated the Progressive Conservative Government which will be on trial. So if the Hon. Member wants to find out what Progressive Conservative policies will be, the quickest way is to convince their bedmates opposite to bring on the next election.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the Hon. Member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle) when he commented on federal-provincial jurisdiction and the fact that so much forest land in Canada is held by the public sector. Does he agree with his colleague from the Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson) who yesterday indicated he felt the resources of Canada did not belong to the people of Canada but only to those who found those resources? Does he agree with his colleague when it comes to forestry?


An Hon. Member:: Misrepresentation.


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the comments of my colleague from Western Arctic in the debate yesterday. He said that the people who faced the elements, who pushed back the frontier and used their industry and resources to identify, develop and bring to market the resources in the North ought to have some incentive and reward for their efforts. I dit not hear my colleague from Western Arctic say that Canada should give all resources to individuals regardless of their efforts. Usually, when we have individual enterprise and initiative, that is when Canada is most productive. He was really saying that socialism does not work, except in heaven where you do not need it, and in hell where they already have it.


Mr. Ron Irwin (Sault Ste. Marie):: Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to hear the comments of the Hon. Member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle). I thought he gave us a very good historical background of developments in forestry. I was especially pleased to hear the overview from the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis), whose general philosophy is more in line with my thinking on this particular subject.
The problem we have had is a problem the present Minister was stuck with. He is a hard worker, experienced in forestry, wants to do the right thing, but unfortunately, federally and provincially, we do not give forestry the priority it deserves. The former Minister of the Environment said he gave as many speeches on forestry as he did on acid rain but it was only the speeches on acid rain which were published. That is the truth.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, there has been no greater stupidity, no greater tragedy and no greater lack of interest perpetrated on this country than in our wanton disregard of our forestry sector. We have learned much from Sir John A. Macdonald onwards but we have done little. I call our federal-
Supply
provincial efforts in this regard a national disgrace. We have the worst forestry record collectively of any free country in this world. That is documented. When was the last time any caucus talked about the forestry sector? Search your souls. We talk about how to exploit our petroleum and manufacturing industry, how to dig things up, how to get rid of renewable resources. But when was the last time anyone in any caucus dared to stand up and talk about regeneration or reforestation? If it is one time in 100 meetings, it is a bonus.
How important is the forestry sector? Right now in Ontario it accounts for 64,000 jobs, 300,000 jobs in Canada, with 600,000 jobs in secondary manufacturing. It represents 18 per cent of all Canadian exports. It is greater than agriculture, mining and fishing exports combined. We have a Minister for fisheries, a Minister for mines, a Minister for agriculture and a Minister for energy, but where is our Minister for forestry?
In Ontario we have 750 saw mills, 22 pulp and paper mills, 21 veneer and plywood mills, and 12 paddle board plants. We bring in-and this is the tragedy-$1.5 billion in revenue provincially and $1.5 billion federally, yet we return only $300 million. That is a pittance. If we applied the percentage which is put back into forestry in Sweden, we would have to be putting back at least $750 million. In my area of Canada, northern Ontario, like Members from most ridings in Canada, we think generally in terms of our constituency, what the peole around us do. If you talk to people in northern Ontario, Mr. Speaker, you will find that most think it is the mines or the steel plants of northern Ontario which supply the jobs. In fact, in northern Ontario 54 per cent of our jobs come from the forestry sector, 55 per cent of our manufacturing, 57 per cent of value of production, and on and on. In Atlantic Canada it is the first or second industry in ten of the 16 regions. In Quebec, it is the first or second industry in eight of ten regions. In Ontario, it is the first industry in all six regions, in British Columbia, it is the first industry in eight, the second in two. In 1980, we shipped $22 billion worth of forest products. These figures are common. Most of the people who deal in the forestry sector know this.
It just boggles the imagination, Mr. Speaker, to understand why we spend so much time on other subjects and the most important subject in Canada is given so little time. The Hon. Member from New Brunswick will be speaking in this debate, but in his Province the wood industry accounts for 40 per cent of the Gross National Product.
Ken Greaves was mentioned. He said that the Ontario industry "spends almost nothing on reforestation". The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap told us how much Mr. Greaves wants the Government to spend. Michael Keating of The Globe and Mail summed it up. He said that "it is an industry that wastes up to half of each tree it cuts and fails to replant most of what it harvests". This is a fact which is recognized, yet nothing is done about it.
The former Minister of the Environment, now the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts), said that

November 22, 1983
Supply
Canada must double its spending on reforestation to $650 million annually. When is the money coming? When is it going to happen? What we have now is a policy of restraint with controlled exploitation, nothing more, nothing less.
Of the money which the Province is spending, two-thirds to three-quarters of it is being spent on roads. Access roads to do what? To cut more trees. Some 25 per cent of fires are caused by lightning and these fires cause 90 per cent of the damage in forestry. Where are the road patterns? Where are the water bombers which we need to control the damage being caused by fires? They do not exist now, Mr. Speaker, and they are not going to exist in the next ten years unless we in common, without looking at the politics of it, insist we have these things.
Right now in northern Ontario we have serious shortfalls of timber, especially in the Hearst area, and nothing is being done about it. The UN reports indicate that by the year 2000 there will only be half of the forests we now have on this planet. The Science Council of Canada recently put out a report to which the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap referred, but how many people read it? Or if they read it, did they think about it for more than half an hour, a day or even a week? Everyone is calling for a federal Ministry of Forestry. The industry is calling for a federal Ministry as well as the northern Ontario caucus and the Province. Yet we do not have a federal Ministry of Forestry. It is said that we look on the forests as something to exploit. It is said that the high quality, old growth forest has gone. It is said that much of which is remaining is overmature and defective.
The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap referred to the hardwood which they have to import for the furniture industry in Quebec. A walnut tree now costs from $7,000 to $9,000 to bring in because most of our good hardwood has gone. If we continue at this rate, most of our black spruce, our pine and our tamaracks will be gone with it.
There has been reference to the former assistant deputy minister of forestry. I thought he was a fine man who went as far as he could within his scope, basically as a senior civil servant. The policy has to come from here and from the Provinces, not from the assistant deputy minister or the deputy minister. The ADM said that each year 200,000 to 400,000 hectares of valuable forest are being added to this shameful waste, and he was right. The Science Council of Canada said that it wants a jump in reforestation and stand treatment from $300 million to $650 million. It sounds like a lot of money, but it is not when compared to what is at risk. It wants a jump from $250 million to $500 million for protection costs, which again is not a lot money when you look at the risk. As a matter of fact, there is a report which says we spent $89 million in other countries on their forest programs. We have more foresters per capita working out of Canada than any other country in the world. It is said that we do a better job abroad than we do right here in our own country. Our job is to grow trees, not to export civil servants.
The Science Council of Canada said that we could generate another 100,000 jobs if we brought in a reasonable program of reforestation. I do not know about other Hon. Members, but 1
am a little tired of these programs we are putting out which go nowhere, which do not give the people any pride in what they are doing and do not give us a profit in return. What can be better than to have a program which hires 100,000, 200,000 or even 300,000 Canadians to go out and do something which involves a little bit of pride? They do not have just to plant trees; there is more to reforestation than that. It is an industry in itself. They would have the pride of working and we would be providing for the future.
There is a phrase I use often because I like it so much. I heard it in Michigan at a conference of Amish farmers. The phrase was:
We did not inherit this land from our forefathers, we borrowed it from our children.
We have to get that fact through our thick heads.
There are now 300 communities in Canada which could fail partially or totally if the forest industry in those areas fails. One of those communities happens to be mine. I almost laughed aloud when I heard the comment one of the Hon. Members of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition put to the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap, that perhaps it was the labourers who were holding back the program. That is about the silliest thing I ever heard. I have never heard of a labourer in the pulp and paper or hardwood industries say: "I am against your putting some money in reforestation or regeneration".
The Abitibi Pulp and Paper Company in my riding employs about 400 or 500 men. It is basically your average company. There are no evil men at Abitibi. However, the thinking of that company is exactly the thinking which brought the forest industry down in Canada. In 1972, when I was mayor, the company threatened to close. It is threatening to close this year, 1983. I met with the president and he said to me: "When 1 started with this company 30 years ago we used to build one mile of road and harvest that one mile for three years. In 1982 we had to put in three miles of road for one year of harvest." Who does he think cut the trees? The beavers? It was Abitibi which cut those trees and did not reforest that area. Mr. Les Reed said-and he is right because it is being done in Scandinavian countries-that all you need is 100 kilometres around the plant; if you reforest that area properly, you can go on ad infinitum. .But that has not been done. Certainly not in Canada. The historical summation by the Hon. Member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle) of the Canadian Forestry Service was excellent. We have to be reminded that at one time we did have a Minister of Forestry. As Canadians we always tend to support the status quo. In this case we do not even support the status quo. The last Minister was the Hon. Maurice Sauve in 1966. This institution goes back from 1899 to 1930. It handles four western Provinces and in some of them it did not do that great a job. Until the provincial Government of Saskatchewan took over the forestry business we had run havoc in that Province. The Canadian Forestry Service has brought much of it back under its care. From 1930 to 1983 it was concerned with basid research. Now it is "the lead agency for forestry" in the federal Government. That
November 22, 1983

sounds great, but basically there is no funding. When I last looked about a year ago they had a budget of $63 million for the lead agency for forestry in the federal Government.
Somewhere along the line, 1 guess 15 years ago, someone convinced the powers that be that the federal Government does not belong in forestry. They were probably the same fuzzy thinkers that thought that we did not belong in urban renewal. I cannot think of any place in which we do belong more than in the forestry sector. One in ten jobs in Canada comes from the forestry sector. Half of the jobs in my area come from the forestry sector. If we do not belong in forestry then where does the federal Government belong? Cutting the CFS by 50 per cent has been a tragedy.
The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) asked the Hon. Member for Prince George-Peace River what the Conservatives would do if they were in power. I was hoping he would say that as a first step their policy would be to go back to what we formerly had. I do not think you can be parochial when it comes to forestry. That is why Ministers get in trouble. After two or three months the press wants to know what they are doing next week. It has taken us 100 years to get into this mess and, no matter what Government is here, it will take us ten years to bring us out at least partially and to head in a new direction.
I support the appointment of a federal Minister of Forestry. The Nova Scotia Forest Products Association wants a fulltime senior federal Minister. That is another problem. If provincially and federally the Ministers of Finance or Energy or Trade and Commerce say, "This is the way it is going to be", then that is the way it is going to be. In the Scandinavian countries they tend to take agriculture and forestry and make them senior Ministries. At all eleven levels plus the Territories forestry has to be a senior Ministry.
I will deal with one aspect of acid rain and then close off. The Hon. Member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Darling) asked the Minister about acid rain and what it does. Mr. Speaker, you say that perhaps he should be more relevant. The forestry sector is concerned about carbons and nitrogens and damage that is being done to the forestry sector. From 1980 to the present we have been standing still or going backwards regarding carbon and sulphur. We put out five billion tonnes a year of sulphur in 1980. We are still putting it out. We put out two million tonnes of nitrogen in 1980. We are still putting it out. The memorandum of intent with the U.S. is in a state of limbo. Noranda will not have any controls, unless it is forced, at half a million tonnes a year. Inco, at 850,000 tonnes a year, say they do have the money. Falconbridge is doing a pretty good job at hiding behind Inco. The two main sources in Manitoba are just being monitored but there have been no controls. Ontario Hydro is a disgrace. They have no program at all except to get off coal burning and go over to using uranium. They have the problem of high level nuclear waste that they have not even solved yet. They are not environmentalists. They are just using that issue to hide the fact that they
Supply
are going to get out of coal completely, which was never the recommendation of anybody around the House of Commons. That is the state of acid rain, sulphur and carbon in Canada, Mr. Speaker.
I will end with this. I heard the statement made before I got here that there is a difference between a politician and a statesman. A politician has to look to the next election and a statesman to the next generation. I do not think that these things are mutually exclusive. During Question Period we can be politicians, have a lot of fun and attack each other. When it comes to what is going to feed us and our kids and is going to take care of our workers, then we can be statesmen. On the question of forestry we can be statesmen. We can work together federally and provincially between Parties. We can bring to the attention of the Canadian public that it is vital and necessary. We can give it more attention. We can get better budgets and we can do what has to be done.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Questions and comments? The Hon. Member for Prince George-Peace River.


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, the obvious question that occurs to me as a Member of the Opposition is that if it is so great a priority of the Members of the northern Ontario Liberal caucus to establish a Forestry Ministry and to restore the Department of Forestry and the Federal Forest Service to the position that it enjoyed under the administration of the Right Hon. John George Diefenbaker from 1960 onwards, what influence does that part of the Liberal caucus have on the administration? What kind of response does he and his colleagues from northern Ontario get from the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to their efforts to bring about a greater awareness? There is an awareness now throughout the country in all the communities that he enumerated; the scientific communities, the Science Council of Canada, the forest industry, the forest community in general, 300 small municipalities through the country, many in northern Ontario entirely dependent on that one industry. What response is there from the Prime Minister to their efforts to establish a forest Ministry and bring about a forest renaissance?


Ron Irwin: Mr. Speaker, I personally have not spoken to the Prime Minister about this particular problem. Since the countervailing tariff dispute we have had with the United States my prognosis is that within the next five years we will have such a Ministry. We talk about Ministries of Youth. I think Ministries of Forestry are more important because they help the youth. 1 see a wave now that was sparked off by the Washington State-B.C. countervailing tariff dispute that has shown the importance of the forestry sector that may do just that if we stay with it, if there are more Opposition days like this and if more of us get out in the public. If that does not happen, there will be no such Ministry.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Debate.


Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanieh):: Mr. Speaker, I am particularly pleased to follow the Hon. Member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Irwin) because of the comments that he made

November 22, 1983
Supply
in conclusion about the difference between the stateman's approach and the politician's approach. I think you too, Mr. Speaker, would probably agree that forestry of all matters requires the statesman's approach, if only because it takes anywhere from 40 to 80 years for a tree to mature and be a resource that we can use in this country. We must look beyond the next election in forestry. That is one of the problems that has beset all Parties.
1 am delighted that, despite the misgivings that I might have had about this particular resolution insofar as it involves the expenditure of public funds to set up a new Ministry, it has been accepted for debate so that we may continue today what we started yesterday.
In order to further that notion about how long it takes for the trees to mature and be of use to our society, I would like to quote a comment made by one who has devoted his working life to forestry. He is Mr. Les Reed, who was, until very recently, as the Assistant Deputy Minister in the Department of Environment in the federal Government dealing with forestry. He made a notable contribution at that time and one of the comments he made was, "Land is not something we inherit from our parents but something we borrow from our children". This is just as true of the forests. We do not inherit forests from our parents but they are something we borrow from our children. We must borrow them very carefully and we must make sure that they are restored so that our children will be able to harvest the forest.
Once again, I think of those young people who are sitting in the Chamber as pages. It is their forests that we are consuming, and if we want to borrow them we must replace them. They are not our forests, they are their forests and we must replace them in such a way and with such scientific precision that they will know, when their turn comes, how to use them in that way as well and pass those forests on to the next generation. This is one of the most important messages that we must draw from this particular debate of today and yesterday.
If we think we are being inventive by deciding to bring this matter up today, I would just like to remind the House and those who will read the Debates, that as long ago as 1938 the same message was laid out before us by economists and economic historians of Canada in a book on the relations between Canada and the United States. It is a series by the Ryerson Press. The principal author as A. R. M. Lower, and the other contributors were Prof. Carrothers of the University of British Columbia and Prof. Saunders. While I am sure this was written earlier than 35 years ago, A. R. M. Lower had this to say at page 201:
Scientific reforestation may play a part, for much of old Ontario has soil fitted best for tree growth and for the white pine especially.
Speaking of white pine, I recall in the reading I was doing in preparation for this debate, although I cannot locate it at the moment, that in the days when the woods were being wantonly destroyed in Ontario-cleared for agricultural purposes but thoughtlessly destroyed-a white pine stood 250 feet high not
far from where we are standing. The Peace Tower is just over 300 feet high. Have you seen a white pine standing 250 feet high?


John Leslie Evans: Neither have you.


Donald W. Munro: No, I have not.


John Leslie Evans: Because they do not grow that high.


Donald W. Munro: They used to and they ought to. That is the purpose of this debate. It is to make sure that that age can return and that we shall again see trees of that magnitude and of that beauty.
I do not know whether the Hon. Member remembers that there was a storm out in British Columbia approximately a week ago which blew down some trees in Cathedral Grove on the road from Nanaimo to Port Alberni. Since members of the road crew were on strike, the people went out and cleared the road. The trees that fell across the road-and I hope they were not my favourite trees-came from a grove on the south side of that road and were standing there over 750 years ago. Those trees were standing 20 feet tall when the Magna Carta was being signed. That shows the durability of those magnificent trees.
1 believe that one cannot be deeply and irrevocably tied to the soil and know what Canada is until one has seen the trees in Cathedral Grove, looked up and seen them standing hundreds of feet in the air. They have been standing there for over 700 years and it is an awesome sight.
That is what we must preserve. One of the ways of preserving it, I believe, is to follow the recommendation that is in this resolution and return to that age when there indeed was a Ministry of Forestry in the Canadian Government. The record of that Ministry was laid before us this morning by the Hon. Member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle). That Ministry was instituted by the administration of the Right Hon. John George Diefenbaker and was then dismantled and redistributed after a period of about seven years by the Liberals. At the insistence of the Government of the Right Hon. Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark), at least a special forestry branch of the Department of Environment was established and Les Reed, whom I mentioned earlier, was brought in to head that particular branch.
Today we are dealing with a renewable resource. 1 think we should recall the difference between renewable and non-renewable resources. I would like to remind the House of the manner in which the Alberta Government is dealing with a non-renewable resource. It has established, for posterity, for those like these young pages and their children who come after us, a fund which it calls the Heritage Fund. It was established out of the revenue of a non-renewable resource. While we are talking today about a renewable resource, we can establish a heritage fund as well. This is possible if we behave as the Hon. Member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Irwin) has suggested, like statesmen, and remember that that renewable resource has to be planted, tended and then harvested. It will then be harvest-
November 22, 1983

ed not by us and perhaps not even by the next generation or even their children. However, this can be done progressively, and i am sure, Mr. Speaker, I am not telling you anything you do not know, considering the Province from which you come. It rests to a considerable extent on wood and wood products.
1 have before me two advertisements produced by the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association of Canada. One appeared in The Globe and Mail on November 7. The other one is from one of the editions of this month's Maclean's magazine. They are pulp and paper reports, and and I am delighted to put on the record that the industry has done at least this much. In 1977 the pulp and paper industry claimed it spent $170 million in forest renewal across Canada. Five years later those expenditures reached $300 million. These expenditures for forest renewal did not double in five years. In the next five years-this is a projection up to 1987-the pulp and paper industry expects to reach forest renewal expenditures amounting to $650 million. That is barely a doubling over the previous five years. That does not take into account the backlog that has to be restored if your forest industry in 40, 50, 60, 70 years down the line is to be a meaningful resource in this country.
Here is the second advertisement from Maclean's for November 21, 1983. I think it is a shameful one in some respects, commendable and heartening in another. This particular advertisement indicates that the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association is now making use of waste paper and recycling it in order to prevent the wanton destruction of our forests, in order to make use of a product that has already been processed.
Since 1977 to 1983, the Canadian pulp and paper industry has not quite doubled the amount of newsprint or paper, mainly newsprint, which it is recycling in order to save trees. But here is the surprising thing, Mr. Speaker. The industry has admitted it right in the advertisement as follows:
In fact, over one-third of the recyclable paper consumed by Canadian mills is purchased elsewhere, mostly in the United States.
We are importing used newspapers in order to produce more newspapers. The rate at which the Canadian people-and I think Parliament is not to be exempted from this criticism either-pour forth paper is enormous. While it may be somewhat amazing, it is also frightening, terrifying, because it means that some of our forests have to be destroyed.
I read a recent publication, which I would commend to all who are interested in the forestry matter in Canada, a publication called "Cut and Run", subtitled "The Assault on Canada's Forests" by Jamie Swift. At page 208, writing about the consumption of our forests, Mr. Swift says:
Each year the Great Lakes mill was processing over 200 square miles of the boreal forest.
That was in the early 1980s. That is 200 square miles of virgin forest. That cites just what one company does in order to produce paper. I am sure that in your Province, Mr. Speaker, in the Province of the Hon. Member for Northumb-
Supply
erland-Miramichi (Mr. Dionne) and the Hon. Member for Sault Ste. Marie and in my Province as many square miles are being destroyed annually. But how many are being replanted? Somehow or other we have to think beyond the next election and have our forests restored so there will be that heritage fund to reproduce and replicate, to use the modern word, in living timber the heritage fund that has been established in Alberta to deal with the wasting resource, the non-renewable resource that is being consumed rather wantonly, I think by us, but being produced in Alberta.
There are so many of these facts which I would be pleased to be able to set forward uneditorialized. Maybe what we need is to be shocked into realizing how wanton we are with that which is not ours, which is ours in trust but which really belongs to the generations to follow, and which we received and should keep in trust, restore and reforest.
There are a number of such stories in this book entitled "Cut and Run" by Jamie Swift. I do not even know where to start because the cost, for example, in 1978, of regenerating a single hectare of forest is calculated in British Columbia as being about $500. What is it now, five years later? That is replacing only those trees cut that year, not taking account of the backlog and replacing those so that we will have something approximating the forest resource that we were so fortunate to inherit.
I do not know how much time I have left but there is one other thing 1 want to mention: not only are humans attacking our forests but we have to deal with fire and insects as well. We have to deal with those problems. I think we should do so jointly and co-operatively. But I cannot see this Government, because of its confrontational policies, really facing this problem.
We also have to remember that our forests are very much involved in the climate we have. They provide the shade, or they used to, for the soil so that when the rain does fall it does not evaporate immediately. The trees provide nutrients when the leaves or when the needles fall. Even when some of the trees are chopped down, nutrients are provided for the soil so the next generation of trees may grow. Trees break the wind and thereby prevent erosion.
Those of you who may have crossed the Prairies in the 1930s, as I did, can remember farms just moving from west to east. Trees used to be known on the Prairies but they have been destroyed.
The Sahara desert is gradually creeping south because of the manner in which those south of the Sahara are using what little scrub there is to boil beans or whatever it is, and this is causing the Sahara to expand foot after foot, year after year. Let us remember that our forests are not just a resource to make money. They are a resource for our protection.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Questions, comments, debate?

November 22, 1983
Supply


Mr. Maurice A. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Mr. Speaker, at least once a year in the House we have a debate on Canada's forests. I think it is altogether fitting and proper. As has been said numerous times already today, no resource is more important to the country than our forests.
I will try to make my remarks today along the lines of the two or three speakers who preceded me and stay away from the partisan approach. I believe the forests of Canada are too important for partisan politics. I could pose many questions to the two Members of the Official Opposition who have already spoken, but 1 will leave it to another time. However, 1 want to say that it is unfortunate the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro) had to refer to the so-called confrontational attitude of the Government of Canada in dealing with the Provinces. Of course that is nothing but an invention of the Tory Party and the Tory provincial Government. No Government in the history of the country has ever been more generous with its tax resources to the Provinces than this Government. In fact, in my Province forestry is more important to the daily livelihood and to the economy of the Province than in any other Canadian Province. Most of the provincial budget comes directly or indirectly from Ottawa. The forests of New Brunswick are noted to be the most productive in Canada. We harvest more wood per acre and we have more acres per capita in our forests than any other Province in Canada. I believe more people in New Brunswick rely on the forests for part or all their livelihood than in any other Province. Yet it has only been in very recent times that any serious effort has been made to ensure that the forests will be regenerated; we still have a very long way to go.
There are companies in New Brunswick that have exploited the forests for generations and until the last two or three years never planted a tree. Now, under the new regime of the Department responsible for natural resources, they are required to take much better care of the forests than they have in the past. We have a lot of room in which to grow in the forest industry, but it is diminishing all the time because of the waste of the past and the waste of the present. Unless we stop the wanton waste of wood fibre, we will not have room for expansion.
This is one of the reasons I believe there should be a Minister of Forestry at the national level in Canada. It is rather strange that we have Ministers of State for almost everything imaginable these days, but we do not have a Minister of Forestry responsible for a predominant industry in Canada which is the largest earner of foreign dollars and our biggest provider of jobs. In fact, Canada sells enough forest products on a yearly basis to offset more than our deficit in auto trade. Those are pretty significant figures. We should have a federal Department of Forestry with a Minister in charge of Forestry at the national level, his Department being a co-ordinating body for research and development, if nothing else.
However, 1 can understand why there is not one. When there was a federal Ministry of Forestry, co-operation and
co-ordination among various Provinces and the federal Government were not all that great. Some Provinces were jealous that there was a federal Minister of Forestry and indicated quite boldly that there should not be such a Minister at the federal level because forestry was a provincial responsibility. If there is no Minister of Forestry today, it is not just the federal Government which must shoulder the blame. Let us not worry about the blame. Let us continue to lobby for a federal Department and a federal Minister of Forestry which will be the co-ordinator and facilitator of research and development in forestry that we need so much if we are to continue to be the leader in forestry products we have been over the years. That will take some co-operative federalism and some co-operative provincialism.
It would be interesting to know-and I hope in coming months that we will know-what the Tory policy on forestry will be. 1 look forward to hearing it and debating it. I do not think any Party will be able to go to the Canadian people in the future without a clear policy on an issue as important as forestry.


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: You change your policy after an election; that is the trouble.


Maurice Adrian Dionne: We have a prairie forester, a city forester, speaking from his seat because he has nothing to say on his feet.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: There are lots of trees in Saskatoon.


Maurice Adrian Dionne: He is not a bad
guy; he just talks too much. A moment ago I spoke about the willful destruction and waste of our forests. I wonder how many additional products there might be and what value they might have if we utilized all the wood harvested in the country. It has only been in very recent times and as a result of an incentive program of the Government of Canada that we have had major forestry plants using their own waste products as hog fuel to cut down on the consumption of other natural resources such as petroleum.
Also it is important to realize that forestry is not only important from the point of view of the money or products obtained from wood fibre. It is important for other reasons as well. To some extent the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Saanich referred to how the land will dry up and turn to desert if there are not the necessary plants to hold in the moisture. Some of the plants have to be sturdy plants like trees. There are other consequences which we have to bear in mind in terms of the destruction of our forests, such as what it does to our lakes, rivers and streams, to the wildlife of the forests and to valuable fish resources which spawn in our water systems. I have no doubt that one of the main reasons for the decline in Atlantic salmon stock is the denuding of the forests of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec where not very many years ago the rivers were rich and teeming with salmon; today they are very scarce indeed. It is not the only reason. Some pretty foolish management policies contributed to that as well. Wanton destruction of those species in the oceanographic feeding
November 22, 1983

grounds by greedy nations also contributed to that situation. Destruction of the forest contributes to the destruction of our wildlife, fish and water resources as well as to the destruction of recreational facilities and land. It contributes to the greater devastation of forests when fire strikes.

Many who spoke before me spoke about the need for better management of the forests in order to protect them. For example, there should be a better expenditure of funds on forest roads. That is important. As well, we need a strong program to educate our young people. There are many of my generation who will never learn that unless they respect each tree of the forest, they will not respect them all. The roads that have been constructed and which give easy access to the forest today also contribute to the destruction of the forest through greater incidents of fire and theft of wood. It may sound like a rather strange occurrence in Canada that someone would steal wood, but that happens all the time. For example, the Department of Natural Resources of New Brunswick loses thousands of dollars each year in stumpage fees because of stolen wood. I am sure it happens in other Provinces as well.
I will conclude so that more Members will have an opportunity to participate in this debate. I reiterate my support for a federal Department of Forestry or federal Ministry of Forestry with a full-time Minister who will co-ordinate and plan with the Provinces if they agree to do so in order to enhance the reforestation and the re-establishment of the wealth of forests that once were Canada's.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Questions, comments, debate?


Mr. Fred McCain (Carleton-Charlotte):: Mr. Speaker, there is probably a little under-estimation of the value of the forest industry. Canada's forest industry contributes to our balance of trade, more than agriculture, mining, oil and gas all put together, more surplus than they do in our trade balance. It should not be correlated merely to the auto trade imbalance, but must be recognized as the greatest contribution that we have to our favourable balance of trade. I repeat what the Hon. Member for Northumberland-Miramichi (Mr. Dionne) said. It is indeed fact that, relatively speaking, the forest industry to New Brunswick is of more economic importance than it is to the Province of British Columbia, which happens to have a multitude of other resources contributing to its GNP, many more than we have in New Brunswick. I would like to read some remarks I made some time ago with respect to the forests.
It was of little consequence 300 years ago that insect or disease infestation might wipe out wide areas of a particular species. With or without probable fire, nature would then replace a dead species with another. Maybe spruce would be followed by white birch and poplar, in turn to be replaced by other varieties familiar to all of us. Pine, maple, spruce or birch forests were never in one area in perpetuity, and the supply of all species was never constant in any century. Nature
Supply
followed its own course. Budworm damage was then of no particular consequence. It ate itself out of house and home and starved to death. It would do the same today, in this century.
Federal Government participation in forestry as it relates to New Brunswick has been in the University of New Brunswick, the Acadia Research Station, in the research area of forestry associated with the University, and it has indeed made a contribution, but there must be a greater contribution made. I am not particularly critical of the historic conduct of the forest industry because that industry operated within a different sphere than the industry which is operating today. It operated in a sphere of over-supply of product in a viable location for the viable operation of lumber mills, pulpmills and so on.
That era in New Brunswick disappeared in 1970 or thereabouts. With encouragement from Government and with the proper investment opportunity which existed, new operations opened in New Brunswick which then reached a level of consumption which absorbed the production of our forests in total. Unfortunately, at about the same time the budworm had made an infestation in our forests which reduced our annual growth and reduced our available supply of wood. I want to give you an idea of just how that supply is balanced at this moment in time.
All told, the wood supply available annually for the New Brunswick industry on a sustainable basis totalled 7.9 million cubic metres annually. The softwood supply from small freehold totalled 1.7 million cubic metres, from large freehold, 1.4 million cubic metres, from Crown, 4 million cubic metres, and the net import/export amounted to .8 million cubic metres, for a total of 7.9 million cubic metres available to the industry.
How well do softwood demand and supply balance? The balance between sofwood demand and supply in New Brunswick is extremely tight. The 7.9 million cubic metres available annually will meet the average annual consumption levels of the existing softwood industry on a continuing basis. The forest could not sustain the industry if it operated continuously at its maximum capacity of 8.8 million cubic metres annually.
The annual demand must be matched by an annual supply both in terms of total volume and in terms of the quality of raw material. While a major portion of the total demand is in the form of pulpwood, which has a relatively low quality requirement, sawmills require about 30 per cent of the total roundwood volume, and this must be in logs that are of a size and form suitable for conversion into lumber.
Based on present sawlog specifications, the current sawlog harvest cannot be maintained in the future. This is a chronic problem. The custom of high-grading the forest for the highest quality components began with the exploitation of white pine and has continued ever since with an inexorable decline in the quality of material available at each successive harvest. The balance between demand and supply for raw materials to the forest industry indicates that, in terms of quantity, New Brunswick can maintain its present softwood industry, but that there is no room for expansion. New Brunswick is harvesting quality material faster than it is produced in the forest. Please note, Mr. Speaker, that New Brunswick is harvesting material

November 22, 1983
Supply
faster than it is produced in the forest. That means that we in New Brunswick are harvesting our capital. We are withdrawing from our bank account, and this is a very serious situation. Sawmills, and other users of quality material, will have to adopt better utilization standards than are currently practised, and accept lower quality raw material, if they wish to survive in the future.
Can this balance be improved, Mr. Speaker? 1 submit to you that it can, but it can only be improved if forest policies in New Brunswick and, in a very rapidly expanding way, in all of the Provinces recognize that our present forest harvest is at a level which puts us in the sphere of farming on forest land. If we do not treat this land and its harvest as the agricultural sector would treat its crops, we will find ourselves in a position which will be economically embarrassing. It will then, of course, become a very important social problem.
I am, have been and shall continue to be supportive of the agricultural approach to forest management and harvesting until greater evidence than has ever been amassed as yet can persuade me otherwise. I would like to tell you why this is so, Mr. Speaker. 1 remember at one time being associated in the provincial Legislature with the former Minister of Highways from the County of Northumberland, Mr. Anderson. He is since deceased and was quite old when I knew him. However, he said to me: "I want to tell you, Fred, about a time when we had the budworm in the Miramichi. I was just a young boy at that time, but the devastation that that budworm perpetrated in our area was such that one could stand on a hilltop and look for miles and not see a live evergreen tree." He said: "You could go into the woods to hunt. There were no deer and no moose, but you could travel on deadfalls without ever putting a foot on the ground because those evergreen trees had died as a result of the budworm presence." He went on to say: "My family was a forest family," as 1 am sure the Hon. Member for Northumberland-Miramichi knows, "and our family business existed and survived for years with only little patches of forest. However, while we existed, virtually all of the then massive logging industry on the Miramichi disappeared from existence."
How important was that conversation, Mr. Speaker? The Hon. Member for Northumberland-Miramichi will remember when Chatham was one of the biggest banking centres in Canada by virtue of the export of lumber from the Miramichi and other watersheds close enough to be exported through that facility. More money changed hands in banks in Chatham than in most city banks in Canada. The depression which exists on the Miramichi today can be attributed in very large measure to the early decline of the forest industry and its failure even to this day to recoup itself through natural regeneration to the level that existed in 1900.


Maurice Adrian Dionne: It started in
1825.


Fred Alward McCain: This was an additional infestation. The first one was in 1825.


Maurice Adrian Dionne: And the great fire.


Fred Alward McCain: At that point in time, the great fire of the Miramichi took place, and I think it is of interest to note that if one is to examine the history of the forest from the Miramichi to the Penobscot watershed, one would find that the budworm did in fact virtually eliminate forest from the estuary of the Miramichi to the Penobscot watershed in the State of Maine, and most of it burned shortly thereafter. It is from that state that nature did regenerate a forest.
I say that we must farm the industry because we have what is known as a fire forest. That is the official professional term applied to the kind of forest that exists particularly in eastern Canada. The forest grows up, matures and becomes a victim of old age, insect or disease and is replaced. Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, you yourself can remember the white ridges of hardwood that came into existence as the yellow birch died and whitened. We no longer had a significant hardwood industry over those ridges nor will we have in this century any significant yellow birch harvest.
That is an example of what has happened to the forest in our lifetime. We are also experiencing at present the infestation of the budworm. 1 will refer to an example of what would happen if we do not treat this industry as a farm operation. As all Hon. Members will remember, there was a court case in Nova Scotia, and I am sorry that I do not have my summary of that court case with me. I have said this before and I reiterate it because it is so important. Among other evidence given at that trial, it was said that if forest management is not improved and if the budworm is continually allowed to ravage that forest, there will be a loss of 8,000 jobs in the forest industry in the Cape Breton area of the Province of Nova Scotia. That is what we are looking at in southwest New Brunswick where we have already lost 10 million cords of wood, wood that is no longer fit for harvest. That is the price we have paid. How close does that price come to the loss of 8,000 jobs in the southwest corner of my Province?
Those who object to spraying the forests have said many a time that forest management is the answer, and I agree. However, the application of pesticide must become a part of forest management if we are to have a forest crop at all. Why is that, Mr. Speaker? That is the only way the reforestation referred to by the Hon. Member for Northumberland-Miramichi can be carried out effectively in not all but in much of New Brunswick, because the soil is so productive that not only will it produce wood fibre but it will produce ferns, white birches, blueberries and hazelnut bushes. These plants spring up almost simultaneously when the ground is denuded of forest coverage. If we then reforest that ground and if we do not protect the seedlings from the cover of these weeds-and I refer to them in the farming sense as weeds because they are not of an economic value-do you know, Mr. Speaker, what the mortality rate would be of the little trees that are planted there? It

November 22, 1983

would be higher in some instances than 80 per cent in the reforested area. If we do not find and use a weed killer which will in fact protect the reforested area, our efforts at reforestation will virtually be in vain and we will not be able to anticipate a crop.
I have some sympathy for the environmentalists who say that we should not spray the forests. However, I shall ask them to have sympathy for me. I am allergic to wool. Should I then form an association for all of us who are allergic to wool and say: "Let us destroy all of the sheep in the world because 1 am allergic to wool"? I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that it would be as practical for me to say that as for the environmentalists to say: "Let us not spray at all." That is the problem.
I speak particularly about the forest industry in New Brunswick because 1 know it so well. Not only in New Brunswick but in Canada as a whole, we must start to farm our forests. I do not want to be partisan because this subject is too dear to my heart. However, I do want to say one thing. If there is support for good forestry practices in this nation and in the House of Commons, I ask for that support from all Members of the House. So that the Forestry Committee of the House of Commons can in fact sit down and study the best forest management practices that can be put in place. Along with the Hon. Member for Gander-Twillingate (Mr. Baker), I tried to generate meetings like this last srping, but they fell afoul of someone's opinion about what the committee should do and there were only one or two meetings held.
Since we are not going to be partisan, 1 will support the Government and ask Government backbenchers and Ministers to support me. Let us study the forest industry in committee. Let us put on the table all the facts concerning the hazards of pesticide application, forest management, fire forests and the rotation of crops in our forest lands. In that way let us learn to understand the economic meaning of forestry, why it should have the attention of that committee and why we should have a Minister of Forestry.
Since I have been in this House, Mr. Speaker, forestry has been the responsibility of the Minister of the Environment. There has been an automatic conflict of interest which has never been resolved. The environment dominated employees working at any level in forestry, and I wonder how often the ADM of forestry had access to the Minister and how often he was told to go through his Deputy Minister, not to the Minister of the Environment. That happened, Mr. Speaker. I do not believe the present Minister knows that, and 1 believe it is proper to give him credit for not knowing that that situation existed in the forestry branch of his Department.
The initial action in New Brunswick for reforestation, Mr. Speaker, was taken by the Irving interests, and they deserve full marks for their leadership. They are approaching the point at which they are planting as many trees as they are harvesting. They have set the example which has stimulated Government and other forest harvesters to take more action in reforestation. But that brings us back to forest management. If
Supply
we do not manage in such a way that the reforested plots are allowed to grow productively, then that is a serious loss to both the Irving interests and the Province of New Brunswick, along with all other interested parties.
We have been told not to spray; let us manage the forests. Our forests are in such a position that if we begin management now, the earliest adequate supply of pulp we can supply is 30 to 40 years away, in some areas 50 years away, depending on the growth capability of the land. If we are looking at replenishing the supply for the saw log industry, it will be from 40 to 70 years. If we are looking at hardwood species, we are looking at 100 years. That is the kind of management program that has to be in place. But we cannot wait for reproduction of trees; we must preserve the trees we have. Therefore, not only should we have a Minister of Forestry, but we should immediately have, with or without him, a meaningful and in depth forest study in committee, and 1 challenge the Hon. Member for Northumberland-Miramichi: let us get it.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 45, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The Hon. Member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen)-National	Revenue-Designation	of British
Columbia School Board as charitable organization; the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow);-Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission-Pay TV-Sale of First Choice network, (b) Request that Minister review Commission's decision; the Hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm)-Metric Conversion-Court decision on legality of Imperial and Metric Measurement Systems-Government position, (b) Inquiry whether appeal will be launched.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
ALLOTTED DAY, S.O. 62-FORESTRY The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Riis:
That the Government respond to the emergency in the forestry sector by:
1. creating a new Forestry Ministry with the mandate to advance the Canadian forestry industry; and
[Stage Direction]
November 22, 1983
Supply
2. convening a conference at the earliest opportunity of responsible Federal
and Provincial Ministers to address the challenges presently facing the forestry sector.
James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter this debate. Before putting a bit of factual material on the record, I would like to spend a few moments touching upon what the Minister responsible for Forestry had to say. The motion before the House is really quite simple and one would have hoped it would have been supportable by the Government. It is designed to set up a new Ministry under a senior Cabinet Minister and set a date for a First Ministers' conference to deal in a much more serious way with the plight of the forest industry in Canada. It is interesting that the two Liberals other than the Minister who spoke, the Hon. Member for Sault Ste. Marie (Mr. Irwin) and the Hon. Member for Northumberland-Miramichi (Mr. Dionne) supported these two ideas. It seems the Minister has left himself somewhat out on a limb in that he seems to be the only one speaking in this debate today who is opposed to this very sensible idea.
The reasons the Minister put on the record for saying no to this proposal seem to me to be highly simplistic. He says there are no facts to support a separate Ministry, but I am going to add a few further facts to those already put on the record today by those who support the idea. The Minister went on to say that the major thing done in the three years this Government has been in power is that regional economic expansion programs have been placed under the umbrella of the Canadian Forestry Service and Environment Canada, and the $34 million has been put into a fund to top up the UIC. Well, that is the Liberal response to the largest single industry in Canada, certainly the most important in balance of trade, employment, and an industry which is now in dire trouble.
I think a few of the facts I am going to put on record today will make clear why Canadians across this country, certainly in the 300 main forestry communities, are alarmed that the federal Government is doing nothing really to help in reforestation or finding new markets, new technology and so on.
As I think most Members know, the Science Council of Canada came out with an extensive report just over a month ago. I would like to put some of that on the record because I think it is important that the Minister finds the time, since he could not be in the House today for this important debate, to sift through a few facts one night while he is mulling over the need for a Minister for forestry. I quote:
On a world scale, Canada has more than 10 percent of the world's forest resources. The total area of Canada is 9.9 million Km2. Over 40 percent of our land area is in forests which cover more than 4.4 million Km2 and contain a wood volume of about 23 billion cubic metres. About one-half is commercially productive forest land with the balance having some tree cover but not capable of sustaining significant annual wood volume production.
About 10 percent of Canada's land area, 4 percent of Canada's forest land, and 19 percent of Canada's productive forest lands are found in British Columbia. The most productive forests are also located in British Columbia as evidenced by the fact that the Province has more than 40 percent of the total wood volume in the nation.


SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF OUR FORESTS
[Stage Direction]
Canada's forests generate an industry worth $23 billion. It has more economic impact in terms of our country's trade balance than agriculture, mining, fishing and fuels combined. More than 300 communities, many in British Columbia, are solely dependent upon the forest for their existence and provision of a high standard of living for their residents.
In excess of 10 percent of the nation's employment, more than 1,000,000 jobs, is generated by forests and forest manufacturing. In British Columbia, more than 100,000 people, second only to the retail trade sector, are directly employed by the forest industry. Approximately 40 percent of the wealth of B.C. is generated through forest-based activities.
Mr. Speaker, those first few statistics should reveal to the Government side the need to have someone senior on the front benches dealing with forestry matters. We have Ministers of State for almost everything imaginable, lotteries, you name it. But for Canada's largest, most important industry we have no one effectively speaking for forestry from the Government side. The Science Council of Canada articulated a few of today's problems, which I think is also worth having on the record for Hon. Members to mull over, and I quote:
The forests of Canada are renewable but not without a degree of reinvestment of the wealth they create. Government and the public have perceived the forests of Canada as an endless resource that requires little attention to maintain productivity after harvesting. More than 800,000 hectares are harvested annually in our country but less than 25 percent are planted or seeded. The Canadian Forestry Service estimates that 25 to 50 percent of the area harvested annually fails to regenerate or reverts to non-commercial weeds. Losses due to fire, insects, disease and wind are equal to two-thirds of the annual harvest, more than 90 million cubic metres annually. This waste of productive land lying idle is a national shame and will result in serious consequences for the future and our nation's ability to employ its citizens. The results will affect all sectors of our society. The costs of dealing with the problems increase annually and will not be solved by short-term, single-program solutions.
The situation in British Columbia is somewhat better than the rest of the country but only marginally. Less than half of the forest area cut annually is replanted. The balance can be left for natural regeneration but still requires some degree of assessment or treatment to prepare for a new crop. More than 1,000,000 hectares need reforestation and B.C. is adding 20,000 to 50,000 hectares annually to the situation. Recent B.C. Ministry of Forests budget cuts will increase the problems.
I believe the Association of B.C. Professional Foresters has really hit the nail on the head. In British Columbia now we have a Social Credit Government which is interested in cuts. At the same time it is allowing forestry companies to take the profits which they have made historically from the forest industry to Indonesia, to Brazil, offshore or wherever. However, the industry is as culpable as are those right wing Governments which refuse to put money back into making sure we have good quality forests for future generations to reap.
The recommendations, Mr. Speaker, are of particular importance and I am only going to put two of them on the record. However, 1 believe they are particularly important because the foresters call them "Political Impediments to Forest Management". Point four, I believe, is worth mentioning, and I quote:
High technology, political fascination with high profile projects such as jet planes, nuclear reactors and electronics are viewed by many as the prime economic motivators for job creation in the future. We believe that the forests of our nation suffer from our efforts being applied to areas that do not result in
November 22, 1983
[Stage Direction]
wealth creation. The forests and their management can utilize our best efforts in the fields of technology.
Time is a major factor in forest management in our country. We take 40 to 100 hundred years to produce a commercially harvestable tree. In the growing period of a forest, there can be as many as 20 elected governments, all with varying priorties and demands from the public. Forest management suffers from instability in government priorities and this has been the case in Canada to date. We need a long-term commitment to management with fixed goals that aim to maintain productivity of the forest land base. We cannot continue to shift our priorities in the forestry arena.
i believe that really hits the nail on the head. Governments are always promising to do things, yet in the lifespan of a forest, as the foresters point out, there may be 20 or more Governments, all with different priorities as to what they want to do. Some want to spray. Some want to cut. Some do not want to replant. Some do not want to put any money back into forestry, and some do. It is one of the largest problems we have to face in this country. As I said before, this is only the second time in the longest sitting Parliament in the history of this country that the issue of forestry has been debated. One of the recommendations of the professional foresters is worth quoting: It reads:
The federal government estimates that the benefits of improved management would create 100,000 new jobs, increase product sales by $22 billion and increase exports by $12 billion, doubling the present values, have significant indirect benefits in supply and service industries, and create additional tax revenues of $3 billion.
One cannot help but wonder why, Mr. Speaker, for such a small investment with such large potential benefits to be accrued, not only to workers but to the economy generally, the Government continues to sit on its hands.
The report goes on, and I believe here is where we really see the results of forest policies for British Columbia and Canada generally:
European foresters have estimated that Canada could produce three to four times more wood per hectare through better practices. The Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden and Finland) are capable of cutting a volume of timber equal to all that is harvested in Canada. The production is from an area of one-third to one-quarter of Canada's productive forest land.
It is astonishing, Mr. Speaker, how backward our policies are in this country. They recommend the following:
The present status of the Canadian Forestry Service must be elevated to a departmental level with its own Minister to reflect the actual importance of forests to the nation.
1 quote that for the record, and for the Minister who thought there were no facts. 1 believe Hon. Members of this House need to know where the priorities of this Government lie in terms of forestry.
Just a few days ago 1 received a letter from the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen) extolling the virtues of Cl DA and what he is doing internationally. Many of the projects which I am going to touch on today are ones which 1 support and endorse. However, I believe Canadians from coast to coast must be alerted to what the present Government is doing-and what its Tory colleagues did while they were in government-with forestry projects internationally. From 1976 to 1983, Mr. Speaker, the federal Government has spent $430,165,000 on 102 international forestry projects. Before I comment on some of the specifics of that, Mr. Supply
Speaker, it is worth quoting from The Globe and Mail of March 24 of this year. The headline reads "Forest spending seen rising to $650 million in five years". It was the big announcement of the then Minister responsible for Forestry, now Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts), who said the following:
"The federal Government is moving into increased direct support of forest renewal,"-
"We have approval in principle to spend a minimum of $ 130-million a year by 1987," compared with $50 million in 1982, he said.
This Government, at the same time, Mr. Speaker, spent this year $18 million in Guyana for forest management and planning. Canada is spending in one country, Guyana, half of what it is spending in the whole of our country for our largest industry. In Bangladesh, for rehabilitation and upgrading of a mill, it spent $8 million; $35 million in India for a social forestry project; $25 million in Honduras, with a militarily inclined government, for "development of a new district in the Corocito region, including forest industry". The Government has spent in Honduras this year half of what it spent in all of Canada for silviculture, and so on. In Brazil, for post-graduate training in Canada to the Ph.D. level, it spent $800,000. We offer better programs in forestry training to Brazilians than we do to Canadians, whether they be from Vancouver or Prince Rupert, British Columbia, or from Fredericton, New Brunswick. There was $3.5 million spent in Peru for the establishment of a post-graduate school in forestry sciences, and a further $26 million spent in Peru for a loan for logging and sawmilling equipment. It goes on, Mr. Speaker, page after page. In most cases, perhaps, Mr. Speaker, these are very worthwhile projects, but what kind of government spends more money every single year on forestry outside of Canada than inside its own country for its single largest industry? 1 will leave it to Canadians to determine what kind of government that is. However, I think we can agree that it is a government which is not particularly bright or future-oriented.
The business section of the Vancouver Sun last week ran a headline which reads, "Foresters condemn hydro projects". I raised this today in the House with the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts) and the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Caccia). 1 pointed out, again as the B.C. Professional Association of Foresters have noted, that 20,000 permanent forestry jobs have been lost or are about to be lost in British Columbia as a result of flooding for B.C. Hydro projects. They go on to point out that some 834,000 hectares of land are flooded, are reserved for flooding, or for power lines and so on.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is worth noting that the last speaker was from New Brunswick. Maritimers know that Prince Edward Island covers only 565,000 square kilometers. We have a situation in British Columbia where we are losing our very best forest land. We are damaging our salmon and fisheries resources. We are damaging our tourism because all the dams have draw-down areas so at certain times of the year the banks of these man-made lakes are muddy and there is no
[Stage Direction]
November 22, 1983
Supply
tourism potential. They were not properly logged. Mr. Speaker, the association concludes by saying:
The Association believes alternatives to large-scale projects exist-such as co-generation of power from industrial processes and waste products. Political will is required to encourage the development of these resources.
The Association's brief was endorsed by a coalition of resource industries, user groups including the B.C. Federation of Agriculture, B.C. Forest Foundation, B.C. Wildlife Federation, the Fisheries Association of B.C., the B.C. Institute of Agrologists, the Canadian Institute of Forestry, Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is pretty clear that when we are talking about forestry matters it goes far beyond what one might think. The companies in this country in many cases have gone in and ripped off the resource. They have gone in and cut it, made the biggest boom profit that they can and then they have taken off with the profits and left a heritage, as is pointed out by the Professional Foresters Association, of close to half the land that is logged being of no value to future generations in terms of logging or wildlife values or fishery values and so on.
The Minister of the Environment is saying no to the proposal for a new Ministry. This famous Royal commission with the $800 a day man travelling around does not agree obviously with the Liberal Cabinet. We read this:

[Stage Direction]
Royal commission chairman Donald Macdonald dropped his first hint Thursday about what he will recommend to the federal Government-higher priority for the forest industry.
The article goes on to say that it is about time the federal Government did something about it.
Some of the speakers today touched on the fact that provincial Governments are at least partly responsible for the devastation that we see now in the forest sector. In British Columbia we now recognize that there is what is called a 20 year falldown effect. There simply are not enough trees to continue at today's level of harvest and mill production. We cannot continue to cut at today's rate 20 years from now. Where are the logs going? What are the Tories' good friends in Victoria, Bill Bennett and the Socreds, doing with trees during this downturn in the marketability of pulp and of sawn wood? Mr. Speaker, any day you can take almost any newspaper in British Columbia and see lists of logs for sale, application no. 1914, application for hemlock spruce pulp, Metropolitan Trading, E.R. Probyn Limited, Crown Zellerbach, Canadian Overseas Log, and so on. The Socred proposal is simply to go in and cut the logs and send them overseas, let them be milled somewhere else and let the jobs occur in another country. They consider that to be good business. Let us see what the effect of those kinds of log exports are. I quote from a report run just a little while ago. It reads:
Log exports alone are going to cause a shortfall of 30,000 jobs-
Those are permanent jobs, Mr. Speaker:
-by the year 2000.
The IWA in British Columbia was protesting the export of those logs. Those are the same workers who would be affected by slowing down the cutting of trees for that kind of processing.
Mr. Speaker, Harrowsmith recently ran an editorial which 1 think is worth reflecting on for a moment in the House in terms of whether or not this House is actually going to do something, get a senior Ministry, get a First Ministers' conference together and actually get on with the job of getting the forest sector back on its feet.
Reflecting on the report of the Science Council of Canada, which apparently the Liberals have no intention of pursuing, they say the following:
One-eighth of Canada's productive forest area has deteriorated to the point where huge tracts lie devastated, unable to regenerate a merchantable crop within the next 60 to 80 years. Each year, some 200,000 to 400,000 hectares of valuable forest are being added to this shameful waste.
Those are lands, Mr. Speaker, that are now lying totally idle in terms of the capacity for them to be exploited, whether for pulp marketability or for saw logs:
Annually, from coast to coast, some 350 million tree seedlings are planted in Canada. By contrast, Sweden, which is roughly the size of Alberta, plants 400 million seedlings. Some 300 Canadian communities are primarily dependent on logging and timber processing for their livelihood ... Moreover, as each job in the woods and mills is associated with one additional job locally and a second elsewhere in the national economy, a decline in the forest industries will have a pervasive effect on the economy as a whole-
Mr. Speaker, that is precisely what we are seeing now. The Minister of Employment and Immigration sent me a letter saying I should not worry about getting additional funding from the federal Government because unemployment in the forest sector in Skeena and the northwest of British Columbia is now only 50 per cent of peak employment levels. Well, la-di-da! I simply cannot sympathize with a Government that takes that kind of approach, not only to the individuals affected but to an industry of such great consequence to the country. Canada's forests generate over $1 billion in tax revenues for the federal Government, more than the earnings from fishing, mining, fuels and agriculture combined. What is the Government spending? I think this is what Canadians and workers in the industry need to know. Those in the media need to know this so they can start writing some appropriately sharply pointed editorials about the lackadaisical attitude of the present Government.
Mr. Speaker, I quote from a speech given by Les Reed who was the Assistant Deputy Minister and who brought a ray of hope and sunlight into the Canadian Forest Service of this country. Unfortunately he has now resigned, one can only assume because of the lack of action on the Government side. He said the following:
Provincial, federal, and industry spending for silviculture in 1979 was estimated to be about $178 million. Estimated public revenue generated by the forest industry for 1979 was over $3 billion. Unfortunately, only 5 cents of each dollar of revenue generated to governments is put back through forest renewal.
November 22, 1983
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Speaker, I think that says it all. The Government, in the largest single wealth producing sector of this country, is only prepared to put back 5 per cent. I think that is shameful. One final point just to sum it up, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member's time has expired, unfortunately.


James Ross Fulton: Just one more point.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Does the Hon. Member have unanimous consent of the House to continue his remarks?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: There appears to be unanimous consent.


James Ross Fulton: Thank you Mr. Speaker. It is a very short point and I will be very quick, pointing out that Canada now imports telephone poles from Finland and railway ties from Malaysia. The quotation of Sir John A. MacDonald of June 22, 1871 is appropriate with which to end my speech:
The sight of the immense masses of timber passing my window every morning constantly suggests to my mind the absolute necessity there is for looking into the future of this great trade. We are recklessly destroying the timber of Canada, and there is scarcely a possibility of replacing it.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Are there Hon. Members rising to ask questions of the Hon. Member who has just spoken?


Dave Nickerson: 1 have a question for the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton), Mr. Speaker. He proposes a very ambitious program, one which in general terms, I am sure, most Members of the House could support to some degree. He would like to see further processing of logs in Canada. He would like to see a good deal more reforestation and attention given to forest lands. If these programs were to be implemented it would undoubtedly be pretty expensive. Has the Member given any attention to how these programs might be financed? Would he expect additional taxation on the forest industry so that Governments could then carry out these programs? Would he further worsen the deficit by spending existing Government revenues without increasing taxation in any way? What would be his approach to the financing of these ambitious programs?


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to respond to that. The figures that I put on the record make it quite clear. Of the $3 billion in direct revenue taxation that the Provinces, the Territories and the federal Government are bringing in, only 5 per cent is right now going back into any kind of forestry programs. I am talking here about university level programs relating to silviculture, reforestation, investigation into pesticides and so on. The Government is putting in less than 5 per cent. That revenue is already being brought in so that right now there is $3 billion that I see as being very readily earmarked without changing the level of taxation of anyone in this country, including that of the industry. That money should be first applied to the programs.
Supply


Mr. Waddell:: Mr. Speaker, I come from an urban area, as most Members of the House now do, where we have cut down our trees. We know about the forests from what we see from the plane or the train. We also know about them from Canadian literature and the music of singers such as Gordon Lightfoot and Bruce Cockburn who write about the wilderness.
I think people from urban areas are aware of our forests.
I know that the Member is perhaps the only Member in the House who actually lives in a log cabin in Tlell, British Columbia. What kinds of jobs are available in the forest industry for urban people if, in fact, the Government did what the Hon. Member suggested, which is to undertake, as also suggested by the Member for Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson), an ambitious program of upgrading the forest industry in this country? What kinds of jobs could people in my riding expect to get from this industry that perhaps they are not getting already?


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, the studies that have been completed both by the Association of the British Columbia Professional Foresters and the Science Council of Canada indicate that for every one job there is in the bush, which includes skidder operators, buckers, fallers and people involved in silviculture, road construction, pulp mills and saw mills, which jobs are in rural Canada and mostly in northern Canada and British Columbia, there are two spin-off jobs as a result of the nature of the forest industry. In some Provinces it is 1.7, but across Canada it is roughly two.
When 1 am talking about a major ambitious program in terms of forestry, moving at least that initial $3 billion into the forest sector and silviculture in order to get those backlogged lands into a growth process, there is an indirect spin-off of two jobs for everyone whether in Vancouver-Kingsway, Edmonton, Regina or anywhere in the country. I think that is the important point that needs to be made to people in urban areas. It is the urban lethargy in this country that is creating the devastation in rural areas.
An example of that is the new proposal in British Columbia, in order to try to get the industry on its feet again, to cut the environmental ease strips. They are the two chain areas along the edges of streams, lakes and rivers in British Columbia which have been put there for good, sound, scientific and biological reasons in order to protect the fish and enhance the wildlife, including moose, deer and bears. Those are now being proposed to be cut as a quick shot injection into the cash flow of the forest companies in British Columbia. Not only is it chaos, it is fiscally, scientifically and biologically criminal to be involved in those kinds of activities, especially when we see the barrenness that already exists in British Columbia.
One can only conclude that the message is not being given by Members of the House, politicians in the country and the media to urban Canadians that it is important to help the forest industry. It is important for the House to take it more seriously. This is only the second time in four years that this vital issue has been debated. As my colleague pointed out, I
29100

November 22, 1983
Supply
built my own home out of logs in my own constituency. 1 cut the logs, peeled them and built the dwelling myself. 1 split the shakes. It is beautiful to work with wood and to see the life systems that live within the forest.
As 1 said earlier, Sir John A. Macdonald noticed 112 years ago what was happening to the forests of this country. Nothing has been done for more than a century but, hopefully, urban Canadians will wake up and realize that there is a great future in spending wealth to create more wealth in this sector of our economy.


Mr. Friesen:: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) knows that between Juskatla and Charlotte City in his riding, MacMillan Bloedel is engaging in extensive tree farming and working with hydrids to shorten the growing time for trees and enhance productivity. Is he satisfied with the work that MacMillan Bloedel is doing in his riding?


James Ross Fulton: Mr. Speaker, certainly some of the projects and programs that MacMillan Bloedel and other companies are involved in are good. However, the essential problem 1 see with corporations such as MacMillan Bloedel is that they are taking the lion's share of cash flow and available capital to Brazil, Indonesia and other areas of the world at a time when one can fly over the Queen Charlottes and see huge areas where there is no regeneration of any kind. What happens when one cuts some of the very ancient forests, which in some cases are 800 to 1,000 years old with trees 20 feet across the butt, is that when the level of precipitation is high the water level comes up and the small trees simply cannot get a good roothold until the stumps actually rot. This means that 40 years from now small seedlings begin to grow on the stumps of the forests cut down around the time of World War II when spruce was cut from the Queen Charlottes for small Mosquito bombers that Canadian airmen flew overseas.
It is a situation in which MacMillan Bloedel is doing something, but I suggest one would be hard pressed to find many knowledgeable foresters in British Columbia who believe that there is a single company in British Columbia which is doing what it should, which is to take a long-term approach to the forest lands which have been tenured to them not simply on behalf of our generation but of many generations to come.


Mr. Pierre  Gimai@: Mr. Speaker, in my riding, the most important industry is the forest industry. In Quebec, and especially in the Saguenay, Lac-Saint-Jean, Abitibi, and Temiscamingue areas, the forest industry, including pulp and paper and sawmills, is the main source of income.
I am delighted that the Member for Kamlops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) decided to present a motion dealing specifically with the forestry industry.


An Hon. Member:: Too bad he could not stay in the House!


Mr. Pierre  Gimai@: It is too bad he could not stay in the House to hear the rest of the debate, including speeches by his own colleagues from British Columbia who spoke to the motion and asked questions, all of which is of considerable interest to them, to him and to all the people of the Province of British Columbia, which, I must admit, made a tremendous impression on me when I was there, especially the trees which are fantastic. I think this marvelous wood from British Columbia is one of our most beautiful resources, and one that is so often used in Canadian artifacts and in decorating our own homes, and as for the New Democratic Party, as I was saying, I am happy to note its interest in the forest industry.
1 admit I am a little more surprised at the position taken by the Progressive Conservative Party, because I was told that this morning, the Progressive Conservative Party's House Leader did not seem to be interested in having the motion considered today. Furthermore it seems that yesterday, a motion on resources which was also presented by the Official Opposition got only three paragraphs on forestry resources, and the same Member who was responsible for those three short paragraphs on forestry came back today to speak again to the same subject, owing, I believe, to a definite lack of interest on the part of the Official Opposition with respect to the forest industry. I know that their new Leader comes from one of the mining regions of our country, which is quite all right, but this may have prevented him from being equally familiar with the forest industry, which is the largest industry in Canada, if we realize that $20 billion are involved each year in this industry. I think the Official Opposition would do well to have some of its Members specialize in this area, and I know some of my colleagues who have been involved in the construction industry are already well aware of the importance of the forest industry for our country. I was rather surprised that yesterday, the Opposition did not give more consideration to the forest industry as a resource and that today, it preferred to delay the debate on this extremely important issue.
Personally, I shall, if I may, get back to what was said by the previous speaker, the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) in British Columbia, when he referred to the $48 million the Canadian Government was spending each year on the forest industry. The Hon. Member forgot a host of other Departments that are now involved in the forest industry. For instance, in the past two years, the Department of Employment and Immigration, especially under the provisions of Section 38, has been playing a major role in cleaning up our forests, collecting organic matter on the forest floor, planting trees, developing access roads, improving land and whatever else is involved around sawmills and pulp and paper mills, while we must not forget that for years, all on-site or on the job training in the forest industry has largely been paid, for periods of between six months and one year, by the federal Department of Employment and Immigration. These policies
November 22, 1983

are not given a lot of publicity by the Government, but they are effective policies that affect a great many people.
In my riding, for instance, the sawmill at l'Ascension belongs to Abitibi Price, which started the mill a few years ago. The mill's several hundred employees were trained with the help of federal funds made available to the company by the Department of Employment and Immigration. The same is true of other facilities belonging to the same company at Saint-David-de-Falardeau. The same also applies to another company for which the Canadian Government has just earmarked $1 million to modernize facilties at Saint-Fulgence and Sainte-Rose, in another part of my riding, which belong to Consolidated Bathurst, and the same may be said for many other sawmills and companies involved in the forest industry, whether they are manufacturing particle board or pulp and paper, where Government involvement has taken place in ways other than through direct funding by the Department of the Environment.
And when people accuse . . . Earlier, I heard the Member of the Official Opposition accuse the Department of the Environment of playing a negative role in the development of the forest industry, and attribute this negative attitude to the Government itself. I think it is unfortunate the Hon. Member should have such a limited view of what is being done by the Department of the Environment. In fact, this Department is trying to meet one of its increasingly important responsibilities, which is perceived as such by all Canadians and especially our youth, for protecting the Canadian environment and doing so in conjunction with the economic development of our country. 1 think these objectives have been achieved. There has been a kind of specialization so that the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, created in 1968, has tended to be more often involved in the financial side of developing the forest industry, including pulp and paper, the lumber industry and related activities. Why? Because the majority of these industries are located in resource areas. Because until the middle of the 1960s, these were areas whose economic development had been somewhat neglected. The resources were taken out, and I am reminded here of a quote by the Hon. Member for Skeena of what Sir John A. Macdonald said several decades ago, the resources were taken out and that was it.
DREE, however, started developing local industries that would use these resources, in order to create employment in areas where this was a tremendous problem for young people, and so forth. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent by DREE on converting sawmills to making particle board in Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean, Abitibi, Northern Ontario and all the Western Provinces, including British Columbia, and on all kinds of industrial development, plus various infrastructure projects. In fact, even if the DREE Act prevented the Department from getting involved in the infrastructure area through the Regional Development Act, DREE did so in 1978 through
Supply
agreements signed with the Provinces. The agreements dealt with forest development, forest access and developing forest regeneration. And in that respect, in the Province of Quebec alone, DREE contributed $190 million to forest development over the last five years. This is not to mention certain special agreements that led to the development of plants, such as the Donohue-Normick facilities in Amos and the Donohue plant in Saint-Felicien. These plants produce either pulp alone or pulp and paper. Without that investment by DREE, it is unfortunate to say that this probably would never have been accomplished. The best proof of this is the Saint-Felicien case where, after a 12-year wait, the project finally could proceed when DREE said: "Yes, we will provide the $30 million". And I am proud to mention this because at the time I was Executive Assistant of the Minister who signed that agreement with the Province of Quebec. 1 can certify that this agreement has been instrumental in creating a number of industries, in achieving a rationalization of the entire forest industry in a large section of my constituency of Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean, and the consolidation of a number of mills and, to wit, in the maintaining of many very important jobs.
Therefore, to blame the Canadian Government for not discharging its responsibility in the area of forestry is in my view, quite misleading, because if Environment Canada did protect the environment as it is required to do, the other departments, whether Industry, Trade and Commerce, or CIDA the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Fulton) a short while ago drew a fantastic picture of the extent to which the Canadian Government is involved in the development of forestry. All the examples he gave show that in this country, we have the best qualified people in matters relating to forestry and also in the area of servicing the forest industry. Those people who went ahead and built sawmills, pulp and paper mills-they are still doing it all over the world-are considered to be the best engineering firms, the best manufacturers of sawmill equipment, the best builders of pulp and paper mill facilities. This is why they are sought after, because in that area of federal jurisdiction, the Government has done what was required for us to become the most qualified people in the world and so we are fortunately, from whatever province we are. Because I can say, for instance, that the engineering firms which built a sawmill, rather a pulp and paper mill in my area were from British Columbia. The Hon. Member for Skeena forgot to mention that fact, which tells a lot about the people of British Columbia; that small detail is being ignored.
There are proposals in the air. Indeed, my colleagues from Abitibi and Saguenay-Lac Saint Jean, the Hon. Member for Chicoutimi (Mr. Dionne), the Hon. Member for Jonquiere (Mr. Marceau), the Hon. Member for Roberval (Mrs. Beau-champ-Niquet), the Hon. Member for Abitibi (Mr. Gingras) and the Hon. Member for Temiscamingue (Mr. Tousignant), and I did not simply wait for the Government to act, Mr. Speaker, this last year. You see this bulging file? It has to do

November 22, 1983
Supply
with a proposal for a possible half-a-billon plus investment, allocating to each of our six constituencies whatever can be done by the Canadian Government over the next five years in the area of forestry. If we had been satisfied to sit and weep as did the NDP Members, we would never had gotten this paper. What we did was to pack our bags and go round to see our constituents. We met with companies, we sent them information about what the Government planned to do, we asked for their advice and for some answers, and we worked with them to put together an integrated forest development program.
Today, we know that what the Canadian Government can do unilaterally will be done in our region because we cared and did our job fully aware that 65 per cent of the lumber produced in Quebec came from our region; this means 2,030,000 fbm a year, Mr. Speaker. We also knew that 25 per cent of the pulp and paper industry is located in our region. We were aware of the billions of dollars this meant for our people. We did our homework and made some recommendations, some of which have already been implemented, such as asking the Government to become directly involved in the private industry through programs such as Canada Works, and to spend so many dollars per man-week both for non-profit corporations and the private sector.
The recommendations which came from our caucus and ourselves as representatives of our constituents have been implemented. What we did, Mr. Speaker, was to understand that we must represent those who sent us here. In this context, far from being satisfied to simply make speeches, we went to see these people. We asked them for their opinions and wishes and we worked a year and a half at preparing a paper. We then gave this paper to the Government which now takes this material into account as the development takes place, because we are involved.
This is what the Hon. Member for Skeena and his colleagues should do. The same is true for the Progressive Conservative members. Unfortunately, as 1 have already said, it is a well-known fact that they show a lack of interest in forestry. It is not their fault. Their constituencies probably have mostly oil and mineral resources or else fishing resources, and so on, but it is a fact that the whole country benefits from our forest industry. It is extremely important that we can now sit down and express our views as Members of Parliament not only orally, but also by writing to our Government.
This leads me to mention another aberration which came to my mind earlier when 1 was listening to the Member of the Official Opposition, namely the creation of a new Federal Department of Forestry. I am not automatically opposed to the creation of such a ministry. Constitutionally, Mr. Speaker, forestry comes under provincial jurisdiction, and the way my colleague was talking a few moments ago, I got the impression that the provinces had disappeared and did not even fit in the
picture. 1 think that the existing structures enable us to do everything we can to improve the situation, fully develop our forests and help our forest industry pick up steam, but perhaps a federal or interprovincial body might be required to coordinate everything. That may be the shortcoming 1 can notice. Given that context, it is not up to the Canadian Government or any Member of Parliament to twist the arms of the provinces. They own their resources, they can decide who will have cutting rights, they have their own logging operations and forestry development is their responsibility. The federal Government has no business telling them what to do. Even if I, Pierre Gimaiel, wanted to pass myself off as an expert in British Columbia forestry, 1 would not fool anyone because a tree in British Columbia is 25 times bigger than a tree in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, because the entrance of a British Columbia sawmill must be huge, a lot more so than the entrance of a Lac-Saint-Jean sawmill. We must keep in mind the technical constraints, the different climates, and the fact that Canada is a continent bordering on two oceans. That being said, I think it would be an aberration as well as a constitutional encroachment to create a new federal forestry ministry.
I would much rather leave things as they are-we have a Department of Environment which indues the Forestry Service. That service can play a larger role, as it has been doing for two years in cooperation with various federal Departments to coordinate the activities of Manpower and Immigration and Industry, Trade and Commerce, or, if you will, regional and industrial development in forestry and silviculture. There is nothing to stop us, provided we respect the various jurisdictions.
It would be unfortunate if we went to war over our forests. We have had the experience of this department which the Government of Canada had set up to deal with urban affairs, which had to be abandoned because of its overlapping with provincial organizations here there and everywhere.
I am surprised at the attitude of the Official Opposition, especially as this Government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past few years under various agreements with the provinces. The more so because most premiers except the creditist premier of British Columbia and the PQ premier of Quebec, are representatives of each of the parties in this House. Therefore it is easy for Hon. Members of both the Official and NDP opposition to have their say about their parties policies in their own provinces. Moreover, 1 suggest that in this area the Government of Canada should let the various provinces find their own solutions to their particular problems. What it should do is allow them to rely on the huge resources of the Canadian Government. That is what our job is all about. We are not supposed for instance to force a solution devised here in Canada, upon the Government of British Columbia but rather to urge the people, as I have done myself in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area, to come to Ottawa and
November 22, 1983

tell us of their requirements so that we may negociate with their province the setting up of an upgrading system for our forests.
What is needed is imagination and a new department. I have nothing against that. It means Liberals would have one more minister possibly for one hundred years more. Apparently, Liberals are always heading the Government in this country. Perhaps that is a good thing. Such a department would provide new political leverage, but for the sake of efficiency, 1 feel that the existing system is better.
While I am on my feet, I shall deal with an important issue. As Hon. Members know, we are wasting our forests. What I mean is that we should have encouraged recycling, although some provinces have already taken the initiative. Thirty per cent of our forest resources could be spared by merely recycling the paper we use. Never or almost never do we hear anything about that. This was also mentioned in that document, Mr. Speaker. It is something we have also dealt with, because in our own areas, more and more emphasis is put on the subject of recycling, we see more and more youngsters salvaging used paper, and sending it to feed pulpmills to be processed into an excellent grade of paper. This is another area in which the Canadian Government has shown leadership.
Somebody was asking me: Why those brown paper envelopes? Because it is impossible to make white envelopes from recycled paper. It is easy for a Government to say: We are going to use kraft paper envelopes instead of white ones. This is what is being done. Ninety per cent of the time, correspondence from the Canadian Government is forwarded in kraft paper envelopes to help the recycling industry. Such initiatives are taken by the Canadian Government without any fanfare, and should be imitated by others. The Provinces should follow the lead. Hon. Members here should be aware of that. Our environment problem is very much the same as the problem facing the forest industry.
Earlier, one Hon. Member opposed the two. It amounts to almost the same problem. If sulphur escapes through our chimneys when we burn wood, it is because it is not reclaimed. The sulphur goes up through the chimney. The same thing happens in our forest industry. If we waste so much of our forest products, it is because once the fibres have been used, they are thrown away.
Mr. Speaker, I will conclude by stating that forestry in my constituency of Lac-Saint-Jean is a major industry. We have nine sawmills. As a Member of Parliament, I took the liberty of outlining here what was needed to help my people develop that industry, and I would urge Hon. Members to do the same. Let us go beyond speeches, let us help the Government develop good policies by rolling up our sleeves and working with the people in our constituencies.


Mr. John A. MacDougail (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, as a Member of Parliament from northern Ontario, I realize the
Supply
great importance of the Canadian forest industry to the economy of the towns and villages in my riding of Timiskaming. Since one in ten working Canadians are directly or indirectly employed in the forest industry, it is very important to my riding.
I would like to take a moment to discuss how directly forestry is involved in the riding of Timiskaming. Cutters, timberjack operators, truck drivers, sawfilers, boardwalk workers, owners of saw mills and waferboard plants are related directly to the forest industry. I could go further and deal with the schools, hospitals and municipalities in northern Ontario; they are directly or indirectly involved in that industry. It has been estimated by the federal Government that 70 per cent of the manufacturing labour force in northern Ontario is employed directly or indirectly in forestry-related work.
I do not want to bog down the debate with reams of facts and figures, however the Hon. Member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle) indicated yesterday and in his excellent report entitled, "The Green Ghetto", that the forestry industry is in serious difficulty with respect to its place and position on the world stage. Our nation's traditional competitors, the United States, Finland, Sweden and Norway, are now stepping up their efforts to increase pulp and paper export sales. This, coupled with new international competitors such as Brazil, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa, to name a few, are in positions to undermine the entire Canadian forest industry. Cheaper labour conditions in many of these countries, together with greater Government subsidies, allow these countries to enter the world market as very formidable opponents for Canada to compete against.
The Canadian Pulp and Paper Association indicated in one of its recent reports:
Competition will continue to be tough, and the low-cost producers, whoever and wherever they are in the world, will be the winners.
The importance of the Canadian forest industry was recognized by the late Right Hon. John Diefenbaker when, in 1960, his Government, with unanimous support, created the new Ministry of forestry. Mr. Diefenbaker had the foresight and vision to realize the importance of lumbering and its related industries back in 1960. Today our Party is still on record as favouring the establishment of a Ministry of Forestry.
1 am a Member who represents a riding where another primary resource plays an important role, namely, mining. Like the Canadian forestry industry, mining employs several hundreds of thousands of people in direct and indirect jobs. It adds significantly to the GNP of the nation, last year totalling over 4 per cent. However, another similarity mining has with forestry is the lack of concern and attention that the Government has shown to this extremely important sector of the Canadian economy. Like the forest industry, the mining industry has no one in the federal Cabinet to represent exclusively the concerns and interests of those associated with the mining industry. This week represents the second month that the mining industry has not had a voice in Cabinet. However, more astonishing is that the federal Cabinet has not had a

November 22, 1983
Supply
separate Ministry of Forestry since the 1960s when Mr. Die-fenbaker proposed that one be established.
I was not so much shocked as 1 was amused when the Minister responsible for the Canadian Forestry Service, the Minister of the Environment (Mr. Caccia), said in the House today that he did not think it was necessary to create more paperwork and another Department to take care of the forest sector of our economy. This statement comes from a Minister who represents the same Government that forced Canagrex on the Canadian agricultural scene. This is the same Government that created Petro-Canada and created the Canadian Development Investment Corporation. With all of this bureaucracy, it is a wonder we have not run out of trees to produce all the paper required for the paperwork this Government has thrust upon the Canadian people.
The establishment of a separate and distinct Ministry of Forestry is needed in this country. At present, as the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) pointed out in an earlier debate, the jurisdiction for Canadian forestry policy is now handled by an Assistant Deputy Minister. Our number one industry in Canada does not even rank Deputy Minister status.
The forest industry is in deep trouble for a number of reasons. World-wide competition has hurt us, together with the fact that the federal Government has not paid enough attention to the industry. The Science Council of Canada's recent report on the state of Canada's threatened forests is frightening, to say the least. It is frightening because if decisive action is not taken jointly by Government and business, our forestry industry will meet the same fate as the dinosaur and the dodo bird. These species did not respond to the challenge of change in order to survive and they became extinct.
Today, we cut about one million hectares of forest each year. At least one-third of that amount is not sufficiently restocked, and today we find about 12 per cent of our forest land in this sad state. What can be done about this horrendous situation? According to a survey carried out with 34 Canadian pulp and paper companies in 1980-81, of every dollar earned by this industry, only ten cents on the dollar goes into dividends. Not surprising, an additional ten cents from every dollar goes to Government fees and taxes. It is therefore of the utmost importance for Governments at all levels to realize that taxing the industry over and over again will mean that more and more money will not be put back in reforestation, it will not be re-invested to update equipment in order to remain at the same level of competition with the United States and the Nordic countries.
In conclusion, a several pronged approach is needed to help the forest industry grow, expand and develop. Reforestation and forest management are vital aspects that have been neglected far too long. Neglecting them any further will simply mean that future generations will never be able to debate this subject again because the forestry industry, if neglected now, will not be around tomorrow for debate.
The first point 1 would like to make is this. Year in and year out we have a tendency to look at reforestation. The problem that we run into each year is this. At the time we are dealing with reforestation, whether it be with the private sector or the provincial Ministers, the tubelings and the trees and the hiring of individuals each spring must be looked at. We have a problem when we start off. We are hiring inexperienced people. In doing so, we have the problem of thousands and thousands of trees being destroyed. There is not a proper understanding of the planting of trees. I have been in touch with the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts) asking him to give thought to having a program instituted each spring for those who will be employed in the industry. Those who do not have the good fortune to be fully employed look for this seasonal employment. There should be a training program at the beginning of each season. In this way, we will have proper soil and planting. This would not only save the industry, but would save the taxpayer thousands and thousands of dollars. There should be a one-week program implemented.
Second, in order to co-ordinate the efforts of all provincial Governments and the aspects of the forestry industry that are a federal responsibility, a new Ministry of Forestry is needed. For an industry to be ignored as much as is forestry is truly a shame on the part of the Government. Within the Ministry of the Province of Ontario, one that 1 can maybe relate to better than others, thousands and thousands of cords of wood are left in the bush to rot each year. I urge all Members of Parliament, particularly those from Ontario, to give serious consideration to this.
We look at saving energy. Why not have a program whereby individuals can go into the bush and cut the tops of the trees that are left and the remaining cords of wood? This can be brought into the communities and sold or given to senior citizens and others who cannot afford to purchase wood for fuel. We have thousands of cords of wood not only in Ontario but in other parts of Canada that are not being used and are being left to rot. This is something that should be looked at.
Northern Ontario, which has always had as its major economic base primary industries such as forestry and mining, will not survive if the forestry industry is allowed to rot like a decaying tree. If the Government is not willing to examine the problems that are plaguing the forest industry now, we may soon find ourselves in very serious trouble.
The over 300,000 men and women across Canada in the forest industry join with me in urging the Government to make this all important sector of our national way of life a priority once and for all. I know there are others who want to speak. I appreciate the opportunity of being able to speak on this very important subject.


Jacques Raymond (Ray) Chénier: Mr. Speaker, I know that the Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo) would like to say a few words. I will divide the time in such a way that he has that opportunity.
November 22, 1983

Timmins-Chapleau in northern Ontario is really the microcosm of the forestry sector of Canada. We have in our area lumber mills, wafer board mills, pressed wood mills, pulp and paper mills and finally, I am sorry to say, we also have in our forestry sector wastage in the same way that there is in the rest of the country. When a person walks through the forests in northern Ontario, it is almost shameful for that person to see whole timber tracts, hundreds and thousands of hectares, wasting in the bush. It is a shame for that person to see mature trees that are standing ready to fall because they are rotting. Why is this so? Because at the turn of the century when the pulp and paper companies moved into the area, they were given large tracts of land. In those days, it was not a matter of cutting timber but a matter of mining the forests. There was no thought given at that time to reforestation, regeneration or forest management. It was a matter of using the forests as if they were a renewable resource.
What do we see in northern Ontario today, Mr. Speaker? We see that these large tracts are dying. In other areas, we see that clearcutting has taken place with no replacement planting, and we see weeds and shrubs growing in place of the forests. That is why I believe the federal Government does have a role to play but not necessarily the role as described by the Hon. Member for Timiskaming (Mr. MacDougall). He feels that the Government should do all of the work. I think he should speak to the Leader of his Party and then to officials of the Province of Ontario who have been collecting royalties on the timber lands of the Province for over a century and have not put one cent back, except perhaps in the last two or three years. Let him talk to that Government which has done nothing for the forests of Ontario.
We in the federal Government do collect income tax from the people who work in the lumber industry. We collect taxes from the wood producers. I believe that some of that money which has been going back to the lumber industry and to the forestry sector must continue to be paid to the federal Government, and perhaps the amount should be increased. However, I think it is not a one-sided affair. We will have to work with the provincial Governments and see that they put some of their royalties into regeneration, reforestation and management of the forests of Ontario.
I have looked at an agreement we made with the Province a few years ago. We wanted to turn to reforestation and regeneration, but officials from the Ontario provincial Government said: "No, no, we want roads for access to resources". We gave them roads. What did they do with those roads? Were they used for reforestation or regeneration? No. The roads were used to play their own political games with the mining companies and with certain privileged timber tract owners, and we have really not benefited from that.
I believe we must try to co-operate with the provincial Government, but we also must do some of the things we want to do. I can think, for example, of some of the things that need to be done in the transport sector of the forest industry. There
Supply
is a port in my riding, the Port of Michipicoten. If that port were to be developed, we could transport our lumber, pulp and chips out of my riding and out of the riding of the Hon. Member for Timiskaming at probably half the money we are spending now. This is what I hope the federal Government will spend its money on. I hope it will spend money not necessarily on doing what the Province of Ontario wants it to do but on what the lumber and paper producers want it to do. As well, another sector in which the Government could be of some assistance is the private forest owners in reforestation. If it is possible, I would rather put our federal money directly into programs such as those.
We must immediately begin very intensive negotiations between the Canadian Government, the provincial Governments and the producers in order to achieve a more efficient use of our forests. I have seen logs coming into certain paper mills which are 60 centimetres, 70 centimetres, 80 centimetres in diameter. These logs were to be made into pulp and paper while, in the cities of Timmins, Chapleau and Wawa, 1 have seen wood that is 15 centimetres in diameter being cut into studs. What a waste that is, Mr. Speaker. We must have an efficient approach to the use of the logs across northern Ontario. 1 believe that this is where research and development facilities can get involved, provided the Provinces wish to co-operate. We must get involved in the use of the other kinds of wood that we have in our forests. Right now we are using poplar for waferboard, but what about all of the white spruce that dies the moment the foresters come? The use of those trees must be developed.
What about tree tops? The Hon. Member mentioned that we could use tree tops as firewood. When a forest in northern Ontario is clearcut, 40 per cent of the wood remains on the floor of that forest. 1 think we can make better use of that wood than firewood. I think we need to have portable chippers and portable mills so that that wood can be turned into something that is productive.
The Government of Canada has done more than its share regarding fire losses. We were criticized by those dear Conservative provincial Governments across the country whose officials said: "Why is the Government trying to shove those CL-215's down our throats?" We were not trying to shove those planes down their throats. We were trying to encourage them to protect their own forest by telling them that we would buy one plane for every plane they bought.


Dave Nickerson: You were trying to bail out Canadair, that's what you were trying to do.


Jacques Raymond (Ray) Chénier: The Hon. Member says that we were trying to bail out Canadair. Maybe that is true, but does he have something to say about the Government trying to fight forest fires in his area? He is a person who comes from the Northwest Territories where there are fires every summer. He has been crying in the House that he does not get protection. We give him the planes to protect his forests, and he says that we did so because we wanted to protect Canadair. He would probably prefer us to buy an airplane from the United States

November 22, 1983
Supply
or from Poland or from somewhere else but if it is made in Canada, we should not buy it. What a true Canadian. 1 love him. He is a great Canadian.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, a number of Hon. Members have suggested that we need a Forestry Ministry. I am not really against that concept, but on the other hand, I believe we are now starting to move in a very positive direction. The present Minister is totally committed to forestry. 1 think that if the Official Opposition and the other Opposition get together and work closely with the Minister, we can really encourage the development of programs with the Provinces, programs north of sixty and follow-up conferences such as the one that was held in September of this year. In that way, I think the forest industry of Canada will remain a viable industry and will not continue in the direction it appears to be going in now. If it does in my riding and, I am sure, in the riding of the Hon. Member for Timiskaming and the riding of the Hon. Member for Cochrane-Superior (Mr. Penner), there will no longer be any more wood to cut 20 years from now. Ten years from now, Abitibi in northwestern Quebec will begin to close some of its lumber mills.
That is a shame, Mr. Speaker, and 1 will not accept total responsibility for it at the federal level. I think we have done our share and we have done more than our share. However, I think we must do more again in order to encourage the Provincial Governments to return to the forests some of the money they receive from the forestry sector, money they throw into the general fund to use for the little political games that they have played over the last 40 years.


Stanley J. Hovdebo: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise and speak to this motion which calls for the Government to respond to the emergency in the forestry sector. The Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) had two suggestions to make which were aimed at involving the Government a little further in the forest industry of the country.
I would like to begin, Mr. Speaker, by reacting to the speech of the Hon. Member who just spoke. In a normal year, the Governments in Canada collect $3 billion in taxes. Half of that amount is collected by the federal Government. Only 25 per cent of that amount, and in most years even less than that, is put back into the forest industry. Of this amount, about half goes to the federal Government and half to the Provinces. However, spending on forest renewal is 20 per cent by the federal Government and 80 per cent by the Provinces. So it is the federal Government which needs to look at how it is protecting and helping to regenerate our forests, which is really the biggest issue as far as we are concerned here.
I come from an area with a pulp mill, a great number of saw-mills, a plywood factory and a number of businesses related to the forest industry. About 60 per cent of Saskatchewan is covered by forests, but commercial timber is disappearing at a dangerous rate. Out of the total productive area of 4.4 million hectares, about 11,000 hectares were burned last year.
About 16,000 hectares were harvested, and only 7,390 hectares were naturally reseeded and 6,470 hectares restocked by the forestry branch. That means something over 13,000 hectares of forest disappeared last year in Saskatchewan. This causes us to be very concerned about the fact that the Government does not spend enough time, money and effort to make sure that the forests of Canada will be producing 10, 20 or 50 years from now.
Softwood timber is being cut in Canada 20 per cent faster than it is being regenerated. We are in competition with countries like Sweden and the U.S. which employ methods which allow them to harvest five to six times as much per acre in Sweden and ten times as much in the southern States. I spent a number of years in New Zealand where a tree was grown from a seedling to pulp size in seven years. That kind of competition is going to be very hard to deal with, and we are not even bothering to plant the trees let alone selecting those which will reproduce at a much faster rate. A couple of years ago I spent some time in Norway which is now replanting all of its forests because they found that selected seedlings will produce pulpwood or lumber class wood twice as fast as the naturally reseeded forest.
Foresters tell us, Mr. Speaker, we are a little bit stupid as Governments because the Canadian forest industry has declined more than 50 per cent since 1978, and provincial foresters tell us that money for research and development in the Canadian Forestry Service has declined by more than 50 per cent since 1968 as well. They also tell us that if we were to put some of that money into research and development and into reseeding and reforestation, we would have an immediate return in the form of an increase in jobs in the industry. We could have as many as 500,000 people helping in reforestation, which would increase the Government take from income tax a great deal.
The forest industry in Saskatchewan Mr. Speaker, employs 3,600 people directly, mainly in the Prince Albert area. There are another 7,000 indirect jobs and that is only in a very small area around Prince Albert. The value of Saskatchewan forest products was the second highest of any commodity in Saskatchewan's manufacturing sector last year. So in Saskatchewan, as in other parts of the country, it is a major industry. Direct revenue from that industry in Saskatchewan in 1982-83 was approximately $2.8 million. This is expected to go up to $413 million in the next 20 years. That is partly because the Saskatchewan Government has in the past insisted on a much higher level of reforestation in relation to the amount cut. The failure to regenerate forests adequately threatens the existence of as many as 300 communities over the next 15 to 20 years. Each year an area approximately the size of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia combined is removed from the world forest inventory and not replaced. That is approximately 50 acres a minute.
So we cannot lay all the blame on Saskatchewan, on Canada or on any particular part of our country, because it is happening all over the world. The difference is that some parts of the world have recognized that something has to be done and are
November 22, 1983

starting to do it. I give you as examples Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, and even Brazil is making some attempt at reforestation. Right now in Canada we are buying our telephone poles from Finland and railway ties from Malaysia, things that we supplied ourselves for many, many years.
Of the 800,000 hectares of timber harvested each year in Canada, only 25 per cent are replanted artificially. Granted, about another 37 per cent will be naturally replaced, but it still means we are losing 400,000 to 500,000 hectares of forest each year. So it is very necessary that this Government, indeed all Governments in Canada, look at the forest industry as a priority and establish a policy which will allow us to regenerate and continue to be one of the major industries of this country.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 45 deemed to have been moved.

Benno Friesen: Mr. Speaker, in the better than nine years I have been here an issue has arisen periodically in the House during Question Period regarding the policy of Revenue Canada as it affects charitable organizations and non-profit organizations. Usually it centres around the issue of lobbying because, as you will understand, Mr. Speaker, non-profit organizations are very interested in the interpretation bulletins. 1 am not speaking simply of the law now. I am speaking of interpretation bulletins which are sent out by the tax department and which guide tax officials in applying the law to organizations across Canada. The issue usually centres around the interpretation bulletin which focuses upon what the tax department considers as lobbying.
1 feel we should understand, Mr. Speaker, that any organization in Canada, a non-profit organization or a charitable organization, is interested in how the law is drafted and how it is going to affect that organization, so that when it comes to speak to Members of Parliament, Members of Cabinet and to the Government, it naturally is engaged in some form of lobbying. It seems to me that it is just pure logic that an organization, as a Canadian corporate entity in Canada, ought to be entitled, under the freedoms which we enjoy, to lobby the Government regarding the application of laws and how those laws would affect those organizations. Nevertheless, the Government has always been very twitchy about the activities of some organizations and the lobbying in which they might engage.
Adjournment Debate
1 will be the first to admit, Mr. Speaker, that there are some organizations which 1 suspect sometimes exceed the bounds of propriety, and 1 speak particularly of some church organizations. I wonder if some of the preachers are not frustrated politicians rather than preachers of the Gospel. Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, it is wrong, I feel, on the part of the Government to put in jeopardy the entire organization because some of its members might exceed the bounds of propriety in the way they lobby.
In that spirit, my colleague, the Hon. Member for Waterloo (Mr. McLean) several weeks ago raised a question of an organization in Canada, the Canadian Mental Health Association, and the fact that it felt jeopardized by members of Revenue Canada in that its charitable status was going to be called into question. When the Hon. Member asked that question, I called back to my memory something I had read in the Vancouver Province under a headline, "The taxman giveth". It came to my memory, Mr. Speaker, that during the past year, good old National Revenue gave charitable tax status to a school board in Kelowna, British Columbia. I hope my good friend, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Bloomfield) is not going to get up in his place and say that that is a piece of misinformation, because I want to inform him that it is not. The tax number for that school board is 0646737-20-26.
We now have the strange situation of a school board having charitable status in central Okanagan, and that raises some very profound questions as to the effect that that is going to have on the taxpayers across Canada. For example, if that school board derives its authority from a municipality, might the municipality not be able to issue tax receipts for the purpose of charitable donations? The school board received its charitable status under the category of advancement of education, which we can understand. I think all of us accept the fact that trustees of that school board compaigned very vigorously, politically for that position. As a matter of fact, the New Democratic Party in its conventions for the last number of years has urged its members to get elected to local offices under a Party ticket. It would be pretty hard, therefore, to suggest that a school board is a non-political organization since it is engaged almost exclusively in lobbying.
How can the Minister give a number to a school board as a charitable organization, a school board which conducts much of its activity in lobbying! We might ask ourselves whether those taxes that we pay, our property taxes, allocated to schools and education, would now be a tax deductible item on our income tax. That would be a very interesting innovation, Mr. Speaker, which I frankly would like to see happen if the Government is going to do this. Mr. Speaker, it opens a wide area of dispute if the Government is going to do this. Sooner or later the Government will have to decide this issue of what constitutes lobbying.
I would like to have my friend tell me tonight what the Government defines as lobbying. Are charitable organizations

November 22, 1983
Adjournment Debate
permitted to lay their case before us as Members of Parliament, before the Government, without being accused of lobbying and therefore being threatened by the tax department to have their charitable status removed?


Mr. Garnet M. Bloomfield (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member appears to have problems with the matter of charitable registrations. He refers to the fact that the Department has counselled a charitable organization against changing its constitution so as to be in a position to undertake different activities, the different activities being related to political objects. Strangely enough, charity has not been defined in the Income Tax Act. That being the case, in our common law tradition we look to the findings of the courts. We discover that the courts have held consistently over the last hundred years or so that charity comprises the relief of poverty, the advancement of education, the advancement of religion and other purposes beneficial to the community that do not fall under the three other headings. It is true that certain school boards are currently registered as charity. Each application for a charitable status received in the Department is evaluated on its own merits and must meet the stated criteria to be approved. The Department endeavours as well to ensure that the groups which have been granted status as charities adhere to the objectives as they have been outlined to the Department.
I should further explain that the courts have held that political objects are not charitable in nature, that is, they do not come under the three specific headings or under the general heading of other purposes beneficial to the community. Since the Income Tax Act requires that all the resources of a charity must be devoted to charitable purposes, an organization seeking registration or wishing to maintain a registered status may not, therefore, engage in political activities. This is not to say that the purposes of an organization seeking to affect our laws may not be highly commendable. It is only to say that the organization may not be given the right to issue receipts for donations that may be subsequently claimed as deductions from taxable incomes.


CANADIAN RADIO-TELEVISION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION-PAY TV-SALE OF FIRST CHOICE NETWORK. (B) REQUEST THAT MINISTER REVIEW COMMISSION'S DECISION
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, last week 1 directed two questions to the Minister of Communications (Mr. Fox). 1 asked him to look into the application which was made to the CRTC for the right to transfer ownership of the First Choice pay television network to Astral Bellevue Pathe, and not only to look into the question, but to look into the haste which the CRTC was ready to deal with the question, and to look into whether or not he should overrule the decision of the CRTC to permit that transfer of control. That proposal, which the CRTC approved, was objected to and criticized by virtually every person and organization involved in television, except the appellants.
I have a copy of a letter sent to the Secretary of the CRTC written by the national office of ACTRA, which represents over 8,000 members of the Canadian film and television production industry, including writers, performers, directors, producers, technicians and production management personnel. I will read one sentence from this letter, which was ignored by the CRTC. They state, "We oppose a transfer of control because it is in violation of the Commission's established policy on vertical integration and is contrary to the interests of both the public and Canadian film and television industry."
The CRTC spent ten years and commissioned a number of in depth studies about how to deal with pay TV when it would be offered to the Canadian public. It made a number of policy decisions. For instance, it decided that it would have a number of competing companies and that no company should be permitted to control all aspects of television production. Those policies, which were adopted after ten years of study, have, in the space of less than one year, been proven to be completely unworkable. We have First Choice, Super Channel and C Channel. C Channel is gone and First Choice is in such difficulty that it had to ask for an infusion of new capital. That is the reason for its proposal to be taken over by Astral Bellevue. Super Channel is in trouble as well. There simply have not been enough Canadians willing to contract to get pay TV to allow the healthy operation of a number of channels.
When this company takes over pay TV, it means that the policy which was worked on for so long by the CRTC will be stood on its head. As I have indicated, the CRTC's policies have proven to be a total failure.
The CRTC ignored its own rule that applications should be held for 50 days before they are considered. It is a rule which makes a lot of sense because a 50-day delay would give all those interested enough time to prepare their positions and detail their objections if they had any. The CRTC ignored its own policies and agreed to hear this applicant after ten days and to make a decision quickly. In effect, this excluded many of those organizations and other industry participants who wanted to prepare and make submissions. Therefore, we have the takeover of First Choice by Astral Pathe. This is a holding company which controls companies which are in every field of activity in films and television. It controls Astral Film, Astral Bellevue Classics, Astral Video, Astral Television, Pathe Video, Pathe Quebec, Pathe Sound and Postproduction Centre and Astral Film Productions. It has an agreement with Twentieth Century Fox to fund jointly production projects for pay TV and television markets.
Therefore, this is a company which will control everything from the concept of television production, writing, producing, acting up to the delivery to the customer. That is completely contrary to established CRTC policy, completely contrary to policies which the Government agreed to over the years. What it will do is to give a completely unfair advantage to this one company. It will put all aspects of the industry from the writers to the actors to the producers virtually at the mercy and give complete control to this one company. This is what
November 22, 1983

the CRTC has done. This is what the Government has agreed to. It is something which has received the unanimous condemnation of virtually everyone in the industry except the people who were involved in First Choice, who were afraid, for good reason, that they would lose a major part, if not all, of their investment, and give control to Astral Bellevue and the people who are involved in very large corporate interests and have very large financial stakes.
We are told by the CRTC in its ruling that it has laid down very stringent rules as to how Astral must not do the things which the CRTC has always said companies shall not be permitted to do, that is, it will not be able to use the power which it has as a vertically integrated company.
Over the years the CRTC has said to applicants for TV licences that they would have to do these things and have Canadian content-plays, music and ballet. Those have been ignored by the successful applicants for the regular TV channels. I predict they will be ignored by Astral Bellevue when it takes over First Choice.


Mr. Jack Burghardt (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: Mr. Speaker, first may I say that 1 am rather surprised at the criticism levelled by the Hon. Member upon the CRTC regarding this transfer of control of First Choice to Hees International. It seems to me that quite often the CRTC is criticized for not responding quickly enough to the needs of the broadcasting industry. Here is a perfect example where the CRTC has responded to a specific problem relating in this case to First Choice and it has responded in a very positive manner.


David Orlikow: To the detriment of everybody else.


John O. (Jack) Burghardt: The Hon. Member mentions a letter from ACTRA regarding the vertical integration. The CRTC has specifically made mention of this, that this is one of its major concerns as well in considering the application of transfer of control. The Commission also said that it gave consideration to the concerns expressed by interveners, obviously ACTRA as well, particularly with respect to this issue of vertical integration.
I might mention, Mr. Speaker, that the Member has mentioned the strict conditions placed by the CRTC in granting approval. All he has to do is to read the decision handed down by the CRTC and he will inform himself of those strict controls. Never in my experience in the broadcasting industry have I seen such strict controls placed upon a particular decision.


David Orlikow: What happened to the other controls?


John O. (Jack) Burghardt: So the CRTC in this case certainly has put very stringent controls in approving this application.
The other point which the Hon. Member does not mention is that some of those who opposed this application of transfer of control took their case before the Federal Court of Canada.
Adjournment Debate
The Federal Court of Canada obviously felt that there was no case, and allowed the decision to be made.
If time permitted I could go down and list some of the very strict commitments which this decision renders upon the principles involved. For example, the board of directors of First Choice will be independent of the board of directors of Astral. The Hon. Member knows this.


David Orlikow: If you believe that, you will believe anything.


John O. (Jack) Burghardt: The board of directors of First Choice will include, in addition to the present representation from some of the Provinces, additional representation from British Columbia and also from the Atlantic Provinces. There is complete separation of First Choice from Astral. The management of First Choice will be entirely separate, distinct and independent from that of Astral.
I see that I am running out of time, Mr. Speaker, but I would suggest to the Hon. Member that he read in detail the decision handed down by the CRTC in this case and 1 am sure he will feel much better about the decision.


METRIC CONVERSION-COURT DECISION ON LEGALITY OF IMPERIAL AND METRIC MEASUREMENT SYSTEMS- GOVERNMENT POSITION. (B) INQUIRY WHETHER APPEAL WILL BE LAUNCHED
William Henry (Bill) Domm: Mr. Speaker, on November 2, 1983, we had some discussion in the House dealing with the regulations which caused the Government to force metric on various sectors of the retail trade. At that time it was pointed out to both the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mrs. Erola) and the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) that a judge in Toronto had ruled that imperial measurement would remain legal in the Province of Ontario and that they could not enforce the regulations.
The Prime Minister confirmed in the House of Commons, in response to questions on November 2, that it would be impossible to enforce metric regulations in Ontario at that time. The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs alluded to the possibility that if they were to launch an appeal of this provincial court decision, at that time they would start enforcing the regulations. I am pleased to announce that since that day the Minister has agreed with the Department of Justice which advised her that it would not be possible to prosecute anyone in the Province of Ontario for the use of imperial measurement until the outcome of the appeal was known.
In my discussions with various lawyers involved in the case, it has been drawn to my attention that it will probably take a year or two to get through the appeal courts if the Government decides to appeal the case. The sad thing is that the Government cannot seem to make up its mind on whether or not it intends to appeal. While it is trying to make up its mind. I would like to draw its attention to a couple of incidents which have occurred in Canada. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary who will respond to my comments will endeavour to answer these concerns.
291 10

November 22, 1983
Adjournment Debate
The Premier of Alberta, Peter Lougheed, has clearly stated that anyone prosecuted in his Province would be defended by the Department of the Attorney General of the Province, Because of that claim or statement by the Premier of Alberta, the Government dropped its charges in the case involving the floor covering industry over a year ago against Mrs. Kasparian in Calgary. It decided not to proceed and allowed her to continue selling carpet by the square yard. Also in the Province of Alberta, the Government itself, through inspectors, went into a service station and removed wires which it had placed on the pumps of a service station operator in that Province. The service station operator was a Mr. Carritt. I would ask the Government, or offer a word of caution to it that, as inspectors, it has been removing wires from pumps in the country. Who should be in the courts today if not the inspectors from the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs who removed wires from the pumps of retail operators in the Province of Alberta?
If we add this dilemma to the Government's problem of trying to decide whether or not to prosecute, I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Berger) what the response of the Government might be on the legal matter of prosecutions and the statements by the Premier of Nova Scotia on the six o'clock news on the CTV network this evening that if they are going to prosecute any retailers in the Province of Nova Scotia, they had better start prosecuting the provincial Government in Nova Scotia.
Does the federal Government intend to prosecute provincial jurisdictions on consumer matters which both Mr. Lougheed and Mr. Buchanan claim are their jurisdictions, or will it do what it does in other areas of the law where federal regulations or legislation conflict with that of a provincial regional area? Will it respect those provincial regional areas and not prosecute?
It is not sufficient to tell the majority of Canadians, some 70 per cent to 80 per cent who do not really understand metric, that they are a tiny group of fanatics, that they are a dying group of dinosaurs, that their opinion does not really matter and that only the opinion of the Metric Commission, the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs and a few Members of Cabinet who support mandatory metric matters.
There has never been a vote in this House of Commons making it illegal to sell by the pound in the grocery stores of this nation. We have been denied that opportunity to represent our constituents. There has never been a vote in the House of Commons making it illegal for gas stations to sell a gallon of gasoline. This has all been done by Orders in Council. They can talk about the permissiveness of the regulations and legislation passed in 1970 all they want. The truth is that we agreed on two basic principles when we went metric in Canada. First, we would move keeping in pace with our major trading partner, the United States, where we do 70 per cent of our trade in Imperial weights and measures. We do not do one
cent of weighted food for the United States in metric. It is all in imperial measurement.
Why is the Government converting back to using only imperial measure in the stockyards of this nation where we buy and export all our red meat in imperial measure? They do not use metric. They do not auction meat at the stockyards in metric. Why is the Canada Post Corporation, the former responsibility of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, who is also responsible for the Metric Commission, dispensing gasoline at the main Post Office in downtown Toronto in gallons?
All of these questions need to be answered. The most important question is, when will this Government listen to the majority of the Canadian people? They do not want metric rammed down their throats. They do not want Orders in Council making it illegal to use imperial measurement. The farmers do not want their fertilizer bags marked in metric only. They do not understand. It is a disservice and an insult to people with regard to safety when dealing with crops and air traffic. They do not understand. 1 hope the Government will listen. I hope the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) listens to the judge in Toronto and stops this nonsense about mandatory metric.


Mr. David Berger (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: In his remarks, Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member said that the Government cannot seem to make up its mind on whether or not it intends to appeal the decision rendered by Mr. Justice Ross on November 2 last. I can tell him that the written grounds for the decision were received late last week and they are now being fully looked into by officials of our Department and those of the Department of Justice.

The Hon. Member said that the Government was forcing metric on the various sectors of the retail trade. It is quite something how he takes isolated facts, makes them into general principles and distorts this debate. 1 have said on many occasions in this House that metric conversion was introduced as a result of requests from many sectors of the economy; industry, the teaching profession and every other sector of the economy. Less than a month ago the Minister met with a number of representatives from the retail food industry and the Consumers Association of Canada. This group expressed a strong desire to complete the implementation of the metric program as early as possible.
1 am sure the Hon. Member also understands the many issues that have been raised by the judge's decision, one of them being the effective administration of the Weights and Measures Act which is designed to protect the business community and consumers alike, to prevent the use of inaccurate measuring devices and prohibit the use of devices that have been deliberately altered or modified to measure in a faulty manner. These questions must be considered prior to making a decision about the appeal.
November 22, 1983

In conclusion, I want to refer to the matter of our trade and Canada's exports. We all know the importance of exports to Canada's economy. It so happens that one half of our exports to the United States today are in metric units. When it comes to taking lessons from the Americans, I think the Hon. Member might like to reflect upon the tremendous commercial deficit in the United States. It might be better for Canadians to take our lead from the Japanese and the Germans in this
Adjournment Debate
case and perhaps base our commercial policies on countries that have shown how to succeed in the area of exports.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at two o'clock in the afternoon.
At 6.31 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Wednesday, November 23, 1983