1983-01-26

STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S.O. 21


Mr. David Berger (Laurier ):: Madam Speaker, I would like to read extracts from an editorial entitled "Mr. Clark Goes Overboard" in this morning's Montreal Gazette. Commenting on a recent Maclean's interview with the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Clark), the Gazette states:
Tough political criticism is a fair, indeed necessary, part of democratic debate. Outright untruths, however, are beyond the pale.
The editorial continues:
Mr. Clark says that in the referendum campaign Mr. Trudeau "lied" to Quebecers.


Mr. Clark:: That is correct. He did lie.


David Berger: The editorial quoted Mr. Clark as stating:
He told them there would be a more flexible federalism ... That wasn't the truth. He brought in, instead, a unitary constitution.
The Gazette continues:
But Mr. Trudeau did not lie to Quebecers. He promised them that he would start to work immediately after the referendum to achieve constitutional change; he did just that. He said a No vote would be interpreted as a vote to increase liberties; the constitutional charter of rights does that.
Mr. Trudeau did not promise vast increases in provincial power ... It is thus no surprise that the reformed constitution did not include every item on the provinces' shopping list for expanded powers.


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: Author?


David Berger: The editorial continues to state:
Mr. Clark further suggests that Mr. Trudeau has given us a "unitary constitution." This is a preposterous assertion, one which Mr. Clark unfortunately has made several times.


Charles Joseph Clark: And will make again.


David Berger: The editorial continues:
Nothing, no contortion of logic or dose of skepticism, can see in this "a unitary constitution." Mr. Clark is not a stupid man.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David Berger: The article continues:
It follows that he knows he is not speaking the truth when he makes such allegations-


Madam Speaker:: Order.


AIR TRANSPORT
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Madam Speaker, the regulations and procedures respecting the licensing of commercial aircraft operators by the Air Transport Committee of the Canadian Transport Commission do not make sense when applied to small operators in remote areas of Northern Canada.
The highly complex and legalistic licensing system may be suitable for Air Canada, CP Air and some of the regional carriers which could afford to dedicate the services of expert personnel to regulatory matters while the rest of the people get on with the serious and productive business of running an airline. In the North, however, most operations are small and must be flexible in order to meet rapidly changing markets in a region where frequently the only means of transportation is by air.
The owner-operators are fiercely independent and have little time for red tape. They are often not averse to telling Ottawa bureaucrats, and even the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin), precisely what they think. It is seldom flattering.


Mr. Pepin:: Think about Dubin.


Dave Nickerson: The present licensing system is slow, unresponsive to public needs, encourages chiselling, and turns healthy competition by way of superior equipment, improved routes and services and lower prices, into back-biting complaints and-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


FINANCING OF CANADIAN EXPORT BUSINESS
Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Hamilton West):: Madam Speaker, it has come to my attention through the Hamilton and District Chamber of Commerce that exporters of capital goods in my riding of Hamilton West, like most Canadian exporters, are in

January 26, 1983
serious competition with foreign producers, some of whom offer concessional financing to perspective purchasers. This type of financing is often done with the direct or indirect involvement of the foreign government, which provides interest rate subsidies. In many cases, for Canadian exporters, the difference between obtaining an order or not is the financing terms which they can provide in negotiations with overseas customers.
The Canadian Government has a mechanism by which it can provide financing and support for Canadian export business, namely, the Export Development Corporation. If funds could be made more readily available by the Corporation to Canadian business in order to secure offshore contracts, this would certainly help to stimulate the Canadian economy. With this in mind, Bill C-110, which proposes, among other things, to increase the authorized capital of the EDC from $1 billion to $2 billion, must certainly be viewed as an important step in the process of achieving greater Canadian competitiveness in the export market, and should be given consideration by all parties for rapid passage.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Madam Speaker, in 1981, 260 farms went bankrupt, and in 1982, 410 farms were forced into bankruptcy. Statistics Canada states that in 1982 farm income dropped 28 per cent from a loss position in 1981. Scores of farms across this nation are on the verge of bankruptcy and thousands of farmers are worried.
The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan), instead of doing something to save our farms, tells the world that "agriculture is in a healthy state". The Minister and the Government of Canada should be taking effective steps, including the following, to help save our farms: Reduce the federal Government's tax on farm fuel which, at 60 cents per gallon, is far too excessive; eliminate the excise tax on gas which, besides other ill effects, is cutting down production because more and more farms cannot afford to fertilize their land; eliminate the capital gains tax so that elderly Canadians may retire in dignity and younger men and women can start farming.
The National Energy Program of the Liberal Government is forcing our farmers to pay a far greater share of taxation than any other group in the country. Saving our farms should have top priority in any economic recovery and should not be left on the backburner, where it is now.


EFFECT OF UNITED STATES MEASURES ON CANADIAN EXPORTS
Miss Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, President Reagan, in his State of the Union Address last night, said that the United States " .. . must remain committed to free trade ..." Perhaps our Government should remind the President that his country's trade practices are not so free as he would have Americans and Canadians believe. A new "buy America" law will act to exclude Canadian concrete and steel firms from U.S. funded highway and bridge projects. One estimate of the dollar loss to Canadian cement firms alone is in the tens of millions.
The United States Department of Agriculture's Blended Credit Program, offering credit guarantees to selected countries buying American wheat, will make it impossible for Canadian wheat producers to export to those countries.
Also of great concern is the future of the Canadian forest industry, and particularly the British Columbia lumber export trade, in light of the current opposition in the United States to our forestry exports to the U.S. I ask our Government to say to President Reagan that his administration cannot " . . . remain committed to free trade ..." until it " .. . becomes committed to free trade ..."


NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS
Mr. Paul E. McRae (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Madam Speaker, the two super powers are now using the phrase "launch on warning" to describe their response to certain new weapons. The Pershing II missile to be deployed in West Germany late this year is such a weapon. It is extremely accurate and will destroy an enemy missile 1,000 kilometres away in six minutes. The only defence against this weapon is to get your own missile out of the silo before it is destroyed, and the only means, given the short time available is to launch on warning.
What does "launch on warning mean"? There have been, over the past 20 years, many warnings of possible enemy missile launchings, bombers and such, reported by NATO and NORAD. Each has been tracked down and found to be false, so no defensive action occurred. "Launch on warning" means that, since there will be no time to investigate these warnings, a computer malfunction or misinterpretation would result in a launching and trigger a nuclear holocaust.
We Canadians, as members of NATO and NORAD, are part of a process this year which could turn the remote possibility of an accidental nuclear war into one of probability. This House must demand in the name of humanity that the concept and weaponry which could cause a "launch on warning" be forever abolished.
January 26, 1983


NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND NEWFOUNDLAND ON OFFSHORE RESOURCES
Hon. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Madam Speaker, I am concerned about the apparent breach of faith in negotiations concerning offshore resources. It is an issue of immense concern to Canada and to the economic life or death of Newfoundland.
The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Chretien) said before Christmas that he was prepared to consider for Newfoundland an agreement on the offshore resources different from that with Nova Scotia. Mr. Marshall of Newfoundland contacted him. They had several meetings and they agreed verbally on certain points of principle which would govern an agreement. The Minister of Energy wanted only a verbal agreement, not an agreement in writing. When the officials sat down to carry out the principles which had been agreed, it was discovered that the federal Government officials did not accept the points of principle on which the Minister had agreed.
There was to be a joint management board of both Governments, for example, with paramountcy in certain areas, but it turned out, according to the federal officials, that all the employees of the board were to be appointed and responsible to the federal Minister.
There are differences between what the Minister agreed to and what his officials say he agreed to. Newfoundland has now telexed the Minister asking him to respond in writing to 17 points of principle. The Minister is refusing to do that. He must do this or be accused of bad faith. Surely it is necessary and reasonable for the points of principle to be agreed upon in writing before officials draft a suggested agreement. Has the Minister of Energy been "hung out to dry" by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde)?


TRUST COMPANIES
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Madam Speaker, the federal Government, under our Constitution, has powers over banks and banking, the use of credit, money supply, and interest. Our forefathers gave the federal Government that responsibility to ensure that Canada would have a sound financial system.
Since this Government came into power three years ago, serious concerns have developed with respect to financial institutions and insurance companies. In the trust field we have had the bankruptcy of Astra Trust and its associated company, Remor. And now we have the defalcations of Seaway, Grey-mac, and Crown. In the insurance field we have had receiverships in Pitts, Strathcona, and Caledonia. Yesterday concern was raised with respect to the Canadian Commercial Bank.
Oral Questions
Clearly there is evidence that the Department of Insurance, the Inspector General of Banks, the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Bank of Canada, the Government's agencies that are supposed to be the policemen managing financial institutions, have been asleep. The Government has failed to conduct inspections, failed to follow up on information, failed to act promptly.
Confidence in our financial system is essential. That confidence is damaged by the Seaway, Greymac, and Crown matters, and the concerns reported yesterday with respect to the Canadian Commercial Bank. It is imperative that this House constitute a special committee to examine in detail all of our agencies managing financial institutions to give people renewed confidence.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of State for Finance. Last week, when I put a question to him as to when the Government was aware of problems with the various trust and loan companies which are in question right now, he gave a very evasive answer. However, outside the House of Commons he acknowledged that he was aware, indeed, that the Government was aware of the problems in those companies a full year before.
I ask the Minister what action did the Government take when it first learned of these problems, in order to protect the savings and the Registered Retirement Savings Plans of many Canadians? Did the Government undertake an investigation with each precise problem brought to its attention and, if so, when?


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of State (Finance)):: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member has not cleared his confusion of last week even today. He has made reference to trust companies which fall under the jurisdiction of the Province of Ontario. This administration, the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Superintendent of Insurance for Canada do not regulate those companies, Crown Trust, Seaway Trust, Greymac, and I would invite the Hon. Member to direct that type of question and that concern to where the responsibility obviously rests. His questioning should be of Dr. Elgie in the Ontario House. [DOT]


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I do not know whether the Minister has been reading his mail or not, but there is a question of some hundreds of millions of dollars which will be paid out, if these

January 26, 1983
Oral Questions
companies go bankrupt, by the Canada Development Deposit Corporation, which is his direct responsibility. That is the basis of the questions I have been asking, and he is giving sleazy evasions to those questions every time I put them to him.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, let me follow up on something here that is directly under the Minister's responsibility. Under the Loan Companies Act, the Superintendent, who is responsible under the Minister for those loan companies, shall report to the Minister if the assets of a loan company are not sufficient to give adequate protection to those Canadians who have their moneys on deposit. Has that report been given to the Minister and, if so, what was the date when that report was given to the Minister, and when will the Minister report to the House on what action he is taking in response to that report?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, indeed the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation is subject to the jurisdiction of the Government of Canada under the British North America Act. I am not sure which corporation the Hon. Member is referring to when he refers to the "Canada Development Deposit Corporation". That is a new one to me. However, I would like to remind the Hon. Member that the federal Government indicated its intention over a week ago. Under its jurisdiction the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation has moved to increase deposit insurance coverage from the $20,000 limit to a $60,000 limit, which was part of the recommendation of the Finance Committee, supported by the Hon. Member, in the Committee's report on bank profits to this House.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: I do not know whether the Minister heard the statement given to the House just a few minutes ago by the Hon. Member for Mississauga South. It is that type of evasive answer that indicates to Canadians that the Minister is not in control of the situation, and that undermines the confidence that Canadians want to have in their financial institutions but are being robbed of by his incompetence or his lack of knowledge about what is going on.


ROLE OF CANADA DEPOSIT INSURANCE CORPORATION
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Madam Speaker, under the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation Act, if the Corporation believes that a trust company or a mortgage company is following unsound business practices it can threaten to terminate the deposit insurance provided for that company's depositors. Did the CDIC uncover unsound business practices? Did the Corporation threaten to terminate deposit insurance with any of the five companies involved in the Crown-Seaway-Greymac mess and, if so, when?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, I think it is widely known to most peoplewith the probable exception of the Hon. Member who raises the question-that the Loan Companies Act indicates that if the superintendent is concerned about any federally incorporated companies under his jurisdiction then, in a report to the Minister of Finance, he may indicate that concern, and request confirmation of his opinion that there are difficulties with those companies.
As probably every Canadian except the Hon. Member knows, at about the same time as difficulties with Crown Trust arose, the superintendent did indicate that situation with reference to two federally incorporated mortgage companies. Under the Act the principals of those firms have a right to a hearing. In one case the hearing has commenced, and in the other case, the solicitors have asked for time for a hearing. In both cases the Minister has to act in a quasi-judicial capacity in response to their request. As those proceedings are going on, and because I have to act in a quasi-judicial capacity, I cannot report until the hearings have been completed.


ACTION TAKEN BY MINISTER
Donald Alex Blenkarn: Madam Speaker, the Minister was aware that there were problems with Grey-mac and Seaway nearly a year before the matter became public. When was the First time that the Minister took the action he is required to take under the provisions of the Loan Companies Act, and what action was taken under the Canada Deposit Insurance Act after the Minister heard these rumours and after these concerns became apparent to him?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, I am sure the Hon. Member was in the House when I answered the last question put by his colleague. It was the same question. I invite him to look at the answer in Hansard if he did not hear it or understand it.


QUERY RESPECTING ROLE OF MINISTER
Donald Alex Blenkarn: Madam Speaker, with respect to the provincial companies the Minister has said that he has no responsibility. Why is it, then, that the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation is putting up all of the cash with respect to these defalcations? Why is it that the Province of Ontario is not putting up a nickel? Is it because the Minister really has responsibility here? Is it because the Minister did not follow up on the information he had for a long time? Is it because the Minister is afraid of a real investigation?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, if the Hon. Member has questions concerning the trust companies under the control of the Province of Ontario, that were incorporated under the laws of the Province of Ontario and that, under recent legislation, have come under the ownership and control of the Province of Ontario, then I invite him to direct his questions to the Premier of the Province of Ontario.
January 26, 1983


THE ECONOMY
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. In the news this morning the Minister was reported to have said that he agrees with the need for additional stimulus in the economy to provide jobs and specifically, he said, in terms of providing additional infrastructure and municipal works. I point out to the Minister that there is not a municipality from St. John's all the way across Canada to Victoria that does not have at least half a dozen projects ready today that would create jobs throughout the land.
Given the need of more than 1.5 million Canadians to find jobs, and given the presence in municipalities of plans to create jobs, why is the Minister planning to wait another two months, until budget time, to allocate money to provide jobs? Why does he not act now?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Finance):: Madam Speaker, the question raised by the Hon. Member was inspired by an excellent meeting 1 had with representatives of the Canadian Labour Congress, and speaking on behalf of two million workers, I am very pleased with the spirit of co-operation shown by the CLC on that occasion. I realize the Hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party may be somewhat upset about this, but I trust that in the final instance, he will realize it is a development that should be applauded by all Members of this House, and it is to be hoped that labour will work closely with employers and the governments concerned towards the economic recovery this country so urgently needs.
As for the Hon. Member's specific question, 1 shall repeat, if 1 may, what I said yesterday after the meeting, namely, that I have received numerous representations from a variety of organizations which seem to indicate there is a growing consensus that stimulus should be given to investment in the public sector at the municipal, provincial and federal levels, and that consumer spending should also be stimulated. It seems that support for these general measures is very widespread, and I shall, of course, take these representations very seriously because, as 1 said before, they were made by a large number of organizations.
As for what specific decision will be made in this respect, 1 would ask my hon. colleague to wait until the next budget.


REQUEST FOR EARLY ANNOUNCEMENT
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, the Government has not brought forward a new program since October when NEED was announced. From October to the end of March will be five months before we will get a budget. There is some real need, and a feeling of urgency by the people of Canada in respect to obtaining new jobs. The Minister has
Oral Questions
already indicated that the Government is prepared to provide additional stimulus. What is holding him back from announcing it now and saying to municipalities across the land, "Don't wait for another two months; provide some employment right now for Canadians and you will get it from the federal Government"? Why does the Minister not say that?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, I remind the Leader of the New Democratic Party that the Government has already provided over $2 billion of stimulus in the June budget and in my October economic statement. That stimulus is showing its effects in the figures which have come out in the last few months.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Marc Lalonde: As a matter of fact the leading economic indicators were all up in the last quarter. Housing has increased for the first time in 16 months. Employment rose in December. There are a number of clear indications that we are on the way to recovery. This is due, in good part, to the measures announced by the Government in the last six months, since the last budget in June. These measures are taking effect. That expenditure of over $2 billion is going into the economy at the present time.
1 have had a very fruitful meeting with my provincial colleagues, the Ministers of Finance. We have agreed that we will be looking together at everything that could be done at the municipal, provincial and federal levels to help ensure an even stronger recovery. This process is ongoing at the present time. It was made clear at the time, and my provincial colleagues recognized this, that this did not mean the federal Government would be paying for all these activities-that the municipal, provincial and federal Governments had room to borrow and proceed with activities of their own. This is what is taking place at the present time.
If there is to be a federal contribution it will be known at the time of the budget, but in the meantime my provincial colleagues are showing more common sense than the Leader of the New Democratic Party. They are working hard at this themselves, and municipalities that have projects to go ahead are welcome to go ahead with those projects right now.


John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, the Minister took about five minutes to say that he is not going to do anything in the next two months before the budget. That is what that amounted to.


REQUEST THAT GOVERNMENT WITHDRAW EXPENDITURE RESTRAINT PROGRAM
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, my supplementary is also for the same Minister. We pointed out last summer that the six and five program was taking money out of the economy, and the Bishops of Canada pointed that out over Christmas. Yesterday Statistics Canada reported that

January 26, 1983
Oral Questions
because of the six and five program money was being taken away from Canadians which otherwise would be going into their pockets and would be spent to create jobs. Will the Minister at least acknowledge that the six and five program is counter productive and will he withdraw it so at least there will be a little equity in the country?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, would the Leader of the New Democratic Party at least have the honesty to reflect the views expressed by Statistics Canada properly? This is not at all what Statistics Canada indicated in its last report. I want to stress to the Hon. Member again that Statistics Canada indicate there are many signs of recovery taking place. Employment rose for the first time in 16 months in December, which Statistics Canada indicated. Statistics Canada also indicated that there is a resurgence in consumer confidence and a resurgence in investor confidence in the business sector.


John Edward Broadbent: Why do you not listen to the question and answer it?


Marc Lalonde: This is the report of Statistics Canada. It is not the type of cooked question raised by the Hon. Member.

[ Translation]


INDUSTRY
Mr. Gerald Laniel (Beauharnois-Salaberry):: Madam
Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and concerns the Canadian Industrial Renewal Board.
Considering the Board's lack of efficiency in its decisionmaking and administrative procedures, and the mediocre results obtained after seven special areas were designated in Quebec and in Eastern Ontario, and especially considering the fact that the Board failed to create even a single job during this nine-month period in my own riding in the area of Valley-field, I want to ask the Minister whether he would be willing to consider dismantling the Board of Directors of the CIRB, chaired by Mr. Paul Desmarais, and as a more efficient alternative, to take on full responsibility for this program, whose objectives raised high hopes at the time the program was presented.


Hon. Ed Lumley (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Madam Speaker, while acknowledging that there have been some difficulties in some constituencies with respect to the operations of CIRB, I want to indicate to the Hon. Member that a substantial number of jobs have been created by that organization. There has also been financial assistance to the clothing industry, to the textile industry and to the footwear industry as a result of the $267 million which the Government
of Canada allocated for that program. But I do agree with the Hon. Member that there are some areas which could be improved upon, and I will be addressing that matter with the chairman of the board and the administration.


NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND NEWFOUNDLAND ON OFFSHORE RESOURCES
John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In December the Minister indicated that the Government of Canada was prepared to change its approach to an agreement with the Province of Newfoundland on offshore mineral resources. The Minister then met with Mr. Marshall of Newfoundland. They both agreed on certain principles that could govern an agreement. Their agreement was a verbal one at the Minister's insistence that he did not want it in writing. Federal officials then met with provincial officials to draft a suggested agreement, but it was discovered that the federal officials were not following the Minister's agreement.
Why did the federal officials not follow the principles which the Minister agreed upon with the provincial Minister? Why were there changes made? Were they authorized by him or not? Were the principles which the Minister agreed upon agreed upon by his colleagues in cabinet, or was he doing this in some manner that was unauthorized? Why have we now had this crisis in negotiations?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, I think the statement made by the Hon. Member has no foundation in reality. Over two months I met many times with Mr. Marshall. Both of us were supposed to have mandates from our respective Governments to try to develop an agreement that would be satisfactory to both Governments. Mr. Marshall and I agreed to meet at a referendum and refer our proposition to our Governments.
I discovered last week that officials of the two Governments had met for four days. They had drafted many, many notes that were to be part of the agreement. At one time the Newfoundland officials were to come back to collect a document that had been mostly written by both parties. In fact, they never appeared. After that I discovered Mr. Marshall did not want to see me either. I offered to meet him on Thursday. It was not possible. On Friday, after a lot of insistence he met me for a few minutes. On Saturday he was not available, nor Sunday, nor Monday, nor yesterday. For two days he has not been available, and, therefore, I think he does not want to have a deal.
Every time Mr. Marshall came to see me I discovered, that when he was in one hotel with me Mr. Peckford was across the street in another room. The Prime Minister gave me his confidence and he let me handle the problem myself. The
January 26, 1983

Prime Minister is not known to follow his Ministers into other towns and wait across the street to give information.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


TELEXED MESSAGE
[Stage Direction]
Hon. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West)- Madam Speaker, 1 have a supplementary question. Is it not correct that Mr. Marshall, on behalf of the Newfoundland Government, telexed the Minister on Monday after meeting him on Friday to inform him of this verbally, and to outline 17 points of principle to which a response was needed from the Minister in writing. The Minister's verbal promises or assurances are no longer sufficient because his officials will not follow them. The Finance Minister has hung him out to dry. He has pulled his chain and the Minister has been hauled back.
Is the Minister prepared to answer in writing the 17 points of principle put forward by the Newfoundland Government so that these negotiations can start again and the officials can start drafting? They cannot draft an agreement if they do not know what has been agreed. Why is the Minister keeping his agreements verbal? Is it because he has not got the authorization of the Prime Minister who was off in Southeast Asia when he should have been in a hotel room keeping an eye on the Minister?
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, first I would like to deny one affirmation of the Hon. Member. Following each meeting I had with Mr. Marshall we would call our Deputy Ministers. Both of them took notes of the agreements that we made, which were transmitted to officials of both Governments. There were notes taken after each meeting we had. The notes were taken by Mr. Abery and by my own Deputy Minister. From these notes officials ten days ago drafted some aspects of an agreement, 22 pages in total. To claim there is nothing in writing is absolutely untrue. The problem is that Mr. Marshall did not have a mandate to negotiate in good faith with me. He had to go back to the next room-


Charles Joseph Clark: You could not find your Prime Minister.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: -and I did not have to go back to my Government because my Government told me to try to make a deal that is acceptable to Canada and Newfoundland "and we will back you up." But Mr. Marshall did not have such a mandate.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: The Minister is telling absolute falsehoods.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member for St. John's East.
Oral Questions NATURE OF AGREEMENT


Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Madam Speaker, may I ask the Minister a supplementary question? Will the Minister of Energy please tell the House why he has refused to reply to the legitimate request of the Government of Newfoundland to put in writing the 17 points verbally agreed to by the Minister and his Newfoundland counterpart?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, I am sorry but the 17 points are not the 17 points on which we had agreed. These were other points agreed to. Many of them were new questions which Mr. Marshall and I had never debated. They were not the points on which we had agreed. I took the speech that Mr. Peckford made on October 6 in which he made four objections to the proposition of my predecessor. I met the four points. Now that I have met the four points, they come with 17 new ones. When you are serious and you want to have a deal, that is not the way to act, and you never negotiate through telegrams.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: You were authorized-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member for Victoria.


Some Hon. Members:: More.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. I guess the House has now had its recess and we can go back to business. The Hon. Member for Victoria.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Hon. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of National Defence I would like to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In the Comox, British Columbia area there is considerable economic distress. Lumbering is down by over 50 per cent in British Columbia and fishing income has declined significantly. To add to the difficulties the Minister of National Defence has decided to move the 409 Voodoo Squadron from Comox to Cold Lake, Alberta. Would the Prime Minister tell the House what prompted the Government to move over 400 jobs out of this already distressed area?


Stanley Hudecki: Madam Speaker, the unfortunate aspect of phasing out the Voodoo airplanes from the 409 Squadron

January 26, 1983
Oral Questions
has necessitated reducing the number of people who are required at that particular base. However, that base will be used for search and rescue. It will eventually be used for the CF-18s when they are deployed from their home base which will be at Bagotville or Cold Lake. That will increase the number at that time.
In addition, the Maritime Patrol will still be functioning so that there will be a very respectable number of people employed at that level. There are currently 1,950 employed. The net loss in total personnel will be 430. It is regrettable, but this is a result of phasing out the CF 101 aircraft at that post.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Bruce McKinnon: It is surprising to see the applause from the Liberal ranks at the loss of 400 jobs in Comox, British Columbia.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


SEARCH AND RESCUE COMPLEMENT AT COMOX, B.C.
Allan Bruce McKinnon: Madam Speaker, I will direct my supplementary question to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence. I thank him for the fullness of his first answer.
The Cabinet has overruled the recommendations of its own search and rescue report that a Minister other than the Minister of National Defence should be responsible for search and rescue. Will the Parliamentary Secretary tell us if there are any plans for increasing the size of the search and rescue squadron at Comox, or for moving in any other units to replace the 400 who are moving out with the 409 Squadron?


Stanley Hudecki: Madam Speaker, the answer in that respect is that in light of the phasing out of the 409 Squadron there would be less need for search and rescue equipment and personnel. On the other hand, arrangements had been made to increase the number of cutters for the West Coast.


PRICE OF NATURAL GAS EXPORTED TO UNITED STATES
Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In recent press reports several U.S. Congressmen are claiming success in pressuring the Canadian Government to reduce the price of Canadian gas going into the U.S. market. The Minister has publicly indicated that he is flexible on this subject. His officials will also be visiting Washington on Tuesday to pursue this matter further. Would the Minister
assure the House that he is not prepared to cave in to American pressure to reduce the price of Canadian gas going into the U.S. market?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, I think the question of price is part of an agreement between the Canadian administration and the American administration which was signed some two or three years ago. The price is $4.94. It has not been increased over the last two years because of the current market conditions.
In terms of the price for future exports, I am waiting for the report of the National Energy Board which is supposed to be published tomorrow in which they will decide if there is surplus and to whom they will give the licence for export. It is only after that that we will have to decide about the price.
At this time the price is part of an agreement between the two Governments. I explained that to the Congressmen, as well as telling them that they cannot blame the increase in the price of natural gas in the United States this winter on a price that was set three years ago and has been in their system for three years.


Raymond John Skelly: That certainly is not an answer that would give any assurance to provincial Governments that are already having great difficulty with revenue problems.


LINKAGE TO PRICE OF OIL
Raymond John Skelly: Madam Speaker, there was an assurance in the National Energy Program to consumers that in order to convert through the off-oil program to natural gas and other alternatives it would maintain gas at 65 per cent of the price of oil. Yet in the face of a temporary glut and the threat of price reduction, it looks as if the price of natural gas is over that 65 per cent level. Can the Minister give some assurance that, in order to protect alternative energy programs, the Government will in fact make sure that the price of natural gas tracks at 65 per cent of the price of oil in the face of oil reductions?


Marc Lalonde: Madam Speaker, the natural gas and gas liquids tax has been set in such a way that the price of gas would be very advantageous to consumers. Our intention, as announced in the National Energy Program update, was to maintain that tax at a level of approximately two-thirds the price of oil in 1982 and 1983.
I am reviewing this matter at the present time and I expect to be able to announce a decision in that regard. I want to assure the Hon. Member, however, that we will reduce the natural gas and gas liquids tax significantly to honour that commitment fully and maintain a very significant advantage in favour of natural gas as compared to oil, as far as consumers are concerned.
January 26, 1983

Oral Questions
THE CONSTITUTION	CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT


MINORITY LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN QUEBEC
[Stage Direction]
Hon. Warren Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine
East): Madam Speaker, 1 have a question for the Prime Minister. During the Christmas recess there was an exchange of correspondence between the Prime Minister and the Premier of Quebec regarding a possible Quebec veto and certain language rights. There was an inference in the press reports that the Prime Minister might be willing to reduce even further certain minority language rights in Quebec in order to get Quebec's agreement to the Constitution.
Would the Prime Minister clarify this matter and, since we all would like to see Quebec accept the new Constitution, would he consider suggesting to Quebec that there could be a certain constitutional veto in exchange for stronger minority language rights, not only in Quebec but throughout the country?
Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member will understand that it is not in my power to offer Quebec a stronger veto right in exchange for anything at all. The veto right, if it is recognized for Quebec much as every Province had recognized it in the 1971 agreement, which Quebec rejected, will be a consequence of all Provinces agreeing to the new amending formula. Therefore, I cannot offer any pay-off.
However, I do want to clarify, for the benefit of the House and the Hon. Member, what I wrote in my letter to Mr. Levesque concerning language protection. In essence I was offering to sit down and write a text which would be more protective of minorities, both French and English, across Canada in the educational system. That was the line that the Premier pretended had been adopted at the St. Andrews' meeting in 1977 and the Montreal meeting in 1978 when all Premiers agreed to protect the minority language rights in their Provinces.
It will be recalled that, as the agreement was being reached in November, 1981, I made the same offer at that time to the Premier of Quebec, saying that if the Charter and the particular section concerning language rights did not correspond to the agreement they had reached in St. Andrews and Montreal, I would be prepared to change its wording. But it was not a watering down, as has been suggested by some editorialists, which was indicated in my letter. On the contrary, it was a rewording which I would hope would go even further in respecting the minority language rights.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


ENDEAVOUR TO PROTECT BUDGET
Mr. John Gamble (York North):: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Secretary of State for External Affairs I would like to direct my question to the Minister of State for International Trade. Is he aware of an endeavour to be made by CIDA, by way of a self-serving propaganda campaign, to convince the media, Members of Parliament and the development community that it is appropriate that none of its budget be cut in these difficult economic times, as part of the difficult task of proving to Canadians that CIDA is an efficient, effective, and responsible institution?


Hon. Gerald Regan (Minister of State (International Trade)):: Madam Speaker, the article the Hon. Member refers to may be slightly erroneous in one regard. One official in CIDA had done a certain amount of work and had prepared a recommendation for a policy in that direction. That policy has not been adopted.
It is true that some senior officials of CIDA were aware that work was being done on the examination of a policy, but the proposed policy is merely the opinion of one person in CIDA and has not been adopted.


PURPOSE OF PROPOSED EXPENDITURE
John Albert Gamble: Madam Speaker, I am gratified with the Minister's response and I take it from that reply that it will be the intention of the Government to see that this kind of frivolous expenditure is not incurred, having regard to the fact that the taxpayers' dollars which are put into CIDA, according to this plan if it is ever implemented, are to be used for the purpose of convincing Members of Parliament, who are also paid by the taxpayers, how they should do their jobs, and also convincing the development community, consisting of such organizations as CUSO, how they should use taxpayers' dollars funded to them through CIDA, all for the purpose of persuading the general public how they should respond to this issue.


Gerald Augustine Regan: Madam Speaker, obviously the Hon. Member did not listen to my first answer, or he decided that he wanted to flail away at the subject even though he had nothing at which to flail. The situation is, of course, that the official in question was asked to look at a communications strategy. The Hon. Member is well aware of the value of CIDA. It is probably the best organization of its type in the world, and it is essential that Canadians have a knowledge of that. Indeed, it is important in its work that its method of operation be well understood. The Hon. Member can be reassured that there is no intention on the part of the Government or the officials of CIDA to pursue a course of propaganda.

January 26, 1983
Oral Questions
In relation to what he said about Members of Parliament, I would hope that Members of Parliament on all sides would have taken the time to be aware of the many worth-while achievements of CIDA in various parts of the world.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS
Mr. Bob Corbett (Fundy-Royal):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport. The CNR has announced its intention to eliminate 44 jobs in the Mari-times, a move which can hardly be received warmly in a region of the country in which unemployment has already ravaged countless households.
However, the ramifications are much more substantial than 44 lost jobs. In the name of efficiency the port City of Saint John, whose facilities handle more tonnage than any other port on the East Coast, has been reduced to a second class status from a "carload centre" to a "satellite". Will the Minister not recognize the negative impact that this change will have on users and potential businesses in the city, and reinforce the position of the port and the security of the port workers by assuring the city it will not lose its classification as a "carload centre"?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, there are two answers to questions of that kind, which I receive regularly two or three times a week. One is to emphasize that if we Canadians want our railways to be efficient we have to accept the fact that they have to keep up with improvements, to rationalize, to be efficient. That means, unfortunately, and we all regret it, occasionally the transfer or preretirement or lay-off of some people. That is the first answer. It is a question of knowing what we want and having in mind the real interests of Canadians and of shippers, and trying to develop as efficient a railway transportation system as we can.
The second answer is, and it is a traditional one in Canadian politics, for the Minister to say that we have Crown corporations in Canada and the Minister is not involved in the daily operations of these institutions. That is in line with the best practice throughout Canadian history.


REQUEST FOR POSTPONEMENT OF ACTION
Robert Alfred Corbett: Madam Speaker, the port city of Saint John must remain efficient and it must serve a useful purpose, just as the CNR should be serving it. That city has received body blow after body blow-the cancellation of VIA services, the non-utilization of the port for a fair share of grain movement, to name two recent events-and now this. I will ask the Minister will he not confer with his officials, because he does have an opportunity to influence the CNR, and he should not try to deny that, and ask them at least to postpone the disembowelling of the city of Saint John until
parties at all levels have had some opportunity for input into this decision?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I will do so, but I do not accept the proposition which is apparently at the basis of the Hon. Member's question, that the Port of Saint John has not been thriving in recent years. On the contrary.


MEDICAL CARE
Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. The Minister is no doubt aware of the controversy surrounding the approval which the Ontario Conservative Government has given to the contract signed between the District General Hospital in Hawkesbury and the Canadian subsidiary of American Medical International which will manage the hospital according to profit criteria, as opposed to health criteria, and of course in return will get a share of whatever profits they can generate.
Does the Minister consider this contract, which sets a serious and dangerous precedent in the privatization and, indeed, the Americanization of health care in Canada, to be in violation of one of the five founding principles of medicare, which is the principle of non-profit administration?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, when I read the news in the newspapers, like many other parliamentarians, I immediately inquired into the repercussions on the five basic principles upon which medicare is established, and well established. I must immediately, and I am pleased to have a chance to do it in answering the Hon. Member, point out that the Medical Care Act refers to a medical care insurance plan of a province as being administered on a non-profit basis.
According to the legal advice that I have received, medical practitioners or institutions related to health could operate on a profit basis. It is the plan covering the client services that must be administered publicly, not for profit.
I would therefore suggest, before we all panic and think there is something deeply wrong with what Ontario is doing, which by the way is being studied carefully with the purpose of imitating it in other provinces, that we ask the proper question, which is, if that hospital makes a profit, and it is good for the hospital as long as its clients are well served, where will the money go? I think it should increase the services needed in health promotion, for example, and in new work on health concerns. That is where the pressure should be put.


William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: We know where the money will go, Madam Speaker. It will go to the same place where all money generated by multinationals in this country goes; it will go back to

January 26, 1983

the United States. That is where the money will go, it will not go into health care.


QUERY RESPECTING MINISTER'S POSITION
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister whether or not she approves of this, not whether or not there is some legalistic distinction between the Medical Care Act and the Hospital and Diagnostic Services Act, which there may well be. What I am asking the Minister is, does she approve of this in principle and, if she does not, will she include something in the next draft of the Canada Health Act to address this problem, because it certainly goes against the spirit of health care in Canada as it is understood by the majority of Canadians.


Monique Bégin: Madam Speaker, women are not priests, and at times that is practical. I do not approve or disapprove on moral grounds. My job is to administer and act for the benefit of Canadians. Let us start with the facts. It would help. I have just answered, black and white, that that is not a breach of the conditions in the Act. What else does the Hon. Member want me to do? Second, I am offering him what is a good political line, which is where will the money go? If the answer you gave me is in a letter from Mr. Larry Grossman, the Minister of Health in Ontario, I would like a copy, because I am sure he never was asked in the provincial legislature, "Where will the money go if the hospital makes a profit?"


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. In view of the very depressed situation in the Canadian beef industry this year, with low cattle prices last fall and continuing high input costs for interest and farm machinery repairs, is the Minister planning to implement the provisions of the Anderson-Vander-meulen Report on the beef industry, or provide stabilization payments to producers this winter? What action is planned by the Government?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member has asked what action is planned by the Government to help with the plight of the beef farmer at this time. We are having discussions every day and hope to be able to meet the industry and the provincial ministers very shortly.
Point of Order-Mr. W. Baker


PETITIONS
Madam Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the Clerk of the House has laid upon the Table reports of the Clerk of Petitions stating that he has examined the petitions presented by Hon. Members on Tuesday, January 25, 1983, and finds that the petitions meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.



POINT OF ORDER


Hon. Walter Baker (Nepean-Carleton):: Madam Speaker, at the outset of proceedings today, during the period of time devoted to Members' statements, the Hon. Member for Laurier (Mr. Berger) made a statement in the House purporting to be under the section concerning Members' statements. What he did, in effect, was to quote completely, for 90 seconds, an editorial from the Montreal Gazette.
I am not arguing the substance of that editorial, its rightness or wrongness, but I am arguing the question whether that was within the spirit of the rules, and I believe it was not. The rules are designed for Members of Parliament to make statements, not for editorial writers of newspapers to make statements. If the Member of Parliament agrees with the statement, and I am sure he does, I am not arguing whether he is right or wrong.


Charles Joseph Clark: He always agrees with it.


Walter David Baker: However, no matter what the situation, it ought to be the Member's statement in that period of time, 90 seconds, and it should not be filled up with a long quote.


John Carnell Crosbie: Brainless quote.


Walter David Baker: We dealt with the whole question of poems and other things. Your Honour said that a poem could not be quoted to use up the entire period; one could use small quotations. I think the same principle applies here and the matter should be dealt with now. We allowed Standing Order 43 to fall into disrepute as a result of misuse and we do not want this period devoted to Members' statements to meet with the same fate.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Just to refresh the Hon. Member's memory, when I spoke about quotations in answer to the question whether statements could be made in verses, I said that I did not think the spirit of that particular Standing Order would

January 26, 1983
Business of the House
allow Members to make their statements in verses but that I would allow quotations from poets-


Walter David Baker: Small quotations.


Madam Speaker:: -if they seemed to fit into the statements of the Members.
As for the Hon. Member's statement today, I was waiting to see whether the Hon. Member would finish his quotation by stating his opinions of that particular editorial rather than simply reading all of it. I think this matter deserves some examination on my part in consultation with those who decided that they would make a change to Standing Order 43.
The Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton (Mr. Baker) is right. I think this change was for the good. The House is receiving statements from Members concerning questions which they feel are important, and I think we should keep it that way. I will look at the statement of the Hon. Member for Laurier (Mr. Berger) and I will consult with those who were in the committee. I will give some guidance on this matter once I have completed those consultations.


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Nielsen:: Madam Speaker, may I direct the question which is usually asked on Thursday to the Government House Leader today and ask him what the business will be for next week? We know that we are not sitting this Friday and that tomorrow will be an Opposition day for the NDP; but could he lead us as far as he can into next week with respect to House business?


Mr. Pinard:: Madam Speaker, the hon. gentleman is right; no one expects Friday to be very productive.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Walter David Baker: At least not for you.


Yvon Pinard: I want to designate tomorrow as an Opposition day and on Monday we will resume debate on Bill C-139 with respect to the Income Tax Act. On Tuesday and Thursday we will resume debate on Bill C-131, which is related to Old Age Security.
[ Translation]
Therefore, Mrs. Speaker, next Monday we shall proceed with consideration of legislation to amend the Income Tax Act, and next Tuesday and Thursday, debate will be resumed on Bill C-131 whose purpose is to restrict indexation of old age security benefits.


Erik Nielsen: I would like to ask the Government House Leader one further brief question. I ask there questions today
because I will be unavoidably absent tomorrow for one of the greatest exercises in Canadian democracy.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Erik Nielsen: Will it be the Government's intention to designate one day next week as a further allotted day?


Yvon Pinard: 1 will consider that request, Madam Speaker, and report to my hon. colleague some time at the beginning of next week.


PRIVILEGE
Raymond John Skelly: Madam Speaker, arising out of the remarks of the Parliamentary Secretary, 1 wonder whether I might have an opportunity of raising a question of privilege at this point. The figures given by the Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Hudecki) with regard to Comox were wrong and understated the problem. He implied, as well, that the search and rescue-


Madam Speaker:: Order. That is not a question of privilege.


Some Hon. Members:: Nice try.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Al MacBain (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada):: Madam Speaker, 1 am pleased to lay upon the Table of the House, in both official languages, a copy of the eleventh annual report of the Law Reform Commission, 1981 and 1982, and I ask that the report be referred to the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs.


PETITIONS
Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg-St. James):: Madam Speaker, 1 have the honour of presenting a petition to this House which was brought to me by a number of students in an upgrading program who are despairing of the opportunity to get some real training and, even if they get training, of the opportunity

*
|

a'-
January 26, 1983

for employment in the future. Therefore, they are calling upon the House to do some real economic planning in order to provide long-term employment for Canadians.


Mr. Stan Schellenberger (Wetaskiwin):: Madam Speaker, I have the duty to present a petition on behalf of my constituents. The purpose of the petition signed by 131 citizens of the Town of Leduc is to register concern that fines and restrictions handed out for legally-charged impaired drivers are too small and that a much larger fine and longer restriction of their driving licences should be implemented. The nature of this petition is to request that Parliament enact tougher legislation with regard to legally-charged impaired drivers.
The petitioners hope, Madam Speaker, that in your examination of their petition you will find the petition in order, sense the urgency of their plea and that you might use the powers of your office to allow for discussion and referral to committee.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. David Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 4,592, 4,615, 4,631 and 4,664.


Mr. Murta: 1.	Did the Canadian Wheat Board recently borrow $50 million U.S. on the American market and, if so (a) for what purpose does the Board require eight year moneys (b) what provision has been made to carry the risk of exchange rate fluctuations over that period of time?
2.	Was the borrowing for the acquisition of some asset and, if so, what source of funds will be used to repay the capital?
3.	Since the Board is accountable only to Parliament but uses producers' money to purchase assets, for what reason does this procedure not merely amount to a transfer tax on producers?


Mr. Jesse P. Flis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Transport):: 1. The Canadian Wheat Board recently floated a U.S. $50 million Eurodollar bond issue.
(a)	These proceeds will be used for the general purposes of the Board including the repayment of bank indebtedness incurred to finance its holdings of railway hopper cars and of grain which the Board has acquired.
(b)	While no specific exchange rate provisions have been made at this point, and it is not practical to do so, the Board's selling prices are changed each day to reflect the current exchange rate, thereby creating a built-in hedge in the price of Board commodities.
2. The borrowing was for the purposes of repaying bank indebtedness incurred to finance railway hopper cars and holdings of grain which the Board has acquired. The bonds
Order Paper Questions
will be redeemed at maturity out of the proceeds from the sale of grain and/or bank loans and/or another bond issue.
3. All purchases made by the Board, be it real property, hopper cars or purchases of grain, are paid for with producer funds and/or bank loans. In the case of real property purchases or hopper cars, these costs would be amortized in Board accounts over a period of years and become a cost to the producer as do the interest costs resulting from bank loans incurred in financing such purchases.


Mr. Mitges: 1.	Is the pain-killing drug Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) available for human use in Canada and, if so, is it available for any specific disease or affliction?
2.	Are there any side effects from the use of the drug by humans and, if so, what are they?


Mr. Jim Schroder (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: 1. In Canada, Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) has been cleared under the Food and Drug Regulations as a 70 per cent solution for the treatment of scleroderma by application to the skin and as a 50 per cent solution for direct instillation into the urinary bladder for the treatment of interstitial cystitis, a fibrous disease of the bladder wall. DMSO is available on prescription.
2. In humans, the possible side effects include a garlic-like odour on the breath and an associated peculiar taste in the mouth. Increased warmth, burning, irritation, itching and eruption of the skin, headache, nausea, dizziness, sedation and certain chemical abnormalities in the blood reflecting possible liver and kidney malfunction have also occasionally been observed in persons taking DMSO.


Mr. Stewart: 1.	Was a 1703 map of New France printed on the front cover of the government telephone directory for the National Capital Region and, if so, for what reason?
2.	Was the description of the map printed on the back cover, in both French and English, and the map itself only in French and, if so, for what reason?
3.	For what reason did the front cover not portray (a) an English language map (b) a map in both French and English?


Hon. Francis Fox (Minister of Communications):: 1. A 1703 map of New France was printed on the front cover of the National Capital Region government telephone directory at the request of Public Archives Canada. The purpose was to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the National Collection of Maps and Plans of the Public Archives.
2.	The description of the map was printed on the back cover in both official languages, in accordance with standard procedures. The map, which was originally published in French in 1703, was simply reproduced on the front cover.
3.	This map was selected by Public Archives Canada to be reproduced on the NCR directory as the first map to depict
22236

January 26, 1983
Transfer of Employee's Pensions
the latitude and longitude of Canada more or less correctly. Other historical maps, some of which were in English, were reproduced on government directories elsewhere in the country. As the historical maps were all published originally in either French or English, there were none available to be reproduced in both languages.


Mr. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich): What were the travel bills for all Cabinet Ministers other than the Minister of Agriculture for the fiscal year 1981-82?


David P. Smith: See Public Accounts of Canada, 1981-82, Volume II, Section 38.40.

I ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.
[ Translation]


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


Madam Speaker:: Shall all notices of motion be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-MOTIONS

['There is not unanimous consent.', "There being no unanimous consent, and it being six o'clock, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o'clock pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).", 'Thursday, January 27, 1983']
Madam Speaker:: Shall all orders preceding No. 56 under the heading: Public Bills and made by Members be allowed to stand, by unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



Mr. Marcel Roy (Laval) moved:: That, in the opinion of this House, the Government should consider the advisability of providing, in association with the provinces, a scheme whereby the pensions of all employees in Canada who contribute to a pension plan shall be portable from one employer to another without any loss of accrued benefits.
He said: Madam Speaker, it is with great satisfaction and pride that I rise in the House today to present the motion read just now. It was tabled on December 10, 1980. I just want to explain the procedure I had to follow to get this motion before the House today. Madam Speaker, I am particularly proud to be speaking on behalf of over 60 per cent of Canadian workers who do not enjoy the same advantages as their colleagues in the public sector with respect to pension plans, and also the manner in which such plans provide protection for the spouse.
That is therefore why I put this motion, at the request of a number of workers employed in small- and medium-sized businesses who, because they had changed jobs and owing to various circumstances had reached the age of 45 or 44 or 42 without having any kind of pension. During the last election campaign, I promised, and I made a commitment in my parliamentary bulletins to the constituents in my riding of Laval that I would draw the Government's attention to this situation which is penalizing 60 per cent of our workers because they work in the private sector and because they have not had an opportunity to work in the public sector. I therefore put this notice of motion. Several discussions were held in the Liberal caucus among Members from Quebec, Ontario and all the other provinces. In fact, the Liberal Government has been a major force in improving the quality of worklife and developing pension plans in Canada.
As a Member of this party, I could almost rest assured that the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) and the Government would demonstrate a firm resolve to take a comprehensive look at the pension plan situation in Canada, and the purpose of my motion today is to propose that for workers in the private sector, pension plans should be portable from employer to employer, until the employee retires.
In view of worker mobility, one aspect of pension plans that should be considered is portability, so that workers will be able to live comfortably upon retirement. In other words, Canadians in the private sector would, upon retirement, have a reasonable chance of avoiding a serious drop in their standard of living.
The purpose of my speech is to ask the Minister to refer this motion to the special committee of the House of Commons, to review the status of pension plans in Canada, and I am thus speaking on behalf of all those workers, men and women, in the private sector who do not enjoy the same protection as do employees in the public sector, at the municipal, provincial and federal levels. In the public sector, pension plans are portable, which means the employee is not penalized if he changes jobs.
January 26, 1983

Private plans financed by the employer represent only 14 per cent of total benefits paid to persons of 65 and over, that is, $1 out of $7, while 60 per cent comes from Government sources, that is, $3 out of $5. At the present time, the most urgent social problem is pension reform, for the simple reason that neither the Canada Pension Plan nor private plans provide an adequate income for Canada's senior citizens.
Today, 53 per cent of 2.3 million retired Canadians have incomes that are low enough to make them eligible for the Guaranteed Income Supplement, which is $194.37 per person for a married couple and $252.10 for a single person. The supplement is added to the monthly $251.12 provided under the universal Old Age Security Program.
This means that one pensioner out of five, or nearly 400,000 Canadians, have no income other than their Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, although they have worked all their lives.
How does the pension system in Canada work? It is often referred to as a three-tiered system. The first level consists of Federal programs including Old Age Security-$251.12 per month-the Guaranteed Income Supplement of $194.37 for a married person and $252.10 for a single individual, and the spousal allowance which is granted to the spouse of a pensioner who is receiving Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, if the spouse is between 60 and 64 years old. Since the Old Age Security Act was amended, about 90,000 pensioners have been receiving these benefits, which represents an annual expenditure of Government funds of approximately $175 million.
At the second level, we have the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans to which contributions are compulsory and linked to earnings, and which apply to practically all Canadian workers between the ages of 18 and 64, unless they are receiving retirement or disability benefits under the Plan.
The third level is the pension plan which comprises private pensions, personal savings and investments which represents approximately 25 per cent.
If we want to ensure the well-being of private sector workers in the years to come, we must treat them as equal partners, and pension plans must be on a level with those in the public sector. It is along these lines that I am going to continue the balance of my speech.
Private pension plans have a number of drawbacks which prevent the elderly from receiving an adequate income upon retirement. Only 40 per cent of Canada's labour force contribute to a private pension plan. There are 380,000 Canadians living solely on Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement benefits, despite the fact that they have worked for a number of years. This problem must be solved first of all, because even if we do change the rules on portability, it would not do much good if 60 per cent of our workers were not able to benefit.
Transfer of Employee's Pensions
A number of arrangements regarding vested rights leave much to be desired. The employee is entitled to his pension plan contributions as soon as the employer's share becomes the employee's property. A number of companies require a long period of service-as much as ten years-and the recipient must be 45, before they agree to pay the employee what he invested in the pension fund as soon as he turns 65. An employee who leaves a job and does not have ten years of service with the same company, loses the employer's share. The employer returns the employee's share, keeps his own, and the employee may receive interest of up to 4 per cent. The result is that all these workers are penalized because pension funds are not portable. Sometimes workers reach the age of forty without having any pension plan whatsoever.
If we look at figures provided by Statistics Canada, we see that in 1976, only 10 per cent of contributors to private plans were eligible to receive the full amount contributed to their pension plans. In view of the very considerable mobility of Canadian workers, people who change jobs have no protection at all as far as pension funds are concerned.
Mr. Speaker, I am not setting myself up as an actuary or an expert on the subject, but I believe that as a Member of Parliament I have a responsibility, with my fellow Members, to try and correct this unfortunate situation which is penalizing men and women working in the private sector and I believe we have a duty to ensure they have at least the same level of protection afforded to public sector employees. That is the purpose of my motion, and I realize that eventually a price will have to be paid, and that the Government, in addition to "recharging the batteries" of our Canadian economy and safeguarding and creating jobs, will also have to continue its efforts in the area of pension reform and consider my notice of motion as one of its priorities. I appreciate the Minister's concern for the predicament of spouses who are not protected in the private sector, as our legislation now stands.
I am well aware of the rules of this House, and I do not intend to use up all my time. I wish to appeal to all parties to make this notice of motion more than just an earnest wish expressed by a Member of this House on behalf of 60 per cent of the working men and women of Canada, and to have this motion referred to the special committee announced in the House by a Government that is indeed making a tremendous effort to improve the status of pensioners in Canada. On December 9 last year, we tabled in the House a document entitled: "Better Pensions for Canadians", and we also announced the formation of a special committee. I should therefore appreciate it if this notice of motion were referred to the committee.


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I want to express my appreciation to the Hon. Member for giving us an opportunity to debate the merits of this particular motion.

January 26, 1983
Transfer of Employee's Pensions
The need for greater probability of private pension schemes is obvious to most Members of this House, particularly in a period of high unemployment. There are literally thousands of individual workers who have paid in to private pension plans and are now suddenly faced with, and affected by, plant shutdowns. Because they do not have a particular number of years of service and a vested interest in a private pension plan, they suddenly find that the pension they thought they had bought is in fact not there at all. Very often all they are entitled to is the return of contributions, and even that at a very low rate of interest; sometimes it is something less than 4.5 per cent based on the contributions they have made to that particular plan.
While all workers, male and female, are affected detrimentally by that kind of situation, for women it presents a different kind of problem. The reasons for that have been stated by the present Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin), who has pointed out on a number of occasions that simply because of the position of women in society and the workforce, they tend to change their jobs about six times during their work life. That being the case, it becomes increasingly difficult for many of those women to build up a pension benefit through the private pension plan system. And not only that, very often it is impossible for many women in the workforce to earn a pension benefit on retirement because of the inequalities and inequities built into our workforce structure.
The mover of this motion, when he wound up his speech, Mr. Speaker, referred to the green paper on pension reform which was recently tabled in the House by the Minister of National Health and Welfare. As the Hon. Member knows- but it may come as a surprise to the House-that green paper dealt primarily with reforms to the private pension system. When I asked the Minister a question about what was going to happen to that green paper, she made it absolutely clear that the thrust of the green paper and the statements it contained- they were not even recommendations-were related directly to the private pension system.
Now, while I would be the first to agree that there will always be a place in our retirement income structure for private pension plans for those individuals who wished to buy an additional benefit over what public plans provide, I think it is an abdication of this Government's responsibility to place the total thrust of any policy development to improve retirement incomes on the private system. I say that for a number of reasons. First of all, the private plans cover less than 50 per cent of the workforce, and out of that number of people only about 33 per cent are women. At the National Pensions Conference held here in Ottawa several years ago there was absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone who participated that the private pension system is totally inadequate for the needs of people who retire today. In fact, there has hardly been a newspaper editorial since that green paper was tabled, and for some time prior to that, which has not emphasized that if there is any kind of policy development on reforming our pension system, it should be weighted in favour of the public
plans, particularly the Canada Pension Plan. The reasons for that are obvious.
The Hon. Member's motion is welcome in terms of allowing the House to debate the merits of this particular proposal to improve portability from one private pension plan to another. 1 want to point out, however, that the best kind of portability is already provided for in the Canada Pension Plan. It is completely portable. If you are laid off at one plant and then become employed at another, the Canada Pension Plan is still there; your contributions are still there, the benefits you bought are still there and it is guaranteed to be paid to you at retirement age. In my view, that is the best kind of portability that can be provided. It does not demand a certain level of income to allow you to buy an additional benefit, as would be necessary under a private pension plan. In my view and that of many other people, the Canada Pension Plan is probably much more desirable than any improvement in the private system which would provide a benefit to the largest number of people in the country.
There are obviously other problems which many Members on this side of the House addressed in the debate on Bill C-131 which took place in the House in the last several months. We pointed out repeatedly that the benefits provided under the Old Age Security Act are totally inadequate. That statement is justified when it is recognized that the vast majority of single women over the age of 65 have annual incomes of something less than $5,000 per year under the Old Age Security Act. I challenge any Member of the House and most Canadians to try and scrape by on that.
While we are talking about improved portability provisions within private pension plans, I think we would be remiss in our responsibilities if we did not address these other serious problems that are built into the income replacement system for retirement that we have in this country.
A number of groups and individuals have been concerned with the plight of retired Canadians and those who have not had an opportunity to buy into a private pension plan over the years. One such group is the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto which, on December 10, 1982, issued a statement that addressed the particular problems faced by single, elderly people. It said, in part:
On average, unmarried elderly persons in Ontario who are supported only by government income guarantees are currently living over $1,300 below federal poverty lines. In large urban centres, such as Toronto, Ottawa or Hamilton, such persons have incomes which are nearly $2,000 below the poverty line. The Social Planning Council estimates that a minimum adequate income for unmarried elderly persons in Ontario is about $350 a year more than the poverty lines in 1982. These elderly persons cannot wait until after the much delayed process of pension reform reaches parliament in 1984 or later ...
While pension reform for those who have not yet retired is urgently needed, the needs of those who have already retired, particularly elderly persons who live alone, is much more urgent. The current debate on pension reform will not help the poor elderly person, because few have any pension benefits in the first place.
That is a matter that should be of serious concern to anyone who has any sensitivity or recognizes that there should be a form of social and economic justice in the country.
January 26, 1983

At a recent conference held by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the whole question of pension requirements was addressed. The research director, Louis Erlichman, stated as follows:
Resolving the pension issue is becoming increasingly urgent as the number of needy elderly Canadians grows.
Statistics Canada figures show there now are two million Canadians over 65 and more than half of them are living on less than $6,000 a year.
The federal agency's figures also show that once the baby boom generation of the 1950s starts to retire, the number of over-65s will more than triple.
Meanwhile, about 43 per cent of the country's population has no investment or private pension income.
A discussion on the need for complete portability between the pension plans in the private system is welcome, but 1 think we have to extend the discussion to requirements in the public pension system as well.
I want to thank the Hon. Member for giving us this opportunity to address this particularly serious question today.


Hon. Bill Jarvis (Perth):: Mr. Speaker, I want to join with the previous speaker in thanking the Hon. Member for Laval (Mr. Roy) for bringing this matter to the attention of the House. I believe it is important because it is an issue that will be with us for a long, long time. As the previous speaker indicated, it is a problem for a growing number of elderly people in the country.
When one looks at what we have come to call the post-war baby boom bubble moving through society-I presume they are now in their thirties and forties-one can see that the issue is not just one of immediacy for people now aged 65 and over, but that it will be exaggerated enormously when the baby boom bubble moves into retirement in the next two or three decades.
As I understood the remarks of the Hon. Member for Laval, the principal thrust was that the committee consider the nature of this motion as part of its mandate when it studies the broader issues. To that I enthusiastically and whole-heartedly subscribe. For the last ten years I have believed that the greatest underutilized force of this Chamber is our committee system. I hope that the parliamentary reform proposals will do something to correct that. I have some serious reservations, however, about the genuineness of certain Members of Cabinet in terms of fulfilling that potential for committees, but I hope I am wrong. As we move into a rather changed committee system, I have great hopes for improvement.
I cannot think of any subject-although I am sure there are some-that would provide a better subject matter for intensive study than the whole issue of pensions. I sincerely hope the issue of portability will become one of the major issues that the committee will study.
The Hon. Member for Laval professed that he was neither an accountant nor an expert on pensions. I do not think that is very important from a committee point of view, Mr. Speaker. As a bachelor, I am sure the Hon. Member was not an expert on wife battering, yet he chaired the committee that studied the subject and which, I say in all sincerity, was one of the
Transfer of Employee's Pensions
greatest stimulants in society. In my riding, an active committee of volunteers was created as a direct result of the committee and it is now working on the problem.
The Hon. Member need not make any apologies to the House for not being an expert on pensions or for not being an accountant, because were that performance to be repeated by the committee studying pensions and a report drafted that would have as much success and progress and make as much impact as the one on battered wives, then the Hon. Member would have made a very significant contribution not only to the House but to society.
Let us talk a bit about the problem of pensioners. I claim not to be unique at all, but I come from a riding in which the principal employer for many decades was the CNR. One of the great attractions of working for the CNR, as many of us will remember, was its pension plan. By comparison, in the 1940s and early 1950s its pension plan was very attractive. As a result, CNR pensioners in my riding and dozens of others across the country looked forward to a reasonable retirement in their own homes. That pension plan, as many others, has become a victim of inflation. The pension has been so seriously eroded by the ravages of inflation that the reasonable expectations of these pensioners have not been met.
I should like to direct my remarks particularly to portability.
I agree that women have been the principal victims of pension plans or the lack of viable pension plans. If one looks at typical young persons in the work force served by private pension plans and acknowledges the mobility of workers, not only geographically but from one employer to another, one finds that many of them upon changing jobs regard for good reason the contributions they have made to the pension plan of their previous employer, together with any interest which has built up, as a sort of savings. Suddenly it becomes-and 1 hate to use the word-a windfall gain when they have their previous employer that may be used to purchase a car, to take a holiday or to pay debts, which would be more likely in today's society. In my view, it is because of lack of portability that they have been regarded as temporary savings plans rather than as plans for future retirement.
If we can do anything to encourage a change in attitude toward that contribution, we should do so. We should work in the House and in the committee toward changing the attitude among young people in the work force who regard it simply as a supplementary savings plan to be cashed in when they change jobs. Their attitude should be changed to regarding it as something to supplement the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Security.
The Hon. Member pointed out a number of people were receiving GIS. This is directly attributable to the fact that people have become either discouraged or uncaring during their working years about supplementing income for retirement years or creating additional income for retirement years. Certainly portability is one of the best tools available to us toward changing that attitude and experience. Therefore, I

January 26, 1983
Transfer of Employee's Pensions
hope the Government consider, as a result of the Elon. Member s motion, that the portability factor be one of the major items to be studied by the committee.
1 hope I do not imply something incorrectly in the motion. In part it reads:
-the Government should consider the advisability of providing, in association with the Provinces, a scheme whereby the pensions of all employees in Canada who contribute to a pension plan shall be portable from one employer to another without any loss of accrued benefits.
1 do not believe the Hon. Member is suggesting that we exclude private carriers or that the Government pension plan should supplant all private plans. He is suggesting, rather, that the Government should take some action, in consultation with private carriers, to encourage portability of private plans. I see him nodding in the affirmative. I very much support that concept.
I was somewhat disturbed by the spokesman for the New Democratic Party. I think he intimated that the Government should be the exclusive carrier of pension plans. That was not the intention of the Hon. Member for Laval. Again I thank him very much for bringing the matter before the House of Commons in this form. I wish him great success in convincing his ministerial colleagues that the substance of this motion should be included in the terms of reference for what I hope will be a very successful committee study.


Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would not want the Hon. Member to misunderstand what I said. 1 said that I recognized there would always be a place for private pension plans in the country. However, I would be disturbed if the major thrust or weight in reforming the pension or income retirement system was to rest on the private sector, where I do not think it should be. I recognize that there will always be a place for private pension plans, but there should be a greater emphasis upon vastly improving the public pension scheme.


William Herbert Jarvis: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. I apologize for misunderstanding the Hon. Member. I do not think we agree on the major thrust: I think it should be on the private sector and the Hon. Member thinks it should be on the public sector. I misunderstood his remarks and 1 withdraw my comments in that regard.


Mr. Douglas Fisher (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to begin my remarks by commending the Hon. Member for Laval (Mr. Roy) for his very timely and very fine reminder of the importance of this issue. At the end of his comments he mentioned the pressing need to look at the economy and that he did not want to divert us from that issue. I assure him that the issue of pensions deserves our attention at this stage and that it will not divert us from other economic topics. We are indebted to the Hon. Member for his timely reminder and for the ideas he put forth.
1 know that in his work as Chairman of the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs he has constantly shown a concern over this matter. I know as well that he raised these comments in correspondence and in our caucus meetings. He has travelled about his own riding gathering evidence and commenting with his constituents.
Today's discussion moves the issue one step further. We are all the beneficiaries of this and we thank him for it. They are important ideas which deserve our attention now. Some of them deserve our immediate action.
1 should like to refer the Hon. Member to some comments which were made before the Finance Committee during its special hearings in September. At that time we looked at the Income Tax Act and our discussions touched upon quite a few points, including the problems in terms of pensions, especially equity issues for farmers, small-businessmen and professionals who need to take a capital asset and turn it into a pension. We discussed how they could do that without suffering undue tax burdens. There was a very useful discussion of the problem at the time. The Hon. Member may want to take a look at it as a smaller issue inside the one which he raised.
We all have observations which we want to make on the topic. Personally, I am struck by the importance of home ownership for many Canadians. Very often home ownership gives retired Canadians a great degree of security, a kind of security which is not apparent when we look at the otherwise low incomes they enjoy. For example, one of my neighbours is a widow who is in her eighties. She owns her own home and takes advantage of public sector pensions. She is able to live in that manner because she does not have a heavy burden in terms of shelter costs; she is able to enjoy her own home.
1 wonder whether we should be exploring further the question of using RRSPs for home ownership, given the obvious evidence that Canadians are able to live at home and not rely too much upon outside pensions; they are able to get by with what otherwise seems to be minimal incomes. I know there are some tax issues involved with that proposal. It is an old idea; it does not originate with me. It seems to me that we should be able to overcome the tax-related problems of immediate benefit, of creating an undue tax shelter and so on. We should be able to work out some kind of compromise between the tax issues and the needs of Canadians in that respect.
Last December, as the Hon. Member knows, the Government presented its green paper on pension reform. I want to talk about some of the issues on pensions that come from the Finance Department. I know my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. Schroder), has some other comments that he wants to raise from that department s point of view. From the Finance Department s perspective, we published a paper on pension reform that we thought set out an important array of proposals and some issues involved in upgrading our private sector pensions and our income support system. At the same time, I think it has been proposed that a special parliamentary committee be formed that will submit a report by the end of 1983.
I think the idea which the Hon. Member for Laval has raised should be directed to that committee, which should be asked to react to these very important insights.
January 26, 1983

The portability of private pension plans has long been a concern of the Government of Canada. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and other Ministers have promised that pension plan credits will be made more portable than they are now. These initial studies that we have undertaken are the first steps along the line.
The difficulties created by the existing limitations on pension portability are well known. The Hon. Member for Laval raised some and so did Members on the other side. One problem is that belonging to an employer-sponsored pension plan does not necessarily mean that employees will ultimately receive a pension at retirement. They lose their pension rights if they change employers or if they lose their jobs before retirement.
While such employees may have their own pension plan contributions returned in such circumstances, they frequently forfeit the benefits that would result from the contributions made by their employers. I heard the ideas put forth by the Hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Jarvis). I thought it important that we look for some way and some incentive to keep younger people involved in pension plans rather than simply encouraging them to spend the money right away. I know we found similar problems with young employees who regard health and dental plans as unnecessary expenses, for example. They do not see the sense in these kinds of plans in their stage of life. We might want to take a look at that idea to see if there is some incentive that can be built into the system to follow up on the Hon. Member's ideas.
Many workers end up in their retirement years either with low pension benefits or none at all, even though they may have worked most or all of their working lives with various employers who offered pension plans.
In Canada the problems involved in portability of pension benefits are exacerbated by the high labour mobility that exists here. We have estimates that a male worker can hold jobs with as many as six employers during his working years. The average female worker may expect to have even more than six different employers during her working life. On the one hand, this mobility is a very healthy sign, both for the individual and for the economy. For the individual it means greater opportunity to switch employers rather than to progress slowly up the ladder in the same company. For the economy, there is a great deal more productivity coming from these people and many more benefits because of the greater use of their skills and knowledge. But the limitations to pension portability are creating a real barrier to job mobility for many Canadians. It becomes a disincentive for them to switch employers, to seek better opportunities and to make more productive use of their skills.
Therefore, in the green paper we find, as just one of several of its considerations, a whole series of proposals aimed at promoting high mobility through greater portability of pension rights.
First, we have to consider the question of the vesting of an employee's rights to pension plan contributions made by the employer. This is naturally an issue that is very closely related
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to pension portability. The Government believes that vesting provisions, that is, the time or age at which an employee is entitled to receive a pension credit based on the employer's contribution, must be substantially improved. The green paper proposes that vesting occur after two years of service. Otherwise, improved portability provisions would in many cases merely have the result of transferring the credits resulting from the employee's own contributions.
In respect of portability itself, the green paper has suggested that three options should be available to an employee when he leaves a job after his pension rights are vested. Subject to adjustments related to the funded status of the pension plan, the employee could have the following three choices. First, the employee could transfer the entire value of the pension to a registered pension account. This would be a new retirement savings plan, and I will elaborate further on that in a few minutes.
As a second option, the employee could leave the accumulated credits in the former employer's plan and take a deferred pension when he or she reaches normal retirement age.
Another option would be a combination of the two I have just mentioned. The value of the employee s contributions, with interest, would be transferred to a registered pension account while he or she would take a partial, deferred pension by leaving the remainder of the value in the plan with the original employer if the employer agreed. Or the employee could transfer the value of the accumulated pension to a new plan with the new employer, if that new employer agreed. Alternatively, amounts that could be transferred to a registered pension account could instead be transferred to a pension plan with the new employer.
How does this proposed new approach compare with the current provisions under pension law and income tax rules? The present legal framework generally allows employees to transfer the value of their vested pension benefits, tax free, to another pension plan or to a Registered Retirement Savings Plan, provided certain conditions are met. However, pension plans are not required by law to provide for such transfers.
In practice, we find a variety of approaches to this question. In the public sector many employers have reciprocal agreements among themselves to transfer credits for pensionable service when an employee moves from one such employer to another.
In the private sector the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association has sponsored a somewhat similar arrangement among some of its member companies. A few industries, such as construction and forestry, have some multi-employer pension plans. However, in practice the majority of private industry pension plans do not provide for the transfer of vested benefits.
There are a number of other issues which have a bearing on the portability of pension rights. For example, most private plans do not provide for automatic indexation of benefits to maintain the purchasing power of pension rights in the face of inflation. Until such indexation becomes more prevalent, many

January 26, 1983
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employees might be better off if they simply took the cash on leaving an employer and invested it in such flexible instruments as Registered Retirement Savings Plans which could remain constant with inflation as the years go by.
This situation has led the Government to bring forward, as a proposal for consideration, the idea of requiring a minimum degree of inflation protection. This is the so-called excess earning method. Under this method, adjustments would be based on the difference between the five-year average of Government of Canada long-term bonds and 3.5 per cent. This proposal clearly has long-reaching implications and there must be broad consultations with the private sector and provincial Governments before it can be implemented.
I spoke earlier of the proposal in the green paper for a new retirement savings vehicle, the registered pension account. This would operate in a rather similar fashion to a Registered Retirement Savings Plan except that employers would also be able to contribute to an employee's registered pension account on a tax-deductible basis.
The proposal for a registered pension account has the potential of providing a very simple but effective way of improving pension portability. The details of such a plan are currently being developed within the Government and it is intended to publish a discussion paper on the whole question within several months. It should, however, be an important part of public discussion and debate which the Government hopes will take place on the whole question of pension reform.
Naturally, provincial Governments will have to be involved. They will play a key role. As the Hon. Member for Laval indicates in his motion, the Provinces have an important input in any decision on pension portability. The Provinces are responsible for regulating 90 per cent of workers and their pension plans in Canada. Over the years the federal and provincial Governments have co-operated closely in building a pension system that is substantially uniform throughout the country. In this way we have established and maintained Canada-wide standards, encouraged labour mobility and minimized administrative burdens for our employers. Federal-provincial co-operation will be more important in tackling the next stages of pension reform.
One point that I am trying to make in these remarks is that pension portability is important but it is not the only issue that must be considered as we attempt to achieve reform in our pension systems. There are other important matters that I have not mentioned which have to be carefully examined. There are questions of broader pension coverage for our working population and questions of improving pension treatment for women. We must ask ourselves, for example, what kind of balance we should strive for in seeking better retirement income protection between employer-sponsored pension plans, the more broad-based contributory Canada Pension Plan and Quebec pension plan, and the universal Old Age Security system.
It is noteworthy, for instance, that in the last several years there has been little or no increase in the proportion of workers covered by employer-sponsored pension plans. The percentage of employed paid workers in such plans increased from 42 per cent in 1970 to 47.9 per cent in 1979, but dropped marginally to 47.7 per cent in 1980. We must also ask ourselves how much pension reform can be afforded. It may in fact be necessary to choose among the elements of reform if they cannot all be afforded at once.
The green paper on pension reform examines all these wider issues. It contains proposals to improve the Canada Pension Plan and strengthen Government support for the elderly with low incomes. It also discusses issues related to financing the Canada Pension Plan.
The green paper proposes that a special parliamentary committee be set up to examine all of these proposals and to submit its report by the end of 1983. I hope that it will be possible to proceed at an early date with this committee study. I wish the committee well and at the same time I want to recommend to the committee the thoughtful presentation which we heard today from the Hon. Member for Laval. I want to thank him for raising these issues again and providing a chance to discuss them once again.


James Duncan Schroder: Mr. Speaker, in the short time that I have available I would like to say that I know my Minister would consider the subject of pension portability, the subject of this motion today, to be well within the mandate of the special committee on pension reform. I am sure she will be anxious to have the subject referred to this committee and that it be given open and full discussion by the special committee on pension reform.
I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak on this motion put forward by the Hon. Member for Laval (Mr. Roy). I commend him for bringing this motion forward, as it contains the elements of a solution to one of the main problems with Canada's pension system. Indeed, I am certain that the reason or rationale behind the motion must be immediately apparent to anyone who has been following the pension debate in Canada over the last several years. Of course, I am speaking of the problems caused by the lack of suitable vesting and portability provisions in private pension plans.
As a result of the interaction of these two factors, vesting and portability, few workers in Canada who have had at least some degree of coverage under a private pension plan during their careers reach retirement age with any significant amount of income from this source. The only people in Canada today who are likely to receive an adequate pension from a private pension plan are those who have not only paid into the pension plan but have been working for the same employer for all or most of their working years. Far too few Canadians fall into this group. This is a very strong factor which contributes to the inadequacy of pensions today.
The obvious solution to this problem is contained in this motion. Let all employees in Canada take accrued benefits
January 26, 1983

with them when they change employers. Of course, the problem in fact becomes less simple under detailed examination. That is why the problem remains with us. However, that is not to say that it is insoluble, nor that it has been ignored by Governments in the past. Indeed, as a direct result of Government action, there are two contributory pension plans in Canada at this very moment which achieve everything which could be provided as a result of this motion. I am sure Hon. Members are aware that I am speaking of the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans. Hon. Members will recall that one of the main forces, if not the force, behind the introduction of these plans was the need to solve the problem caused by a lack of transferability of an employee's accrued benefits from employer to employer.
How did the introduction of these two compulsory, contributory social insurance schemes deal with the problem of portability of accrued pension rights? The answer lies in several key elements of these two plans. First, membership is compulsory for virtually all workers in Canada between the ages of 18 and 65 as long as annual income is above a certain basic amount. This means that every worker in Canada is covered by one of these two plans, regardless of their length of service with the employer, the size of the company, the industry they work in or even the number of hours they work in a week. Unfortunately, all of these factors can affect the employee's coverage under an employer-sponsored pension plan at any given point in time.
The second key element is that all pension credits attributed to any one contributor to the Canada or Quebec Pension Plan are immediately vested.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member. As I am sure he is aware, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 24(2) to interrupt the proceedings at this time and move on to the next stage of Private Members' day.


PRIVATE MEMBERS' PUBLIC BILLS
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Shall all orders listed under Private Members' Public Bills preceding Order No. 117 be allowed to stand by unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


CANADA LABOUR CODE
[Stage Direction]
amendment respecting safety of employees in federal

Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East-Revelstoke) moved: that Bill C-317, an Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (Safety
Canada Labour Code
of Employees), be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to introduce Bill C-317, a private Members' Bill to amend the Canada Labour Code. The purpose of the Bill is to amend the Canada Labour Code to make the provisions of Part IV, relating to the safety of employees, applicable to all federal work undertakings, including the operations of trains, ships and aircraft, departmental corporations and private and local works in the Territories.
I would first of all like to make it clear that I do not suggest that this Bill will solve the problems of health safety facing the workers of Canada. This Bill will deal with a few of the problems but, more important, I hope we can use the debate to convince the Government of the need for major changes in health and safety legislation. I shoulld not have to work hard to do this because it is not a partisan issue. The Minister has admitted in speeches that we lose more time through injuries than through strikes.
The Conservative labour critic has spoken often on this subject, and the NDP conducted a task force which travelled right across Canada and saw at first hand the problems that workers face in the workplace each day. It is a very, very serious problem.
Mr. Speaker, we all agree on the size of the problem. According to Workmen's Compensation Board figures, there were over a million work injuries in 1978. In the ten years before that the size of the work force had risen by 29 per cent and the number of injuries had risen by 69 per cent. Under the Canada Labour Code, one in every eight workers suffered a work injury or was killed in 1978. The same figure was true for workers in federal Crown corporations. On top of that, the Department of Labour admits that these figures may underestimate the problem by as much as 20 per cent. It is quite possible that there are a much larger number of injuries than even these figures report.
There is a great deal which could be done to reduce these injuries. In the first place the Labour Department does not have enough inspectors. Back in 1978 there was an article in the old Labour Gazette which contained a comment that is as true today as it was then. That article said that the main problem was:
A system which put the inspectorate in the front line of the battle for occupational health and safety, in insufficient numbers, with confused and inadequate battle orders and a poor supply of armaments.
Less than a year ago we discussed this whole question for an estimates committee. We found at that time that there were 13,200 work sites under federal jurisdiction. There were 8,000 new work sites added, with the addition of the post office, under the Canada Labour Code. To inspect those 20,000 work

develop. This has to cause us all great anxiety, especially since one-third of all cancer deaths are said to be occupationally related.
1 would like to quote from a report on the hazards concerning the reproductive system at work. The President of the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, Lucie Pepin, said:
We have found that almost all workplaces contain hazards to the reproductive system; not only factories, nuclear plants or mines, but also hospitals, offices and schools. These hazards do not simply harm pregnant women, but other women, men and future generations as well.
It is a very serious problem. In spite of that fact, we have no federal law enforcing disclosure of chemicals in the work place and the Provinces do not have the power to do it.
I would like briefly to speak on the right of workers to police the safety of their own environment. The Government told us it would give workers this right in 1978, when it introduced amendments creating health and safety committees and allowing the right to refuse dangerous work. However, the health and safety committee were not mandatory. In 1981 only 700 such committees were in place on our 20,000 federal job sites and, of those 700, only about 50 had been imposed by the Minister. The difference between a voluntary committee and an imposed committee is that the imposed committee has a great deal more power. That is why many employers will try to get the unions or workers to agree to a weak voluntary committee. Once again, the former Minister of Labour had admitted he was disappointed at the small number of committees which had been formed, but even those committees have few rights.
The right to refuse dangerous work is based on imminent danger. In other words, if a truck is about to fall on someone, it is immiment danger. However, if someone were dying by degrees from chemicals in the air, there is nothing that one could do.
The state of health and safety laws at the federal level is awful. They are also the worst in Canada. The NDP knows this, as does the Official Opposition. Certainly Canadian workers know it, and even the Government knows it. For two years the Government has been sitting on recommendations which would bring about needed improvements, such as making committees mandatory and improving the right to refuse dangerous work. The legislation is written. I asked the Government to present it and perhaps save some lives.
The annual cost because of health and safety problems is nearly $4 billion. Surely that kind of saving is more important than the money saved by cutting Public Service pensions. Surely the loss and ruin of lives of Canadian workers should be our first, not our last, priority.
Finally, I ask the Government to go further and give the Department of Labour the kind of funding it needs to carry out its mandate. Within its existing mandate and funding, surely the best thing it could do to improve the quality of the working life would be to remove the danger of loss of workers' lives.
The Bill I have presented today deals with one aspect of the problem I have raised, the problem of other Government legislation having more power than the safety and health
Canada Labour Code
provisions of the Canada Labour Code. 1 hope by raising these other matters that I might encourage the Government to act on them as well.


Mr. Jean-Robert Gauthier (Ottawa-Vanier):: Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the Hon. Member for Kootenay East-Revelstoke (Mr. Parker) for raising this matter in the House this afternoon. The opening remark of the Hon. Member, when he said that the issue of health and safety was not a partisan one, was appropriate, and I think all Members of the House share his concern for the safety and security of public servants of Canada.
In rising to speak on Bill C-317, an Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, I would like to refer to the explanatory note which gives us insight as to the purpose of the Bill. The note states:
The purpose of this bill is to amend the Canada Labour Code to make the provisions of Part IV relating to safety of employees applicable to all federal undertakings, including the operation of trains, ships and aircraft, departmental corporations and private and local works in the territories.
As Your Honour knows, Part IV of the Canada Labour Code sets out a range of minimum standards to be used by employers to protect the safety and health of their employees. Employees who are within federal jurisdiction are in such enterprises as banks, broadcasting, airlines, shipping, railways, interprovincial trucking, telephones, and other undertakings which have been deemed to have been for the general advantage of Canada. As things stand at the moment, federal public servants do not come within the purview of the Canada Labour Code and I think the Hon. Member was quite right in his research on this question. Their safety and health are protected by the provisions of the Treasury Board policy and standards which are indeed similar to the requirements of Part IV of the Code.
The occupational safety portion of the Treasury Board's program is handled in a similar manner by Labour Canada, but Health and Welfare Canada administers the occupational health portions of the program. The objective of these regulations is, of course, to ensure that work is respectful of human life. The law also underlines the general principle that all Canadians have the right to a healthy and safe work environment regardless of the jurisdiction.
Another point I wish to bring to the attention of Hon. Members is that Part IV of the Labour Code does not apply to employment involving the actual operation of ships, trains or aircraft. Bill C-317 does have definite merit. I am pleased to inform Hon. Members that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Caccia) has been holding extensive consultations with representatives of labour, industry and other federal Departments in order to prepare a comprehensive revision proposal for Part IV of the Canada Labour Code. These discussions are proceeding, and I anticipate that an amendment proposal to the Canada Labour Code will be introduced in the House in the very near future. Any proposed changes to the application of the Code must, however, accommodate situations where international laws, agreements, public safety, and a concern for passenger

January 26, 1983
Canada Labour Code
safety in the transportation field take precedence over the "safety of employees" provisions included in Part IV of the Code.
Bill C-317 is, however, in my opinion, slightly regressive in one area, that is to say, where the Bill proposes that the undertakings or business of a local or private nature within the Yukon or the Northwest Territories should revert to federal jurisdiction. This recommendation, in my view, is contrary to current practice and can only be seen as a sorry step backwards to what is supposed to be an orderly evolution in the development of the Territorial Government.
Although several aspects of Bill C-317 are commendable, the Bill should be considered in the context of the development of a more comprehensive amendment to Part IV of the Code. This process must involve extensive consultations, which we believe are currently under way, to develop an amendment proposal which considers all aspects of a contemporary occupational safety and health legislative program.
I have not taken much of the time of the House, but I wanted to put those comments on the record. I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member for presenting this Bill. I know how interested he is in this matter. I have had the privilege of working with him in committee. He is preoccupied with the safety and health standards of this country. I want to congratulate him, and I hope that this Bill is accepted.


Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine):: Mr. Speaker,
I wish to say a few words on Bill C-317, which is an Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, (safety of employees). The Hon. Member who introduced the Bill has asked that trains, ships and aircraft, departmental corporations and private and local works be included in Section 80 of the Canada Labour Code, Part IV, dated May, 1981. It states that ships, aircraft and trains are to be excluded from this section of the Act. I do not know how that came about because I was not involved in the drafting of this particular piece of legislation, but if the Minister is going to bring in changes and improvements to the Labour Code, I believe we can make some inquiries in committee as to why trains and ships have been excluded in Section 80 of the Canadian Labour Code.
We, of course, are all concerned with the health and safety of all workers, whether they are in a mine or a factory, in an office, or even in the home. It is interesting to read some facts and figures which indicate there are more accidents in the home than in any other location, and a lot of this is caused, for example, by a person using an unsafe ladder or standing on the edge of the table, or what have you.
I notice the Ontario Government uses television extensively to get the safety message across, and 1 think that has been most effective because actual demonstrations are given of just how accidents happen. I hope they continue with that kind of exposure and that the day will come when they will expand into areas other than the industrial area. In order to have proper safety practices, Mr. Speaker, management training is
very important. If a manager does not understand the rules of safety and cannot explain and train his staff in the importance of the rules of safety, for example, the use of hard hats, safety glasses and safety shoes, then he is not much of a manager and he will not have much of a safety record with his crew.
I was a foreman in industry for many years and I took a great interest in safety. I found that proper training will eventually get the message across, but it is difficult. A lot of people want to take a lot of shortcuts. They do not want to examine their ladders. They do not want to wear a hard hat or to wear safety shoes. It is difficult to get the message across to some people on the importance of safety.
I found it very rewarding over the years as the majority of my crew eventually caught on to the art of safety inspections of their equipment, and it certainly pays off in the long run. There are a lot of excellent films available across Canada on the subject of proper safety procedures, and I used these safety films extensively. There have been great advancements in safety equipment as well. Perhaps one of the most prominent pieces of safety equipment is the hard hat. Everyone who works on new building construction sites or renovation sites is wearing a hard hat, so the message has certainly been put across in regard to wearing hard hats on construction sites.
The Hon. Member who introduced the Bill spoke extensively of problems in mines. I agree with him that there could be a lot of improvements made in that area. If you are 500 or 600 feet below the ground, you certainly do not want any risks to be taken. We certainly want the most up-to-date safety equipment for anyone working in a mine.
I am looking forward to the changes which the Minister is going to be bringing forward, and I am sure the Hon. Member who introduced the Bill will be present at the committee meetings. We will have also representatives from the Conservative Party at the committee to review carefully the new recommendations which will be coming from the Minister. I believe his Parliamentary Secretary is here today and perhaps he will enlighten us further on what changes the Minister will be bringing forward.
[ Translation]


Mr. Antonio Yanakis (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour):: Mr. Chairman, I should like to make a few comments on the statement made by the Hon. Member for Kootenay East-Revelstoke (Mr. Parker) concerning Bill C-137, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (safety of employees) Part IV. As I understand it Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this bill is to extend the scope of Part IV dealing with employee safety to all employees coming under federal jurisdiction, including employees of the Public Service of Canada and of private and local companies operating in the Territories.
I think that it would be worthwhile to provide this House with a brief background of Part IX of the Canada Labour Code and point out some technicalities contained in other orders. The Canada Labour Code is a digest of various federal
January 26, 1983

measures dealing with labour issues. It sets out some standards for workers in the private sector who come under federal jurisdiction. Part IV of the Canada Labour Code deals with health and security at the workplace and includes statutory provisions provided under the act and setting forth minimum standards which employers must enforce in order to ensure the security and health of their employees.
Even if Part IV of the Labour Code is the only federal legislation which deals exclusively with those issues, it does not apply to all workers in the private sector coming under federal jurisdiction.
That situation, Mr. Speaker, stems from restrictions related to the application of Part IV of the Code. Because of such restrictions, any other Act of the Parliament of Canada and its regulations take precedence over Part IV, the provisions of which do not apply to persons employed on ships, trains or aircraft, including their operation, unless the Governor in Council has issued an Order in Council stating otherwise. Part IV excludes as well any undertaking which is defined as a department or a corporation under the terms of the Financial Administration Act. In accordance with recent amendments to Part IV of the Canada Labour Code, employees now have the right to refuse to work under conditions which, in their opinion, constitute an immediate danger to their safety or their health. In addition, as a result of the proclamation of provisions giving them the right to create health and safety committees made up of employer-employee representatives, workers now take a more active part in the operations of the company, except, as I just said, those who work on ships, trains and aircraft.
Mr. Speaker, the laws dealing mainly with public safety on the safe operation of various means of transportation overrides the Labour Code provisions concerned with safety and health. The health and safety in the workplace of employees subject to those acts are looked after by departments and agencies whose primary responsibilities and expertise are not related to those areas.
Those departments enforce laws that deal with a specific sector, namely railways, and look after their safe operation and the safety of the public.
During the early discussions on the Canada Labour Code (Safety), it was clearly established that the Code would only complement existing federal laws and would only apply in those instances where those laws contained no similar provision on safety and health in the workplace.
At the time, Mr. Speaker, labour organizations had strongly recommended that the Code should apply to all employees coming under federal jurisdiction. Since 1966, they have taken that stand on several occasions. Yet, it was decided that the purpose of the legislation, which was to guarantee the safety and health of all workers, could be achieved by enforcing the Code only in those instances where no such protection was
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provided under existing legislation. In the last several years, there has been far more concern for the health and safety hazards in the workplace. Due to the work-related diseases suffered by some of their members, unions have become more aware of those hazards and a good number of them are now giving top priority to safety and health problems.
Many western industrialized countries have now recognized the need for regulatory agencies to deal better with health and safety problems and have therefore increased the number and the quality of their programs to ensure safety and health in the workplace, mainly by combining all regulatory agencies into a single agency. Thus, Mr. Speaker, when it endorsed the recommendations of the Roben Commission, the commission inquiring into health and safety in the United Kingdom felt that the separation of legislation from its administration was causing a scattering and a compartmentalization of the technical facilities and knowledge available across the country to fight occupational hazards.
Mr. Speaker, occupational safety and health problems vary from one industry to the next, but the Commission felt that many had technical characteristics in common and required the use of similar professional and technical knowledge.
During the same period, the U.S. government was facing similar problems. Following discussions within the government the Occupational Safety and Health Authority was set up to administer the Occupational Safety and Health Act (1970), which includes many acts which until then came under various agencies.
In Canada, the provinces are taking similar steps to do away with the fragmentation of legislation in this respect. However, as far as Federal jurisdiction is concerned, it is often impossible to act quickly and efficiently to protect the health and safety of a large number of workers, because responsibility is spread over a large number of departments where there is a definite lack of co-ordination of activities. Many workers covered by other parts of the Canada Labour Code are not covered by Part IV.
Mr. Speaker, it is sometimes said that work-related hazards come under two clearly defined headings: health and safety. Experts on prevention agree that when they want to determine causes and set up preventive measures, the two concepts are so closely linked that it would be unthinkable to consider them separately. Mr. Speaker, that is why most national bodies in industrialized countries have set up health branches that are solely concerned with occupational health. The branch reports to a central, regulatory body that is responsible for occupational health and safety in all sectors.
This division was created in accordance with the recommendations of the board of directors of ILO, according to whom occupational health and safety cannot be considered separately and must therefore be dealt with as being part of the same problem.

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Mr. Speaker, more recently, Commissioner James Ham stated in his Report of the Royal Commission on the Health and Safety of Workers in Mines, Ontario, 1976, that certain cases of occupational stress affected both health and safety. Dealing separately with health and safety as far as workers are concerned constitutes another false dichotomy, maintained by company policies and regulations.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to see that the technical resources of Labour Canada, including the support required for investigations as well as an analysis laboratory, have been expanded so that now most of the hazards occurring in the occupational environment, both in the public and private sector, can be dealt with. With these new facilities and the full time services of a specialist in industrial medicine Labour Canada has been able to improve its work safety and health services.
Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the principle of this bill which concerns employee safety. Guaranteeing the safety of workers is not only a matter of interest, but a major concern for the Minister of Labour and the Government. Because of this, the Minister of Labour has undertaken a series of major consultations with interested groups with a view to developing a cohesive set of amendments to the Canada Labour Code. Of course, this includes the principles of the bill now before us. Mr. Speaker, I believe that these amendments should be reviewed as a whole rather than in isolation. I believe that the Government wants to introduce all these amendments at the same time to the House in the near future. This is why, Mr. Speaker, I would recommend that this bill not be supported in its present form.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the address of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Yanakis) until the last sentence. I cannot follow his line of thought. This Bill is not partisan; it has nothing to do with political Parties. The whole object of the Bill is to prevent accidents and to extend the provisions of the Canada Labour Code.
I want to commend the Hon. Member for Kootenay East-Revelstoke (Mr. Parker) for bringing the Bill forward. I hope the Government will take a positive view of it because it does not affect one political Party more than another, it is to the credit of any political Party to try to prevent accidents in this country, and the broader we make the provisions of the Canada Labour Code, the better it will be for everyone. The object is to prevent accidents.
The Parliamentary Secretary stated that the Minister was going to introduce amendments, and of course that would be an excellent thing. What better way of doing it, though, than by canvassing the ideas of a parliamentary committee on this and on other amendments? If this matter were referred to a parliamentary committee, it could do all the work and the Code would be better as a result, as more minds would be
directed toward its improvement. If Hon. Members opposite have not made up their minds already that they are not going to support the Bill, I suggest it would be a feather in their hats if they were to send it to committee. This would be in the interests of the safety of workers in this country, but to talk the Bill out on second reading would be a disgraceful thing. I urge Members of the Government to think positively about this matter.
If this were a Bill that affected one political Party more than another I could understand Members of the Government talking it out, but I cannot understand their talking out a Bill that is intended to prevent accidents and make the workplace safer for our workers.
1 intend to complete my remarks and sit down, Mr. Speaker, so that the Bill will not be talked out, but there are two points that I should like to make.
I do not think we are making enough use of workers' and employers' safety committees today. In the coal mines I have found that for many years employers have resisted safety committees, but after experience with them, employers found that the committees reduced the cost of compensation and reduced the pain and agony suffered by employees as accidents were prevented. The safety committee was composed of workers who knew the conditions in the coal mines; we should make greater use of their knowledge regarding safety.
Most of the safety inspections of working conditions are inadequate. There are not enough inspectors. There should be better inspection, particularly where intricate machinery is involved. It sometimes happens that machines are left exposed and, as a result, a worker loses a hand or a foot or some other part of the anatomy. These matters could be discussed in committee, and the Canada Labour Code could be improved as a result.
I urge Members of the Government to send the Bill to committee, not to be prejudiced and negative and talk it out. It would be to their credit to refer the Bill.


Neil Young: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of assisting the Government in talking this Bill out, either. I want to commend the Hon. Member for Kootenay East-Revelstoke (Mr. Parker) for presenting it to the House. I cannot think of anything that is of greater importance to working people than the proposals it contains. In fact, it is the kind of measure that the Government should have introduced a long time ago, instead of waiting for a Member of the Opposition to do so.
As the Hon. Member pointed out, the sensationalism caused by man hours lost due to strikes in the country is always brought to the public's attention. It should be realized, however, that in each of the last 12 years, more man hours have been lost due to industrial illness and injury than were lost due to strikes or labour disputes.
That fact does not seem to be generally known but it demonstrates the need for the kind of amendment that the Hon. Member has proposed today. I think it would be to the shame
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of the Government if its Members were to talk the Bill out rather than refer it to the committee for action.


Gérald Laniel: Mr. Speaker, 1 also should like to commend the Hon. Member for presenting this Bill, and I agree in principle with what he proposes to do. At the same time, I must say that I disagree with some of the comments of the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor). I had the impression that he had not even listened to the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary who said that the Government wanted to do more than the Bill sets out to achieve and has not decided to put aside its objective of extending the application of the Canada Labour Code.
It is easy to blame the Government for filibustering something or for blocking legislation proposed by a private Member. One should recognize, however, that when a piece of legislation is not complete in itself, it should be examined in that perspective. I did not hear the two Members of the NDP who spoke make a point about the implications of this Bill for the Northwest Territories and their autonomy. Nor did they say anything about the matter mentioned by the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Vanier (Mr. Gauthier) concerning the effect of modifying, without examining the impact, the application of the Canada Labour Code to labour organizations or Government corporations that are subject to international law. These are things worth looking at when we deal with this kind of legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I must say however once again that I am in agreement with my colleagues who congratulated the Hon. Member for Kootenay-East-Revelstoke (Mr. Parker) for introducing Bill C-317, which aims at extending the provisions of Part IV of the Canada Labour Code relations to the safety of employees.
Mr. Speaker, Hon. Members will know that the Canada Labour Code combines several federal statutes establishing standards for private sector employees who come under federal jurisdiction. Part IV of the Code deals with the safety and health of employees and set out a range of minimum standards to be used by employers to protect the safety and health of their employees. However, Part IV does not apply to all private sector workers under federal jurisdiction, and this is precisely the situation that the Hon. Member wants to remedy. In principle, I agree with him on this point.
Moreover, as stated in the existing legislation, Part IV of the Labour Code does not apply to sea, rail and air workers. Hon. Members would probably be interested to hear that, in the federal government, nine major departments or agencies administer 16 different statutes dealing in various degrees with work safety and health. This is one problem. These government departments are the Departments of Labour, National Health and Welfare, Agriculture, Environment, Indian and Northern Affairs and Consumer and Corporate Affairs. The Hon. Member has made a suggestion and I am certain that
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today's debate will give us a better understanding of the problem and will make it possible for the government to take all necessary action to improve the situation.

Most of the 16 statutes to which I have referred were enacted to regulate particular industries such as the railways, to ensure the safety of their operations and the protection of the public. It was piecemeal legislation developed over the years. In all of them, occupational safety and health is incidental to their main purpose. It was because of this that the original Canada Labour (Safety) Code, which later became Part IV of the consolidated Canada Labour Code, was enacted by Parliament in 1966.

Mr. Speaker, the purpose of Bill C-317 now before us is to extend the application of Part IV of the Act and not to increase the number of inspectors as the Hon. Member from Bow River (Mr. Taylor) mentioned. The administration of the Act would remain unchanged but Part IV of the Canada Labour Code would apply to all federal workers. As I said earlier, this is a very commendable purpose insofar as it will provide better and more comprehensive safety and health protection for federal employees. I do not intend to vote against the principle of this bill even though some of its provisions should be amended.

For example-and I referred to this in my opening remarks-the territorial exclusion provided in Subsection 80(1) would need to be retained. To take the right to regulate works, undertakings or businesses of a local or private nature away from the Governments of the Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories would not only be unjustified at this time but would run counter to the steady development of Territorial Governments and autonomy.
The proposed Bill would also extend the coverage in Part IV to include federal public servants. In this respect I would point out that in the federal Public service, with the Treasury Board acting as employer, the Government several years ago affirmed the policy of applying the principles of the Canada Labour (Safety) Code and the regulations and standards adopted thereunder to the Public Service. I do not know why we have to send the Bill to committee so quickly since the Government is applying these at this moment.
The portion of the proposal which would make departmental corporations subject to the Canada Labour Code has merit, but a case is still being developed to demonstrate that adequate occupational safety and health protection for federal public servants can best be achieved under the provisions of Part IV of the Code itself, not in an application clause.

Mr. Speaker, I understand from what my colleague the Parliamentary Secretary said earlier, that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Caccia), in conjunction with other ministers, has

January 26, 1983
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been holding consultations for several months in order to develop a safer environment at the workplace and to update the Labour Code so as to provide a better protection for workers in today's High-tech world.

Since the Minister has been consulting to achieve a better Labour Code which would be more adapted to the 1980s and 1990s, I do not think we should accuse Hon. Members of the House of not being interested in the safety of Canadian workers in general or of those who fall under federal jurisdiction. Hon. Members should understand that our main objective is not to have the House make a quick decision. We want to take the necessary time and wait for a few weeks for the Hon. Minister to come forward with a complete proposal to revise the Code so that it will meet the approval of labour organizations themselves.
Although we support the intent of the Bill, with the exception of the Territorial reference, we do not believe it should be considered until a complete package of code amendments is developed following a consultative process with labour, industry and other federal Departments. I do not think I can recommend to the House at this time the passage of the Bill on second reading.
[ Translation]
Mr. Speaker, too often Opposition Members have blamed us for our inefficiency and incomplete legislation. We have been told many times there is a lack of planning in our policies. Well, given the fact that a Minister of Labour has finally undertaken a complete review of the Canadian Labour Code, especially Part IV which prescribes security and health measures concerning employees under federal jurisdiction, it seems to me that we should commend the Minister and thank him for not relying on ad hoc volitions. We are duty bound to help him introduce soon a bill which will be debated, and which, hopefully with the support of the whole House, will achieve the goals pursued by the Hon. Member.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order please! Pursuing to Standing Order 24(2), it is now my duty to interrupt the debate.


CANADA CONTINENTAL SHELF ACT
James Aloysius McGrath: that Bill C-373, an Act respecting the continental shelf be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this Bill is to extend Canadian jurisdiction of the sea to the extremities of the continental shelf for the purpose of conservation, protection and management of marine resources. It is interesting to note
that this Bill speaks to the length of this record session because it received first reading on May 2, 1980. One might suggest that it has been overtaken by events in that since May, 1980, Canada has signed the Law of the Sea Treaty. However, 1 intend to establish arguments that this Bill is just as relevant today as it was when it received first reading several years ago. I can anticipate the argument of the Government, especially that of the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen). Likely it will be that foreign nations during the course of discussions leading up to the Law of the Sea Treaty have made it very clear that they have very strong views against any further extension by Canada of our 200 mile limit. I accept that. However, it is equally true that the countries with which we enjoy bilateral fisheries relations, our partners in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, recognize our special interests beyond 200.
I believe the case can be made, just as the case was made for our unilateral move to declare jurisdiction within 200, to extend our jurisdiction for purposes of managment, if not for the continental shelf then at least for those two areas known as the nose and tail of the Bank. This is an area of the Grand Bank which is currently outside of the 200 mile limit. I think we can make that case the same way by getting support and agreement from our partners within the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization. They would recognize our right to manage stock beyond 200 on the nose and tail of the Bank just as they recognized our right in the bilateral agreements leading up to the extension of our jurisdiction to manage the area within 200. This makes sense because fish know no boundaries. We are talking about transboundary stock when we talk about the area of the Grand Bank known under the old 1CNAF system as 3NO, DLN, 3-0 and 3LNO.
I remember one of the first things I had to do upon assuming the responsibilities of the portfolio of fisheries was to close this particular area of the Grand Bank to further fishing of cod because the stocks were so depleted at that time.
However, we have been very successful in rebuilding the stocks within our jurisdiction under the 200 mile limit, but we have not been successful in the management of this particular stock because we do not enjoy the exclusive right to do so. That situation is complicated by the fact that the most offending nation is Spain. Spain has, for its own reasons, elected to stay outside of the NAFO convention. It is not part of the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization, and does not come under NAFO management. If Spain does not come under NAFO management and it does not come under Canadian management, then Spain is beyond control, and that is the problem.
To give you an idea of the importance of that stock, Mr. Speaker, the average groundfish catch on the Grand Bank, the 3NO and the 3LN area is 124,000 tonnes, broken down into
25,000	tonnes of cod; 32,000 tonnes of redfish, and the balance in various species of flounder. The problem we are facing with Spain choosing to remain outside of NAFO and our own
January 26, 1983

inability to extend our own management regime is that Spain is depleting stock by the persistent use of a technique known as pair trawling. What the Spaniards do in that particular area known as the tail of the Bank is to have two trawlers that trawl together and sweep up everything. Our own experience based on experimental fishing indicates that with that kind of pair fishing one gets 50 per cent cod with the balance by-catch being flounder. The Spaniards are not interested in flounder or flatfish, or whatever you want to call them; they are only interested in the cod which they salt and take back to Spain to dry. By and large, the flounder is thrown over the side. It is lost. It is destroyed. That has impacted directly on the plants situated along the south coast of Newfoundland which depend to a large extent on this stock. These plants have established markets for flounder. What the experience has been year after year as this situation continues out of control is that the size of the flounder keeps getting smaller and smaller because the stock is not managed.
I know that I would be out of order if I were to refer to the Kirby Task Force which was supposed to have reported in November, then again in December. It is now almost the end of January and the Kirby Task Force still has not reported, Mr. Speaker. But the reason I mention the Kirby Task Force is to inject into my remarks the seriousness of the situation in terms of the Atlantic fishery which is currently on hold, having gone through perhaps the worst crisis in its history awaiting the results of the Kirby Task Force. I realize that the Kirby report will not address itself to this particular problem. I realize that while it is a special interest problem for the Department of Fisheries, it is the specific responsibility of the Department of External Affairs, regardless of what Kirby recommends, to address itself to the problems of plants that are currently down especially along the south coast of Newfoundland. Unless we get this situation under control all of the recommendations in the world will not address the basic problem resulting from the fact that Canada does not enjoy total management of this stock.
I do not want to take up too much time so that other Hon. Members will have a chance to participate in this debate. My colleague, the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro) will be addressing some remarks to the Law of the Sea. It is important to remember that we are not talking about the seabed, fossil fuels or seabed mining. We are concerned with the management of the marine resources and Spain's failure to comply with international conventions or to recognize Canada's right to manage this stock.
The record will show that Spain has been harvesting the major bulk of this stock over the years, thereby representing a prima facie case. We have made attempts to come to grips with the Spanish situation. There is a current offer being considered in which I believe we have offered 5,000 tonnes of groundfish in our zone in exchange for access of a limited amount of our fish in the Spanish market, with the understanding that they would be good boys and play the game. That deal has not materialized as yet and, quite frankly, I call it blackmail. Even if that deal is consummated-which I hope
Continental Shelf
never happens-the Spaniards will still not adhere to an adequate management regime. This is because they answer to no one and are not subject to inspection either by NAFO or Canada. They are totally on their own and totally out of control.
There was an interesting report published by the Economic Council of Canada last year which was entitled "The Promise of Abundance: Extended Fisheries Jurisdiction and the Newfoundland Economy". They had this to say at page 61 about the Spanish situation, including by-catches which I have referred to. It reads:
It is much to be hoped that Spanish-Canadian relations will improve in the future, both so that the management of 3NO cod as a transboundary stock will be improved, and so that the aforementioned co-operative arrangements can, at a minimum, be explored. It would be unfortunate, to say the very least, if both opportunities were lost to Canada.
These opportunities are lost to Canada. Our experience with Spain on bilateral agreements has not been a happy one. We must get tough with the Spaniards.
I believe that if we were to pursue this with our partners within the North Atlantic Fisheries Orgnization, we would receive their support in extending our jurisdiction beyond 200, at least to take in the area known as the nose and tail of the Bank. If this does not occur, we will never have control of the management of that stock and we will continue to be faced with a situation where we do not control the by-catch and have no access in terms of inspection of what happens out there.
It is indeed worth mentioning that one of the suggestions made by the Economic Council of Canada was that Spain be allowed to land its cod catch in Canada in return for agreeing to conservation and Canadian management. Of course that would give us an opportunity to acquire the very expensive bycatch, the majority of which is flounder, that is currently being dumped over the side. I might add that this is seriously affecting the flounder stock which, in turn, is adversely affecting the plants and operators on the south coast of Newfoundland.
I hope that Hon. Members will agree with the arguments that I have presented. It is not an unreasonable proposition and one that would be supported by our fishing partners. I believe that it would enjoy support within NAFO since I do not think Spain has any intention of signing the NAFO convention. While there is a suggestion that Spain may eventually join the European Economic Community and thereby become part of the NAFO agreement, we still have to deal with the Spanish problem until that time comes. Unless we deal with it in a direct and effective way, unless we get tough with the Spaniards, we may have to close that very important traditional fishery, which again is so important not only to the fishermen of Newfoundland but to the fishermen of Nova Scotia.


Mr. W. Kenneth Robinson (Etobicoke-Lakeshore):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-373. I note from the explanatory note that the purpose of this Bill is to extend Canadian jurisdiction of the sea to the extremities of the continental shelf for the purposes of the

January 26, 1983
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conservation, protection and management of marine resources. Without doubt, this is a most commendable objective. I congratulate the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) for bringing it forward. There is no question that it is a timely matter and one which must be properly dealt with. The Hon. Member has made some very powerful arguments for its immediate consideration. He has mentioned the Grand Bank. I suggest that it has always been understood throughout Canadian history that the Grand Bank belongs to Canada in their entirety. I do not believe anyone would question that fact. The Hon. Member also stated his concern about the pair-trawling that takes place, particularly by the Spanish fishermen. He also talked about the resulting wastage of flounder that occurs. I wish to commend the Hon. Member for bringing these issues to light.
On January 1, 1977, Canada established a 200 mile fishing zone. This was done following many years of careful preparation and a host of bilateral and multilateral negotiations.
Prior to the extension of jurisdiction in 1977, Canada negotiated bilateral agreements with, inter alia, France, Norway, the Soviet Union and Spain. I suggest it is noteworthy to see that Spain was included at that time, prior to the extension of the jurisdiction in 1977. These agreements anticipated and cleared the way for the establishment of the 200 mile zone. Multilaterally, Canada was one of the handful of countries chiefly responsible for bringing about a consensus on the 200 mile fisheries limit at the United Nations Law of the Sea Conference. This consensus-I stress consensus-on fisheries jurisdiction helps to transform customary international law and enables countries like Canada to adopt the 200 mile limit without provoking chaos and conflict with other countries.
While working to advance Canadian Fisheries interests at the Law of the Sea Conference, Canada was also pursuing regional initiatives to the same end, in particular through the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries. Beginning in 1972, we obtained through the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries steadily growing recognition of the coastal states' preferential rights to the harvest of fisheries resources off their shores. In 1975, we obtained, once again through this international commission, a 40 per cent reduction in foreign fishing effort in 1976 for groundfish, as well as a reduction in the total allowable catches for depleted stocks and higher quotas for Canadian fishermen for stocks of particular importance to them. In 1976, we obtained, once again through the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries, a further reduction for 1977 in total allowable catches that we considered necessary, together with estimated allocations for Canadian Fishermen generally corresponding to their harvesting capacity. In effect, this amounted to recognition of extended Canadian fisheries jurisdiction even before this extension had taken place.
Furthermore, in the closing weeks of 1976, Canada secured an agreement on amendments to the International Commission for Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Convention that restricted the Commission's management authority to the area beyond national fisheries limits, and left management within 200 miles
to the authority of the coastal state, while also leaving Canada with the right to board and inspect foreign vessels beyond the 200 mile limit under the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries' scheme of joint international enforcement.
The efforts made by Canada and other countries in bilateral and multilateral forums created the conditions essential for the extension of Canadian jurisdiction: the extension was consistent with international law and had won international political acceptance.
We in Canada are neither boy scouts nor superpowers. We could not impose our will on others by force, even if we believed it were proper to do so. Nor are we among the countries of the world that can pretend to play David out to slay Goliath, hoping that sympathy for the little guy can win our battle for us. We were able to enforce our jurisdictional claims because they were accepted by other countries. It would have been much more difficult to impose them if other countries had been determined to resist.
Had Canada acted in defiance of international law, then not only would it have become much more difficult to enforce Canadian law and regulations within the areas of claimed jurisdiction, but Canada would have been less able to rely on international law in order to safeguard its other interests as well, including those in the fisheries sector.
Canada relies on international treaties, generally accepted principles of international law and international co-operation in order to protect, for example, its valuable salmon fisheries. This is of particular importance on the West Coast where, in the words of the report of the Commission on Canadian Pacific Fisheries Policy, presented in September, 1982, it said:
-the five species of Pacific salmon are by far our most important fishery resource in both quantity and quality.
If the Canadian PaciFic salmon Fishery were open to unrestricted foreign high seas fisheries it would provide for fewer benefits to Canadians than it does today. It is international law and international co-operation which prevents that situation from arising. International law and co-operation are also of importance to Canada's East Coast salmon Fishery. It beneFits from provisions of Canada's fishery treaty with the European Community as well as the provisions of the Atlantic salmon convention.
We also rely on international law and international cooperation in order to protect Canada's fishing interests with respect to our continental shelf fish stocks, some 10 per cent of which are outside our jurisdiction. Canadian concerns here are addressed in part by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Agreement. It is, however, essential that we continue to obtain the co-operation of other countries to ensure the proper conservation and management of these outside stocks and appropriate allocations for Canadian fishermen.
The last example I will cite of a fisheries resource that requires international co-operation if it is to be protected, is
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halibut, a straddling stock. The halibut fishery is among the oldest on the Pacific Coast. The fishery began in the nineteenth century off the coast of Washington State, and significant Canadian participation began during World War I.
Landings by Canadian and U.S. fishermen peaked in the 1920s, at some 70 million pounds, then declined to about 30 million pounds in the 1930s. Recognizing the need for cooperation, Canada and the United States included a halibut treaty in 1923. 1 might digress at this moment to say that the 1923 treaty marked the importance of a milestone in Canadian history because it was the first international treaty that Canada signed in its own right and not by the United Kingdom acting on Canada's behalf. The conservation programs established pursuant to the treaty were successful in rehabilitating the stocks so that landings rose to 75 million pounds in 1962. The halibut treaty was revised in 1979 and is still in force and makes a significant contribution to the productivity of the stock.
Bill C-373 seeks to address the question of outside stocks mentioned a moment ago. It, however, would seek to govern those stocks without any international political or legal support. Such a claim to jurisdiction would be very difficult to enforce, if adopted, and would harm the initiatives that Canada has taken to protect Canadian fisheries interests. For the long term, it would likely undermine the international cooperation that is necessary to protect those stocks not already fully protected by the establishment of the 200 mile zone.
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the Hon. Member for bringing forward this very timely matter, which is just as timely today as it will be tomorrow and in the foreseeable future. I commend him once again for keeping this in mind because the more we have control over and the better we manage the Grand Banks and other areas, including the continental shelf, the better it is for Canada and all Canadians.


Mr. Ted Miller (Nanaimo-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to also speak on Bill C-373 today, and I would note that, as the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) said, this Bill was introduced for first reading in 1980.
I think it is reflective of the lack of ability of the federal Government to deal with the Grand Bank, and particularly the Flemish Cap-the nose and tail of the Grank Bank-that we still find this Bill is as pertinent today as it was in 1980, and it is reflective of another failure of the fishing industry off the East Coast, that is, the agreement which failed between the United States and Canada on Georges Bank and the very valuable fishery in that area, in particular the very valuable scallop fishery.
So we have a situation again where, for the purposes of conservation, to say nothing of the implications for employment and foreign exchange in those fisheries, we have a Government which has failed to come to some international agreement with a nation which, granted, has had a long history of fishing off the Grand Bank, and that is Spain. But the problem still exists that our stocks on the Grand Bank beyond 200 miles are indeed being threatened by overfishing, just as
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the stocks within 200 miles have been threatened by overfishing in the past.
We have been able to demonstrate in Canada that given the opportunity to manage stocks, we can foresee a revival of fish stocks on the Grand Bank and off our East Coast in general.
Nevertheless, despite the agreements under the Law of the Sea-and I think we all recognize that there are some tremendous benefits to Canada from the Law of the Sea and from the signing of that treaty earlier this year in Jamaica-we are still faced with a situation where we really do not have control over some of the fish that are transboundary fish. They do not know what the 200 mile limit is and obviously the federal Government has not been able, either through the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or, more particularly, through the Department of External Affairs, to come to a suitable agreement with Spain, just as they failed to come to suitable agreements with the United States with respect to Georges Bank.
To the credit of the Canadian fishermen, they are not prepared to enter into a fishing war off Georges Bank with their counterparts in the United States, despite losing hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, because the U.S. fishermen and the United States administration, and in particular the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sees fit to allow their fishermen, the scallop fishermen in particular, to break any international understanding, even if was not an agreement, finally signed.
I think this Bill is timely. I think it should go to the Fisheries and Forestry Committee for further study. I think it would indicate to the Spanish Government the commitment of the House of Commons that we come to an agreement on stocks that are being exploited and which are damaging employment opportunities, not only here in Canada, but which will certainly in future affect employment in Spain both of fishermen and onshore workers.
The situation in the fishing industry in Newfoundland, as many of us know, is very critical. Communities in Newfoundland are losing their fish processing plants, particularly in Burin and on the Grand Bank. There is a great deal of doubt whether those fish plants will continue in operation. The employment situation in the Province of Newfoundland is deplorable, as it is in most Provinces. So I see a great deal of merit in sending this Bill to committee and for the committee to study the implications that the Hon. Member for St. John's East pointed out.
However, when we are discussing marine resources beyond the 200 mile limit, I think we can also study the mechanisms within the limit to protect and conserve marine resources. There is certainly some question involving protection of our fisheries in Atlantic Canada from pollution caused by offshore oil exploration. We know that when Bill C-148 was being discussed in the House and in committee, we really did not have any input from the Minister of the Environment (Mr. COMMONS DEBATES
January 26, 1983
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Roberts) or the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane), two Ministers who should have been more prominent in the discussion of offshore exploration for natural gas and oil. Certainly, if Canada ever gets to the point where it starts further exploration of other mineral resources on the East or West Coast, this Bill would give opportunity to the Members of the Committee on Fisheries and Forestry to assess more accurately our capabilities of managing, conserving and protecting marine resources within the existing 200 mile limit.
Therefore, speaking on behalf of the New Democratic Party, I think the Bill has merit. We would certainly like to see it referred to the committee and would give our support and congratulations to the Hon. Member for St. John's East for presenting the Bill as far back as 1980.


Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to say a few words about this Private Members' Bill, Bill C-373. I note that it was given first reading on May 2, 1980, when the Law of the Sea Convention was in the process of being negotiated. On December 8 and 9 of last year, if I remember correctly, the Law of the Sea Convention was signed in Montego Bay, Jamaica, by a number of countries. That did not make it international law. It will become effective upon the deposition of the ratification instruments by 60 nations. Canada did sign, of course. One of the interesting things is that Spain did not, its objection to this particular convention being matters concerning international straits. Obviously, it had Gibraltar in mind. Incidentally, as I hope to show before my allotted time has expired, there is another matter which we should be able to persuade Spain to accept which would resolve this very delicate matter in terms of the existence of the flounder stocks off the coast of Newfoundland, off the Grand Banks.
The matter at issue concerns the extension of the very extensive provisions respecting "conservation, protection and management" of the living marine resources beyond the 200 mile limit, where Canada already has very extensive jurisdiction.
The territorial sea concept is a very particular one dealing with the first 12 miles from the baselines off our coast. There we are not solely concerned with marine resources, although they are there too. The clauses of the treaty mainly deal with the passage of vessels, military and otherwise, free traffic including submarines and the over-flight. However, the text of this particular Bill deals with the territorial sea and its extension out of the edge of the continental shelf for purposes of the conservation, protection and management of marine resources. It has been clearly stated that marine resources means the living marine resources of the sea. The Hon. Member for St. John's East very carefully and fully explained the matter at issue. The extension involves hundreds of square miles, not thousands of square miles. It is a small portion. The graphic illustration on page 16 of the document to which he made reference, entitled "A Promise of Abundance", published in 1980 by the Economic Council of Canada, shows just what amount of territory is involved.
An effort ought to be made to secure co-operation from all those members of the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization in order to preserve the stocks for them and for the rest of mankind. Canada has a responsibility in that exclusive economic zone, as well as privileges, and its responsibility is to care for the stocks of fish which are to be found there and breed there. Its responsibility is to establsh that amount of fish which can be taken without destroying stocks. This small portion just beyond the limits is recognized in the Law of the Sea over which Canada does not have jurisdiction.
Flounders, as I remember correctly, are groundfish. They sit on the bottom of the sea, and that is certainly part of the problem. They are scooped up by draggers from the bottom of the sea inside the elusive economic zone. If they are destroyed in their breeding time, they will cease to be an economic resource for Canada or any other country, even those who fish and throw their catches over the side because they do not want them.
It is interesting to consider the provisions of the Law of the Sea Convention. Article 76, for example, defines the continental shelf. We are discussing the edge of the continental shelf at the moment. It defines the continental shelf of a coastal state as extending "beyond its territorial sea throughout the natural prolongation of its land territory to the outer edge of the continental margin". This is a very good illustration. It states that the "coastal state shall establish the outer edge of the continental margin" wherever it extends beyond the 200 nautical miles in a manner which fixes "points which are not more than 60 nautical miles from the foot of the continental slope". That is a very clear definition of how far out this Bill seeks to extend Canada's jurisdiction.
Canada's jurisdiction is undisputed and will be undisputed when the Law of the Sea Convention is ratified and becomes operative throughout the world. By the anomaly of geology, I suppose, the plate on which Newfoundland sits, the Grand Banks, extends just beyond those 200 miles.
For those Hon. Members who are wedded to metric I might suggest that 200 miles refers to 200 nautical miles, 240 statute miles or 370 kilometres. That is the breadth of the sea over which Canada has jurisdiction and can make arrangements with foreign fishermen to fish within that area on the basis of quotas. And that is basically-and I am over-simplifying perhaps-one of the things which the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization purports to do within that area and beyond. There is a general agreement out in the North Atlantic that fisheries will be managed, but one particular country has so far refrained from becoming a member of that Organization, as we have heard described.
The Law of the Sea Convention extends a number of powers to the coastal states, which they may exercise out to the edge of that shelf. On the East Coast the edge, as we have already seen, extends beyond the 200 miles. We have also seen how that extension is defined within the terms of the Law of the Sea Convention. Canada, having signed the Law of the Sea
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Convention in Jamaica last month, 1 am sure will abide by its provisions. Within that 200 mile limit, which is known in the Law of the Sea Convention as the "exclusive economic zone", Canada, as the coastal state, exercises, as its name implies, exclusive economic powers limited only as prescribed in the Convention, relating to innocent passage, as I mentioned, over-flight and other matters relating to commercial navigation.
For present purposes, however, in this Bill we are considering only conservation, protection and management of living resources, and those rights already exist in the Convention within that exclusive economic zone. Those extra hundreds of square miles beyond were described, I believe, as the "nose and tail". I would describe it from this picture as the nose and chin, even, because it is almost a human face here, but I will accept the nose and tail description of the Grand Bank, those few square miles. It should be no great problem, I should think within the context of the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization, and bilateral agreement to have that extension worked out.
What are the exclusive economic sovereign rights of Canada within that area? Article 56 of the Law of the Sea Convention makes it quite clear what the coastal states can do and to what extent its sovereign rights are exercisable. Those sovereign rights exist for exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, living or non-living, of the waters superjacent to the sea-bed and of the sea-bed. With respect to "sea-bed" we are talking about flounders. They are on the sea-bed. As the Hon. Member said, we are not talking about drilling rights, mining rights, over-flights, or hampering of commercial traffic. We are dealing solely with the moving resources, the living resources of that area which already exist within the exclusive economic zone, together with marine scientific research which is involved in preservation and protection of the marine environment, another necessary power which the coastal states ought to be able to exercise in order to conserve, protect and manage any resource.
The rights and duties of other states within that area are also significant, and they appear under Article 58. In that exclusive economic zone all states enjoy, subject to relevant provisions, the freedoms referred to, and so on. In exercising those rights and performing those duties, however, those states, other than the coastal states, shall have due regard to the rights and duties of the coastal state, which concerns management, and shall comply with the laws and regulations adopted by the coastal state. We are considering, again, those laws and regulations relating to conservation.
In Article 61 one finds that among the management rights which the coastal state enjoys, are those of determining the allowable catch of the living resources in its exclusive economic zone. That is what we seek in this Bill, Mr. Speaker, to be extended those few hundred square miles to the nose and tail of the Georges Bank.
The territorial sea which is mentioned in the Bill is already included within that exclusive economic zone, so we can think of it not in terms of the technical definition of the territorial
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sea, but rather as part of the exclusive economic zone which this Bill seeks to extend. To all intents and purposes, therefore, this Bill does no more than seek to extend jurisdiction over fisheries and fishermen for preservation over a few extra square miles or square kilometres which it now exercises within the exclusive economic zone, seaward beyond the edge of the 200 mile limit, so that it may conserve, protect and manage those stocks which flow into and out of, which move back and forth, in and out of the exclusive economic zone.
This is not an outrageous demand, Mr. Speaker, given the peculiarities of the continental shelf off the East Coast, and taking fish breeding grounds into account. What this Bill does not seek to do, and I believe this is most important, it does not seek to extend drilling rights. They are already there at a price. Nor does it seek to impede the passage of any commercial vessel or waterborne traffic, nor to hamper the passage of aircraft.
There is one matter that I would like to mention in conclusion. Perhaps we could somehow persuade Spain to accept a portion, anyway, of Article 64 of the Convention dealing with highly migratory species. Section 64 provides that the coastal state, and other states, whose nationals fish in the region for the highly migratory species-this is in Annex 1- shall co-operate directly and through appropriate international organizations with a view to ensuring conservation and promoting the objective of optimum utilization of such species throughout the region, both within and beyond the exclusive economic zone. In regions for which no appropriate international organization exists, the coastal state, and other states, whose nationals harvest these species in the region, shall co-operate to establish such an organization and participate in this work. That provision is now within the Law of the Sea Convention, Mr. Speaker. It may be difficult, but I do not think it is impossible, that Canada should be able to persuade the Government of Spain to abide by this Article even if it is unwilling to abide by the full text of the agreement.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I would like to move that the subject matter, at least of this Bill, be referred to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry for further study.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: The Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) rises on a point of order.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, it was never the intention of the special committee on rules, when we brought in these provisional orders, that Hon. Members would be deprived of three full hours for private members' time, and 1 think we would do well to bear that in mind, because 1 would ask the House now if there would be a disposition, if there were unanimous consent, to go beyond six o'clock, in order, at least, that we may hear from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. Tobin), who is here representing the Government and is very anxious to make a speech.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: I thank the Hon. Member for St. John's East for his suggestion. Of course, the

January 26, 1983
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Chair is in the hands of the House. At this time normally it should see the hands of the clock. However, by unanimous consent, if there is unanimous consent, we could suggest that the Chair did not see the clock at this time. Perhaps the Chair could have an indication as to how long the debate should proceed. To complete the full hour, was that the suggestion of the Hon. Member? Perhaps I should first ask if there is unanimous consent to continue the sitting.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: These seems to be consent. I would like to inquire now how long the debate should carry on.


James Aloysius McGrath: I think this is a rather important point because we are starting under our provisional rules, and I think it is important for Your Honour to bear in mind what I said at the commencement of my point of order. It was the clear understanding of the Committee, when we recommended Private Members' hour on Wednesday afternoon, that we would not be deprived of three full hours. We have no control over Routine Proceedings, so it would be a good practice to follow that we go beyond six o'clock if we are in fact deprived
of the full three hours. Certainly I would not see it go much beyond ten minutes.


Mr. Andre Maltais (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, the request by the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) seems very interesting to me, except that some Hon. Members on the Government side have made commitments for tonight. I think we could perhaps bring up that subject matter another time as it is most interesting and worthy of a debate. I, for one, had intended to speak on this subject since my constituency is directly related to Newfoundland and the Atlantic, so it seems to me that we should immediately postpone this debate and bring it up at a later date to give Hon. Members the opportunity to participate if they so wish.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: There is not unanimous consent.

There being no unanimous consent, and it being six o'clock, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at eleven o'clock pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).

Thursday, January 27, 1983