1983-05-27

STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S. O. 21


Mr. Scott Fennell (Ontario):: Madam Speaker, last week the Liberal Cabinet dished out another $250 million of public funds to Canadair to continue its money losing fiasco. The Cabinet did not think that this transaction required parliamentary approval. This is one example, of many, of the failure of parliamentary accountability and thus the failure of democracy. Crown corporations for too long have escaped public and parliamentary scrutiny.
To correct this the Liberals have brought in Bill C-153, which 1 can only describe as feeble. The Bill does not provide for comprehensive audits and fails to improve in any substantial way the accountability of Crown corporations to Parliament.
Crown corporations must be made accountable to Parliament. Burgeoning sub-government must be controlled. In the first place, all audits should be done by the Auditor General and not by some external auditing firm. Second, the competitiveness of Crown corporations should not be enhanced by public funds. Any and all public funds allotted to Crown corporations should be detailed in the budget and then thoroughly examined by a parliamentary Committee.
The accountability of Crown corporations should not stop at the Cabinet level. Crown corporations should be made accountable to the people through the Parliament of Canada.


GARRISON DIVERSION
Mr. Terry Sargeant (Selkirk-Interlake):: Madam Speaker, earlier this week I and two other Members of this House, and two from the Manitoba legislature, travelled to Washington to meet with a number of Members of both Houses of the American Congress to inform them of Manitoba's concerns about the proposed Garrison Diversion Unit. These types of meetings are very good and will go a long way to ensuring that Manitoba's waterways are protected from the negative aspects of the current design of the Garrison Diversion Unit.
The bottom line, Madam Speaker, is that the Garrison Diversion Unit must be redesigned to remove any transboundary transfer of water.
A new wrinkle is that the U.S. Interior Department is now proposing a phased program. It maintains that in Phase I nothing would be constructed that would adversely affect Manitoba, but Phase I includes the Lonetree Reservoir which is on the Hudson Bay side of the Continental Divide.
Even more alarming is that Interior is now proposing that the fish screens proposed for the McClusky Canal not be built, thus allowing foreign biota clear sailing across the Divide. I would point out that the International Joint Commission found the screens to be an uncertain protection against the biota transfer. Now to propose no protection at all is especially alarming. Perhaps Interior is hoping this threat will scare us into accepting these screens, flawed as they may be. Manitoba's bottom line, I repeat, is that Garrison must be redesigned so as to prevent any and all biota transfer.


Madam Speaker:: 
BANKS AND BANKING
Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, in his April budget speech the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) proposed an additional economic stimulus whereby individuals would be permitted a tax-free withdrawal of part or all of their accumulated savings in RHOSPs for the purchase of new home furnishings and appliances. This special short-term consumer incentive was intended to spur the sale of furnishings and appliances which Canadians have delayed purchasing as a result of the uncertainty caused by the recession. In the budget papers the commencement date of this proposal was stated as being April 19. However, several of my constituents have complained that when they have gone to their bank or trust company to make their RHOSP withdrawal for the purchase of furnishings and appliances, their request for the withdrawal has been denied.
The denial of these RHOSP withdrawals affects not only individuals wishing to purchase home furnishings and appliances but also affects the sales of manufacturers such as Cameo Limited, which is located in my riding of Hamilton West. I would therefore strongly urge the Minister of Finance

May 27, 1983
to clarify the present status of this proposal with banks and trust companies, and I would also urge the Opposition to abandon their procedural delaying tactics so that legislation for the budget measures, as well as other necessary legislation, can be passed before the summer recess of Parliament.


REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Bud Bradley (Haldimand-Norfolk):: Madam Speaker, earlier this month the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) held a press conference in my constituency at which he announced a $2 million recreation and fisheries project for the Port Dover Basin in front of, to quote the press, some 50 councillors and local dignitaries.
It was interesting that the regional chairman and myself were not invited to this function, although we had worked with many of the people for many years on this project. I do hope it was not because we happen to be Conservatives. However, I will take the Minister's word that it was the responsibility of the local mayor to invite the dignitaries, but I will also take the local mayor at his word that he thought it was the Minister's responsibility to invite the dignitaries.
[DOT] (UIO)
In any case, Madam Speaker-don't get me wrong-I am not opposed to the Minister coming into my area, and I am certainly not opposed to him announcing a "pork barrel project". In fact the Minister can come down to my riding at any time he so wishes and announce funding for some of the projects we are trying to get going in that area. I will go even further. If the Minister would have someone in his office contact my office I will ensure that he gets a list of the projects we would like to see the Liberal Government "pork barrel" in Haldimand-Norfolk. I even promise, if he so wishes, to stay away when he comes down to make the announcements of funding.


INCOME TAX
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Madam Speaker, it is high time that the Canadian Government recognized the contribution being made by volunteers like firemen who work without remuneration, and councillors who work without pay. Provisions for exemption from income tax now for such councillors is one-third of the general expense allowance. Firemen who work without wages receive no consideration whatsoever, even though they work for the good of the community.
I recommend that consideration be included in the Act for income tax purposes for such volunteer firemen who ruin their clothes and give their time, et cetera, in fighting fires in an
amount of the average claimed by firemen who do accept wages and qualify for expense exemption. I also recommend that where councillors and mayors receive a sum of money in lieu of wages to cover costs attending meetings, travelling, checking hydrants, checking buildings, checking complaints, checking wild dogs, et cetera, this be acknowledged and accepted in the amount approved by their councils. MPs, MLAs, and MNAs all receive an expense allowance exemption from income tax, and Canadians who give their time freely, without pay, warrant consideration.


WESTERN GRAIN TRANSPORTATION ACT
Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Madam Speaker, according to news reports last evening, the Conservatives and Liberals are back together again discussing ways and means of doing away with the Crow rate. Parliament and the country know nothing of what is going on, what items are now negotiable, what new policy changes are under consideration. The only thing that is consistent in this process is the apparent support of both of the old Parties for the killing of the Crow.
This House has been asked to pass a Bill, Bill C-155, that is not yet complete. By the Minister's own statements there is more to come. He says he has important amendments to make to the Bill, yet we are being asked, in effect, to buy a pig in a poke. We are asked to hear witnesses' opinions at committee stage prior to the introduction of the amendments to the Bill, because amendments come after the evidence of witnesses. This process is totally unacceptable.
I call on the Progressive Conservatives to reconsider the cozy relationship they continue and insist upon maintaining with the Liberals on this issue, in order that all of the proposals can be placed in the legislation before us. For that to happen it is vital that the current Bill C-155 be withdrawn to be broken into three separate Bills, so we can deal with each of the three separate policy items in a full, proper, and a public manner.


INCOME TAX
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Madam Speaker, the lot of the trapper is these days not a happy one. Revenue Canada has set snares and deadfalls for him at every turn. Whereas previously the Income Tax Act was administered with some degree of leniency and common sense as far as trappers were concerned, they are now subject to the harshest impositions the Act allows.
If we cannot go back to the days-of yester year, then at least a special simplified form should be made available to trappers
May 27, 1983

so that they stand some chance of understanding what is required of them.
This problem, however, pales into insignificance when the question of foreign opposition to the Canadian leg hold trap comes into view. It is incumbent upon the Government of Canada to go to bat for the Canadian trappers, just as it did for the Newfoundland sealers, when this threat to the future of our fur industry is raised by foreign opposition groups.
[DOT] (ms)



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Thomas Scott Fennell: Madam Speaker, my question to the Secretary of State for External Affairs arises out of my concern over his statements in the newspapers this week regarding free trade which he will promote and propose at the Summit meeting in Williamsburg. This is the same week that the task force report on the automotive industry was read and reviewed by everyone in the House. It was very important because it was written by employers of a large number of people in the country, and by union leaders who represent a large group. Could the Minister explain what might happen to the automobile industry if he proceeds with the free trade proposal which he is taking to Williamsburg?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, I should explain to the Hon. Member that last November at the GATT ministerial meeting the Ministers present all undertook to resist further protectionist measures. That undertaking was made by all contracting parties to the GATT. Just recently the OECD ministerial meeting not only agreed to refrain from new protectionist measures but also agreed to dismantle, as recovery proceeded, protectionist measures now in effect. Those are commitments which have already been made by member countries. Unfortunately the record of performance is not as sterling as the commitments themselves.
It would seem to me, if the summit at Williamsburg is to have credibility, that commitments with respect to antiprotectionism ought to be conducted in a meaningful environment. For that reason I have explored with my colleagues the possibility of having some way by which members of the Summit could examine the conduct in light of the commitments that have already been made, and will undoubtedly be repeated at Williamsburg. What I am stating is not a new commitment made by any government, but commitments that will appear more credible in the eyes of the public at the present time.
Oral Questions CANADIAN SHARE OF MARKET


Thomas Scott Fennell: Madam Speaker, the Secretary of State for External Affairs has a commendable attitude, but he is as aware as anyone that other countries may not be quite as fair as we are. He knows that certain tariff barriers or NTBs within the automotive industry have a negative effect in the country.
We are concerned about jobs. If we go to free trade, there is a danger that American automobile manufacturers will say that it is cheaper to have one large plant in Detroit than to have one in Detroit and another in Oshawa. I would like some assurance that, instead of using the words "free trade", he would try to negotiate fair trade and at least get our fair share of employment in world trade.


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I do not think in my press conference yesterday or in my statements that I used the expression "free trade". I talked about the danger of protectionism and, if it is continued, the danger it poses to recovery and jobs, throughout the world. I think the Hon. Member will realize that open markets for all countries are a pre-condition for recovery and also for additional jobs. There was no suggestion in anything I have said that we do anything more than resist further protectionist measures.
The Hon. Member referred to the automobile industry. I would only make one comment about that. It seems from his argumentation that he regards the report of the task force as protectionist in nature. I have not yet reached that conclusion.


MINISTER'S POSITION
Thomas Scott Fennell: Madam Speaker, that report is not protectionist, but at least it sets out a fair base from which to start. That is really what it was all about. My concern is that we are behind in new technology. We should have started five years earlier. I will acknowledge that at the present time the Government is moving very quickly in this direction, but we are behind. If the Minister moves too quickly into free trade we could lose many jobs, not only in the auto, textile, and shoe industries, but in all small businesses across Canada. Will the Minister take a little softer stand on this country going for free trade and the loss of jobs?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member is again drawing conclusions that are not justified. What I have been talking about is the necessity of avoiding further protectionist measures at the present time. That is quite a different matter than to urge the further dismantling of protectionist measures that are in existence at the present time. In fact, at the OECD meeting, that commitment was made.
25778

May 27, 1983
Oral Questions
I have a more modest objective in terms of the Summit, that is, if commitments are made with respect to resisting further protectionism at the present time, that these commitments appear to be credible in the eyes of the public. That is precisely the point. That is why I have been arguing that, if commitments are to be made, they ought to be made with the view that they will be lived up to. Otherwise these Summits will become rather meaningless to the public of all the industrialized countries.


APPLICATION OF IMPORT QUOTA SYSTEM TO TEXTILES AND CLOTHING
Hon. Bill Jarvis (Perth):: Madam Speaker, I wish to direct a supplementary question to the same Minister. I do not necessarily accept all the arguments he makes with regard to protectionism and what flows from the GATT negotiations.
It troubles me when the Minister says we do not want to enlarge on any protectionist measure. I would ask him to be a little more definitive. For example, as the Minister knows, we have quotas on imports of textiles. That has been the measure of protection which we have offered that particular industry in Canada. Would the maintenance or expansion of either the quota within that industry, or other quotas, in his view be offensive or be a breach of the GATT negotiations and the intent thereof? In other words, when he says we do not want to enlarge our protectionist measures, would the quota system for imported products such as textiles offend that particular principle, in his view?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I think the Hon. Member realizes that even with the GATT negotiations themselves, which were finally ratified by the Government of which the Hon. Member was a member, textiles certainly had a special status, and that the industrialized countries, including Canada, the United States and the European Community, have had to take measures to protect their domestic industries against very strong competition, particularly from the developing world.
In my reply to the Hon. Member who began the Question Period, I drew a distinction between additional protectionist measures and dismantling existing protectionist measures. It is the former that I had mainly in mind with respect to the Williamsburg Summit.


PROTECTION URGED FOR MANUFACTURING SECTOR
William Herbert Jarvis: Madam Speaker, I am not sure the Minister has answered my question, but let me go on. If we proceed either to dismantling or to no further protectionist measures, we run the risk within certain industries, particularly consumer goods-I have already mentioned textiles; I also think immediately of furniture manufacturing, and I am sure the Minister's colleague responsible for energy would be very informed of this, coming from the riding he does-the risk or peril in which we put a large number of Canadian workers.
I would be much more comfortable about Williamsburg if I knew that within the Government of which the Minister forms
a part there was a strategy for protecting or providing alternative employment for large groups of Canadians within various manufacturing sectors, particularly in central Canada. I see no sign of that, so is the Government going to Williamsburg, as the Minister has said, with respect to this anti-protectionism and the implementation of GATT agreement, without any alternative long range strategy for dealing with a situation that could very well create, as I think the Minister would agree, potentially large groups of displaced workers within the various manufacturing sectors in central Canada?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: No, Madam Speaker, I do not agree at all that what is being proposed leads to the displacement of large numbers of manufacturing jobs. I think that to draw a conclusion like that from what I have been saying is very unjustified. What I have been saying is that it is a very simple proposition. If we intend to nurture the recovery that is now beginning, one of the most solid ways of doing it for Canada and for other countries is to ensure that markets are kept open and that there is the possibility for Canadian exporters to sell in other markets. This is in our interests as a country because of our dependence on foreign trade and because of the large proportion of our Gross National Product that derives from foreign trade. It is in our interests to ensure that markets are kept open to the greatest possible extent.
It seems to me that it would be a great mistake for industrialized countries, having gone through the worst part of the recession and having, in my view, resisted protectionist measures to a great extent, to slide into protectionism now that the recovery is beginning. I believe that that would hinder the recovery and hinder the growth of jobs in Canada and in other countries. That is the point of view which I will be expressing at Williamsburg along with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance.



BANKS AND BANKING


Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, I had intended to direct my question to the Prime Minister, but in his absence I will direct it onto the Secretary of State for External Affairs since it was he whom I heard quoted this morning as indicating that, in addition to the trade matters that he has just finished discussing, the Government intended to raise the question of interest rates when the Ministers met with the world leaders. I wonder if the Secretary of State for External Affairs might tell the House how he can justify the situation which currently exists in Canada with the inflation rate at 6.6 per cent and with chartered banks allowed to charge interest rates of 21 per cent for credit cards, 13 per cent to 14 per cent for consumer loans, 11 per cent to 13 per cent
May 27, 1983

for mortgages, while paying out interest rates of only 6}/t per cent to 8 per cent on deposits.


Hon.   Allan. J. MacEachen@Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs: Madam Speaker, I did say that it would be our intention to raise the question of high real interest rates at the Williamsburg Summit. I believe it is generally acknowledged that the continued persistence of very high real interest rates is not an obstacle but is certainly a drag on further recovery and is a very heavy burden on debtor countries. It is certainly in our interests as a country to see a drop in high real interest rates.
An old and familiar comment that I have made before is that I think there is a very strong relationship between interest rates in Canada and those in the United States. There has been a very great drop in interest rates since the Versailles Summit, for example, and there ought to be a further drop. The best way to bring that about, in my judgment, is to ensure that there is some reduction in fiscal deficits in the United States in order to make room for further drops in interest rates.



REQUEST THAT GOVERNMENT ACT TO REDUCE SPREAD

Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, it is clear that the United States Government will pursue the policy that it believes is in its own best interests.
May I ask the Secretary of State for External Affairs if he can explain why the chartered banks in Canada are allowed to charge between 80 per cent and 200 per cent more for the money they lend out than they are prepared to pay for the money that is deposited in their accounts?
How can the Government stand before other world leaders and ask them to take action when it will take no action at home to protect Canadian citizens against this usurious practice?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I think the Hon. Member is overlooking recent Canadian history. The fact of the matter is that we have succeeded in reducing inflation very substantially in Canada. 1 think the Hon. Member referred to an inflation rate of 6.6 per cent. It was not so long ago that the inflation rate in Canada was close to 13 per cent, if not 13 per cent. Because of a drop in the inflation rate in Canada, in the United States there have been considerable drops in interest rates.
It is my view that what the Hon. Member is talking about is the spread that exists in deposits made by customers and the amount that is paid or sought in interest. I think the Hon. Member ought to have attended the Standing Committee of the House that examined the existence of bank profits and whether there was any extravagant or any unjustified difference or toll taken by the banks. The NDP boycotted those
Oral Questions
Committee hearings but, if they had attended, they would have concluded, as did other Members on this side of the House and in the Conservative Opposition, that there was no unjustified toll taken by the banks, and that there was no unjustified profit that called for action by the Parliament of Canada. The Hon. Member has the evidence in the form of a parliamentary inquiry to enlighten his mind on this very important point.


Mr. Waddell:: Madam Speaker, after Question Period I will send the Minister a copy of our minority report and some letters from my constitutents, about bank interest rates.



THE ECONOMY


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Madam Speaker,
I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister if he will agree that the world has a new economy where workers are being replaced as old industries change and even new industries follow the quick movement of capital. An example is Atari moving to the low-wage areas of Southeast Asia. Yesterday, Robert Long of the Canadian Advanced Technological Association told a Commons Committee that even our Mitel could some day move to the United States.
I want to ask the Deputy Prime Minister what position the Government will take and what it will tell the other leaders at Williamsburg on behalf of Canadian workers, many of whom are insecure in their jobs or are not working at all. What will the Minister say to world leaders with respect to the recovery which many Canadian workers see as a profit recovery and not a recovery that deals with high interest rates or the continuing long-term problem of people out of work?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I think the Hon. Member is perfectly correct in drawing attention to the existence of very high unemployment. There is very high unemployment in North America and in Europe. That will obviously be an underlying and overlying concern at the Williamsburg Summit. The Hon. Member asks what we will be saying about jobs and unemployment, and what we will be saying on behalf of Canadian workers. I believe that what we have to do is take every possible step to ensure that the recovery that is now beginning will be maintained and sustained and will not be aborted, frustrated, or imperilled by wrong actions taken by a number of industrialized countries.
That is why I think it is important to talk about trade, it is important to talk about high interest rates, it is important to talk about energy, and it is important to talk about the debt of the developing world. Each of these matters, if not properly handled, could imperil the recovery and, I believe, imperil the jobs that are in the making if this recovery flourishes.

May 27, 1983
Oral Questions



PROTECTION OF DOMESTIC TEXTILE INDUSTRY

T.A. Bud Bradley: Madam Speaker, my question is also for the Secretary of State for External Affairs and follows the line that is being approached on this side. The Minister talks about increasing exports, imports, and free or fair trade. Will he go to Williamsburg with the intention of guaranteeing the continued protection of Canada's textile industry?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, I think the Hon. Member knows perfectly well that we have frequently taken steps to maintain jobs in the textile industry. In addition, we have attempted to establish adjustment programs that would make the Canadian textile industry more efficient and more competitive. The Hon. Member does not have to fear when we go to Williamsburg we will forget about the interest and support we have already shown the textile industry in Canada.


T.A. Bud Bradley: Madam Speaker, we become concerned on this side when Hon. Members opposite say that they are going to "sunset" the textile industry out, in Canada.



REQUEST THAT MINISTER GUARANTEE PROTECTION

T.A. Bud Bradley: Madam Speaker, I will repeat my question. The Minister and I are aware of the number of jobs in the textile industry and the concern there is in the textile industry about guaranteed employment. Will the Secretary of State for External Affairs go to Williamsburg and protect Canada's textile industry and its guarantees of continued protectionism?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Madam Speaker, the same answer applies to this question. The answer I have already given is the answer to the second question, as it was to the first.



PIPELINES


Dave Nickerson: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources on the Alaska Gas Pipeline. The Minister will know that last week the General Accounting Office, which is the U.S. congressional watchdog, issued a report which concluded that the long stalled pipeline is beset by so many financing and marketing problems in the United States and Canada that its completion, even by late 1989, is doubtful. In view of that, would the Minister care to repeat the iron-clad guarantee given by his predecessor that the line will be built?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, we said that we wanted to build that line and, in fact, we have built a big part of the line in the
southern part of Canada. Of course if the Americans are not interested in taking their own gas from Alaska to their own market, there is not much we can do to force their hand. It is as simple as that.
As far as the Canadian commitment to build it is concerned, we passed the law, we cleared the way, and we are ready to get it built. Of course if the Americans do not want to have their own gas in their own system because of the glut they are having-


Ian Gardiner Waddell: They will take all ours, like our oil.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: You are waking up, Waddell! You have been very silent on that in the last six months. You were so inefficient that they kicked you out of the job of critic of that portfolio.
We have, as usual, delivered from this House what we have to do, but the American Congress and the American administration are much slower.



POSSIBILITY OF UNITED STATES RENEGING ON COMMITMENT

Dave Nickerson: Madam Speaker, I certainly understand the difficulty in which the Minister finds himself but, if he will recall, the deal was not quite the way he said it was. The deal was that we were going to give Americans authority to take our gas for some time on the condition that they would construct a pipeline and then not have to use our gas, so we would be in a position to use it ourselves. At that time all manner of documentation, such as letters between President Jimmy Carter and the Prime Minister, and congressional resolutions, was tabled in the House.
If it is the intention, as it now appears to be, for the Americans to renege on their commitments, Canadians want to know what it is that the Minister plans to do to make sure they keep to their commitments?
Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Energy, Mines and
Resources): Madam Speaker, it is amusing to have an antiAmerican statement made by the Tories, but I will take note of it. When they are complaining about the fact that we are selling gas to the Americans at this time and imply that we should not, I should like them to consult with Premier Lough-eed. He is calling me or his minister is talking to me every day to make sure we sell even more gas to the Americans than we do at this time. I said that I am willing to sell Canadian gas to the Americans, and I am not embarrassed about it. I see some Hon. Members over there will agree with me. 1 believe they should talk to each other because they are blaming me because I am selling too much gas to the Americans.


An Hon. Member:: How about the answer?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: We want to sell gas to the Americans. This is the answer. And I am glad to see that some Tories do not want
May 27, 1983

me to sell gas to the Americans. I will note that and have a lot of fun noting it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



INDUSTRY


Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister, since the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Lumley) is not in the House.
Not long ago, the Government announced that the Canadian Industrial Renewal Board was going to give a $30 million grant to Dominion Textiles for the purpose of re-structuring operations and consolidating its work force of 9,000 employees.
Since the company has already closed down its plants in St-Hyacinthe and near Brantford and is planning to close its Sherbrooke plant, and since it is also in the process of opening new plants in the United States, I would like to ask the Prime Minister to inform the House what Dominion Textiles is going to do with the $30 million the Government has collected in taxes from Canadian workers?


Mr. Andre Maltais (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Madam Speaker, Dominion Textiles is still talking to the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, and as far as other requests from industries that are experiencing problems in the textile sector, everything is under control. We have experts who are analyzing the situation as it develops, the CIRB has already taken effective measures, and we have the satisfaction of seeing that a lot has already been done in this particular area, and the Canadian Institute of Clothing Manufacturers has even congratulated the Government on the measures it took a year ago.



LAY-OFFS AT DOMINION TEXTILES-GOVERNMENT POSITION

Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Madam Speaker, since the Minister is not saying anything, I have a supplementary.
The Government is also aware that Dominion Textiles is going to close the Galt plant in Valleyfield next month. In the spring of 1982, there were more than 300 workers in this plant. Now, there are only seventy-five, and after June 23, there will be none at all.
My question to the Minister is this: since he has given $30 million to Dominion Textiles, what is he going to do for employees who are still working for Dominion Textiles and for those who have been laid off?
Oral Questions


André Maltais: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member could also have mentioned the millions of dollars that have been spent to help other companies in the textile sector. My answer to the Hon. Member is that I will prepare a complete report on other measures that have been taken with respect to Dominion Textiles, and in fact, the Department is now talking to Dominion Textiles to see what can be done, not only for the company itself but also for its employees. In fact, a year ago, a series of programs were set up under which hundreds of employees were able to continue working.



FLUCTUATIONS IN ONTARIO GASOLINE PRICES

Mr. W. C. Scott (Victoria-Haliburton):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Just before the holiday weekend last week, gasoline in Ontario was selling at many service stations for 24 cents and 25 cents a litre. Prior to the holiday weekend they jumped the price up to 45 cents to 49 cents a litre, depending on the station and the company. What justification can the Minister and his Department give for this increase of over a dollar a gallon in the price of gasoline just prior to the holiday weekend?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, we do not control the price of gasoline at the pumps. There is a big fluctuation in the market at this time because there is a war between the different companies trying to keep their shares of the market. If the Hon. Member thinks there was collusion among the companies to increase the price just before that long weekend, he can always ask the question of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs who has authority to investigate such matters. We do not control the price at the pump. We control the price at the wellhead. I am happy to see that the Hon. Member does not want the market forces to decide the price, that he would like to have the price controlled by the Government. Unfortunately, however, at the pump level price is not controlled by my Department.



IMPACT OF TAXES ON PRICES

William C. Scott: Madam Speaker, my concern is that the Government has too much control over the price of gasoline, that Government has interfered too much in the market. This is why we are having the problem with the price of our gasoline. Why can the Americans buy gasoline from Canada and sell it so much cheaper in the United States

May 27, 1983
Oral Questions
of America than can the service stations in Canada? This is government interference, with some 60 cents per gallon of federal tax on a gallon of gasoline.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member is wrong on his assumption. I would like to tell him that when we made the deal on oil with the producing Provinces we decided to have a Canadian price for Canadians, and at that time there was no provision for the ad valorem tax added to the price in Ontario.
In fact the Ontario Government is receiving more money out of a litre of gas than the federal Government or the Government of Alberta. The energy plan was not made in such a way to inflate the treasuries of Quebec and Ontario, but they have added this ad valorem tax on top of everything. This is why the prices are higher in Ontario than in the State of New York. However, where there is no provincial sales tax, like the Province of Alberta, the price is cheaper than in American States. In Alberta, as in Ontario, the federal Government takes exactly the same amount of money.



DISARMAMENT


Hon. Erik Nielsen (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Apparently in his telephone conversation with the President of the United States, when he attempted to put a different face on his interview with The Toronto Star, the Prime Minister suggested that his remarks were taken out of context and he, indeed, read an excerpt from The Toronto Star yesterday. At the risk of living somewhat dangerously in assuming that everything coming from the office of the Prime Minister is the truth, I would like to quote from the official release from his office of the text of that interview. It sets forth what the Prime Minister correctly put on the record yesterday, on page 8, and I quote:
Basically, once again, they are demonstrating against what they see as the policy of an American president who has rightly or wrongly been perceived as warlike, or so hostile to the Soviet Union that he cannot be trusted to look for peace.
However, in that same paragraph, as the Prime Minister referred to his text, there appeared this further sentence, and I quote:
As I said earlier, unfortunately President Reagan and some of the people around him, have given some justification for those fears.
Is the Prime Minister saying that that last sentence was taken out of context?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: No, Madam Speaker.



TELEPHONE CONVERSATION BETWEEN PRIME MINISTER AND PRESIDENT

Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, the next question then logically follows. Does the Prime Minister stand by that statement, that, unfortunately, President Reagan and some of his people around him have given some justification for those fears, that is, the fears with respect to the warlike stance, or in his telephone conversation with President Reagan did he apologize for making that statement?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: No, Madam Speaker, to the last question. There was no call for an apology. President Reagan knows what I think about these things. I spoke quite openly when I went to Washington. I spoke to Vice President Bush and to President Reagan. I indicated that they had to appear much more interested in successful negotiations than they did. I said in essence what I did to The Toronto Star. The record speaks for itself. I only wish the Americans would take as much interest in what I say as the Hon. Leader of the Opposition.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



PRIME MINISTER'S VIEWS

Erik Nielsen: Of course, Madam Speaker, I am always intensely interested in everything the Prime Minister says. Would he please, for the benefit of those of us in the House today, explain what words or actions on the part of President Reagan justified him in describing President Reagan's words or actions as justifying the arousal of the fears of the individuals he was speaking about? Just what did the President do or say which aroused the fears which the Prime Minister feels are justified?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member can refer to the rest of the transcript. If he looks at page 9 and page 10, for instance, and other pages, he will see the answer to his question.



AIRPORTS


Hon. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Madam Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. Last year the Minister of Transport announced a program for upgrading of secondary airports and said that those airports, through the upgrading, could become part of the airport infrastructure of Canada. Applications were made. The Government, of recent date, has been stating that these projects should go ahead, that they should be "fast-tracking", I am sure a word that the Minister of Transport understands, and that red tape should be cut.
May 27, 1983

There has been an application on the Minister's desk from Steinbach, Manitoba, airport for months and months, yet we cannot seem to either fast-track the project or cut through the red tape. Could the Minister indicate whether the program is still valid and whether a decision has been made?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, I am having a bit of a hard time understanding to which one of the programs reference is being made. There are a number of them. The Hon. Member for Provencher might be referring to the Small Airport Program, the $5 million a year which 1 have at my disposal for small airport development. If that is the case, then I can report to him fully on what use was made of the money in the past year. If Steinbach made an application and did not receive satisfaction, I will also look into that matter to find out the reason.



REQUEST THAT MINISTER REVIEW APPLICATION

Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: I would like to ask a brief supplementary question of the Minister of Transport. If he has that plethora of programs for small airports, I would ask him to reconsider the words he used and commitments that he has made to a number of these operators to see whether or not the programs which he has in place cannot be used, when applicants make a great deal of effort and then do not receive a word from the Minister in time.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Yes, I will look into that matter, indeed. However, the Hon. Member is partly responsible for the confusion I am in, because in the next part of the sentence in his question he referred to the recovery project program following the budget, which is an entirely different program. Therefore, I am justified in not being too sure what the Hon. Member meant.


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: Just help Steinbach. That's all we ask.



SPECIAL RECOVERY CAPITAL PROJECTS PROGRAM


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Madam Speaker, I want to ask the Minister of Transport a question with respect to another infrastructure program in his Department which would perhaps fit in with the Special Projects Recovery Program. The Minister, being an expert on railways, knows that the viability of the Oxford-Stellarton subdivision in Nova Scotia, of the CN, which is not only a valuable part of the railway network but also a possible alternative in the event that the main line is disrupted, would be greatly improved if the existing causeway over Pictou Harbour were modified to accommodate this rail line. Over the years the CN has deliberately neglected to keep a large bridge in repair, which is primarily the basis of its application before the Railway
Oral Questions
Transport Committee of the CTC to abandon this important subdivision.
I have already spoken to the ministerial officials in a preliminary way. Would the Minister consider allocating some of the funds from the program to which he referred earlier to assist in making this important modification which would be of great benefit to the railway transport network in Nova Scotia?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, it is obvious that the poor Minister of Transport cannot follow all the aspects of all transportation matters in the country.


Some Hon. Members:: He doesn't care.


Jean-Luc Pepin: It is physically impossible to do that. I wish my hon. friend would speak to me instead of speaking to officials before he comes out with these questions. However, in my usual pleasant fashion I will, of course, pay a lot of attention to the case he just mentioned.


Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Madam Speaker, now that the Minister has indicated the proper channels of communications, I will do that. I always thought that he would have preferred to have a little bit of preliminary work done. I would always assume that his officials would tell him what was going on, saving time for both of us.



ATOMIC ENERGY OF CANADA LIMITED


Mr. Jim Fulton (Skeena):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. I am sure the Minister is aware that many Canadians, particularly in the North, are concerned about the increasing volumes of gas and oil being exported to Chile, Japan, and the United States at costs far below what they have to pay in the North. However, it has now been revealed that the Minister, along with the AECL, has plans to put Slowpoke III reactors in northern Canada. I wonder if the Minister would tell the House in exactly what communities it is being planned to put those Slowpoke III reactors.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, I do not know about this question of the Hon. Member. I will check. There is nothing-


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: The reactor is named after the Government.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I will check and report to the Hon. Member.


James Ross Fulton: Madam Speaker, it has always been my assumption that the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources had responsibility for the AECL, and they certainly do have these plans well evolved.

May 27, 1983
Oral Questions



REQUEST THAT INQUIRY BE CONDUCTED INTO WASTE DISPOSAL

James Ross Fulton: My supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister. Would he tell the House, in light of the enormous amount of highly radioactive waste which comes from Slowpoke III nuclear reactors, whether or not he would be prepared to have a full public inquiry into waste disposal for nuclear reactors should this proposal from the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources and AECL go ahead?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, I do not know whether the Hon. Member wants or does not want such a development in northern Canada. Concerning the problem of disposal of radium waste, there is some consultation taking place at this time between ourselves, the provincial Government and different agencies, to find a mechanism whereby to dispose of waste safely and rapidly. I do not think that there is need for a public inquiry.



CUSTOMS AND EXCISE


Hon. Walter Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Government House Leader in the absence of the Minister of National Revenue. He will recall that last week I asked the Minister of National Revenue whether or not it was the intention of the Government to recommend for inclusion in the new Customs Act, which the minister indicated was ready, a provision for the opening of first class mail, for the purpose of finding contraband, narcotics and other things. The Minister did not answer that part of my question. Would the Government House Leader now indicate whether that particular provision is included within the new Customs Act?


Hon. Yvon Pinard (President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, I was present last week when the question was asked of my colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, and I heard his answer to it. I think that it was a wise answer. He said that he would take the suggetion made by the Hon. Member under serious consideration and that it would greatly help to include that if we had an indication that we could get the Bill through the House before the end of June. I think the suggestion is worth while considering.
We would very seriously consider including it in the Bill provided we have the support of the Hon. Member's Party. I know the Hon. Member was previously Minister of National Revenue. He cares for that disposition. With his support, if we can get the Bill through the House before the end of June, there are indeed good chances that the legislation would include such disposition.



REQUEST THAT AMENDING LEGISLATION BE INTRODUCED

Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, I have nothing to do with the question of the Bill going through before the end of June, but I am naturally very concerned about its provisions, as are many other people in the country, not just with respect to mail opening but also with respect to a whole host of changes. The entire commercial community in Canada is very interested in those revisions which, his colleague will tell him, are long overdue.
Would the Minister undertake in the House to have the Bill at least introduced for first reading so that, whether it passes by the end of June or whether it comes on later this session, whatever the case may be, the interested constituencies in the country will have a chance to study it? It is a large Bill, so I am given to understand, and it contains some rather far-reaching revisions.


Yvon Pinard: Certainly, Madam Speaker, I am willing to discuss the suggestion with the Minister of National Revenue. However, once again, it would greatly help if, on his side, the Hon. Member would try to convince his House Leader to make it possible for the legislation to pass through the House as early as possible, if it is important and if it is so urgent.



HIGHWAYS

Hon. Don Mazankowski (Vegreville):: Madam Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Transport. I know the Minister is aware of the significance, the importance, of the Yellowhead Highway in western Canada. I know that he is aware of the various representations which have been made by the Yellowhead Highway Association to his Department for assistance in funding the reconstruction of this very important second Trans-Canada Highway.
In light of the budget and the Special Recovery Capital Projects Fund, I would like to ask the Minister of Transport if he has made any representations to his colleague, the Minister of State for Economic Development, as to whether the Yellowhead Highway reconstruction could be included as a part of that program.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, concerning the first part of the question, I am indeed aware of the importance of the Highway. A number of years ago it was considered that the participation of the federal Government was not essential in this particular venture, substantiated by the wealth of the western Provinces and the fact that this was not part of the primary Trans-Canada highway.
The answer to the second part of the question is, no, it did not come up as one possibility under the Recovery Program.



YELLOWHEAD HIGHWAY RECONSTRUCTION-REQUEST FOR CONSIDERATION

Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Through Saskatoon.
May 27, 1983


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: First you take away our trains, now our highways. What is next?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: You.



REQUEST THAT MINISTER SUPPORT PROJECT

Donald Frank Mazankowski: Madam Speaker, 47 per cent of the potential megaproject development will occur within close proximity to this Highway. In light of the fact that it now carries as much traffic as the main Trans-Canada Highway, and in light of the fact that it could generate a significant number of jobs, would the Minister not reconsider and make representations to his colleague to have this included as part of the special recovery projects?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I am glad that my hon. friend acknowledged the fact that there were a great number of other projects in the West that are being accommodated by the recovery program.
Indeed, in the selection of transportation projects there were choices made in different regions of Canada. In other words, the federal Government has not done the same thing in every region. We went out to select what we considered most urgent in each part of the country. It happens to be quite different between one region and the other. In the West there were a great number of airports which requested more funding over a period of time. A lot of attention was given to Fort McMurray Airport, Regina, and others in the West. There will be a great improvement of airports in the West following this program.



PETITIONS


Madam Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the petitions presented by Hon. Members on Thursday, May 26, 1983, meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.



ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES READJUSTMENT ACT


Madam Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to Section 19 of the Electoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, Chapter E-2, Rivised Statutes of Canada, 1970, to lay upon the Table a certified copy of the Report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Newfoundland.
Order Paper Questions



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-685, to amend the Criminal Code (reasonable grounds).
He said: Madam Speaker, I have the honour to introduce a Bill which would make amendments to the Criminal Code provisions respecting sexual assault in two key areas.
One amendment would eliminate the defence of "honest but unreasonable belief', which was accepted by the Supreme Court of Canada in Regina versus Pappajohn, and require that this defence be based only upon reasonable grounds.
The second major amendment in the Bill would prohibit any evidence of previous sexual history of the complainant with a person other than the accused and make it very clear that "no" must always mean "no".


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

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. David Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 3,541 and 4,807.


Mr. Friesen: 1.	Did the Government purchase the satellite receiving dish for the Elbow Lake minimum security facility and, if so (a) at what cost (b) what will be the total cost for installation (c) on what date will the dish be delivered?
2.	Is it government policy to purchase such satellite receiving dishes for other federally operated penitentiaries and, if so, what is the justification for such expenditure?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General of Canada):: In so far as
the Correctional Service of Canada is concerned:
1.	Yes. (a) $21,000 for equipment (which has since been recovered from the contractor), (b) Not applicable, (c) Delivery was never made.
2.	It is not a general government policy to provide satellite receiving dishes for television and radio reception purposes at all federal penitentiaries. However, the CRTC Resource Development Installation Licence Order clearly applies to forestry camps such as Elbow Lake.

May 27, 1983
Electoral Boundaries CFBGAGETOWN-HARVESTING OF TREES


Mr. Howie: 1.	In the fiscal year ending March 31 (a) 1981 (b) 1982 (c) 1983, how many permits were issued for the harvesting of trees at CFB Gagetown?
2.	In each year (a) what was the total revenue from this operation (b) was reforestation required in any instance (c) were woodlot management techniques practiced or were there instances of "high grading"?
3.	Were public tenders called in all cases and, if not, for what reason?
4.	(a) Who determined what areas each permit holder could harvest (b) what criterion was used to determine which permit holder could harvest the most profitable areas of most marketable timber?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of the Environment):: 1. (a)
1981-732, (b) 1982-539, (c) 1983-800.
2.	(a) 1981-$457,939; 1982-5337,414; 1983-5395,040. (b) No. (c) Yes. Woodlot management techniques were practiced but there were also instances of highgrading due to poor markets for hardwoods.
3.	No. Public tenders were not called in all instances because, over the years, operators have established road networks in designated areas and have harvested the wood located in these sections of the base.
4.	(a) The District Ranger, (b) The criterion used is which operators have traditionally worked in the given area.


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


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


Some Hon. Members:: Stand.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House proceeded with consideration of objections to the Report of the Electoral Boundaries Commission for the Province of Alberta.
Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Madam Speaker, I would like to comment first of all, and I believe it is the general opinion of my fellow Members from the Province of Alberta, on the high quality of the Commission's work. I think that this time, we are generally satisfied with the commissioners' proposals, and it is certainly the best report we have had on electoral redistribution in the Province of Alberta.

1 know the commissioners. I may say that they have used some of the political sense that we hope all commissioners have. One of the great difficulties in the past has been that
those who know their constituencies best, the Members, were the least listened to concerning their knowledge of such factors as ease of communication, general representation, cohesiveness and interest in the community. These are all factors which I, and I believe the majority of Members, deem far more important than just the mere numbers indicated in census reports, which are quite often too outdated by the time recommendations come into force in the actual field to be meaningful in the representation of the people of Canada.
At a later occasion a few incidents will be raised by some of my colleagues. 1 trust that this will not simply be a transfer of debate on this report aux calendes grecques, in other words, some six or eight months from now. 1 rather suspect, with the dilatory interest the Government has shown in matters of this kind, that it will be put off and delayed, thus making a redistribution more irrelevant as time goes on.
As I indicated, a few points will be raised in regard to one or two constituencies. It is not with that particular point that I want to deal. As far as my constituency is concerned, I am more than satisfied with the geographical distribution because the Commissioners in Alberta have finally paid attention to recommendations made by many others and myself. One former Commissioner had told me on occasion, "You have had three kicks at the cat." But he did not pay any attention. The urban communities are chosen boundaries that are well recognized thoroughfares so that the people affected have an easy indicator as to whether they are in one constituency or another. Too often boundaries are traced through a zigzagging of streets which make no real political sense.
On this occasion I believe that the Commissioners acted with practical wisdom. I notice as well that they have given reasons for their changes. 1 fought a long time to have reasons included in decisions. In fact, there is a Bill presently on the Order Paper which I filed in April, 1980. It goes even further since it recommends the disqualification of a report if the Commisioners fail to respond to the representations that are made and do not include the reasons for having made changes.
I trust that I will have the opportunity to debate that Bill and put it forward again so that it will be accepted. It imposes no additional burden on the Commissioners. Under the first two redistributions that I have been through, I must say that the Commissioners' reports were simply flat-footed statements as to changes. There were no reasons given for those changes. The burden was on members to raise the objections. The Commissioners were under no obligation to listen to any recommendations. Frankly, we have some terrible dogs' breakfasts in many of the Provinces. It was so bad in one case after the 1971 redistribution, the proposals were so uniformly bad that, as one of my colleagues, who is no longer here, said, they had been gerrymandered by ignorance and incompetence.
I do not say that on this occasion. I think people have learned. Therefore, I want to talk about another aspect within the
May 27, 1983

limited time I have. I believe it is 45 minutes and three of us are to speak. I will take 15 minutes, Mr. Speaker.
My colleague, the Elon. Member for Red Deer (Mr. Towers) joins me absolutely in the general representations 1 am now going to make. This redistribution is leading to a total of 310 seats in the House. While the redistribution is carried out competently, the Commissioners were set the wrong tasks. This House should not have its seats increased to 310.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: That is supreme nonsense. I could not think of any more ideotic thing, with all due respect, Mr. Speaker, than this sort of formula being included in legislation, after the first aborted attempt was made to set redistribution back on the rails in the early 1970s. To respond, shall we say, to a certain amour propre in certain quarters, it was decided not to reduce the number of seats in certain Provinces but, in fact, to increase the numbers in the Province of Quebec as a sop to that caucus, despite a considerable decline in population there. Quebec gets 79 seats out of this redistribution. That is four more seats, even though the population has declined. I hear Government backbenchers say that the people want that and that "we are going to be more". But that means there are four more frogs-that is the wrong term, 1 mean tadpoles.


Mr. Ouellet:: Who said that?


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: I said that. I am sorry. My simile is not wanted that way.

Well, if the House insists, I will come right out and say it. These are four little fish which have been added to a bigger pond. Who is going to notice? I think Hon. Members should take the trouble to listen to what I am saying, because I think the Hon. Member is a little sensitive. It is not an expression I use to be denigrating.
So I would like to say to the Hon. Member for Gatineau (Mr. Cousineau) that I remember when my colleague from Red Deer (Mr. Towers) was talking about maintaining the number of Members in the House at its present level- although we believe that even that number is no longer reasonable if the House is to be at all effective-that he said: All right, Quebec is getting four more, but we cannot complain, because they are getting only one-seventh of a total additional number of twenty-eight. So they are getting one seventh! Some quota-twenty-four to four. And then they tried to sell the public on the fact that it would have more power in the House because it would have four more Members. That was the reason! However, right now there is no good reason for increasing the number of Members in the House. In view of the progress that has been made in communications technology, and the latest report by Madam Speaker in this area should be read in this connection . . . We have a budget of $4 million for
Electoral Boundaries
the OASIS electronics and computer system. Two or three years from now, when the program is operational, Members will be able to review any issue of Hansard just by pushing a button. Members can communicate with their riding offices and send letters to their ridings through this system. So why should we increase the number of Members in the House?
Mr. Speaker, I ask you: Are we going to have to use the so-called ladies' gallery to accommodate our Members? We might take down the wall in front, and then the Chair would need binoculars. Are we going to build another balcony or are we going to lower Members from the ceiling? Or are we going to put the Speaker's chair on the mezzanine upstairs, right under the ceiling? And then at question period, twenty-eight more Members will ask to be recognized. During debate, we will have twenty-eight more Members trying to take the floor. Perhaps the party whips could look into this. Do they have any plans over in the Wellington Building or does the Government have any plans for building on the site of the former Rideau Club and where the American Embassy now is to house twenty-eight Members? On top of that, ten years from now, a further increase in the number of Members in the House is expected, unless Canadians forget to. have children and the population decreases.
All I can say is that it is high time we put a stop to this and started reviewing the situation. We are already spending over $140 million on administration in this place, including salaries and the rest. Does anyone know how much one Member's office would cost? Well, we are now spending more than $85,000 on one Member's salary, including his or her riding office, plus all expenses and trips and the rest. Is multiplying these expenditures going to be of any real benefit to the Canadian people? I do not think so. Considering this technological age and our means of communications, whether communicating person-to-person or by telephone, by computer or by plane, if a Member feels he or she needs additional help, it is easy enough to hire another assistant or another qualified secretary. And it costs a lot less and is a lot more effective than electing one more Member with everything that entails.
Mr. Speaker, since there are other Members who would like to speak, I merely wish to say that I urge the Government, my party Leader and the Leader of the New Democratic Party to agree to stop this redistribution, not because the Commission's work is unsatisfactory but for the very simple reason that we do not need redistribution at this time, unless perhaps to reduce the number of Members in this House. Our work would be a lot more effective. The Government Whip is aware that the committee system has been changed, that is, the number of Members sitting on committees has been reduced. Last year, when we were still operating under the old Standing Orders, committee work was done by from sixty-five to eighty Members, more or less.
Now, I think the Hon. Whip will agree that as far as committee work is concerned, except for special committees or

May 27, 1983
Electoral Boundaries
task forces, only forty-five Members are involved. Why do we need any more Members? Thirty more in the House? That makes no sense at all, and it is going to cost us the earth and make this House an administrative mess. And what about the dignity of this House, Mr. Speaker? Will it have to look like a football stadium? I hope not. And 1 also hope that we shall continue this debate.


Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to take part in the debate today on the question of electoral boundaries and how it will affect the Province of Alberta. As the Hon. Member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) has already enunciated, the Commissioners have done an excellent job in their task. A number of Members of Parliament will be speaking on this subject. They will have some questions to put forward and some comments to make with regard to suggested changes they would like to see made, but the general feeling has been positive about the changes.
I am a Member of Parliament who represents a large, sprawling rural riding which at present contains 113 communities, villages and hamlets. My riding will become about 15 per cent larger. In spite of that, I welcome those new constituents. I feel privileged in representing a rural constituency as opposed to an urban one. It is more in keeping with my intentions of knowing the people.
However, I seize this opportunity to put on the record virtually the same concerns that were expressed by the Hon. Member for Edmonton West. I believe the House has long passed the optimum time to ask the logical question: How big should this institution become? Surely it should not be the perspective that every ten years the numbers of Members of Parliament increase. Surely we should not follow that road, fast-tracking into history without ever asking the question: When do we stop having a bigger and bigger Parliament?
The Electoral Boundaries Commission did its task well. It was under the direction of Parliament. The Commission was told the number of seats it had to carve out of Canada. We must ask a fundamental question: Is there some purpose or meaning to having 282 Members in the House of Commons? If there is one person in the chair and one person standing and speaking, it means that there are 280 persons listening. Is Canada better served by this? In fact, if we consider that the Speaker is listening also, then one person is speaking and 281 are listening. Will we be better served as Canadians when we have a House with 310 Members, with one speaking and 309 listening? How can we expect to sell to Canadians the idea that there is some advantage to that?
It must be recognized that the present system was put in place when Members of Parliament travelled from the Prairies, from British Columbia and from the outreaches of Atlantic Canada to Ottawa by train, when campaigns were conducted on horses and buggies. Also it must be recognized that today we live in the era of electronics. I visited the office of a Senator in the United States. He was able to a type letter,
push a button on the typewriter and have it transmitted to Portland, Oregon, to be signed with his signature by a signing machine there. Thus, when someone wrote to him to complain about the post office, within two days they had received an answer indicating what kind of service he was trying to create. This type of technology can put out massive amounts of mail. We can provide extended use of telephone calls. We can virtually go anywhere in Canada within less than a day's time. We can reach the more populated areas in four hours to five hours. Most of central Canada can be reached in 80 minutes or 90 minutes. Surely the theory that the population of the House of Commons has to grow larger and larger does not make sense.
At this point I want to emphasize that as the House becomes larger and larger, the concept of Parliament becomes less and less. I say this because each of us who represents a constituency will be able to speak that much less and will be able to ask fewer questions. Hon. Members of the New Democratic Party will be able to present fewer petitions because there will be the same number of hours in a day and the same number of days in a week.


Mr. Blaikie:: We will just keep presenting them.


Arnold John Malone: Well, the only way we will change that is to adopt the metric week, the ten-day week and the 100-hour day. If we increase the numbers of Members, then by the pure bureaucracy of Parliament itself we will guarantee that the House of Commons is run by the executive council or by Cabinet. But we want a parliamentary situation where the Crowfoots, the Bow Rivers and other constituencies across the country have input in the House of Commons. We do now want to have a situation similar to the one in our mother Parliament in Westminster which now has 600 Members of Parliament, some of whom scarcely have an opportunity to speak in a month's period of time. That system is not acceptable.
Moreover, there are optimum sizes for decision-making groups. Once you get beyond 200 or 300 persons involved in making a decision, you are long past the optimum size for the House of Commons. If we are going to make joint decisions, the size of the House of Commons must be compatible with the objects of decision-making. We should not in every census period continually increase the size of this House without ever pausing to ask the basic and fundamental questions as to the size of House we should have with regard to the purpose by which this House is to serve the people of Canada.
I submit to the Government House Leader that before we go through this exercise again, we should make a study of how large this Parliament ought to be. There should be a new fundamental principle by which we guide ourselves with regard to where we put the boundaries. The automatic presumption that we will grow larger without end and without ever asking the question as to whether the public of Canada will be better
May 27, 1983

served by having more Members would demonstrate that we as parliamentarians lack the skill to ask the fundamental questions in problem solving.
If there are to be more Members of Parliament, there will be less time for each to speak. We will have an executive council running this place. Backbenchers will simply rubber-stamp the decisions that are brought forth.
The question ought to be looked at in a number of ways. Perhaps Members representing densely populated constituencies could be granted a larger staff. Members in very large rural areas could be granted more money so that they could have more than one constituency office. Constituents would then have greater accessibility to their Member of Parliament. In this day and age with modern technology, just because the population of this country grows larger, it is not necessary that the House of Commons grow larger as well.
It would be wrong for us to move as Great Britain has moved. I fall the Members of Parliament in Westminster wanted to be in the House of Commons at the same time, there would not be room. We remember occasions such as when Ronald Reagan, the President of the United States, visited Canada, and another time during the constitutional debate when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) was going to speak and answer questions being raised by the public and the Opposition Members. There was intense interest in those speeches because of the importance the nation attached to them. Every seat in this House of Commons on both occasions was occupied. How can duly elected Members of Parliament feel comfortable about the fact that if we want to go to the House of Commons to listen to a very important speech we may arrive a moment too late and the House of Commons would be full? That would be unacceptable.
More important is the question of what size is optimum for decision making. There is also the fear that as we grow larger and larger we will have more and more government by executive. The backbencher will become increasingly less important. There will be less and less time for Members to ask questions and make speeches. The power of the executive will grow and balloon and grow and balloon to the point where it will become all-powerful. Parliament will be virtually destroyed.
My colleague for Peace River (Mr. Cooper), who also represents a large rural riding, wants to put some thoughts on the records, so I will wrap up very quickly. I recommend that the House of Commons embark-and I hope Government Members put this initiative forward-on a system which asks basic questions. First, how large should this place be? In my riding there are 113 villages and hamlets. I burn up a car every two years-figuratively, not literally. I travel about 150,000 kilometres. We must therefore ask what services there should be to facilitate a Member serving a large rural riding, and what extra staff is required for urban ridings.


Mr. Keeper:: You should have expressed that in miles.


Arnold John Malone: The NDP Members want me to talk in terms of miles. I can tell them that in my riding I have miles and miles of miles and miles. We must ask what services are needed for Members and what is the optimum size. The botton line question is, how will Canadians be better served? No other
Electoral Boundaries
question matters but that one. How can we get the best representation for Canadians? Fast-tracking toward a mammoth House is simply an expense and will lead to less service. That is certainly an unacceptable route.


Mr. Albert Cooper (Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to put a few thoughts on the record today. I begin by saying how pleased I am with what has happened with the changes in boundaries as they affect my riding. In my case, there were absolutely no changes. That is a good way to start. I am pleased with my riding and I would like it to stay that way. I will do my best to keep it that way for a long time.
It is important, when you look at the part of the country I represent, that the riding stay the same. That is certainly the case in my area. It is unique. It is an area set aside unto itself, an area that geographically must stick together. To separate any community would be to take it out of that real, live, living part of that central riding and put it into an area in which it would not fit comfortably. I can refer to several areas such as Fort Vermilion and La Crete. If you pull those out of my riding, the only other riding in which they would fit would be the neighbouring riding of Athabasca. It could only be reached by air or by travelling a distance of some 600 miles from the riding of Athabasca. That was the situation many years ago when Athabasca was represented by Dr. Yewchuk. At that time he represented that part of my district. It must have been very difficult for him and the people he represented in terms of traditional communication.
We have the example as well of an Indian reserve in another riding that is part of a group of Indian bands which I represent. The Band's head office is in my riding, but this particular band is represented by the Hon. Member for Athabasca (Mr. Shields). I know that he represents them well and he is happy to represent them, but from time to time I have visited with the band-I visited recently with Chief Johnson-and we had quite a discussion because I am already working on many of the concerns that affect that band as they affect the other bands in my riding. We can see that there is a natural link there.
Going to the southern part of the riding there is the area of Valleyview and McLennan. There again a unique pocket exists that needs to be part of the Peace River district.
Both of the Members who have spoken today about this particular Bill have dealt with the concerns on both sides of the House about increasing the number of Members we seem to be heading toward. I certainly have some concern about that, but today I want to talk about the impact that riding boundary changes could have on northern Alberta.
When talking about the formation of a riding, several factors must be taken into account. The first factor is, of course, the geographical factor, and I have referred to that. Things like roads become very significant, because roads are

May 27, 1983
Electoral Boundaries
the line of transportation, the communication route that, ordinary people tend to use. Things like rivers and lakes and, of course, mountains become natural barriers and those barriers must be considered when making sure that various ridings work together and fit together.
Another factor to be taken into account is that of social concerns. Those concerns take in a whole variety of things, and include, for example, business trade. In the North, there are very defined business routes and many communities shop within other communities. They are all tied in very closely. I believe that must be considered when designing new ridings and new riding boundaries. Another concern that, although it may not be significant in some parts of Canada, certainly is significant in northern Alberta is the whole concept of sports. We tend to have natural boundaries within which we compete, whether they be hockey teams, baseball teams or various other sports such as curling or golfing. Those concerns too must be considered in terms of boundaries.
Still another concern is that of industry. In a large agricultural community where much of the shopping and much of the industry needs are found within a certain area, it is obvious that those areas should be brought together and related together.
A third factor to be taken into account is communications. Radio stations, newspapers, television, become very significant within a riding because areas that are close together tend to communicate within that specific area as is certainly the case in my riding. There are certain newspapers which are distributed within my riding and, therefore, to have a certain portion of that riding taken away would make it difficult both for the Member and for the people within that area to keep communications flowing on an ongoing basis.
Of course there is the fourth factor which must be taken into account, that of historical concerns. These include agricultural and business relationships, family relationships, traditional communications, and so on. The ethnic groups must be considered as well. There are various ethnic groups living in certain areas which want to be included in the same area in terms of the same representation in the House of Commons.
The last factor which I think must be taken into account is the future of the area. This is what I consider to be a really important factor regarding riding adjustments in the northern part of Alberta, because we in the North work together, have many dreams in common, and therefore there are many natural tendencies which make us want to work together as a unit. We want our future growth and development to be considered in the choosing of riding boundaries.
When talking about the northern part of Alberta, I think that one of the big concerns I have is that the new riding boundaries, as they are selected, would tend to create splinters or little segments coming away from the central boundaries around Edmonton rather than create ridings which are truly northern ridings. We, of course, want ridings which are made up of that particular geographical region of our part of the Province. We do not want a little piece taken from the North
and added to the South just to create a more balanced population, because we really want to see that we can all continue to be represented in much the same manner.
My riding is very much like the riding of my colleague, the Hon Member for Athabasca. We have similar concerns, similar worries, similar problems simply because we face similar conditions and similar circumstances. I am speaking particularly of the growth potential which exists in the north of Alberta. The agricultural sector is still trying to develop new land. I have mentioned this to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) in terms of our concern about the provision of railways and rail services for some kind of assistance to get grain from some of the farms into the central elevators which are, in many cases, 120 miles away. That is one concern that we both have because that is a concern which is common to the northern part of Alberta.
Another concern is respecting oil and gas, because there are oil and gas deposits in my particular region and, as result of that, those concerns tend to be common to a large number of people in that particular area. Those concerns may not be the same concerns as those of people in the southern part of the region.
The third resource which is present in the north of Alberta is forestry. Again this is a very common interest which tends to bring that area together. Of course there are other resources such as the tar sands which we all hope will go ahead some day soon. They were going ahead rather well before implementation of the National Energy Program, and of course right now everything has slowed down a little bit and there are some concerns about that. The glass sands as well are present in my riding and they will be developed along the Peace River in the next little while. Things are starting to happen with regard to glass sands.
You can see, Mr. Speaker, that all these resources are unique to the region of northern Alberta and therefore tend to make the interests of northern Albertans unique. Our relationships and communications are unique. As a result of that, we want to be certain that when there is another riding in the North, it is representative of those particular concerns. We do not want to see the people of northern Alberta become splinter groups.
There are many communities in northern Alberta which 1 think demonstrate what I am trying to point out. These communities include Edson, which is of course represented by the Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark), Valleyview, White-court, all communities that tend to be areas that are based upon resources, whether they be agricultural or oil and gas. There is a sort of camaraderie that exists between those communities which, though they are fairly close to the City of Edmonton, relate very well to a community like High Level, which is very near the territorial border in the northern part of the riding of Peace River. There is a common thread that runs through them all and allows them to relate to communities like Fort McMurray and Boyle in Athabasca.
So I think that it is absolutely essential that in forming these new riding boundaries, these kinds of concerns be taken into consideration. Of course, as I mentioned in the early part of
May 27, 1983

my comments, I am very pleased because in the riding which I represent, that of Peace River, the boundaries have not been changed. That allow us some flexibility to make certain that the boundaries do reflect that uniqueness.
The reason I am speaking today is that the motion which has been put forward relates to the riding of Athabasca. I just want to read into the record the particular concerns which exist, and they fall under the fourth concern of this particular motion. One of the objections reads:
4. In establishing the boundaries of the electoral district of Athabasca the Commission failed to give adequate consideration to demographic factors and revised the boundaries between the ridings of Athabasca and Lakeland in such fashion as to cause the population of the riding of Athabasca to fall well below the provincial average and the population of the riding of lakeland to increase to a level well above the provincial average.
That is essentially what I am trying to address, Mr. Speaker.
I see that you are signalling that my time is now up. I would like to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for affording me the opportunity of speaking. I look forward to future changes that will be made, and my main concern, which I am pleased to have had the opportunity to put on the record, is that we would like to be certain that those new ridings in the North are in fact northern ridings and represent the uniqueness that I think exists in northern Alberta.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair is informed that there was an understanding of the House that debate would be limited to 45 minutes. Is that so agreed?


Mr. Bill Yurko (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might be afforded an explanation of this understanding and who in fact agreed to this understanding of limiting debate time to 45 minutes. I happen to be the Member from Alberta. 1 do not recall anyone in this House asking for my permission with respect to an agreement to a limit of 45 minutes for the debate on redistribution in Alberta. I wonder if you could give me an explanation of how the understanding was reached, Mr. Speaker.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, under the statute we have to start debate on such a report within the first 15 sitting days following tabling of the report in the House. Today is the last day. There is no Standing Order clarifying the length of debate. I submit that it comes under the principle in the Standing Orders that it is up to the Government to establish the business of the House of Commons. There is no motion in front of the House. What we did last time was that I, as Government House Leader, when we were debating Reports of other Commissions dealing with other Provinces, allowed one hour of debate to start debate. After one hour, not to deprive any Member of the right to participate, we adjourned the debate to a later date to be determined by the House Leader under the Standing Orders.
I have had discussions with the House Leaders, and what we are doing today is to plan the business of the whole day. We
Electoral Boundaries
will start the debate, but not necessarily conclude it today. I recognize that the Hon. Member, being from Alberta, must have an interest in participating, but he does not have to do that today. For the purpose of the House business for today, we have set aside 45 minutes that have now expired.
I recognize that the debate is not complete and that the Hon. Member has the right to participate. Therefore, at a later date I will allow an opportunity for debate to go on. Insofar as today is concerned, I think the debate should be adjourned to a later day.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there agreement of the House that at this point debate be adjourned and we proceed to the next item of business?


Mr. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Madam Speaker, as a point of clarification I should like to ask the Government House Leader whether this particular 45-minute period which starts the debate has a termination time. Is it one hour, three hours? Is it to meet the needs of the Members from that Province to express their views on the redistribution?


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I concur with the 45 minutes limit but I just want to say that I want to have the right to speak. I think this whole exercise is unnecessary and expensive.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, the last time we had to deal with such a debate, House Leaders came to an agreement to allow five minutes to start the debate and then postpone the debate on all the reports of the Commissioners to a certain date. This year, for reasons that I do not want to judge or discuss, House Leaders were not able to come to such an agreement. That is public knowledge. I stated it the last time in their presence.
This time we decided, after discussion, to start debate on each report if there is any opposition and allow debate to go on later on. Certainly we have to start debate within the first 15 days. That is why, rather than giving only five minutes, I thought that 45 minutes was more acceptable. The debate is not terminated today. It will go on at a later date and I will inform the House accordingly.


William J. Yurko: Mr. Speaker, I am in basic agreement with the Government House Leader with respect to giving the House 45 minutes to debate this matter. What bothers me is that three people were singled out in the House from the 21 Members in Alberta to occupy and take up the whole 45 minutes.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: With all due respect to the Hon. Member for Edmonton East (Mr. Yurko), the Chair recognized the Members who rose. On each occasion only one Member was on his feet seeking the eye of the Chair when the Chair recognized him.


William J. Yurko: Mr. Speaker, this arrangement was made internally among Members for Alberta. 1 think it is inappropriate that only three were chosen to occupy the full 45 minutes.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there agreement that we now adjourn the debate?

May 27, 1983
Salaries Act


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is so agreed.


SALARIES ACT
Yvon Pinard: that Bill C-160, an Act to amend the Salaries Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I think there is agreement, as I said yesterday, that we go through all stages of this Bill today. Therefore, the motion should be that the Bill go to Committee of the Whole.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is there agreement that the motion be amended to refer the Bill to Committee of the Whole by unanimous consent?


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I was informed by my House Leader that that is the case. On behalf of this Party 1 should like to agree.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is agreed, then, that the Bill be read the second time and, by unanimous consent, be referred to a Committee of the Whole.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased at this time to introduce for second reading Bill C-160, an Act to amend the Salaries Act in respect of the Lieutenant Governors of the Provinces.
Lieutenant Governors are perhaps the least understood of constitutional officers in Canada. The fact of their appointment by the Governor in Council by instrument under the Great Seal of Canada, coupled with this Parliament's responsibility for their salaries, provides an impression that these are federal officials. They are, in fact, the Sovereign's representatives in the right of the Provinces, as much Her Majesty's representatives for all purposes of provincial Government as the Governor General himself is for purposes of Dominion Government.
As such, these officials play an integral role in the fabric of their individual Provinces. While the degree of financial and other support provided by the Provinces for these officers varies considerably, they have ensured that these officials have the means to maintain the dignity of their role as Her Majesty's representatives.
Our Constitution charges this Parliament with "fixing and providing" the salaries of Lieutenant Governors. The amendment tabled today will provide these distinguished officials with salary increases of 6 per cent effective January 1, 1982, and 5 per cent effective January 1, 1983. In addition, the amendment will provide for automatic annual adjustments,
beginning in 1984, based on the formula which is used to determine annual increases for federally appointed judges.
The need for this automatic adjustment provision becomes obvious in view of the salary history of Lieutenant Governors. Since Confederation, there have been but three formal adjustments to these salaries, in 1873, 1965 and 1975. In the past, during periods of low inflation, there was not the necessity to adjust salaries on a regular basis, and this pattern of substantial periods of time, between increases, was evident in all salaries fixed by federal statute, including those of Members of Parliament, Senators and judges. This House has in recent years moved to provide automatic adjustments to those other salaries, leaving Lieutenant Governors without such a mechanism.
There are those who will argue that we should be proposing today increases higher than those contained in this Bill, in recognition of the period since the last increase. However, bearing in mind the sacrifices being made by all Canadians as we unite in our efforts toward economic recovery, and the allowances and support provided by both the federal and provincial Governments toward the expenses of the office, I know that these leading Canadians will support the level of increase proposed by the Government, and this and their respective provincial Governments' continued commitment to economic growth.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please. It being one o'clock, I do now leave the Chair until two o'clock this afternoon.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. 1 understand that when the House rose at one o'clock the floor was free, but that the Chair should now recognize the Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker).


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to speak in the House on what I like to call "ecumenical Friday". It seems that quite often we deal with matters on Friday afternoons in the House of Commons in a very sane and civilized way, with some agreements. That has not always been the case on some Fridays over the last little while, but today, I believe, is one of those "ecumenical" days.
In continuing the debate begun by my friend, the Government House Leader, on an Act to amend the Salaries Act respecting Lieutenant-Governors of Canada, let me begin by referring the House to the power source of the Lieutenant-Governors. I quote' the following from the British North America Acts, 1867 to 1975, at page 18:
May 27, 1983

For each Province there shall be an Officer, styled the Lieutenant-Governor, appointed by the Governor General in Council by Instrument under the Great Seal of Canada.
The Act then goes on to indicate that he holds office during the pleasure of the Governor General, and 1 quote:
-but any Lieutenant-Governor appointed after the Commencement of the First Session of the Parliament of Canada shall not be removeable within Five Years from his Appointment, except for Cause assigned-
In other words, when a Lieutenant-Governor is appointed, he takes on a particular and peculiar status in the hierarchy of Government. 1 believe the Government House Leader was right when he said in his remarks that there were some people in the country who did not understand the significance of the role of Lieutenant-Governor. I believe it is important that the House and the country understand that it is not an honorary position. It is a position the holders of which enjoy particular powers within the community.
I want to say at the outset that I believe that every Government, whether it has been Liberal or Conservative, over the course of the years has taken great pains to ensure that the person who holds that position of Lieutenant-Governor-and I hope to demonstrate this a little later in my speech-is a person of standing in the community, not just of standing in the social or economic sense, but in the sense of accomplishment. The history has been that most of the Lieutenant-Governors in the country are appointed at the end of a long career in some other occupation where they stood for something, and in their appointment they stand for something by the nature of the persons who have been appointed.
Having said that, let us consider what the office is. It is an office which combines the monarchical and federal principles in the government of the Canadian Provinces. As the chief executive officer in each Province, the Lieutenant Governor succeeded the pre-1867 colonial Governor in his office, if not in his person, and as such he is the representative of the Crown within the Province and for the purposes of the provincial Government.
The category of representative of the Crown has some interesting and important constitutional perimeters. I believe it is well when we are considering the salaries of the Lieutenant Governors of Canada that we understand just how far that power ranges.
In his capacity, a Lieutenant Governor possesses the formal powers necessary for the working of the Cabinet or parliamentary Government. Moreover, the Lieutenant Governor has broad discretionary powers which may on occasion be exercised and, indeed, have been exercised. He alone has the responsibility, whatever the circumstances, of finding a Minister who can form a Government. He must be consulted on the summoning and the prorogation of the legislature of each of the Provinces. He must agree to the dissolution of the legislature and the date of an election. He can question and discuss Government policy. He has the power to dismiss a Government for unlawful or unconstitutional actions. He can, in short, refuse to follow the avice of his Ministers if, in his opinion, the public interest requires it. These powers cannot be defined, and while their exercise has been and must necessarily
Salaries Act
be infrequent, their existence provides the ultimate safeguard of the Constitution.
In the past, Lieutenant Governors have felt it necessary to refuse dissolution, to decline to make appointments, and on five occasions have found it necessary to dismiss their Governments. The Lieutenant Governor is also an officer of the Government of Canada. He is appointed and paid by the federal Government. He is liable to its instructions and may be dismissed by the federal Government. Two Lieutenant Governors, in Quebec in 1879 and in British Columbia in 1900, have been dismissed. The Lieutenant Governor is appointed and holds office "during pleasure", but the normal term is for about five years. All expenses of the office other than the salary and a small expense are borne by the provincial Government.
I thought it wise, because there are some people who would wonder why we would be looking to the salaries of Lieutenant Governors in this period of time, to indicate to the House of Commons that it is not an office pro forma; it is an office of substantial constitutional powers and duties. Going back to my opening remarks, I would like to say that it is an office to which Governments have given some considerable attention concerning the people who would fill them. It is wise for the House to understand that the woman and the men who are Lieutenant Governors in Canada now are very fine people. The salary was not their attraction to the office but, rather, the prestige and honour of serving in public office. I think this is true for all of them.
First, I would like to speak of our own Lieutenant Governor in the Province of Ontario, the Hon. John B. Aird, a very distinguished lawyer, a Member of this Parliament in the sense that he was a member of the Senate at one time. He has garnered a host of honorary degrees. He stood for excellence and he now stands for public service. He has been a distinguished military man, a chancellor of a university, a high officer in his church and one who has always taken an interest in public affairs. He succeeded the honourable Pauline McGibbon, who was the first women to be Lieutenant Governor. 1 do not think there is anyone in the House who would not say that Pauline McGibbon distinguished herself on every occasion as one who understood the nature of the office and its duties. She has been ably succeeded by the Hon. John B. Aird, who has brought great enthusiasm to his office and its duties, which, to some of us, would seem very onerous indeed. I have been with him on occasion in his Province and 1 have watched him on other occasions. 1 think that his appointment was brilliant. He has carried himself in that office with the same distinction as he has fulfilled every task he has undertaken. I said that the Lieutenant Governor stands for something, and that is indeed true of John Aird. I congratulate the Government on its choice. It could have found no one better.
Then there is the Hon. Henry Pybus Bell-Irving of Vancouver, a person who has distinguished himself in business, in his

May 27, 1983
Salaries Act
service to the Boy Scouts movement in Canada, in the work of the Children's Hospital in his city, and in the Armed Services. It was a fine appointment. He followed another distinguished person, the Hon. George Perks, winner of the Victoria Cross. The Hon. Henry Bell-Irving has the distinction of living in a delightful mansion in the Province of British Columbia, a mansion similar to that which we should have for our Lieutenant Governor in Ontario, something I wanted to say just in case the Minister of Government Services for Ontario might read today's debate as reported in Hansard. I pass him a very broad hint that it might be appropriate to do something to improve the residence of the Lieutenant Governor in the Province of Ontario. However, in the Hon. Henry Bell-Irving there has been found a distinguished Canadian who holds that office with great distinction.
The Hon. Jean-Pierre Cote, a member of Her Majesty's Privy Council, a former Member of the House of Commons and Minister of the Crown, works under very difficult circumstances in the Province of Quebec.


Jean-Luc Pepin: He understood.


Walter David Baker: It is interesting that in the present political context of that Province, it is not the Lieutenant Governor who reads the Speech from the Throne. It is the occupant of the Throne, the Premier, who reads the speech. It is a manner of downgrading the office. It is a rather sad thing. It is important that the office be upgraded. I think that even those of us who disagreed politically with Mr. Cote when he was here in the House of Commons feel that he is carrying on under some rather difficult circumstances. I thought it might be appropriate, on this ecumenical Friday afternoon, to mention that. He was a public servant. He served as a Minister of the Crown and he did his best in that office. History will decide whether or not his best was good enough.
The distinguished holder of the office in Prince Edward Island is the Hon. Joseph Aubin Doirion, a dentist, who occupied himself in work in the Chamber of Commerce, in the Heritage Foundation of that Province, the Canadian Folk Arts Council, as a school trustee, in positions of authority and responsibility in his church. Wherever one looks in Prince Edward Island, 1 am told, people are found who extol the virtues of this man who stood for what is best and stands for what is best in those unique and great people from Prince Edward Island.
In Alberta, the holder of the office at the moment is the Hon. Frank Lynch-Staunton, who has been a rancher in the south and western part of Alberta, tucked up agaisnt the foothills of the Rockies. I often wonder, as I wonder about some people who come here from Alberta, how one could possibly leave that beautiful part of Canada with the magnificence of the Rocky Mountains. He was able to open his eyes every morning to look out and see those Rockies, yet he has left the comfort of his ranch, in such a lovely setting, to take on this office for the paltry sum which we pay him. To my mind he is also a distinguished Canadian who, in the public interest and with a feeling of public service, has decided to
accept the call to that position. He carries it out with great distinction. The Hon. Member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Hargrave) said that he is a fine man. When the Hon. Member for Medicine Hat says that anyone is a fine person, that is a medal for that person.
In Saskatchewan, the holder of the office is the Hon. Cameron Irwin McIntosh. The great claim to fame of Lieutenant Governor Macintosh is not just the fact that he has been Lieutenant Governor. Before he took office, he was distinguished in the newspaper field as an editor and publisher, a person who looked after and felt strongly about a free press and stood for something in that sense. Fie is a distinguished Canadian and I congratulate the Government on his appointment.
Two or three times I have had occasion to deal with the holder of the office in Newfoundland, the Hon. William Anthony Paddon. I want to tell Hon. Members something about that gentleman. He was a surgeon during the war. He went to work with the Grenfell mission in Labrador, being a native of Labrador, where he endured sacrifices which very few physicians anywhere must endure in order to carry out his profession. He practised his profession the way he wanted it to be practised. He has been the recipient of numerous awards for his humanitarian approach. He thought so much of the office and the importance of his being there on the occasion of the meeting in St. John's, Newfoundland, of the Canada-Europe interparliamentary group, which I had the privilege to join a couple of weeks ago, that he cut short his well earned vacation in England. He flew back two or three days earlier than his wife in order to receive the delegation at Government House, where he received us with kindness and warmth. Although 1 had met him before and read about him before, I felt that if there are little things that make great men greater, it is that kind of sacrifice in order to carry out the office. We would have forgiven him if he had not been there, but he did receive us. I think that that speaks volumes for the kind of person who sits in Government House in Newfoundland. It epitomizes the character of his colleagues in offices across the country.
One has only to visit the Lieutenant Governor in Government House in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to know that when the Hon. John Elvin Shaffner was appointed Lieutenant Governor of that Province, a fine man was appointed. He is a good businessman. He rose to the top of his profession. He was interested in the affairs of Acadia University and has done much good work. He stands and has stood for all that is good in the society of that Province.
The Hon. George Francis Gillman Stanley is the Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick. When one reads his curriculum vitae one finds that in that high office in Government House there is a very distinguished author and historian who has brought nothing but credit to every institution with which he has been associated. He is a retired military officer, decorated in the service of his country, who has written a number of
May 27, 1983

books which I think would be interesting to Members of the House. They include such books as "The Birth of Western Canada", 1936; "Canada's Soldiers", 1954; "In Search of the Magnetic North", 1955; "In the Face of Danger", 1960; "For Want of a Horse", 1961; "Louis Riel", 1963; "The Story of Canada's Flag", 1965; "New France-The Last Phase, 17441760"; "A Short History of the Canadian Constitution", 1969; "Mapping the Frontier", 1970; "Canada Invaded 1775-1776"; "L'lnvasion du Canada 1775-1776"; "The Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus, a Short History of the Canadian Grand Priory". The list goes on and on. No one can doubt this man's distinction. If one were to look for people worthy of filling the post, one could not find a person more worthy than he, if Hon. Members agree with me that the Lieutenant Governor is a person who brings something to the office and whose presence in the office enhances it.
Finally, I want to talk about the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba. The Lieutenant Governor is the Hon. Pearl McGonigal who is the second woman in Canadian history to occupy a vice regal post in Canada. The first woman, the Hon. Pauline McGibbon, brought distinction to her Province, herself and her sex in the performance of her duties.
I am satisfied that not only has the beginning of her service indicated the same for the Hon. Pearl McGonigal, but her period of time in that office will indicate the completion of that prophecy. Her great distinction is that she has been described as a veteran civic politician and one who is engaged in public life at the grass roots. Some of us ought not to forget about the grass roots. She has carried out the duties of her office and will continue to do so with great distinction. Those duties are rigorous indeed when one sees her schedule.
I thought I should mention that because, when we talk about the salaries of these people, Members will be as shocked as I was when I opened this Bill to learn of the level of the present salary for people who fill that office and carry out those duties which are ceremonial and constitutional and require attention seven days a week, 12 months of the year. I hope the House also shares the feeling that the proposal for the very small increases in salary, approximately $38,000, is not only overdue but small by any standard and beyond criticism.
Therefore, I wish to inform the House that it is our intention to support this Bill and have it put through at all stages. A Bill such as this should have been introduced long ago. While I can understand why the Bill was not introduced at the time we dealt with judges' salaries some time ago, it was certainly as timely then as it is now. Indeed, it is overdue.
What is the duty of Parliament? Judges are a peculiar breed of Canadians. They have no one to speak for them amongst their numbers except privately. If they speak out publicly, whether it concerns salary or anything else, they are admonished. I believe that is quite right and proper since they are put in a special place and given special responsibilities. The Lieutenant Governors are in no different position in terms of their ability to speak out for themselves on public issues. The fact that the clientele under this Bill are mute by law and tradition puts a duty on this House to speak for them. We have a duty to protect them and make judgments with respect to
Salaries Act
proposals that are brought forward for salary increases or anything else.
What criteria should a government apply? Certainly the salaries paid, whether to judges or Lieutenant Governors, ought not to be the factor which attract men and women to those offices. I can assure you that the Lieutenant Governors' salary is not what would attract a potential candidate to that office. But neither should a salary be at a level which would deter someone from accepting a call to fill that position. Once the Government has completed all its requirements for making an apointment, it should not have to overcome that impediment.
If the Government of the day feels that that is sufficient, then I am not prepared to argue with it. I am not prepared to argue with it in principle. I think it meets the tests in the criteria which I have put forward which I believe apply to those who cannot speak for themselves.
I want to tell the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard) that it is our intention to support this legislation. I think it is fair, reasonable and long overdue.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, we also support the legislation. This afternoon, I do not intend to spend a great deal of time listing the Lieutenant Governors I have known. As you are aware, I have served in the legislature of Ontario during the tenure of three Lieutenant Governors: Earl Rowe, Ross McDonald and Pauline McGibbon. I want to say that I have not met three finer people in my years dealing with them, as I frequently did as House Leader.
My experience with Ross McDonald was an absolute pleasure. He carried out his office with great dignity and worked very hard. He was quite elderly come the end of his tenure, but he put in the very long hours that were necessary.
Pauline McGibbon was also a person who devoted a great deal of time to public service and continues to do so. I see her from time to time during my flights in and out of Toronto. She is continually working on behalf of the arts in particular in attempting to improve the quality of life and the opportunity for a better quality of life for many Canadians.
The increase in salary is not substantial by any means. The salary paid is equally unsubstantial. I was not aware how much Lieutenant Governors were paid, and I must confess that upon seeing that amount again, I thought it was not overly generous by any means, given the office that those people hold. I undersand from a previous discussion that there had not been any adjustment in that salary for some many long years. It is appropriate it be adjusted.
The six and five program which the Government brought in some time ago certainly limits the amount of the adjustment and we will, therefore, support the Bill before us.
I am interested in one provision of the Bill, namely, Clause 2(2). I will not likely speak at the committee stage since 1 presume the Bill will go through rapidly. But the provision in Clause 2, Paragraph 2 which applies to the retroactivity

May 27, 1983
Salaries Act
feature, particularly for those who are deceased, I think is an interesting one to put forward and one that 1 have felt should be in other legislation dealing with other people who perhaps do not enjoy the same level of public presence that Lieutenant Governors do. It always strikes me as unfair that people who have served long and leave office for one reason or another do not get the benefit of a change in salary, even though the change in salary turned out to be retroactive.
We will support the Bill. In the interest of time and since much of what can be said has been said, I will urge passage of it immediately. We can get it through and get on with the equally important legislation with which we have to deal this afternoon.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and, by unanimous consent, the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Blaker in the chair.
On Clause 1-Salaries of lieutenant governors for 1982
Dave Nickerson: Mr. Chairman, the Government House Leader, the President of the Privy Council, is no doubt aware that until 1905 there used to be a Lieutenant Governor for the Northwest Territories. At that time the office of the Chief Executive Officer of the Territories was downgraded. The appointment is now no longer made by the Governor General of Canada. The person is appointed by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and in former times by the Minister of the Interior.
Has the President of the Privy Council ever given any consideration to letting us have a Lieutenant Governor again?


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Chairman, I will be pleased to bring this concern to the attention of the Minister for Indian Affairs and Northern Development and also to my other colleagues in Cabinet. I understand my colleague wants us to seize this opportunity when we are discussing a salary increase for Lieutenant Governors. I will raise the concern of his region and I will bring that to the attention of my colleagues.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.


PRIVACY
Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Minister of Justice) moved:: That, in accordance with Section 53 of Schedule II of an Act to enact the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, to amend the Federal Court Act and the Canada Evidence Act, and to amend certain other Acts in consequence thereof, Chapter 111 of the Statutes of Canada for the present session of Parliament, this House approves the appointment of John W. Grace, Esquire, as Privacy Commissioner.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, could you call the motion concerning the appointment of Mrs. Inger Hansen as Information Commissioner first, and we could proceed with the motion dealing with the Privacy Commissioner afterwards?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: The House has heard the proposal made by the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard) in which case I will withdraw the reference to Section 53 of Schedule II.
Motion withdrawn.


INFORMATION
Mark R. MacGuigan: May 26, 1983-That, in accordance with Section 54 of Schedule 1 of an Act to enact the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, to amend the Federal Court Act and the Canada Evidence Act, and to amend certain other Acts in consequence thereof, Chapter 111 of the Statutes of Canada for the present session of Parliament, this House approves the appointment of Inger Hansen, Q.C., as Information Commissioner.
He said: Mr. Speaker, before speaking to the motion before us today, I would like to say how pleased I am that we have been able to make time to debate this resolution, since the proclamation of the Access to Information Act is awaiting the appointment of Canada's Information Commissioner. Should the motion being discussed be approved here today, as I hope it will be, and soon in the other place, proclamation of the Access to Information Act can take place 30 days after the appointment has been made. This is the earliest possible date that allows time for the Information Commissioner to establish her office in preparation for the coming into force of the Act.
[ Translation]
Mr. Speaker, as Hon. Members already know, Section 54 of the Access to Information Act, passed last July by Parliament, provides for the appointment of an Information Commissioner by the Governor in Council, and I quote:
-after approval of the appointment by resolution of the Senate and House of Commons.
The Information Commissioner holds office during good behaviour for a term of seven years, but may be removed by
May 27, 1983

the Governor in Council at any time on address of the Senate and House of Commons.

The purpose of this motion is to comply with the requirements of the Access to Information Act in requesting approval of the House to the appointment of Miss Inger Hansen to this position under the Great Seal of Canada. I do not believe there is anyone here today who is not aware of the work that Ms. Hansen has already done, in her effective and untiring way, in her present position as the Privacy Commissioner under Part IV of the Canadian Human Rights Act. However, a few biographical details may be helpful in the House in considering this motion.
Inger Hansen is a native of Denmark and a graduate of the University of British Columbia Law School. As a member of the B.C. Bar she spent eight years in the general practice of law in Vancouver. She came to Ottawa in 1969 as a lawyer with the Department of Justice attached to the Ministry of the Solicitor General. One of her primary responsibilities there was to review the Juvenile Delinquents Act and prepare a proposal to replace it. Some Hon. Members will no doubt recall her appearances before the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs in connection with this matter.
In 1973 the Department of Justice lost a good lawyer and the inmates of penitentiaries gained an outspoken and effective ombudsman when Miss Hansen became Canada's first correctional investigator. In this position Ms. Hansen gained her initial experience in the art of being an ombudsman, an art she has mastered so well. She took her ombudsman skills to the Canadian Human Rights Commission in 1977 when she was appointed a Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the first Privacy Commissioner under Part IV of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Today Ms. Hansen has earned the right to call herself Canada's senior ombudsman, having been in the field for ten years. In addition, she has built a solid international reputation for herself and for Canada in the ombudsman and data production fields. Over the past several years she has been active in the International Ombudsman's Association as a member of its planning committee. She is also a very active member of the International Association of Data Commissioners. She has chaired two of the latter group's recent annual meetings: in 1980 when Ms. Hansen hosted the meeting in Ottawa and again, by special request of the conference, in London this past summer. In all, Inger Hansen legitimately lays claim to a vast national and international network of friends and associates.
I would also like to say personally how much I have admired the work of Ms. Hansen. I first met her when I was a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs and she first began her work in Ottawa. Subsequently, as Chairman of that Committee and as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Penitentiaries, I had good reason to observe her work
Information Commissioner
closely in the last number of months. As the Minister responsible for the Canadian Human Rights Commission, I have also had many contacts with her. She has not only been unfailingly courteous but also unfailingly effective in the performance of her duties. I would add that in my 15 years in Ottawa she is one of the people in the Public Service of Canada I have come to admire the most.

With all her experience, Inger Hansen is the ideal person to take up this challenge and set another precedent as the first Information Commissioner in Canada. The role of Information Commissioner is, of course, that of an ombudsman and is closely related to that of the Privacy Commissioner. The Access to Information Act provides that any Canadian who has been denied access to a document he has requested under the Act, who has failed to obtain the requested document within the prescribed time or who feels the fees charged are excessive, may lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner.
The Commissioner will have extensive powers of investigation which will allow him to look fully into the problem and try to find a solution. I believe that this will happen in most cases and that no longer being required to institute an action at law will save Canadians both time and money. It will always be possible to appeal to the Federal Court in those cases where the problem has not been solved.

Of course the Information Commissioner is an officer reporting directly to Parliament. Being entirely free of the executive, the Commissioner will be at liberty to recommend release of government information, criticize the actions of the executive taken under the Act, table her recommendations in Parliament and take government institutions to court herself to obtain the release of information.
The Office of the Information Commissioner, as part of a two-tiered review system under an access to information scheme, represents a uniquely Canadian approach which the Government feels will maximize the disclosure of information under the Act at a minimal cost to Canadians. I am pleased to be able to speak on behalf of the Government to the motion that Inger Hansen be appointed to this position. In my view she is the ideal person to ensure that the position is developed to achieve its full potential. Therefore, on this basis I recommend to the House the resolution that the nomination of Inger Hansen as Information Commissioner be approved.


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have been asked today to sepak on behalf of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition with respect to this appointment and if the rules permit it-certainly our customs do-to say that I second the appointment of Ms. Inger Hansen, Q.C., as the Information Commissioner. I think the Government has made a good choice. It is important that the new ombudsman or Information Commissioner start her role, not just with the approval of the Government, but with the approval of all

May 27, 1983
Information Commissioner
Parties in the House of Commons to which she will report from time to time during her tenure in office.
We have come a long way in the quest for freedom of information in Canada. For many years Mr. Barry Mather, a Member of the New Democratic Party, and Mr. Ged Baldwin, a Member of the Progressive Conservative Party, advocated the whole approach to openness in government. It was with some reluctance that the present Government was brought to the position where, if it was not intellectually committeed to access of information or freedom of information, it at least had to become politically committed to it.
We had a long debate and a long committee hearing on Bill C-143. The Bill was a shade different from Bill C-15 which I had the honour to bring in during the period of the Conservative Government. It was the first Government Bill on freedom of information, at least at the federal level, in Canada. Nonetheless, Bill C-43 was a welcome addition to the Order Paper of the House of Commons and will now, I am pleased to hear, be proclaimed on July 1 or thereabouts. July 1 is the date thirty days more or less from today. That is an important landmark or benchmark in the legislative history and in the evolution of the operation of government in Canada.
I will speak for a few moments about how important is the job of Information Commissioner in terms of the change this legislation heralds for the work, role and functions of government and the Public Service. The Minister of Justice (Mr. MacGuigan) spoke a few moments ago about the ombudsman aspect of the role. That is right. In that role quite often the Information Commissioner will be called upon to go to reluctant Departments or heads of Departments to urge them to comply with a request, to intervene and to guide Departments. From time to time that Information Commissioner upon request will have to say to the subject, "You are not entitled to that information; it falls within an exemption". From time to time the Commissioner will instigage legal action or take other administrative action, including reporting to Parliament on defaulters within Government in terms of looking to the provisions of the Act and abiding by the provisions of the Act.
One cannot predict where this will go. Indeed, my Party is committed to looking at Bill C-43 in order to see where the present Access to Information Act does not comply with the Freedom of Information Act which we brought in in 1979 and to make amendments thereto. It would be wise for the House to consider Bill C-15 as well as Bill C-43 for the future.
Ged Baldwin used to day that once you put your foot upon the path, you cannot withdraw it. Frankly, I regret that the Information Commissioner, and the courts if necessary, because of limitations in the Bill will not have a chance to look at confidences of the Queen's Privy Council to see whether they are indeed confidences of the Queen's Privy Council. She will now have the responsibility, as I see the Act, of looking at those things that are to be declared confidences, at least in historic terms to see whether those things styled confidence of
the Queen's Privy Council have not suddenly become confidence of the Queen's Privy Council as a matter of convenience to avoid release.
I say all of those things because I believe that while this is a very exciting age in terms of openness in Government, the Commissioner, graced as she is with education, background, training and knowledge to do the job, is not going to find the job to be an easy one. There are some who would advocate that she become a pro counsel, so to speak, become quite aggressive in terms of the public and in terms of her activities under the statute. I do not know which is the right role. I cannot guide anyone in that respect. Miss Hansen will have to make her own way, as she has done in other matters and has done so competently. It is important that she be in the role to get her office organized. I suggest at the outset there will be a number of organizations and groups testing the waters of freedom of information rather quickly. Whether that flood is a continuing one or will diminish is a matter of opinion.
I spoke earlier about the relationship of the public servant and the adjustments that will have to be made within the Public Service. Those adjustments will take a great deal of time. The Government has done some preparation internally. There are information officers now either in place or about to be put in place in every Department. The Privy Council has done a great job in getting this organized. Banks of information, exempt and otherwise, are available and are being added to. The highest technological aids will be or are being used with respect to the information available. All of those things are there.
What has to happen is a natural change from a Public Service, which in the British tradition was secretive, to a Public Service which in the new Canadian tradition of openness which this Bill and this appointment is the beginning of openness. It is going to be hard, it is going to be quite difficult, expeciaily for older public servants to make that adjustment. Gradually as time goes on and the Information Commissioner does her work and the information officers begin to work, I am confident that the Public Service will adjust to the change. Let no one think it will not be difficult at the beginning for that adjustment to be made. Indeed, we are plowing new ground with this appointment, certainly in terms of this statute.
I share with other Members of the House of Commons a concern that the costs for obtaining information from the Government might very well be excessive. As I understand it, we have heard no final word with respect to that matter. My friend from British Columbia brought an indication of that to the House. It would be nice if today there could be tabled in the House of Commons a list of the fees so that we would know how much it is going to cost and we can make judgments with respect to it. I gather that is not to be.
I certainly hope the costs revealed by my friend for Burnaby (Mr. Robinson) will not turn out to be the final cost and that a leak in that sense will have the same effect as the leak did with the budget. At least that provided more money for some programs. Perhaps the leak found by my friend for Burnaby will cause some sober second thoughts in terms of costs. It is very important that it not be viewed as a project on a cost-
May 27, 1983

recovery basis. That would bar many Canadians from access to information to which they are entitled.
We will probably have some expressions of regret or approval when we see what the final costs are. I ask the Government not to deal in anything but the most open way, understanding the purpose of the statute, expecialy at the beginning so that Canadians can get used to it and not be barred by excessive costs in the production of information.
The reporting to Parliament is important. She becomes a servant of Parliament. She also becomes a very important instrument in the ultimate parliamentary review that will take place in a few years down the road in the operation of that statute.
I said at the beginning that I think her appointment is a good one and a sound one. On behalf of all my colleagues in this Party, I wish her well. I hope and I believe that she will bring to her office the same accomplishment and dedication to duty that she has brought to every public office she has held. I congratulate her. I warmly welcome her to the office and we all wish her well.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and support the resolution before the House and thus make it unanimous, representing the desire of Members of Parliament of all Parties in this House that the newly appointed Information Commissioner, Inger Hansen, conduct her activities with the full support of Parliament and not just the Government of the day.
I am pleased that this legislation is finally going to be proclaimed. As Members know, for some time we were promised the date of April 1. I now understand that the legislation will be proclaimed on or about July 1.
I might also say with respect to the previous speaker that certainly the Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker) had a great deal of responsibility for the fact that this legislation is before the House today. It was that Hon. Member, in his capacity as Government House Leader and President of the Privy Council, who brought Bill C-115 before the Justice Committee in 1979, of which I was a Member. I am convinced that had it not been for that initiative on the part of that Member and that Government, the Liberal Government would not be bringing forward freedom of information legislation in this Parliament today. All of us in this House and indeed the Canadian public owe a debt of gratitude to the Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton.
We also owe a debt of gratitude to Ged Baldwin who was instrumental in bringing this matter before the Standing Joint Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments, as well as one of my predecessors in this House, Barry Mather, who for a number of years from the mid-sixties tabled a Private Members' Bill and urged the Government to move forward in this very important area. I note that while the legislation will be proclaimed on July 1, there is, unfortunately, still a built-in delay in the Bill. The Bill provides for a transition period which in some circumstances will mean that information in the hands of the Government will not be made
Information Commissioner
available until July 1, 1986, some three years after proclamation of the legislation.
The Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton made reference to the question of bureaucratic barriers that might subvert the spirit of freedom of information legislation. In my view it is absolutely essential that this spirit not be subverted by either unwarranted delays in the availability of information or certainly not by excess costs. Sometime ago I released a document which was a draft regulation which, in my view, would have meant that the costs proposed for access to information would be most unreasonable and excessive.
This fundamental right of access to information in a democratic society would have been turned into a privilege for those who could afford it. The draft regulations would have restricted access considerably. There would have been an initial application fee of $10, photocopying charges of 25 cents per page, and charges for computer time of $2.50 per quarter hour, this in a time when records are becoming increasingly computerized.
I am hopeful that the Government will recognize the degree of opposition to this proposal, which would have turned access to information legislation into basically a revenue-generating device for the Government as opposed to a means for ensuring that the Government is held to account by the provision of information.
As Ralph Nader, one of the pioneers of access to information legislation in the United States, said:
A well informed citizenry is the lifeblood of democracy ... The democratic process cannot function adequately without timely information about the activities of Parliament. A person should have the right of reasonable access to all public information in the possession of governments-
I might note as well that both the Official Opposition and the New Democratic Party supported an amendment to the Charter of Rights, the fundamental statement of principles and values in the country, which would have recognized that access to information and freedom of information should be included as one of those fundamental rights in a free and democratic society.
Both the Minister of Justice and the spokesperson on behalf of the Official Opposition have made reference to the distinguished record of Inger Hansen. I need not add much to their remarks. I might say that I was particularly impressed by her outspoken and independent performance as the first correctional investigator for Canada. Most recently she has served as Privacy Commissioner under Part IV of the Canadian Human Rights Act. It has been argued by some that the profile she adopted in that particular role and the extent to which the public was perhaps not made aware of the role that she was playing and indeed their rights under that Act was something that perhaps should have been changed. I am somewhat sympathetic to the arguments of those who have suggested that that office should indeed have a high profile. It is one thing to have rights entrenched in statutes but it is quite

May 27, 1983
Information Commissioner
another thing for members of the public to be aware of those rights and to seek to enforce them.
I would hope, therefore, that as Information Commissioner Inger Hansen would, in pursuing her new responsibilities, in fact seek to make the public very much aware of her new role and of the powers of her office, and indeed of the responsibilities that she has as Information Commissioner. I would certainly strongly support any request that she would make before the Justice committee or any Committee that may be monitoring this legislation for a sufficient budget in order that there may be widespread knowledge and education of the rights of the public under the access to information legislation. In short, I believe that Miss Hansen should have a very high profile in this role, unlike the role which she played as Privacy Commissioner.
I am confident that now that Miss Hansen has had an opportunity to study very carefully the legislation, and I know that she followed with great diligence the progress of the Bill through the Justice Committee, she will recognize that there is still a good deal of work to be done. I know that in her testimony before that Committee she did not express any criticisms of the substance of the Bill, although certainly most other witnesses who appeared before the Committee did express some serious concerns about a number of elements of the Bill. But I am confident that Miss Hansen will indeed recognize that the weaknesses in the Bill must in fact be corrected. It is fortunate that there is provision within the legislation for an ongoing review process as well as a report back to Parliament at the end of three years for general review and recommendations with respect to strengthening of the Act.
I believe that Inger Hansen has a very important role to play in the review process. She must not hesitate to speak out with her respected and articulate voice so that she will be heard, and of course the fact that she reports to Parliament and not to the Government will enhance her possibilities of doing so.
I have mentioned weaknesses in the legislation. I draw to the attention of Parliament three of the major areas of concern which I know that Miss Hansen herself is aware of. One area is the sweeping nature of the exemptions within the legislation, whether it be references to federal-provincial exemptions or law enforcement and subversive or hostile activities. Another area of concern is the second-class nature of judicial review within the legislation when there should in fact be full de novo review on the merits, and once again I am hopeful that the Committee which examines this legislation will recognize that indeed the original proposals in this respect in Bill C-15 should have been adopted.
The final area of concern is that sweeping provision which was inserted at the last stages of Committee hearings which permits the Government essentially to stamp any document it wishes as a confidence of the Queen's Privy Council, and which contains no review procedure whatsoever to ensure that that discretion on the part of Cabinet will not be abused.
I signal those areas of concern because, of course, the Bill itself does contain a number of weaknesses; but fortunately there is the provision for review. I am confident that Inger Hansen will exercise her responsibilities with distinction and that indeed her outspoken and independent performance as correctional investigator will be repeated in the performance of her new and very significant role as Information Commissioner. 1 congratulate her on her appointment and 1 am looking forward to working closely with her in the review process of this legislation. I know that all Members of Parliament would join with me in commending her for her record of service to the people of Canada and in wishing her well in the future.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Motion (Mr. MacGuigan) agreed to.


PRIVACY
Mark R. MacGuigan: That, in accordance with Section 53 of Schedule II of an Act to enact the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act, to amend the Federal Court Act and the Canada Evidence Act, and to amend certain other Acts in consequence thereof, Chapter 111 of the Statutes of Canada for the present session of Parliament, this House approves the appointment of John W. Grace, Esquire, as Privacy Commissioner.
He said: Mr. Speaker, as with the motion to approve the appointment of the Information Commissioner which was discussed earlier this afternoon and just approved, I am pleased to be speaking to this motion today. Proclamation of the Privacy Act, an Act which will significantly extend the rights of individuals with respect to the protection of information about themselves held by the Government of Canada, awaits the appointment of the Privacy Commissioner. If the motion being discussed is approved here today and soon in the other place, the proclamation of the Privacy Act will occur 30 days after the appointment has been made, parallel with the proclamation of the Access to Information Act.

Mr. Speaker, as Hon. Members already know, Section 53 of the Privacy Act, passed last July by Parliament, provides for the appointment of a Privacy Commissioner by the Governor in Council, and I quote:
-after approval of the appointment by resolution of the Senate and House of Commons.
The Privacy Commissioner holds office during good behaviour for a term of seven years, but may be removed by the Governor in Council at any time on address of the Senate and House of Commons.

The purpose of this motion, therefore, is to comply with the requirements of the Privacy Act and to request the approval of
May 27, 1983

the House for the appointment of Dr. Grace to this position under the Great Seal of Canada.
Although I think everyone who is here today is familiar with Dr. Grace, in particular through his work as Editor and later Editor-in-Chief of the Ottawa Journal, I would like to put on record a few biographical details about him which 1 hope will be helpful to us in considering this motion.
John Grace is a native of the Ottawa Valley. He was born in Ottawa in 1927 and obtained his early education here. After receiving his BA from St. Patrick's College in 1949, he pursued post-graduate studies in English literature in the United States. When he completed his doctorate at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, he was appointed to the Faculty of English Language and Literature at that University. Dr. Grace was, in fact, the first graduate of the University of Michigan to be hired back by the University in 17 years. This action speaks for itself as an indication of the high esteem in which he was held.
Canada was very fortunate in 1959 when John Grace decided to return to Ottawa to join the Ottawa Journal as an editorial writer and member of the editorial board. This was the beginning of his long association with that newspaper. He was named Associate Editor in 1962 and, since 1972, was responsible for the editorial policy of the Ottawa Journal. From June, 1978 until August, 1980, when the newspaper ceased publication, he held the position of The Journal's VicePresident and Editor-in-Chief.
Most Members of the House are aware of Dr. Grace's reputation as an independent-minded, outspoken editorial writer. Whether or not we always shared Dr. Grace's views on particular issues, 1 believe we would all agree that integrity was a key quality in his editorials.
His skills as an editorial writer were certainly recognized by his peers. His editorials won two National Newspaper Awards in 1975 and 1977 and one citation for merit in 1974. These awards are the most prestigious awards in Canadian journalism. Today, he acts as a judge for those awards, again an indication of the respect those in the newspaper profession continue to hold for him.
During the period of time he served at The Journal in Ottawa. Dr. Grace also lectured on a part-time basis in the graduate school of the University of Ottawa. He has been a radio and television commentator on public affairs and served as a member of the Canada Council for six years. John Grace is currently a member of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, having been appointed to that position in October, 1980.
The independence he has demonstrated in that position will serve Dr. Grace extremely well in the position of Privacy Commissioner. The Privacy Commissioner, like the Information Commissioner we discussed earlier this afternoon, will be an ombudsman. One of the key responsibilities of the Privacy Commissioner will be to investigate complaints from individuals with respect to denials of access to information about
Privacy Commissioner
themselves. In this role, the Commissioner will represent individuals in ensuring that Government institutions are persuaded to provide as much access to personal information as is possible.

However, the Privacy Commissioner will not deal only with complaints. He will act as the Government's guard dog with regard to the collection, retention, use, disclosure and disposal of personal information by Federal institutions. He is specifically responsible for monitoring the implementation of all rules relating to information contained in the Privacy Act in order to ensure compliance by federal institutions. The Privacy Commissioner will report to the federal institutions when he is convinced that these rules are not being followed and he may report such instances to Parliament.

The Privacy Commissioner has also been given the responsibility of overseeing the use of exempt banks. If he finds that personal information has been improperly included in an exempt bank, he can refer the issue to the Federal Court. If the Court agrees with him, it can order the information removed from the bank.
Thus, the role of the Privacy Commissioner is an extremely important one. Through him, Canadians will be able to ensure that information about them held by the Government of Canada is protected in accordance with the requirements of the Act.
I am pleased to be able to speak, on behalf of the Government, to Dr. Grace's appointment to this position, and to add my personal estimate of his merits. He is a man of integrity; a man who has proved he is willing to stand up for his principles and beliefs. In addition, John Grace's long and distinguished career in journalism and his involvement in community services reflect his keen respect for individual rights.
It is therefore with pleasure that I move that the nomination of John Grace as Privacy Commissioner be approved.


Walter David Baker: Madam Speaker, I am delighted to be able to join the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada (Mr. MacGuigan) in this resolution. In fact, if the Chair wished to call upon me afterwards in connection with the formalities that are necessary in this House of Commons, I would be delighted to second the nomination of Dr. Grace as the new Privacy Commissioner, the new ombudsman.
Dr. Grace is not a constituent of mine but I think any Member of the House would be honoured to call that gentleman his constituent. The Minister mentioned that he is a true son of the Ottawa Valley. I think he has taken from that rich heritage some of the important attributes of independence, judgment, good humour, goodwill and an ability to work hard, to work diligently and to work well.
There is not a word that the Minister of Justice has spoken about him with which I could disagree. During his membership

May 27, 1983
Privacy Commissioner
of the CRTC he has been become known as the great dissenter. He is the Oliver Wendell Holmes of the CRTC. Dissent is a difficult thing among colleagues but he has shown that independence of spirit and mind that enables him to do that. His role is important and is becoming more important all the time. With advances in technology it becomes less difficult for information to be spilled and put into the wrong hands, particularly personal information.
1 suspect that the Government looked over the field of available candidates and came to the conclusion, as I would if I were sitting in the seat of the Minister of Justice, that there is no one more able, no one better fitted by temperament, education and attitude, than Dr. John Grace to fulfil the role of Privacy Commissioner. This is really a pioneering role under this new statute.
The Government has chosen wisely and has chosen well. 1 commend the appointment to the House and urge that it be accepted today.


Svend Johannes Robinson: Madam Speaker, once again 1 am pleased to join with the Minister of Justice (Mr. MacGuigan) and the Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker) in supporting the resolution before the House naming John Grace Privacy Commissioner, with new and expanded powers under the Privacy Act passed by Parliament some time ago.
I have not had the privilege of meeting John Grace personally but I have had conversations with him. In light of those conversations and my review of his record, I am confident that he will exhibit the independence and intellectual integrity so necessary to carry out this job with distinction.
I know of his record at the CRTC as a dissenter. I might say that on most of his dissents I profoundly disagree with him on the substance, but nevertheless the fact that he is not afraid to take a position which at times differs from that of his colleagues augurs well for his future independence in this important role of Privacy Commissioner. It is an essential role for a number of reasons. The Privacy Act which the Government has brought forward, in my view and in the view of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and a number of other commentators, is in many ways a sham. What has been proposed by a number of these individuals, and what in fact I moved in the committee examining this Bill, is that we should have separated the Privacy Act from the other provisions in the Bill because, far from being an Act which extends the protection of privacy of Canadians, it represents in a number of ways a sweeping attack on the privacy of Canadians. It grants broad new powers to heads of Government institutions, to the RCMP and to the new civilian Security Service to intrude into the most confidential and personal aspects of Canadians' lives. In many ways the Bill expands the powers which these agencies presently have.
I said that the Bill is in some sense a sham and I believe probably the best authority for that proposition would be the McDonald Commission itself which examined this legislation, having been tabled in the House during the time they were
considering changes in the area of security. The McDonald Commission was very critical of the proposed Privacy Act. They said, and I quote:
This legislative change goes too far in opening up access of confidential information to investigative bodies including the RCMP. ... the RCMP Security Service and the Criminal Investigations side of the Force have up until now been denied access to virtually all personal information possessed by other government institutions. (I emphasize legal access)
We all know the history of illegal access by the Security Service during, particularly, the 1970s. I quote again from the McDonald Commission:
The Commission refers to the "dangerously ambiguous reference" to the definition of "subversive or hostile activities" in both the freedom of information and privacy part of the bill.
Finally they say, and I quote once again:
-the proposed Privacy Act does not provide a satisfactory test or definition of the national security needs which may justify access to personal information in the government files. ... we think it is a mistake to provide statutory information for security intelligence gathering in such vague terms.
The McDonald Commission was absolutely right, Mr. Speaker. This Bill as drafted, the legislation which is shortly to be proclaimed, constitutes, as I have indicated, an attack on the privacy of Canadians and, certainly, not an extension of the protection of privacy of Canadians. In many ways the Bill is a misrepresentation.
The new Privacy Commissioner has his work cut out for him, certainly, but I am confident that John Grace will ably perform his mandate under this legislation. It is important to emphasize, as with the case of the Information Commissioner, that he reports not to the Government of the day but rather to Parliament itself. It is in recognition of that that this resolution is being brought before Parliament.
The provisions for ongoing review of the Bill are particularly significant in the case of the Privacy Act. Many of the most glaring inadequacies of this Bill I am confident John Grace himself will recognize quickly and will want to see changed.
I have referred to some of the criticisms of the McDonald Commission. As well, I would note that there are other weaknesses in the legislation which I would hope that Mr. Grace would be dealing with. There is no provision, for example, for the disclosure of the salaries of publicly appointed officials, whether it be the Northern Pipeline Commissioner, Mitchell Sharp, whether it be the head of the Canada Post Corporation, Michael Warren, or a number of others. These have remained hidden from public scrutiny.
As well, the legislation is totally inadequate in the manner in which it deals with the phenomenon of trans-border data flow. We see increasingly the flow across the Canadian border of confidential and sensitive data about the lives of Canadians, whether it be computerized data or other data. Once it has gotten into the data banks in the United States, for example, there is absolutely no guarantee, and there are no safeguards in this Bill, that the information in question will not be abused. The issue of Social Insurance Numbers and the potential abuse of Social Insurance Numbers was ignored in the Privacy Act and I would certainly hope that once again the new
May 27, 1983

Privacy Commissioner, Mr. Grace, would be addressing this question.
1 made reference in my comments with respect to the Information Commissioner to the importance of public awareness and education of the rights which they may have under this legislation. In view of my concern and the concern expressed by many commentators and, as I mentioned, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, this Bill does in fact represent a threat to the privacy of Canadians, taken particularly in conjunction with the new omnibus legislation tabled by the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) to create a civilian security service likely in 1984. It is essential, Mr. Speaker, for a person of the integrity, background and independence of mind of John Grace to bring his full powers to bear upon the Government and work very closely with the review committee to ensure that this fundamentally flawed piece of legislation will be significantly improved and amended following the review process. I hope that John Grace will not hesitate to speak out as the weaknesses in the legislation quickly become apparent.
I certainly hope as well that he will have an adequate budget to inform and educate Canadians as to his role as Privacy Commissioner, to make them aware of the rights which they may have under this new legislation, and the safeguards which exist in the Bill.
Once again, Mr. Speaker, 1 am pleased to join with Hon. Members of the House in agreeing to this resolution, and wish John Grace well in his very important and significant responsibilities over the next years in the interpretation and enforcement of the new privacy legislation.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Question.
Motion (Mr. MacGuigan) agreed to.


GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION ACT, 1983, BILL C-152 MEASURE TO ESTABLISH
Yvon Pinard: that Bill C-152, an Act respecting the organization of the Government of Canada and matters related or incidental thereto, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to see that we are back to the Fridays of old, and I appreciate the co-operation of Members on both sides of the House. I am particularly pleased with the major role being played in expediting the work of the House, and I may say it is most welcome, by the Member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker) with whom it has always been a pleasure and will continue to be a pleasure to work. I hope that
Government Organization Act, 1983 these preliminaries will not prevent the Bill from being passed before five o'clock, even if we do not have a firm agreement in this respect.
Mr. Speaker, the Bill before the House today is basically proposing three things: a new Government structure in the areas of regional economic development, regional industrial expansion and external affairs, including international trade, as well as certain provisions relating to Parliamentary Secretaries, and finally, it also deals with the transitional provisions resulting from the proposed changes. Canada's economic and cultural resources are the result of both the diversity and the complementarity of its regions. This diversity and complementarity developed as a result of our history, the geography of our country, our political institutions, our cultural roots and our will to live together while respecting each other's differences. It is thanks to these immense human and material resources that we have developed so rapidly and that we are able to start our economic recovery with confidence.
National economic development that respects the regional differences in our country has always been one of the major concerns of the present Government. In the early 70's, we added to the then existing Government structure a department whose sole concern would be regional economic expansion. All Ministers who have been responsible for this Department have worked very hard to give Canadians in less developed regions a chance to realize the potential of their part of the country and thus contribute to the prosperity of all Canadians.
More than ten years later, Mr. Speaker, regional economic development has become so important that a single department can no longer meet the standards and objectives set by the Government. We therefore made a careful review of the administrative structures concerned with economic development and international trade, and we reached three main conclusions.
First, regional economic development could no longer be considered a specialized activity, restricted to the confines of a single department. It would now have to permeate all the Government's economic activities. Each sectorial department would, so to speak, have to be turned into a department of regional economic expansion for its own specific field. Thanks to DREE and to the efforts deployed by the Government, regional economic development had reached a level of maturity which made it necessary to integrate its objectives in the activities of all departments with an economic input.
Second, this redistribution of regional responsibility made it necessary to co-ordinate all Government efforts in this regard. It therefore became necessary to give regional economic considerations their proper place within the Government's central decision-making process.
Third, the close relationship between domestic economic growth and our international trade activities, the complexity of

May 27, 1983
Government Organization Act, 1983
the modern international environment, and the need for maximizing the use of Government resources allocated to international relations, made it necessary to reinforce Government structures in this area. It therefore became necessary to regroup our international trade resources and to integrate their activities in the general framework of international policy, while at the same time modernizing the institutions responsible for our international relations.
Mr. Speaker, it was therefore abundantly clear that the Government had to act quickly to acquire the structures needed to implement these recommendations. An in-depth review of the various structures involved was undertaken so that, in January 1982, the Government was in a position to announce its intention to revamp certain Government structures and introduce the present Bill into the House.
Part I of the Bill gives the Department of External Affairs a new organic act and highlights many respects of the evolution of the Department since the adoption of the Department of External Affairs Act in 1909.
The Bill brings together the responsibilities concerning international trade and the traditional activities of the Department with respect to external relations. Although it regroups the duties related to international trade within a distinct entity, the Bill acknowledges the need to stress their presence in our international relations as a whole. This Bill reflects the evolution and maturity of our diplomatic institutions. Ever since Canada gained recognition as an independent nation through the 1931 Statute of Westminster, it has distinguished itself on the international scene as a trade partner, an international system stabilizing agent, a host country for immigrants and refugees, and a dispenser of international development assistance. The interdependence of those various international roles and the complexity of the contemporary international environment have transformed the traditional diplomacy. The institutions proposed in this Bill reflect the conjunction of the various international activities required for coherently and efficiently representing the many Canadian interests. Hon. Members will note as well that, under the Bill, the Secretary of State for External Affairs will be responsible for monitoring the Canadian International Development Agency.
Part II of the Bill creates the new Department of Regional Industrial Expansion which will partly replace the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce and the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, thus bringing all industrial programs under the same roof. I would urge Hon. Members to read carefully that part of the Bill to realize the significance given to regional development. The regionalization of that new Department will be a model for all other sectorial Departments. The regional impact of all Government intervention processes will thus be heightened, and every effort will be made so that sectorial and regional considerations will indeed be taken into account in the preparation of our policies and the implementation of our programs.
Part III has to do with special areas and is aimed at deleting from the organic act of the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion the provisions which concern special areas and which are now part and parcel of the Department of Regional Expansion Act. My colleague the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Lumley) will soon introduce in the House a Bill on the new regional industrial expansion program. He will need that Bill to carry out his new mandate, in addition to the tools which are already available.
Finally, Part IV introduces certain amendments to the Parliamentary Secretaries Act. It provides for the inclusion of Ministers in charge of ministries of state in figuring out the maximum number of MP's or senators who may be designated as Parliamentary Secretaries.
The fifth and last part of the Bill comprises a certain number of transitional provisions and amendments to the proclamation respecting the ministry of state for Economic Development. The proclamation spells out the new regional responsibilities of the Minister and proposes a new nomenclature to stress the importance of his role in the co-ordinating of regional economic development policies. The series of transitional provisions in that part of the Bill would indeed enable the Minister of State for Economic and Regional Development to co-ordinate the overall regional economic development policy of the Government and would temporarily give the various sectorial Ministers the authority needed to assume their regional responsibilities in their respective areas. Under such provisions, those Ministers could, for instance, until the House approves the amendments required to the various statutes concerned, conclude sectorial agreements with Provinces under the new General Agreements on economic development that will be negotiated by the Minister of State on behalf of the Government.
The various Ministers whose portfolios are affected by these organizational changes will give details of how they were prepared and what improvements would ensue.
These changes essentially would guarantee a better management of regional economic development and increased benefits for all Canadians, wherever they may be. Moreover, they would enhance the importance of international trade within the overall context of our foreign relations. We will of course welcome any proposal that would improve the Bill as it now stands, but it is my hope that Members from both sides of the House will recognize the importance of expediting the Bill. It is in that spirit and to prevent any waste of time that I have so cursorily reviewed the contents of Bill C-152. It is my hope that in their comments, Hon. Members will show the same spirit of brevity and efficiency, and that the Bill go through all stages today, so that it may give effect to the reality of changes experienced in the organization of the Government over the last few months.
May 27, 1983


Walter David Baker: Mr. Speaker, I must disabuse the Government House Leader right at the beginning that the Bill will receive easy passage in the House of Commons, because it will not receive easy passage in the House of Commons. I do not want to put an end to the ecumenical nature of the Friday afternoon, but ecumenicalism demands not only friendship but also honesty.
I must say to my friends opposite, that great phalanx sitting across from me, that it is not our intention to give easy passage to the Bill because I believe there is something fundamentally wrong here. I suggest that this is organization and reorganization gone mad. The "locomotive engineer" behind this Bill has now left the Public Service; he rests in the other place. I believe Hon. Members know who I mean but I will be more specific: he is Michael Pitfield.
I was in the Parliamentary Library reading about Government organization and 1 came upon a statement by Edmund Burke written in 1791 which I believe everyone should keep in mind as we consider this latest animal from a Government that has gone mad in terms of reorganization. Edmund Burke said:
An ignorant man, who is not fool enough to meddle with his clock, is, however, sufficiently confident to think he can safely take to pieces and put together, at his pleasure, a moral machine of another guise, importance and complexity, composed of far other wheels and springs and balances and counteracting and cooperating powers. Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand.
That is what this Bill is. It represents the little fingers of Government meddling around in Departments and agencies of the Government which were already doing their job quite well. There is a resentment within both the Department of External Affairs and the old Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce over the intent of this Bill.
This paper goes on further to say:
The urge to reorganize functions, authorities and relationships is evidently one of the most fundamental drives of senior public servants. If one thinks of organization structures as skeletal arrangements, then we suffer from a surfeit of radical chiropractors, who believe that manipulating the bones will somehow cause the organic diseases to disappear.
That is what this manipulative statute reminds me of. It goes on to say:
Second to this urge to reorganize is an urge to add on new layers of management, either under central agencies or within departments. If management is perceived as poor, we simply add more of it until the swamp is so full of swamp-drainers that managers have neither the time nor the clean line of sight for shooting the alligators.
Then it makes a plea:
There is a need then for a return to simplicity, clarity and speed of decisionmaking in the arrangement of functions and authorities, and a willingness to forego the highly-ornamental refinements that have given a rococo cast to our organization designs.
That describes to a tee what this Bill is intending to do to two fine Government Departments. Each of those Departments is designed for a specific purpose in the scheme of things and such is not only understood within Canada but abroad.
Government Organization Act, 1983
Let me quote from an article written by Jim Robb of the Ottawa Citizen. Under the byline it says:
Ed Lumley admits it.
The once lordly department of industry, trade and commerce, now the department of regional industrial expansion, has fallen in the government pecking order.
It has and that is what he says. It goes on:
"Industry, trade and commerce was Central Canada and manufacturing oriented, that's why it lost clout in the cabinet," Lumley said.
With high unemployment in the country and a necessity for upgrading our manufacturing sector in Canada for the good of its workers, the country and the world for that matter, I do not believe any Minister of the Crown ought to say that it has lost its clout. If it has lost its clout, as they say, do not blame the people in the Department and commence to reorganize it. I suggest a better solution is to strengthen the Department.
I have talked to people in the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce who tell me that what has happened to that Department as a result of the intent of this statute has not been to strengthen or augment its powers and increase its scope, but to narrow it, downgrade it and render it ineffective. It has been to render it ineffective in the important sense that the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce was the route through which business came to Government. The managers, middle managers and upper managers in that Department understood their role. It was to be the touchstone of those industries to Government and a window of Government in the world in which those people move.
That purpose has been weakened and set aside. That is the wrong step to take in a period of reconstruction. It is equally wrong because Industry, Trade and Commerce had an external aspect to it. Furthermore, it is wrong for those people in the Department to be brought down and to intermingle with those who have a diplomatic and political role to play in the world abroad at a time when we require as much world trade as possible.
I want to say at the outset that there are no grounds upon which it could be reasonably argued that this Bill should have easy passage. While the Government has a majority and the Bill will eventually pass if the Government persists, I would rather that the Government would not persist. Instead, I would like to see the Government withdraw the Bill and reconsider it. I know it may be difficult for the Ministers of State to recreate it but it would not mean the end of the world.
I do not believe this reorganization is good either for the Department of External Affairs or the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce and the people who work in those Departments. That is why there is resistance which has caused difficulties and the delayed timetable. The reorganization has been a mess. The facts should be told as they are.
The second aspect of the Bill which I want to deal with concerns Parliamentary Secretaries. 1 want everyone in the House to know that suddenly it is the intention of the Government that Senators will be eligible to become Parliamentary Secretaries. I particularly draw this to the attention of that row of Private Members on the Government side who chaff to

May 27, 1983
Government Organization Act, 1983
get into the Cabinet in the dying days of the Government. Is it not wonderful that Senators can now be eligible to become Parliamentary Secretaries?
Aside from the fact that it borders on being irrelevant to take that position, which has been taken quite easily, I believe that it has the effect of downgrading and overlooking the capacity which languishes on the backbenches of the Liberal Party. That capacity will likely languish there for another year and a half until it languishes on this side of the House when those backbenchers move over here.
In the meantime the Government has decided that it will create Senators as Parliamentary Secretaries. Furthermore, it will increase the number of Parliamentary Secretaries by four. Do we need more Parliamentary Secretaries? Is there any Member of the House of Commons who believes that the Government is gagging because of an inadequate supply of Parliamentary Secretaries and that Departments are unable to function because of a want for four Parliamentary Secretaries? I suggest not.
I would like to find the person who dreamed up this idea. I would like to find him and have a chat with him. You are pointing to someone, Mr. Speaker, but I do not know to whom. If you have secret information on this subject, perhaps you would tell me afterwards, because I would be interested to know.
In any event, to put Parliamentary Secretaries in the Senate not only downgrades my colleagues on the other side of this House, but it tends to downgrade Parliament. It is not necessary to have attention paid to Parliamentary Secretaries. We must augment the powers of this Parliament in real terms, and for that reason, instead of the Government concentrating on creating more Parliamentary Secretaries, I would rather see it upgrading the prestige of Members of Parliament who chair parliamentary committees. I believe that is where the balance ought to be struck.
I commend the sixth report of the Special Committee on Standing Orders and Procedures to the Government. In that report we spoke not only of enhancing the status of the chairmen of parliamentary committees but also of allowing Members of Parliament on both sides of the House of Commons to chair those committees. It is the sort of neutral chairman concept. It is not quite accurate but it is a neutral chairman concept to develop a cadre of chairmen of parliamentary committees within this place from both sides of the House of Commons, people who are chosen because of their ability to develop, instead of an enhancement to the Government and to the apparatus of Government in the parliamentary sense, an enhancement to Parliament in the accountability sense. I think that is a very important concept.
But this Government, at least by this Bill, is not thinking that way. We will have more Parliamentary Secretaries. We have them running out of our ears now. I would like each of them to stand up some time and tell us what they do and how they advance the cause of their Minister. You know and I
know, Sir, that whether a Parliamentary Secretary has anything to do depends very much on his Minister, whether the Minister is prepared to give that Parliamentary Secretary any work, whether that Minister is prepared to trust the Parliamentary Secretary and whether the Minister is prepared to delegate tasks to the Parliamentary Secretary. I think rather than having more Parliamentary Secretaries, and indeed Senators as Parliamentary Secretaries-think of it, Sir, Senators as Parliamentary Secretaries-


Thomas Scott Fennell: They will sit in the gallery.


Walter David Baker: -I think it would be better that we enhanced some of the parliamentary roles here. If we are going to spend any extra money, we should do it in that sense, I must say I cannot understand this. I have never understood why we needed so many Parliamentary Secretaries in the first place, but to add four and to say that they are coming from the Senate is beyond belief.
It is the third aspect that I want to speak to, and other speakers will be dealing with this matter. It concerns what the Government has done to the Department of Regional Economic Expansion. That Department was a signal to regions of the country that the Government of Canada cares, that it cares for disparities that exist in the country. Disparities have changed from place to place and from degree to degree, but disparities existed in Canada long before Confederation, at Confederation and up until today. The Department of Regional Economic Expansion was the beacon light to the people and the regions of Canada that regional disparities would be cared for and were important. But that Department is gone.
Lest you think I am being partisan about this, Mr. Speaker, let me assure you that I am not. The Senate of Canada in the Senate report on the dissolution of DREE had some pretty cogent things to say about this hatchet job being done by this Bill on a good Department of the Government. Let me quote from that report:
The long and short of the 1982 reorganization-
This Bill is a result of that reorganization.
-is that some basic components of the past ten years' efforts to encourage the development of Canada's least prosperous regions have been abandoned, and it is not at all clear how they are to be replaced.
What the Senate is saying is that the Government has reversed itself by this reorganization. Where they were prepared to give priority to a Minister in the Cabinet to alleviate disparities, it has now been abandoned. What is worse, not abandoned for anything clear and decisive but abandoned to the extent that it is not clear how this Department is to be replaced. That is not a condemnation from a Conservative; that is from the report of the Senate of Canada. The majority of members on that committee are members of the Liberal Party. Let me quote again from page 70 of this report as follows:
As for the new approach to working with the Provinces, implicit in the January, 1982 statement, we have serious concerns.
You can read the report, Mr. Spekaer; I do not want to take up that much time putting it all on the record. But again let
May 27, 1983

me point out the Senate report says "We have serious concerns". Not one of those concerns was addressed by the Minister here, the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard), in advancing the case for approval of this Bill by Parliament. I think a Minister has a duty to come forward and say why the Bill is a good thing, why it should be approved by the House of Commons, if he can persuade us that it should be approved. Maybe there is no good reason for it to be approved except for this mania of reorganization which has infected this Government like the plague.
The report goes on:
Under the previous structure, the least developed regions had a defender within the federal Government-the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion.
Now that this department has been disbanded, its policy mandate transferred to the Minister of State for Regional Economic Development, and its program delivery responsibilities to DR IE, who will champion the cause of the least developed regions in cabinet?
Who will champion the cause of the least developed regions of Canada? Who indeed will champion that cause? The Minister says that all Departments will be aware of it, but how? Who will be the beacon light? Who will be the great leader or the champion against disparities in the country? It is not clear in the legislation nor in anything the Minister said. It is not clear in the Prime Minister's statement on January 12, 1982, in which he dealt with reorganization. In fact, it became blurred in the Prime Minister's statement. That is what I said at the outset, that I do not believe this thing has been carefully, methodically thought out from the point of view of function and duty.
At page 72 of the report the Senators, most of them Liberals, say this:
We are concerned that the word ("regional") was never used to refer to the least developed regions within each province. Our concern was reinforced when we failed to find even a single reference in the (government's reorganization announcement) to the word "disparities".
Not a single reference, Mr. Speaker. My friend the Hon. Member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Howie) and his colleagues on the regional development committee of our caucus will be dealing with this in later stages of debate.
1 think this program is deficient even on its face. Too many areas have been designated. Governments are afraid to take risks because they are highly publicized new Departments responsible to and for the haves as well as the have-nots. The political reward of development in the have areas is far greater. I suspect that is what we will see here. The Minister of this Department will be looking now in the last year or so of the mandate of this Government for the greatest political rewards and not to the matter of righting disparities.
I have dealt with the three main sections of this Bill in my opening speech in this debate. I think the Government deserves a chance to withdraw this Bill. We will give them that chance right now. I say to the Government, withdraw this Bill. I ask the Government to remove this blight from its legislative program. The Government is worried about other legislation. It has necessities I understand by June 30. Let us be delivered from the necessity of having to deal with this Bill. But I ask the Government not to withdraw it and do nothing; it should
Government Organization Act, 1983
retrace its steps through the organizational rearrangements that were done.


Donald W. Munro: The labyrinth.


Walter David Baker: Yes, this labyrinth, as the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro) says, which no one can understand. Many senior managers and middle managers in the Public Service wish that it had never been laid upon them. They wish it had been taken to the Senate and buried with Michael Pitfield, not dealt with here at all. The Government has taken the traditional, clearly defined roles of the Departments and melded them together in a way which has made them or shall render them ineffective. At least, the Government has tried to meld them together. It looks good on paper to say that External Affairs and International Trade go together, but the thing has to work well. That will not happen.
I urge the Government to take advantage of the opportunity that I am giving it this afternoon. I will give consent to end the House early today if the Minister would just withdraw the Bill and take the opportunity to rethink it. It is ill-conceived and it will not serve the country well. If the Government brought forward a Bill which sharpened the focus in some way, we would be bound to support it; but we are not bound to support this ramshackle excuse for failure. That is the position of my Party.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: I see the Hon. Member for Rosemont (Mr. Lachance) rising to ask a question. I have to remind him and the House that following the first three speakers on a Bill there is no provision for a ten-minute question and answer period. However, if the House wishes to give its consent, I could do so.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


An Hon. Member:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: There is no unanimous consent.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this Bill and I will not speak at any great length. In essence, we are putting into law what is already in practice. I want to speak about that, in addition to the substance of the Bill. It is a bad practice to precede the enactment of the law in most instances, and I believe it to be bad in this instance as well. I do not agree with putting into practice or putting into force provisions of any law which has not received the approval of Parlliament. I suggest to the Government, just from that point of view alone, that it should be very cautious about that kind of procedure.
I have raised this objection on a number of different occasions as it applied to such things as the application of taxes and the collection of taxes where by precedent the Government assumed the right to impose that which it believed would become law at some subsequent date. In the process the

May 27, 1983
Government Organization Act, 1983
Government has been able to dip into the pockets of people- and in this case too in an indirect way-to extract moneys which they can ill afford in advance of any legislative approval. In this Bill similar things have happened. I want to register my strongest objection to that.
1 hope that this is a practice which will cease, that we will no longer be required to deal some months and in some instances years after the fact with proposals that the Government has deemed to be of value from its perspective but have not yet been given either the benefit of debate or approval by the House of Commons.
On the substance of the Bill, I have grave reservations about what the Government has done. I am vitally concerned about the effects of putting together two quite different functions of Government. I do not think that External Affairs and International Trade necessarily knit together under all circumstances. In fact, one can very frequently be an impediment to the good operation of the other. I also believe that each is of vital importance in its own right and should stand separately in the organization of Government. I believe that each has a priority position within the affairs of a nation, particularly this nation, a nation that sees itself in a middle role in international affairs seeking out compromise in a major dispute and attempting to influence the course of events, not as a major power but as a middle power.
For this country international affairs are of vital importance. I am always concerned when we are faced with matters of significant international import and we see the Government drawing back from making tough decisions about our relations with another country at the international and ambassadorial levels. I am always concerned when I see the Government drawing back because of the implications the decision might have on our trade arrangements.
Even separating the two functions may not totally eliminate that problem, but putting them together certainly compounds the problem. There are times when international relations or relations between countries are strained for one reason or another, but long established trade continues. To put the two together under one operation makes it very difficult to carry on those two vitally important functions without a very serious overlap. In looking at this Bill I must think that for whatever reasons-and I have tried to think of the reasons the Government has in mind-the Government decided to go ahead with this, it cannot be as compelling as the reasons for not doing it.
For example, we have had strained relations of late with Poland over the imposition of martial law and the inability of the communist Government there to deal in a way that we think would be proper with the people of that country and their right to free collective bargaining and free association. We have felt that we wanted to indicate to that regime that we were not favourable to what it was doing, that we were displeased and that we did not think it was an appropriate step to take.
On the other hand, Poland is one of our major trade partners, particularly for western grain. Because of this difference
in international relations we have seen a loss of the market for grain. The question one must ask is, who was hurt in that? Did we hurt the Government of Poland? Not very much because the European Common Market quickly filled the void in terms of the grain it wanted to purchase. Did we hurt the people of Poland? Not very much because, as I said, the European Common Market filled the void created as a result of our action. Well, whom did we hurt? We hurt the farmers of western Canada. We reduced the potential for sales.
In doing that, and some people might agree that is the appropriate thing to do, 1 predict the time will come when we will once again have normal relations with Poland at the international and diplomatic level. However, the chances of reestablishing the market for western grain will have been severely impeded, if not done away with entirely. I use the example to show the conflict. On the one hand, we have a diplomatic conflict, a conflict over the actions of another Government, an action that we absolutely abhor and want to see stopped. On the other hand we have an ongoing relationship at the trade level. What we have seen happen is that the people who in the end suffered from our actions were ourselves.
This is not the only example; there are other examples that have occurred over the years. I am not making a plea for change. I am suggesting that these matters have to be looked at singly. They cannot be looked at in tandem. I am concerned that by lumping trade in with External Affairs, the decisions that are going to be made about our trade arrangements will be very much determined by our attitude at the time at the international level with regard to our sense of the appropriateness of actions taken by one Government or another which may or may not be there for a long or short time, who knows.
Therefore, we will be detrimentally affecting our capacity to grow, to meet our needs, our capacity to provide opportunities for those who work in Canada and provide job opportunities for others. We will have detrimentally affected that as a result of lumping together these two vitally important issues.
For the foreseeable future, this country will depend to a great extent for its growth and economic future in terms of job creation, flow of finances and our ability to trade. Trade being a vital part of the Canadian way of life, it is very important that we should have a trade Minister, full status, dealing on behalf of Canada with the support of a Ministry that is capable of going out and, in a single-minded way, trying to improve the trade relations that Canada has to have in the future.
That does not mean that from time to time Governments may, for one reason or another, decide that the actions taking place in another part of the world are of such an important and reprehensible nature that we do not want to have anything to do with that country at all. Of course, there will be times like that. On those occasions the Government will make a political decision. That political decision will be transmitted from the
May 27, 1983

Government to the House of Commons, from the House of Commons to the people of Canada and from the people of Canada ultimately throughout the world that we are in the midst of a serious dispute with another country, that even to the level of trade we are prepared to enter into some kind of embargo arrangement, some kind of withdrawal of normal relations.
I suggest that under normal circumstances in international conflicts that likely will not arise. If it is our hope that we will build this country so that we will be able to provide for the needs for this generation and generations to come. If we are going fully to utilize the resource potential of this country, if we are going to take that and turn it into a manufacturing sector that will provide stability for people, if we are going to be able to say to those who have long been the backbone of our trading, farmers mostly in western Canada but not necessarily all, that there will be some conscientious effort put out by this Government through an agency or, I suggest, a Ministry, to try to build on what we are able to do well and create an image outside of Canada that countries can rely on Canada for providing certain goods and services that we are able to produce through our expertise and provide in a competitive way, then we need to have a single entity charged with the primary responsibility of trading. We must have a Minister in charge of a Department that is solely and completely directed toward the sale of Canadian products and trading with other countries of the world.
In my judgment, this is going in the wrong direction. If this were an attempt to streamline Government, if we could see Government trying to cut costs, make itself more efficient, provide for a more aggressive kind of external effort on the trade front while establishing an independent foreign policy-[DOT] although I do not know how-I concede that I might be persuaded that this could be done. However, this is not the purpose. As the Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker) pointed out, what we are doing is enlarging the size of the Government simultaneously with amalgamating two vitally important functions.
I have extremely grave doubts about the appropriateness of the direction the Government is going in this regard. I predict that within ten years this super Ministry will be split in two. The Government will see that it is too cumbersome, too difficult to operate in this way, that the conflicts are too many to resolve properly, that the decisions that must be made by the Minister who is primarily in charge come into conflict too often to allow decisions to be made properly, and will within the next ten years revert to separate operations, one dealing with external affairs and one dealing with trade.
In saying that, I do not propose that when that happens it automatically becomes once again the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. I thought that Industry, Trade and Commerce was much too large. It covered too many conflicting interests. For a country like ours, there has to be a recognition that industry and commerce seen as a domestic matter are to be separated and dealt with in a separate way from our trade effort around the world. I do not suggest for a moment
Government Organization Act, 1983
that they are not interrelated, that there is not an overlapping of concern and operation, because there is. On the one hand you have to focus on what we have to do in order to build in Canada an infrastructure that will provide for our domestic needs, which quite clearly are our primary responsibility, and for our international requirements which are a great source of revenue to us and of great benefit to many other countries.
I suggest that that can only be done if the Government becomes somewhat single-minded about the need to encourage economic development on a world scale in Canada, economic development that recognizes the three frontiers which are open to us now in terms of trading, these being the Pacific rim, the United States and the European frontiers. There is the opportunity to move into those areas as they become somewhat more vulnerable and also to recognize the entire southern hemisphere. Over the years we will want to develop a good relationship with the southern hemisphere both in terms of our external operations at the diplomatic level and in terms of our trading arrangements, to our own benefit and to the benefit of the developing nations.
As I say, Mr. Speaker, I do not think that all of those things can be accomplished by lumping everything together under one Minister. I do not think that anyone in the Cabinet could handle that, and not for one minute am I suggesting that Cabinet Ministers are less than competent, although I may have doubts about the odd one. I will not say which one because he is in the House. Nevertheless, I would say the same thing regardless of who I was speaking of. I would say it if my own colleague, the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell), who I think would probably make an excellent Cabinet Minister and no doubt will when we form the Government after the next election, was the one to take on that responsibility. But I would even say to him with his infinite capacity which we all recognize, a capacity which is probably not even touched by anyone else in the House, that not even he could take on that much responsibility and do the job well.
Having said that, Mr. Speaker, you can gather that I am not over-eager to approve this Bill. I am not really keen to put into law what I consider to be an inadequate piece of legislation dealing with matters that I frankly think are headed in the wrong direction. I do not think that the Bill would be a bad idea if there was some honest committee consideration of the whole question, and I stress honest. I think there is a need for Members to listen to each other as we try to explain why we are worried about the Bill. It is not a question of Liberals versus Tories versus NDP or, as is normally the case, Liberals and Tories versus NDP. This is a not a case like that at all. This is a case of being concerned about the future of the country, about what is actually best for the country. This is not a Liberal idea. It is not a Conservative idea. It is a wrong idea. These three things are frequently one and the same, but in this instance it is a wrong idea that we frankly must try to come to grips with.
25810

May 27, 1983
Government Organization Act, 1983
If the opportunity arises, I would urge that we should have the subject matter of the Bill looked at extremely carefully.


Donald W. Munro: Which subject matter?


Ian Deans: I am addressing myself primarily to the question of the reorganization of the two Ministries. I recognize that there are other matters, but I am addressing myself primarily to that. The subject matter should be referred to committee and looked at in the most non-partisan way possible. It should be looked at from the point of view of how will it serve the various regions of Canada; how will conflicts arise between the two different functions; how will the one function be able to operate when a conflict is clearly there in the other function; how will it be able to maintain the equilibrium necessary between our country and another country when there is a serious conflict arising that is at the diplomatic level while there is the desire to maintain trade relations at the other level. How would we resolve those things within one Ministry? How could we make sure that both points of view are adequately expressed at Cabinet by people of similar rank? How would we give voice to the concerns within the Cabinet so that the Cabinet will be able to deal properly with concerns that may well be different but are of equal status?
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, as I said at the start, I wish that we had had an opportunity to debate this Bill before it became a fait accompli since I am convinced that it will ultimately be changed anyway. Let us not ram the thing through and then find ourselves in a position of rewriting the law again, and debating again because on the next occasion we may find that the Conservatives are on the other side of the argument, who knows. Let us not do it that way.
Let us see if maybe the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard) might consider referring at least that portion of the Bill that I am concerned with to one or other of the standing committees or maybe even setting up a committee to deal with it by itself so as to see whether or not the conflicts that I envisage are real or imaginary. I will abide by the ultimate decision of the committee, as I must, and I will do it willingly. But let us at least give this a fair hearing and try to do what in the final analysis we believe is best. If we do not do so, then we will end up in the position we have found ourselves in so often in the past of having to come back and make amendments to something that everyone knew was not adequate enough to be passed at the time it was before us.


Hon. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech made by the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) and he expressed some serious concerns which are well justified. I was rather amused by his fulsome praise of the Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell). I gathered that he is getting in early with his support for one of the leadership candidates for the New Democratic Party in British Columbia. Why the Member for Vancouver-Kingsway would want to become the captain of that small Titanic is beyond me, but he appears to want it and he is getting his cheering section going early.
The Bill begins as follows:
Bill C-152, an Act respecting the organization of the Government of Canada and matters related or incidental thereto-
I think that part is well worded. "Matters related or incidental thereto" could mean anything that could be thought up and amended. I agree entirely with the Member for Hamilton Mountain who said that this is the wrong time for the Bill to come in. It is coming in in the middle of a process that presumably was to have had quite some time to go or else should never have been started. The amalgamation of the two Departments did get started in 1982, and now they are in a terrible shambles and want a Bill apparently to authorize the mess that they have made of it so far.
I think that they might better have taken some kind of initiative a year or so ago, brought out a white paper or a green paper saying that they planned to reorganize these two Departments and meld them into one Department, and then let it go to a committee to be studied so that there could be some warning given and possibly soem suggestions made by practical people. From reading the Bill, one cannot determine that there was any practicality at all in the genesis of this Bill. It looks very much like the product of a seventeenth century renaissance man's theorizing. I certainly agree with my distinguished colleague, the Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker), that the renaissance man with probably no sense of practicality whatsoever has decided that these two disparate Departments should work as one.
None of Canada's major trading partners has so far combined their departments of trade and foreign affairs. No other country thinks it will work. The last time something like this happened was about 15 years ago when it was decided not to integrate the Canadian Armed Forces but to unify them. About two years from now I expect they will be back where they were before this ill-conceived experiment started. I believe that if we go ahead with this ill-considered Bill we are going to have to do the same thing with External Affairs and Industry, Trade and Commerce.
Everybody knows that these Departments have to work together and there must be some integration of their activities. It would be nonsense if the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce sent a trade mission to Moscow to try to sell 10,000 refrigerators or something like that and at the same time the Department of External Affairs decided to break off trade relations with Moscow. I do not suppose there is a likelihood of such things happening but it shows the kind of integration that is needed.
When the Government saw the requirement its answer was: "Let's mash them together like potatoes and carrots and see if anyone likes it when it comes out". As far as I can see, no one does.
New positions have been imposed on a very rigid and fairly well working structure in the Department of External Affairs. I might say that I have always had a great admiration for the staff in the Department of External Affairs. It has had a long
May 27, 1983

succession of nonentities as Ministers, with one glowing exception in 1979 when the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) was Minister. Other than that they have unfortunately had to take second-rank Ministers because the Prime Minister (Mr.Trudeau) wanted to run the place himself. It is much easier to do that if someone without too much intellectual muscle is the figurehead.
These people were put together by a kind of fiat in 1982, and suddenly 200 extra people had to be accommodated in the Pearson Building. Since then it seems they have just let them have a kind of group love-in until everyone found a place or what they might be able to or wanted to do. In other words, you kind of found your coffee mate there and decided between the two of you which department, section, division or subsection you wanted to work in. Then you tried to make a job description suit what you wanted to do. This has been going on ever since this ill-conceived idea came into full force.
It seems that we need some authority for the creation of all this confusion and that is why we have this Bill. I feel very certain that the Government does not really know what the Department will look like a year from now.
The effect of these changes so far is that the Department of External Affairs now has three Ministers. Presumably the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen), that prescient Minister, is going to be in charge. When he was funding Alastair Gillespie's project in his constituency he did not know who Alastair Gillespie was, despite the fact that they had served together in Cabinet for years.
The other Minister will be the Minister of State for International Trade (Mr. Regan), I presume, although what he is supposed to do is questionable unless it is to act as a kind of batman for the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
Then there is the Minister of State for External Relations (Mr. Lapointe), who has a questionable job as well. I do not know why we need a Minister of State for External Relations and a Secretary of State for External Affairs. Perhaps this will enable them to continue their travelling; one will be away and one will be at home-a kind of tag team wrestling match in the diplomatic field. This entire shuffle seems to be similar to a game of musical chairs. They were one chair short and someone was going to be left out if they did not dream up a job for them. Now they have it.
Chart No. I, on the left-hand side, shows the same number of boxes as before the move with Ministers in them; after the move there is the same number of boxes, six, and a Minister in each.
An interesting thing appears in the Schedule I to the Bill if consequential amendments have to be made. Column I shows the Act that is affected, such as the Salaries Act, 1980, 1981 and 1982 and that Section 4 is to be amended by deleting "The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce $30,800" and "The Minister of Regional and Economic Expansion $30,800". I do not think anyone should rejoice about that because that $61,600 is not going to be saved. Below that appears an amendment to add "The Minister of Regional and Industrial
Government Organization Act, 1983
Expansion $30,800, The Minister of International Trade $30,800 and the Minister for External Relations $30,800". This seems to me to be $30,800 more than was cancelled.
Perhaps someone on the Government side might be kind enough to explain in the days or weeks ahead whether we are going to spend an extra $30,800 on an extra Minister as well as the four extra Parliamentary Secretaries mentioned by the Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker) a few minutes ago. I support what he said. It seems ridiculous to think of a Parliamentary Secretary being in the Senate. We cannot even talk to the Ministers who are in the Senate but have to listen to some stooge in this House when we have a question that belongs over there. That they would have Parliamentary Secretaries help them be unavailable is difficult to contemplate.
The Minister of State for External Relations, in his unusual job, is responsible for francophone, cultural and humanitarian affairs. It is difficult to know what his place will be in all of this. Among the people who are selling things, he has a very narrow job description.
In addition to these Ministers there is a plethora of Deputy Ministers. There is one of whom I highly approve. There will be one Under-Secretary of State for External Affairs, the deputy head of the Department. We all know that Mr. Masse is an excellent administrator. I can only feel sorry for him, being given this garbage to sort out.
There will also be three Associate Under-Secretaries of State for External Affairs with the rank of Department Deputy Minister. Bill C-152 provides that one may be appointed Deputy Minister for International Trade and one may be appointed Deputy Minister for Foreign Policy. That is two, so it is a little difficult to see why we need another one but we have another one.
Meanwhile, at the Department of Regional Economic Expansion and the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce there are more problems. Parts of the Departments are going to merge and become the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion. According to the job descriptions, one Minister will be in charge of manufacturing, processing and service industries within Canada, regional industrial development, tourism, small business, and trade and commerce within Canada. I do not know if this means we no longer need a Minister of Small Business and Tourism or not. The Hon. Member for Grand Falls-White Bay-Labrador (Mr. Romp-key), who is at present the Minister of Small Business and Tourism, seems to be looking for a role to play in all of this. I do not know whether he is going to find one or not. It is difficult to tell in this hodge-podge of a Bill.
One of the big concerns in the country among businessmen is that the new organization will effectively kill the trade commissioners and that service which used to answer directly to the Minister of State for International Trade under the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Canadian businessmen are concerned that the officers of the Department

May 27, 1983
Government Organization Act, 1983
of External Affairs will be unable to maintain the close industry sector contacts which they had at Industry, Trade and Commerce. Just how much trade expertise are our foreign service officers expected to accrue? It is a very important question in light of the fact that the changes have been selected to give trade matters a much higher profile. The answer to that question will affect not only the way the foreign officers go about their jobs, but also their career progression. All these changes will, of course, have a substantial effect on Canada's policy. Unfortunately, no one seems to know what the effect will be.
In February of this year the Financial Post, in an article by a brilliant young journalist by the name of James Bagnall, summed up the changes this way, and I quote:
On paper, all of these changes had a certain elegant rationale. But in the short run, they have produced bureaucratic infighting over office space, line responsibility and policy mandates. In addition, they have badly damaged morale within I.T.C., stirred the resentment of the trade commissioner service, which prided itself on its independence, left at least 300 employees from various Departments in a non-man's land with no obvious place to hang their hats and will eliminate more than 400 full-time jobs by the time the dust settles.
The article went on to say, and I quote:
Trade officials are still concerned their impact on foreign policy will be diluted by the new arrangement-they are outnumbered by foreign service officers nearly three to one domestically and nearly two to one abroad.
The sad part of all of this is that this came about without any recognition being given to the McDougall Report which was, as Hon. Members know, a Royal Commission Report on External Affairs. It was commissioned by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), no less, who said at the time that he thought that the Department of External Affairs needed to be reorganized to give the people a clearer understanding of their role in the Department. This report was handed in and within six weeks after that this reorganization was put into effect, apparently without any recognition being given at all to the Royal Commission Report by Miss McDougall, a very highly regarded member of the Department of External Affairs for several years. She was, unfortunately, somewhat hindered by a degree of independence which caused her report not to fulfil the secret dreams and wishes of the Government. It simply made sense.
I would like to point out that I agree with my hon. colleague that this bears all the earmarks of the work of Senator Pitfield, the person who brought in the National Energy Program, where he collected a lot of people who knew nothing about energy and devised a program to help the poor industry out which was doing very, very well up until then. He has now decided to reorganize that Department, where his knowledge is equally scant. As I read about the reorganization, I kept thinking to myself that I have heard of these things before, but where was it? Where it was was in "Gulliver's Travels", written in the eighteenth century. It is about the third trip Gulliver made to a place called "Laputa". This was an island in the sky where everyone dreamed funny dreams which were very, very impractical. In the capital city of Lagado they had a
place called the "Grand Academy" where all of these impractical ideas everyone had were brought together and they tried to put them into production.
I would just like to read something which Mr. Pitfield could well have thought up himself. They had a department of agriculture in this Grand Academy, and someone decided that they should find a device for ploughing ground with hogs so they would save the charges of ploughs, cattle and labour. The medhod they came up with was this, and I quote:
-in an acre of ground you bury, at six inches distance and eight deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other mast or vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest; then you drive six hundred or more of them into the field, where, in a few days, they will root up the whole ground in search of their food and make it fit for sowing; it is true, upon experiment, they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop. However, it is not doubted that this invention may be capable of great improvement.
So they were quite satisfied with the experiment and they went on for years trying to sow ground which they had ploughed in this fashion.
There was another idea at the Grand Academy which would do Mr. Pitfield very well. I sometimes wonder if he could not have been a resurrection from the days of Jonathan Swift. At the Grand Academy everyone knew how laborious the usual method was of attaining to arts and sciences, whereas they contrived that the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge and with a little bodily labour, may write books on philosophy, poetry, politics, law, mathematics and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study. We have a lot of people in this country who want to be able to do great things, but they are not all that willing to study and are not in the genius field either. A professor at the Grand Academy showed Gulliver a frame he had built, about the sides whereof all his pupils stood in ranks, and I quote:
It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superficies were composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered on every square with paper pasted on them; and on these papers were written all the words of their language in their several moods, tenses, and declensions, but without any order. The professor then desired me to observe, for he was going to set his engine at work. The pupils at his command took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame: and, giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then commanded six-and-thirty of the lads to read the several lines softly as the appeared upon the frame; and, where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn the engine was so contrived that the words shifted into new places, as the square bits of wood moved upside down.
Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labour, and the professor showed me several volumes in large folio already collected of broken sentences, which he intended to piece together, and, out of those rich materials to give the world a complete body of all arts and sciences-
Of course, it did not work. He was an impractical man. He was the "Pitfield" of his day. Mix everything up and maybe something sensible will come out of it. It is like the dictionary which some soul wrote as the words came into his mind. He ended up with the world's only dictionary which was not in alphabetical order. It was a very good dictionrary but not very practical.
That is what this Bill is like, Mr. Speaker. They do not know what they are doing. The people are milling around in the Pearson Building and the Government seems to be hoping that
May 27, 1983

something good will come of it all, which would be just about as accidental as finding a word you are looking for in a dictionary which is not in alphabetical order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Questions, comments? Debate.


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Victoria (Mr. McKinnon) mentioned, towards the final part of his comments, the report of Miss McDougall. I believe we must go back to that particular report to understand the genesis of this Bill, or part of the Bill, and also to understand what is not in this Bill.
On December 15, 1981 the Report of the Royal Commission on Conditions in the Foreign Service was released. One of the most important comments in that release, Mr. Speaker, was in the second paragraph. It is most important as far as I was concerned, because, having served 25 years in the Department of External Affairs, I was aware of the problems which Miss McDougall was asked to consider in the course of her Royal Commission. The press release stated:
Miss McDougall stated that the problems in each of these areas were of sufficient scope and complexity to raise doubts about the capacity of the foreign service to continue to function effectively. It was the cumulative impact of these problems on the service that eroded morale, purpose and confidence-
That was a very penetrating comment about the Department of External Affairs as it existed during the seventies and on into the eighties. I am not sure, but presumably it was at the back of the mind of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) when he asked Miss McDougall to undertake the Royal Commission and to examine the conditions in the foreign service. I rather suspect that it was not in the Prime Minister's mind, as a matter of fact, although he did appoint the Royal Commission.
I would like to read one other section of her Report and then return to some of her recommendations because they have a bearing on the Bill which I will consider in a couple of minutes. On page 21 of her Report, which was made public on December 15, 1981, she states:
There is indeed a profound malaise in the foreign service-a malaise that if not met by decisive and early action may put in serious question the viability of the career rotational foreign service as we know it today.
The Report was released in December of 1981 and today we have before us a Bill which was given first reading on May 5 of this year, roughly 18 months later, which purports, I suppose one might say, to deal with this malaise. I can assure Your Honour before going any further that it will not do anything of the kind. It will increase the malaise, there is no question in my mind.
This particular Report outlined in very careful terms the problems confronted by the Department of External Affairs both here and abroad. Miss McDougall made a couple of even more succinct comments about the malaise, one of them being Recommendation 44, which states:
Government Organization Act, 1983
Concrete steps be taken to correct the widely held view that those in positions of power consider the activities and the product of the foreign service as largely irrelevant to federal Government or Canadian objectives.
That sentiment had its genesis upon the arrival, in the seat of the Prime Minister's office, of the current Prime Minister, because he determined that he should be running the foreign service regardless of the Secretary of State for External Affairs.
As I say, these matters were made public on December 15, 1981. Within a month, almost four weeks to the day, the Prime Minister announced a major reorganization of the Department of External Affairs in terms which we now find more or less embodied in the Bill, in more or less legal language, language which I would hardly call legal; but I will return to that subject in due course.
The Prime Minister's statement in January of 1982 was in total disregard of the recommendations which were brought forward by Miss McDougall in her Report. I suggest that that, in itself, was enough to destroy any hopes that there might have been, which could have emerged from the Report of Miss McDougall. It is really distressing, when one comes to think of it, that a Royal Commission was appointed to examine the role of the foreign service officer and the problems of serving in the foreign service and then to find that within a month the Prime Minister came out with a completely different sort or organization. To my way of thinking, this merely carries out the sequence of the unsettling change and the transfer to which the Department of External Affairs has been subject since 1968.
If I may, I would simply like to list some of the changes which have been introduced into the Department of External Affairs since that time, over the last 15 years. I cannot list them in the exact chronological order, but I think it deserves to be said that no sooner had one of these particular changes started to take root and become assimilated and the personnel were not even becoming accustomed to these various changes, that lo, the next one was brought on top of the others.
One of the changes that I remember, even from when I was in the Department, concerned an examination of the organization of the Department by a managerial firm called Ulrich, Currie and its subsequent report. The main outflow from the report was that members of the firm, Ulrich, Currie, or those who were carrying out the examination of the Department in the name of that particular company, found niches for themselves in the Department of External Affairs and started the expansion of that particular Department. Granted, they were in the administrative field, but that, in itself, was enough to unsettle a number of members of the foreign service.
The next change was program budgeting. As I say, people were just becoming accustomed to one change and then another one came along. Program budgeting consisted of a course in business administration which was carried on by a number of hotshot managerial experts going about the country and in the Department of External Affairs, trying to reorganize the Department on the basis of the programs which the Department was carrying out. There was a great general shift

May 27, 1983
Government Organization Act, 1983
of desks in the Department at that particular time. The program was just about assimilated when along came the managing of the Department by committees. A committee structure was set up within the various programs and the Department was being organized and run by that sort of committee.
On top of all this, of course, came the bilingualism program. At that time one might call a colleague only to find that he was not there. He was not being replaced; he was off taking a course in either English or French. That, of itself, was certainly unsettling. This affected mature, professional people who had earned a place for themselves.
One of the most important criticism which one can make of the bilingualism program, then and now, is that there is being foisted upon mature, professional people, the necessity to undertake studies in an area where they feel they are not able
to meet the same professional standard they met when they were a little younger. It is folly to impose that on mature adults who, in any event, are involved in their professional expertise and doing the best that they can in those conditions. The absences from their desks, of course, was also a very serious criticism.
May I call it five o'clock at this point, Mr. Speaker? 1 have a good many more comments to make on the Bill.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: It being five o'clock, I do now leave the Chair. The House stands adjourned until eleven o'clock Monday morning. Have a good weekend.
At 5 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Monday, May 30, 1983