1983-05-10

GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, May 5, 1983, consideration of the motion of Mr. Cosgrove that Bill C-151, an Act to provide supplementary borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, I have in my desk here a number of speeches; one on Bill C-151 is among them. There is also a very interesting speech on taxation as it relates to mining that I had hoped I would have been able to give yesterday, but because of the antics of the New Democratic Party, that was not to be. I look forward to delivering that dissertation in the very near future. We in this Party feel the plight of the many thousands of unemployed mine workers deserves debate in this House, and we were shocked to see the antics of the NDP yesterday.
In Bill C-151, the new borrowing authority Bill, an amount of $14.7 billion is requested by the Government. This is the item of debate today.


An Hon. Member:: Let them eat crow.


Dave Nickerson: I will read out the number of borrowing Bills which have gone through in the present session of Parliament: Bill C-30, Bill C-59, Bill C-lll, Bill C-125, Bill C-128, Bill C-143, and now we have Bill C-151. If I ask what connected these Bills, what they all had in common, the answer would be pretty obvious. They are all attempts by the Government of Canada to seek the authority of Parliament to borrow yet more and more funds. In one fiscal year alone, in 1982 to 1983, it came back no less than four times to Parliament to borrow yet more money.
What is the financial policy of the Government? It seems to be that whatever it has in the kitty or in the public treasury is just thrown to the four winds. It has just thrown it away, dissipated it. The Government knows it can come back to Parliament for more borrowing authority to borrow more money, and away we go on the same treadmill. Is that the financial policy of the Government, that it just does not care or has no sense of fiscal or financial responsibility? It just comes
back to Parliament time after time after time. Or is there a different reason? Is it just incompetence and poor management on its part? Is it unable to project the financial requirements of the Government of Canada? I would not have thought so. We have a great deal of expertise within the Department of Finance. We should have people there who can add, subtract and project what will be the amount of money the Government intends to spend over the next six months or over the next year. Surely they can project what will be the revenues of Government over a specific period. By simple arithmetic they can determine what amount of borrowing will be necessary.
This does not seem to take place. Perhaps one reason is the secret projections which are undoubtedly made that show the financial requirements of the Government to be so great and so vast that it dare not come to Parliament and ask for the full amount of money it knows it will need for a certain fiscal period because it would be too much for a public battered with such requests. So it comes back bit by bit. It asks for $5 billion, it comes back and asks for $10 billion, then it comes back and asks for another $15 billion, and on and on it goes.
Let us do a little simple arithmetic and find out what are the financial requirements of the Government of Canada at the present time. Its last borrowing Bill, Bill C-143, was divided into two parts-a $5 billion borrowing authority for 1982-83 and a $14 billion authority for 1983-84. This gave the Government a $2 billion carryover from one fiscal period to the next and $14 billion for the 1983-84 fiscal year. At present, without the passage of Bill C-151, the total borrowing authority on the books amounts to $16 billion.
If we look at the budget figures presented by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) in conjunction with his budget on April 19, we find that the financial requirement there is some $26.7 billion. If you subtract from that the $16 billion of borrowing authority you end up with an actually needed requirement of some $10.7 billion, judging from the Government's own figures. That is the amount of money the Government will require to borrow during the current Fiscal year. Why, then, when we look at Bill C-151, do we find the figure of $14.7 billion, a nice round $4 billion more than is actually required?
I have no hesitation in telling you, Sir, that had the Government come forward with the Bill to borrow the $10.7 billion, we on this side, knowing that there is no way we can turn the clock back, would have been prepared to grant that authority reasonably expeditiously. Why are we as Parliamentarians and

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representatives of the people of Canada being asked to vote the Government what amounts to a $4 billion slush fund, which is what it is going to be?
The strategy becomes clear. We heard in the presentation of the Minister of Finance his plan to come forward with some 100 or 200 capital projects, but he would give no details. What we have in the offing is one of the greatest pork barrel operations in the history of the Liberal Party. You know, Sir, as well as I do that they have had some in their time, but this is going to be the greatest. This is going to be a $4 billion pork barrel operation. We are going to be faced with the spectacle of Liberal Cabinet Ministers traversing the country from one end to the other, shovelling out dollars in an attempt to buy votes for the next election. It is an act of desperation.
We can already see this happening. As an illustration, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro), who was here in his place a few minutes ago, a week or so ago took the Government JetStar, flew to Whitehorse and chartered a plane from there, at great expense to the taxpayer, to go to Faro to make an announcement. It was not necessary for him to go there; he has offices in Whitehorse. The announcement could have been made by officials in his Department. It was an exercise in publicity. That is what the Liberals are after; they are trying to get political credit for something of which they are not worthy.
Just yesterday the same Minister was in Port Dover, Ontario. Even if it can be said that he had a legitimate reason to go to the Yukon, being the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, he had no real business whatsoever going to Port Dover to announce a $2 million project, financed presumably out of the illicit proceeds of this Bill. He made the announcement in the riding of Haldimand-Norfolk for strictly political reasons. Unprecedented.
I understand the same Minister is today on a similar pork barrel trip to the riding of Western Arctic where he is going to make some announcements which just could as easily be made in Ottawa.
Let us look at the use of some of those funds that the Government allocated in order to buy votes for the Liberal Party. Look at the water bomber fiasco. We are going to buy a bunch of those things at $6 million each. Two will go to my riding. I know the forestry people there pretty well and they have never asked for a water bomber of that type. They have a pretty good system now. The fire season is only two or three months a year and they can hire on contract Canadian firms with expertise in water bombing. At other times of the year these bombers can find employment in other places in Canada or South America. They did not ask for Canadair water bombers; they were forced on them. This is just a mechanism to show that the Government is spending money but it has no real reason attached to it. There is a good deal of doubt about the efficiency of that type of aircraft operating in those areas. We do not know what they are going to be doing for the
balance of the year; they will probably be sitting on a runway doing absolutely nothing for nine months of the year.
The $14.7 billion that the Government wants to borrow under the authority of Bill C-151 is by no means the total amount it will seek from the capital markets of Canada or abroad. There will also be considerable borrowing by Crown corporations and we do not know what that will be. We might be able to forecast the increased interest rates that businessmen and home owners will have to pay as a result of the Government borrowing this $14.7 billion, but we do not know the requirements of the 300 or 400 federal Crown corporations.
I want to emphasize the point made to Parliament by the Auditor General, who suggested it was high time that Parliament regained some control over the financial affairs of Crown corporations. At the present time they operate in the dark and are hidden from public scrutiny.
When we look at the projections made in the statement of the Minister of Finance on April 19, we find one reason why the Government may be asking for $14 billion more. A number of people, including myself, have suggested that the revenue figures included in the budget are suspect. They may be a little higher than the Minister can really expect. They are predicated on an increase in the Gross National Product that may or may not take place this year. Even if it does, there is always a lag between an increase in the general wealth of the country and the increase that comes as a result of that in the form of public revenue. Profits will not be recorded for some time and taxes payable with respect to those profits, especially because of the carry over provisions of the new budget, will not catch up for some time.
We also predict that there will be high unemployment in Canada for some time to come which will necessitate payment of Unemployment Insurance benefits in excess of those covered by the premiums collected. There will also be a decline in revenues from income tax from those people who are not employed.
I suspect the figures contained in the speech were put there to make the Government look good when it knows that it is being overoptimistic and will have to use some of that $4 billion excess borrowing authority to make up for the loss in revenue which will be lower than was predicted in the budget documents.
I want to take a quick look into the financial future of Canada, Mr. Speaker, our future over the four-year term as expressed by the Minister of Finance in his budget speech. Using his figures the projected cumulative deficit in the next four years will be $112 billion. The interest payable over that term will be not less than $77 billion. This, Sir, is what the Minister of Finance predicts or promises and, evidently, it is his most optimistic scenario. But what will happen if times are not quite as good as he imagines? This has happened several times in the past when Government has come in with projections which have later been found not to be reliable.
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It is, Sir, a bleak financial future indeed for Canada which we are promised with this type of irresponsible fiscal financial policy. If one looks at the series of budget statements over the years, going back more or less over the lifetime of the present Government, one finds that in each statement we are told the Government is going to run a bigger deficit than the year before. It is going to be $5 billion or $10 billion more, or whatever, but after that it is going to start coming down. The deficit will decrease and we will have our affairs in order. That is what Government says at point one. One year later, at point two, it says exactly the same thing. The deficit has not started to come down; it has gone up even more. It is like the drug addict who says: "One more last hit and I will quit". But it never happens.
I believe the only solution to the problems of excessive borrowing and excessive deficits is to quit now. It can be done. We started in 1979 with the Crosbie budget which at that time showed the way. We installed at that time the envelope system which makes it easier than before to adopt policies of financial restraint. We have to cut our unnecessary expenditures now. That is always difficult to do for politicians. I know, but we have to take the bull by the horns and start cutting out some of the unnecessary expenditures. It is also important to undertake measures which will increase the wealth of this nation and thereby increase the public revenues. I believe that is the key to solving our financial problems. We must adopt policies which will allow people to have confidence in Canada, to invest in Canada, thereby creating jobs and increasing the public revenues.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the public of Canada has given up hope and lost confidence in the present Liberal Government and I look forward to the period following the next election when we on this side will be in a position to adopt those policies which are designed to increase confidence in this nation and to put its financial affairs in order.


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


Mr. Nelson A. Riis (Kamloops-Shuswap):: Mr. Speaker, I must say that I listened with interest to the previous speaker. I agree with many of the points which he raised today. I agree that we find ourselves today at the crossroads, at a turning point in Canadian history, Mr. Speaker.
The Government has once again brought before this House a Bill, namely C-151, for authority to borrow $14.7 billion to assist in the financing of the Government's affairs for this particular fiscal year. There is a mystery in this particular request because the Government asks for $4 billion more than it requires. This is not a claim by a Member of the Opposition; the Government, in its own fiscal requirements as laid out in the Estimates and as articulated in the House of Commons on a number of occasions, is now asking for a sum of $4 billion more than it requires. What kind of a signal, Mr. Speaker, does that send out to the people of Canada?
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Let us describe for a moment or two the plight faced today by a typical Canadian citizen, whether working in a bank, developing a farm or a ranch, whether a fisherman, a logger or factory worker. The typical Canadian today, Mr. Speaker, is struggling to survive. He or she is worried about the future, particularly about the future for their children and grandchildren. Why? Because there is no clear picture of what lies ahead in this country even for the next year or two.
We read with interest that a number of agencies have attempted to predict the economic future of our country. They are only predicting a number of months in advance; that is all they are prepared to do considering the state of our economy and our financial world. Some of these houses, such as Midland Doherty, are suggesting that there is some reason for optimism over the next number of months, but they are unable to see what is going to happen in 1984 and 1985 with any clarity. Will this slow beginning of a recovery be maintained over the next number of years? That is the question they are asking and that is certainly the question many Canadians are asking themselves today. In other words, what does the future of this country hold for them and their children? There is in our country today an element of fear based on the uncertainty which exists in this country.
I believe that what frustrates people, Mr. Speaker, is not that there is a sense of insecurity, an element of fear; what frustrates people is that there is no need for this. We are not a developing country in the traditional definition of that term. We are not upset by political instability as are many of the military dictatorships around the world. We are not torn to pieces through various racial or religious differences. By almost any definition we are one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of natural and human resources and available capital. The fact is that we do not have most of the problems faced by other countries around the world today. We are not suffering from internal strife or violent political upheaval.
We have in this country, Mr. Speaker, more advantages than any other country in the world, yet we are falling on our face. That is what frustrates the people of this country. They do not understand why it is that with all of these advantages we cannot develop in any particular direction. We do not have a Government which is providing any particular leadership.


Mr. Stevens:: They went too socialist; that is their problem.


Nelson Andrew Riis: My friend the Hon. Member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens) suggests that the Government has gone too socialist. What we have is a Government which has no vision of the future of this country.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: That's all part of socialism.


Nelson Andrew Riis: It is not prepared to provide any leadership, which a federal Government ought to be providing. It is simply allowing the regions of this country to blunder on, telling them just to go ahead as best they can, without any particular

May 10, 1983
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direction, just building on the resources, strength and riches which we have all come to appreciate. In these times that is no longer good enough.
I want to comment on a couple of sectors of our economy which, by and large, have been overlooked in the last number of weeks. I listened with interest when the budget was brought down, when many business groups said they were very pleased with it. It was said that this was a probusiness budget which would assist the business community of Canada. I listened as Members of the Government rose in their seats here and in other forums and indicated that this budget would assist business across our country.
What has become clear, now that the smoke has cleared from the budget, is that the Government included very little to assist small-sized and medium-sized businesses in this country. I will admit that there are certainly some features in the past budget which successful corporations, those doing exceptionally well these days, those with positive profit and loss statements, find to be very attractive. However, for a typical medium-sized or small-sized business operating in Canada today, which is struggling to survive, simply to maintain the status quo, the budget contains virtually nothing which will be of assistance.
I believe that the business community of Canada today is just waking up to the fact that it has been used as a fall guy. Those in the business community were called upon to support a budget to create a positive response across the country, and they did that. They now realize that they were conned and used, and that in fact the small entrepreneurs, the small businesses and the medium-sized businesses in Canada are no better off today as a result of the budget than they were earlier.
That is a sad comment, because if there was one fact that the House of Commons recognized over the last number of months, it was that the answer to our problems in Canada will not be provided by the large corporations because if their massive bureaucracy and their inability to move quickly to take advantage of these changing economic times.
What has become clear over the last number of months is that our economy is in a state of transition. Our economy fell down over the last two and one half years, but as it begins to rebound in different places a new economy of Canada is emerging. The firms which will be able to take advantage of the new and changing world are not the large, traditional corporations but, rather, the small-sized and medium-sized businesses. They are the organizations which are able to move quickly. They are able to dodge and twist and take advantage of the new technologies and new marketing programs. They are able to take advantage of new sources of capital and are able to risk moving very quickly into new areas in response to the changing economy of our country.
This is the group of firms which will be providing the jobs for Canadians in the future. These are the firms which will be providing the real research and development that we need. These are the firms which will be developing the locally based economies which are sensitive not only to the regions of Canada but also to the neighbourhoods of Canada. It is the
small business community which is now best able to reflect the aspirations of Canadians as they become localized into their own communities and their own subregions of Canada. The budget contains nothing for those particular firms. It contains nothing for the individual who wishes to launch a small business to take advantage of a local resource or to cater to a local market.
One must wonder what it is that Hon. Members of the Government are using for their policy making. What sources of information are they using for their policies, for their programs, for the positions which they take within the budget framework? There has been no suggestion in anything I have read nor from any group to which I have spoken that the route to go is to cater to the large corporations and, by and large, ignore the small business sector. It has been quite the contrary. The dynamic business community of Canada in the future will be the small-sized and medium-sized businesses. Yet those are the sectors which have been overlooked in the budget.
In considering Bill C-151, asking authority for $14.7 billion of further borrowing, the other question which comes to mind is: What will the extra $4 billion be used for? What becomes very clear is that we are moving into a pre-election time. It is to the Government's advantage to have a contingency fund, a slush fund which can be drawn upon for buying votes from the Canadian Public. I hate even to suggest that that is something which the Government may be contemplating; but again, until we hear the Government clearly explain why it has requested an extra $4 billion slush fund, I think we on this side of the House must assume the worst. We must assume that the Government will be using $4 billion of taxpayers' money to buy votes in selected constituencies across the country.
Certain constituencies may wish sports or riding arenas, swimming pools, youth centres, halfway houses, ports, docks, marinas and the like. There will be funds for the Government to use in an effort to buy favours in those particular constituencies, either to shore up existing Liberal Members or in the hope of pulling the Liberal vote from existing Conservative or New Democratic Party constituencies.
I would ask Members of the Liberal Party, as they rise to debate the borrowing authority, to explain why it is the Government must borrow an extra $4 billion beyond its fiscal requirements. Explain that request to the people of Canada who are having a difficult time simply meeting their basic needs today. The people of Canada are surely not going out and borrowing extra money for contingency funds. They will be quite satisfied simply to borrow what they possibly can, considering the way the banks have been responding in the last number of months.
I want to propose two elements in the borrowing authority debate which have come to my attention over the last number of months and which I think should be placed on the record. They involve a certain kind of behaviour on the part of Canadian chartered banks which I think we ought to examine carefully. I want to qualify my remarks by first saying that I do not believe these are banking policies. I suspect that if
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senior members of the banking establishment in Canada knew that those practice were going on, they would stop them immediately.
[DOT] (U40)
As 1 have travelled across the country and spoken to people about their banking problems, I would say that two very insidious types of behaviour have come to my attention. The first is that many small businesses end up paying an extra amount for the money that they are borrowing today. This does not relate to excessive interest rate charges, which are beyond their control since they are unable to obtain any assistance under the Small Business Development Bond. I am talking about the small business person who, in order to obtain a loan for $100,000, for example, will have to borrow $110,000 and pay back to the bank the equivalent of borrowing $110,000 for the $100,000. In other words, there is a bonus clause for the bank built into the loan which is, in a sense, a rake-off from the top of the amount the small business person is attempting to borrow.
An even more disturbing fact I have learned from the people I have talked to in the last two or three months is that in order to have a loans officer consider their application, they have had to provide that individual with a ticket to Las Vegas or a two-week holiday for the individual and his or her spouse to Hawaii or the Caribbean. In other words, some Canadians are beginning to behave in a way for which we have criticized people in other countries for taking a bribe or a rake-off. This has become a way of life for many small businesses in Canada and I think it must be exposed. We must expose incidents when small businesses are asked not only to provide a gift to the loans officers but to pay for a bonus clause on their loan above and beyond what they requested. As I said in my example, if many small businesses in this country today want to borrow $100,000 they have to borrow $110,000 while receiving only $100,000 for that $110,000 loan. This situation is becoming relatively frequent in the borrowing practices in our country.
There are many examples that could be cited today of the Government's lack of direction or policy, such as in agriculture, tourism, the small business sector, fishing, manufacturing and even in the high-tech industries. What is the Government's policy in terms of high technology? What industries is it particularly interested in encouraging in the high-tech areas? There are many unanswered questions and they are the result of a lack of direction on the part of the Government. They are the result of a Government providing no leadership to a country that is desperately in search of strong leadership to show where the country is headed.
When one travels across Canada today and asks people in rural villages, in cities and metropolitan areas where the Government is taking the country and what path it is following in terms of our economy, they cannot respond intelligently because no direction is being provided. The Government of Canada has set aside its responsibility of providing leadership and has decided instead simply to buy off Canadians. While I
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hesitate to use that particular term, one can see how money is being spent today where certain regions of Canada are being catered to and certain parts of our country are receiving support and encouragement simply in a shoring up effort for their economy while there is no direction or leadership for the country as a whole.
In closing, perhaps it is time to say that in the pre-election period, as the Government recognizes that it has to pull off a miracle if it is not to be replaced, perhaps it will start providing some leadership to the country. If it does not, the people of Canada will ask the Government to step aside and permit a Party that has a vision of this country and an idea of what this country could be to be given that opportunity.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Questions and comments? Debate.


Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Mr. Speaker, for the seventh time this session we are debating a borrowing Bill. That fact, along with the budget mania that we have experienced over the last 18 months, speaks volumes for how inept and incompetent this Government really has become. There is no longer any purpose, as the previous Hon. Member just said, to be found on the Government benches; nor is there any direction or leadership. The Members across the floor simply show up and vote, as we just witnessed today, without ever wondering or questioning the intertia in their own Government's front benches.
Today the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) is looking for an additional $14.7 billion. The Minister claims that this is a reasonable request. Let us look at the record. Eleven months ago the Minister wanted $6.6 billion; nine months ago he wanted $11 billion; six months ago he only wanted $4 billion and just two months ago he wanted $19 billion. In less than 12 months, including today's request, the Minister of Finance will have asked this Parliament to approve $55.3 billion in borrowing authority.
This is only one side of the story. The other side is made up of four budgets that have created the uncertainty and demonstrated the Government's lack of leadership, direction and clearly its incompetence.
The June, 1982 budget tore up the foundations of the November, 1981 budget; the October, 1982 budget did the same with respect to that June budget; and the budget in April, 1983 threw away the October, 1982 budget. The only consistent theme that ran through all of those budgets was the one item, "Borrow, borrow and continue to borrow".
We in the Opposition do not have the numbers to prevent the Government from borrowing that additional sum of money or to prevent it from taking us down the road to a debtor's prison. What we can do and what becomes obligatory for us to do as Members of Parliament is to point out to Canadians the impact that these borrowing bills will have on Canadians across the country and the reasons they have come about. Canadians will certainly have the numbers in the next election to put a halt to this fiscal irresponsibility and disaster.

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Bill C-151, the legislation before us today, seeks borrowing authority of $14.7 billion. This is in addition to the $16 billion that the Government presently has in borrowing authority. The Government will be able to have a borrowing authority total of $30 billion during this fiscal year. But what has the Minister of Finance said as to his requirements? He has pointed out that all the Government will require is to borrow $26.7 billion during this fiscal year.
Let us re-examine those numbers because they do not add up. If according to the Minister of Finance the Government needs $26.7 billion, and it already has a borrowing authority of $16 billion, it might only need an additional $10.7 billion. But that is not what this borrowing Bill is requesting: the Government wants $14.7 billion. That is $4 billion more than is required, according to the Minister of Finance, and is a cushion. For what? For Liberal pork-barrelling. In other words, the Government is looking for a $4 billion slush fund to be used at its discretion as we approach an election year.
That amount, $4 billion, the excess over what the Minister of Finance states he requires, will allow the Government to spend $400 on every taxpayer in Canada. As most taxpayers are voters we might be looking at about ten million votes. It is the ultimate absurdity to spend the taxpayers' own money to buy their votes. Having already squandered the taxpayers' money, the Government now proposes to borrow more money to get their votes and will let future generations pay the bill.
I doubt that ploy or scam will work any longer. Most Members of Parliament send reports home giving our constituency offices a bird's eye view of what happens on the Hill. In the last report I pointed out that the gross national debt will likely exceed $200 billion by the end of 1984. It is already in the neighbourhood of $160 billion and is one of the highest per capita national debts in the western world. The response of my constituents was immediate and indignant. Constituent after constituent wrote to me asking how such a financial burden could get out of hand. They wanted further explanations. A number of constituents pointed out that it was time the party came to an end. They said surely by now the party must be over. I want to extend the use of the word "party" to include the Liberal Party.
The Government contends that a deficit is necessary because of the automatic stabilization that is required during these difficult economic times. No one will argue about that as a principle or a theory particularly, but what we do argue, Mr. Speaker, is that deficit financing has become a way of life for this Government, both in good times and in bad. The Liberal Party has not brought in a balanced budget since the 19691970 fiscal year. Government Members down play this deficit financing by saying that what is past is past; let it be forgotten; we are looking to the future. Fair enough, except the kind of spending habit this Government has developed is hard to break. This habit has become particularly expensive for Canadians, in fact too expensive to bear. Canadians can no longer afford a Liberal Government.
Social programs are necessary, we all recognize that. In certain instances they must be approved. But Government has
the responsibility of keeping a fair balance and maintaining it. If spending is up in one area, every effort should be made to find ways and means to reduce spending elsewhere. That effort is not present now nor has it been for the past several years, and Bill C-151 is just further evidence of that fact.
I want to take a few moments to put before the House some comments with respect to Bill C-151 in the context of my home riding of St. Catharines and with respect to the Niagara region generally. All too often Canadians tend to throw up their hands in despair and frustration when you mention sums such as $1 billion. We cannot afford that, people say. They tell us they do not know what it means.
I will refer to St. Catharines and the Niagara region and try to put some meaning to the billions of dollars that we are talking about today. St. Catharines, the garden city, has a population of 125,000 ordinary people. In just 11 days our area will be hosting the Fifteenth Annual Folk Arts Festival, which is one of the finest examples of multiculturalism at work anywhere in Canada. Assuming I had $14.7 billion to spend, I could give to each one of the 34 cultural groups participating in the Folk Arts Festival a cheque for $432 million. Or if I wanted to put an ad in the St. Catharines Standard, an ad that would be bound to get recognition-I do not know what else but it would certainly generate a good deal of interest-I could promise $115,000 to every man, woman and child from St. Catharines who showed up at the Queen's Festival Ball. I would have enough money left over to buy each person in attendance a tuxedo or evening gown.
However, let us examine placing this sum of money in the Niagara region. People like to talk about the Niagara region generally rather than one of the five constituencies within it. We in Niagara were recently informed following the last budget that $12.6 million was to be spent over the next two years on repair work and land improvement along the Welland Canal. That is an expenditure about $21 per person per year.
The request before us today calls for $1,167 times that $12.6 million. On a per capita basis it is equal to $49,000, not the $12.6 million that is being expended in accordance with the last budget announcement. An amount of $49,000 is what this borrowing Bill means per person in the whole of the Niagara region. Let us make no mistake about this: the people living in Niagara would have to contribute $49,000 each to raise enough money to meet this borrowing Bill. Conversely, the Government would have to spend $49,000 on every man, woman and child living in Niagara to go through the amount of $14.7 billion requested in this borrowing Bill.
There are some people who still argue that Government borrowing is not all bad. Well, wait until they are pressed to repay it. There might even be a taxpayer in St. Catharines who would believe it is all right to defer that repayment to the next generation or to the generation after that. But very few money lenders rely on repayment without interest or carrying charges. The good people of St. Catharines pay about $166 million in taxes every year now, which is an average of $3,330 per
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taxpayer. Approximately $1,000 of that already goes toward paying carrying charges on our present public debt.
Assuming the Government will again use its majority to ram through this borrowing Bill, another $14.7 billion will be added to the national debt. At 10 per cent interest that will cost the taxpayers of the Niagara region an additional $1.5 billion a year to carry over the above what they are already being asked to bear.
The average taxpayer in St. Catharines can expect to see either his or her taxes go up by an additional $150 per person or see that $150 piled against the expense and the debt burden of future generations. Sooner or later this Government must realize that those bills and the carrying charges must be paid. Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I do not believe the constituents of St. Catharines look forward to either result.
I made reference earlier to the allocation of $12.6 million to the Niagara region under the Special Recovery Capital Projects Program announced in the budget of the Minister of Finance, but I want to speak for a moment about Government spending. Few if any Members raise objection to the expenditure of federal funds-and this is almost natural-in their ridings: "It is all right to spend money in my riding". But there is always a question as to whether or not it should be spent somewhere else. It is my argument that spending must be reduced and that the difficulties the Niagara region has experienced over the past several years must receive some attention. This might be consistent with the axiom that it is not all right anywhere else, but I want some more money back home. The difference lies in the system and the reasons behind the expenditure of dollars. The present Government has absolutely no system, no checks and no desire to curb unnecessary expenditures.
By way of contrast, the 1979 Progressive Conservative Government established spending guidelines and was able to maintain priority programs, provide new ones and still embark upon a systematic reduction of the deficit. If one Government can do it, surely other Governments could at least try. If the Government was truly serious about assisting the Niagara region, it would recognize that $12.6 million is barely a start. Steps would be taken immediately to put the shipbuilding and automotive industries on a solid footing, and the needed expansion of the capacity of the Welland Canal would be commenced. A program of industrial development to provide long-term jobs would be put in place. Small business, upon which the country was built, would be encouraged, not discouraged. The dollars required could come from a number of sources, including the advertising budget of the Government. Jobs are the best advertising a Government can buy.
To save in one area only to spend in another is the philosophy adopted by the Government. It is far easier to keep running to Parliament for more money than to do the tedious and tiresome chore of examining current spending or saying "no" once in a while.
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One could talk about responsibility and the trust placed in Government to spend taxpayers' money wisely, but these have little meaning for a Government which is so desperately clinging to power. Every time the Gallup poll comes out, Canadians can expect another flurry of press releases announcing new Government projects costing millions or billions of dollars; new spending but no recovery program. It no longer works. Canadians are repulsed by blatant attempts to curry their favour with borrowed money. We all want to see clearly articulated programs, a clearly articulated approach to the recovery of our economy, not spending for spending's sake.
The Bill before us will provide the Government with an additional $14.7 billion to keep up its desperate spending program. It will give the Government a $4 billion slush fund upon which to launch the next general election, and it will cost the individual taxpayer an extra $150 per year in interest charges alone.
These are solid reasons why all Members should oppose this legislation and force the Government to budget responsibly. I most certainly intend to vote against Bill C-151 because I put the welfare and concerns of my constituents first.


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


Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, it is rather surprising today that there is not a Liberal Member in the House prepared to defend this Bill. I suppose it is not really surprising when one comes to think of it. I wonder whether you know, Mr. Speaker, how many borrowing Bills we have had in this session of Parliament. You might be able to recall some of them, but the total number is seven. This is the seventh borrowing Bill facing this session of Parliament, the seventh in just 37 months or only weeks over the three-year period. I wonder whether those who are present in the Chamber, those who are watching this debate on television or listening to it on the radio, know how much the Government has borrowed in the last three years. Would you like to guess, Mr. Speaker? No, you would not like to guess. Do the pages know? Do those in the galleries know? Do those out there in the country know?


Mr. Darling:: The Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) knows.


Donald W. Munro: I wonder whether he knows. He may not even know. To put you into your misery, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you that it is $77.3 billion in just weeks more than three years. It is difficult to believe, is it not? The Government has sought the authority to borrow $77.3 billion in this Chamber, including today's Bill. Even if it is difficult to comprehend what $77.3 billion represents, I am certain you will agree, Mr. Speaker, that it is a great deal of money. That is $77.3 billion of borrowing over and above what is collected in taxes. If you look at it another way, it is over $25 billion per year or $2 billion per month.
I suggest it would be worth while to put on record the amount of the earlier borrowing authorities and the dates upon which the Bills were given Royal Assent. I will do that because
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it is good for the record and salutary for those who read Hansard to know what happened. The first Bill, Bill C-30, was for $12 billion. It received Royal Assent on July 17, 1980, just three months after the election and this Government reassumed office.
The second one, Bill C-59, was for $14 billion. It received Royal Assent on April 8, 1981, which was nine months later.
The third, Bill C-l 11, was for $6.6 billion. On June 17, 1982 it received Royal Assent. That was 15 months later.
The fourth, Bill C-l25, was for $7 billion. On August 14, 1982, only two months after the earlier Bill, it received Royal Assent.
The fifth, Bill C-l28, was for $4 billion and received Royal Assent on November 8, three months later.
The sixth, Bill C-l43, was for $19 billion and on March 30, or four months after the previous one, it received Royal Assent.
Now the seventh, Bill C-l51, for $14.7 billion was introduced on May 3, only two months after the previous one was given Royal Assent.
A number of my colleagues and I, as well as others around the House, have tried to put an amount such as this within the range of human comprehension-so many thousands of dollars laid end to end, going around the earth so many times, or so many Rolls-Royces at such and such a cost per vehicle, bumper to bumper, going around the world so many times.
These comparisons are on the record in Hansard and need not be repeated here. The comparison I want to make is different. One of the comparisons relates to the Bill now before us, Bill C-151, seeking authority to borrow $14.7 billion. I want to compare it with this Government's budgetary expenditures.
First, the sum for which borrowing authority is being sought today, $14.7 billion, is larger by almost $5 billion than the budgetary expenditures presented by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) in his first Government in 1968. The Government is asking if it can borrow $5 billion more than it actually budgeted and spent in 1968. Budgetary expenditures then were $9.8 billion. This Government is asking for authority for one-third as much as it spent in 1968 with a budgetary deficit then of three-quarters of a billion dollars.
The second comparison I want to make is that budgetary expenditure by this Prime Minister's Government did not equal this borrowing authority until 1972. For the record, budgetary expenditures in 1972 were $14.8 billion, with a budgetary deficit of slightly over half a billion. That is just about the same as we are being asked to provide today.
Thp third comparison, and this is the corker, is that the total borrowing authority during this Parliament is about the same as the gross general expenditure in 1982. That is a staggering thought. This borrowing, of course, is in excess of general
revenue from the taxes you pay, Mr. Speaker, I pay, and your company pays.
This Government has spent during its 13 years in office about $200 billion. During that time it has had the unmitigated gall to seek borrowing authority for one-third of that amount, $77.3 billion. The sum of $200 billion has been spent during this Prime Minister's successive Governments.
I know the Government will say this is an unusual amount of borrowing which has been made necessary by the high rate of unemployment and inflation. That is true, but only to a certain extent. The Government cannot avoid the substantiable charge that it has been involved in a number of extravagant activities that might have better waited for more propitious times; acquisition of service industries, for example, not to mention a number of very wasteful enterprises in the advocacy advertising line as well as a number of "investments" in operations of dubious viability.
A very large proportion of these borrowed funds are wanted-not so much needed, but wanted-for these operations, many of which, aside from being dubious financially, are blatantly political. I mention only the hundreds of millions of dollars during the past two or three days for a particular region of the country and also some announcements in this morning's paper to gather in the fishing vote. I would call that hog troughing. That is probably the best expression to describe it.
So much for the magnitude and the monstrosity of what we are being asked to approve in this Bill. I would now like to turn to another consideration flowing from it and, to get to that theme, let me take the House back to October of last year when the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) was introducing his modest $4 billion borrowing Bill. On that occasion he made a comment which for me opened up an entirely new and frightening prospect in the matter of this Government's attitude toward financing its operations. As reported at page 20080 of Hansard for October 27, 1982 the Minister said:
In 1975, the Government pledged to hold federal spending to the trend rate of growth of GNP.
He then proceeded to boast about how faithful his Government had honoured that pledge, particularly, he went on, if you were to exclude the interest charges. Don't we all of us wish we could exclude interest charges on our individual debts? Wouldn't our housekeeping accounts look at lot better if we just ignored those interest charges in drawing up our balance sheet of income and outgoings, deciding on whether we can take a holiday or whether we have to sell off a piece of property we had hoped to hold for our retirement years. Wouldn't it be wonderful if only we could, and here is a Government that claims it can ignore its interest charges!
I find statements knocked off like that by a Minister in the middle of a prepared speech tell me volumes about what goes on inside the minds of this Government and its little helpers. "If only we could disregard the interest charges, our record would be fine". Whose wouldn't? Our children and our children's children would undoubtedly like to disregard the
May 10, 1983

debt load being built up for them today and during this Government's term of office.
I have a message for the Minister of Finance. He may not know what interest charges are. I would like to tell him. I will bet any money that his grandchildren will tell him as well. In my dictionary, interest charges are the cost of borrowing money this year to pay for last year's excess spending, perhaps even some of this year's excess spending.
Let us just bear that in mind and look at this Government's record again. It provided tables in the budget document entitled "The Fiscal Plan". At page 61, presumably "expenditures" are considered as total outlays including interest charges on the outstanding debt. I have selectively chosen a few expenditures. Here is what Table B.5 has to say. In 196869 total outlays represented 17.8 per cent of the GNP, in 1976-77 21.1 per cent of the GNP, and in 1982-83 they represented 23.1 per cent of the GNP. That is an increase of 5.3 per cent. The absolute Figures for the same period are found in Table B.4 on the page opposite.
Table B.5, however, does carry through with the calculation which the Minister wanted to have, excluding debt charges. There the record is not nearly as favourable as the Minister would have us believe. The comparable figures in this case, that is excluding debt, are 15.4 per cent for 1968-69, 18.7 per cent for 1976-77 and 20.9 per cent for 1982-83, up 5.5 per cent. That is excluding the debt charges. What is he talking about? The Minister was not only talking through his hat but was misleading if he sought believers amongst his listeners. He should stop misleading the House. This comment may have sounded Fine to some, but when the statistics are rolled out, they do not back up such misleading statements.
Another thought flows from the Minister's comments in November of last year about the pledge to keep down this Government's draw, that is its revenue take, to a more or less constant proportion of the GNP. I Find such a statement is a sure-fire prescription for socialism. Why? Put in another way, it means that this Liberal Government believes it has an election-given right, and that is that it is entitled to sop up a cost-and-share of any increases in the nation's productive capacity. If that prescription is accepted, that entitlement apparently knows no limit. To what purposes that increased revenue will be put is a matter that will be determined, but only after the revenue has been secured. This logic is frightening: it suggests that the areas of governmental activity are boundless-provided an ever-increasing GNP can be assured.
This is where the logic of such socialistic rationale breaks down. Once the economy becomes aware that its increased production is to be drained off by a non-productive Government, enterprise and initiative wither. That is the danger I foresee of this Government, or any Government, adhering to the notion that it is entitied, by the voters' support, to a constant percentage of the nation's GNP. That commitment has to have limits placed upon it. It is a good measure for Government to use to find out how the economy is going and
Borrowing Authority
how its expeditures relate, but when those limits are reached, the Government's proportionate take of increased production must be reduced. Otherwise there will just be no increased production, no growth, no expanding GNP-except through inflation. That is the logic of that rationale.
When, furthermore, because of its unregulated appetite to embark on expensive governmentalizing ventures, a Government, as this one has done, embarks on projects for which it cannot pay, another phenomenon inevitably puts in an appearance-increasing public debt, the contest for funds available for borrowing, and the effect that that has on interest rates. This is the prospect before us as a result of this Bill and its predecessor.
Even the Government has asked the relevant questions at page 15 of its budget paper, "The Federal Deficit in Perspective", as follows:
The large deficits and rising public debt levels ... raise serious questions related to debt financing. Can such large deficits be accommodated within Canada's financial markets without leading to strong competition for available funds, raising interest rates, and crowding out private sector investment?
The Government paper, without adducing any supportive evidence, answers these questions at page 16 in this way:
Despite the high total government sector deficits foreseen this year and next ... there would seem to be relatively little danger that government deficits will begin to crowd out private sector activity ... The main reason for this is that private sector investment activity is likely to be very weak this year and to some extend next year.
Need we ask why? It is because the Government has sopped up more than its share of investment funds. Is that the way to recovery to which this so-called "budget of recovery" is pointing?
Here I would like to key in a few comments made on this matter in a paper by Mr. R. E. Harrison, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. He was not very complimentary about the growing deficits digging into the total savings available in Canada for investment to the extent of about 82 per cent to meet the $40 billion requirement in 1983. This is what he said, and it is worth putting it on the record here:
There is a very real question of how such large Government requirements will affect the psychology of the financial markets. One important determinant of rates is confidence-or lack of it-the financial market-place has in the commitment of authorities to resist inflation, and thus protect the value of the currency. Having just suffered through a bout of unprecedented high inflation, that confidence has yet to be restored.
Later in his letter he said that two decisions are required by governments to keep interest rates down: first, they must resist pressure to increase deficits; second, they must show a serious commitment to reduce their borrowing. Do we see any of this in this Bill? For me, the answer is no. That will also be my answer when it comes to the vote.


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


Stan Darling: Mr. Speaker, here we are again, six weeks after the passage of the last supplementary borrowing Bill, back once more at the good old

May 10, 1983
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public trough. That is seven times this session; four times last year, twice in the last six weeks-fiscal conduct that no rural bank manager could or would tolerate. Yet we, Parliament, can do absolutely nothing about it except wave our arms and point, and hope the press will pick up what we are saying and tell the voting public. For certain, as long as the benches of sheep opposite bleat on demand as their political masters require of them, no matter how just our concerns for the public purse, no matter how true our fears for the public welfare, it does not seem as if it matters very much. We may feel ourselves to be passengers on an out of control roller-coaster, but as long as loyalty to the Party opposite outweighs loyalty to the electorate, all we can do is sit back and enjoy the ride.
All this may sound like nothing more than melodrama, but let me point out that never before in our history has a Government which, six weeks before, had borrowed $19 billion come back for more. Never before in our history have we had a deficit of $30 billion and a Government which, for all its trying to put the best face on things, cannot forecast much less for the foreseeable future. Never before have we had double-digit unemployment coupled with such runaway Government spending that the administration is helpless to do anything about it. Never before have we had a Government that has produced a slogan like six and five, which it waves around like the sorcerer's apprentice waves his magic wand, at the same time as it is unable to curtail its own spending increase below 12 per cent for the current year. Never before have we had a Government which has saddled its electorate with a gross debt of $160 billion to $165 billion, compared to $31 billion when it took office. Never before have we had Government spending that amounted to 26 per cent of the Gross National Product.
Never before, in short, have we had an economy so completely out of control of the Government whose responsibility it is. Never before have we had a Government whose supporters must be held more liable for their continued support than ever they would for exercising their freedom of thought on the electorate's behalf.
This is not just another in a series of Government Bills; this is an acknowledgement of financial and fiscal defeat. This is an attempt to acquire enough voting authority to render the Government independent of this House and of its control until after the next election. It is an attempt to render us out of sight and out of mind.
I remember that when the last war bonds were maturing- in 1960 or thereabouts, I think-the late Mr. Diefenbaker was Prime Minister. The commentators were tut-tutting that the Government would have to roll the bonds over into a new issues; it just could not afford to cover the cost of redeeming them. I suppose the amount involved was a few million dollars, a sum the present Government would think nothing of blowing, just to save its face. After all, "what's a billion?"
Its outstanding unmatured loans and securities, which by the way stood at $21 billion when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) took office, amounted to some $115 billion as of the end of March. The cost of interest alone in fiscal year 1983-84 is forecast to be $17.6 billion. What it will actually turn out to be is anyone's guess. We have not had a Minister of Finance
from the Party opposite whose estimates could be relied upon since before the Hon. John Turner, and that was about ten years ago. No nation should be expected to suffer for a decade or more not being able to trust what the Government is saying about its own finances. This must be the ultimate condemnation.
There is no national fiscal index that I know of which has not gone up during the Government's custodianship by less than 250 per cent. Unmatured loans and securities are up 458 per cent. The net national debt is up 640 per cent. The interest on the debt is up 1,121 per cent. Financial requirements are up 1,273 per cent. Spending on a national accounts basis is up 693 per cent. And to top it all, the deficit is up 6,261 per cent.
Hon. Members opposite may try to persuade themselves that figures like these do not mean very much because of the difference in the levels of interest rates between now and the beginning of the Trudeau agony, always accepting, of course, that no blame for that situation could possibly be attached to the Government in question. They will agree, however, I am sure, that those rates in 1979-80 were in the same range as they are now, and as the Government would have us believe they will be in over the next few years. Yet the interest costs it projects for 1986-87 will be two and a half times what they were during what people are calling "The blessed blue blip", and 16 times what they were before the present Prime Minister took office. And here we are back at the pump asking for another $14.7 billion. That is truly obscene!
I have already gone over all this ground before during debate on one of the half dozen other recent borrowing Bills. Running a Government on credit does not come free. First and most obvious is the cost of the interest payments. This year that is going to cost Canadian taxpayers $1,700 each. That amounts to 4.6 per cent of our entire Gross National Product.
Then there is what it does to our fiscal flexibility. In bad times Governments love to be Keynesian because Lord Keynes provided a great justification for spending when times were tough. The trouble is, when you have been a counter-Keynesian during the good times, bought votes like crazy and borrowed to pay for them, you do not have much room to manoeuvre when it comes time to stimulate. It is a bit like the biblical story of the wise virgins and the foolish virgins. And over there in the persons of the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. MacEachen), the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde), the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray) and the Minister of State for Finance (Mr. Cosgrove), I see five very foolish virgins indeed. In 1968-69 4 per cent of Government spending went to service the debt. That figure now comes to 35 per cent, nine times as much.
To have got us into an incredible fix like this is to have been a very, very foolish virgin indeed. The horrifying thing is that the five I have named are among the most competent people in the Cabinet. Is it any wonder that the country is going to hell in a handbasket? I cannot bring myself to believe that there is
May 10, 1983

not greater talent than that on the back benches across the way, but what use is that to the country? The fact is that our nation has been run into the ground by the monumental incompetence of the Cabinet now in power. And may God help us all!
The presence of the Government in the money market in such a massive way squeezes the private sector, the productive sector, out of the market. There is only so much money available, and so much demand on the part of the Government naturally forces up prices. In a word, interest rates rise. The aforementioned Ministers cannot delegate the direct responsibility for rate setting to Mr. Bouey and he cannot hide the fact that it is his policies which ultimately set the rates.
What is the effect of the sight of the Government's fiscal floundering on public and business confidence? Let us not underestimate the importance of this factor. We have reached the point in the economic cycle at which public and business confidence are perhaps the most crucial requirements. What does the public see? It sees this Government wallowing around in a slough of debt, hanging its hopes, and those of the country, on a budget which looks more and more questionable as one studies it, one that is based not-may the Lord help us all-on fiscal responsibility, but on the premise that it will continue to live on credit for another year or so and then start to bring in the tax revenues to pay the bills-after the next election.
The public sees a Government that presses its six and five program on the rest of the country but makes an exception in the case of itself. It sees a Government that six weeks ago passed the largest borrowing Bill in our history and is now back to borrow more. It sees a group of back benchers who, by their rejection of any responsibility to their country and their electors, have opted instead to make it all possible by continuing blindly to support those on the front bench.
The name of the game is not good Government. It is not faithfulness to one's electorate and its interests. The name of the game is power, power for its own sake and, of course, for the lovely perks which it provides. It is power to be retained at all costs, costs to be borne by the people, of course, and benefits to the Liberal Party. "All power to the Liberals." What a slogan!
I believe we are all agreed that the missing ingredient in the present economic situation, the factor which is desperately needed if the recovery is to develop the stamina it needs, is confidence. The economic activities of this Government during its tenure of office, the economic events of the last decade or two, are such that confidence cannot be generated by the Party presently in power. Simply put, they have squandered their credibility, and if ever any proof of this is wanted, this borrowing Bill now before us provides it in spades.
I have cited many statistics during these remarks. However, figures of the size and sheer magnitude of these lose their power to shock. It is like the statistics of the Hiroshima bomb or the Black Death: they are too great to be compared.
Borrowing Authority
Let me introduce one final statistic which I feel is germane. We all know that since the last election in 1980 the Government has been operating under a widely heralded policy of restraint. At least, it has been talking restraint and urging the private sector to follow its example as it squeezed back on public sector wages. Perhaps the theory is that people who are kept busy listening to exhortation do not have time to check the figures.
Just for the record, then, these are the figures. Since the last election Government spending has risen by 66 per cent. It has gone up by two-thirds. Some restraint! Just to put that in some sort of perspective, during the same period of time the Consumer Price Index went up by only 37 per cent and the Gross National Product by 33 per cent, or just half the rate of Government spending. And here it is asking for another $14.7 billion. For what? It has not said but we know. We all know. It is so it does not have to do so again before the next election.
It is inconceivable that this Bill should be presented to Parliament. I believe it would be much more appropriate if the Government decided to present it to the Canadian people. We certainly know what their position would be on this.
As has been pointed out by previous speakers, the Government is trying to build up a slush fund of an extra $2 billion to have in its kitty for any unforeseen things which may come up; and this is one other reason why all Hon. Members of my Party will be voting against this Bill.


Mr. Blais:: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman in his last remarks spoke about a slush fund and echoed some of the comments made by the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro). He will recall that Hon. Member indicated that in effect the expenditure of the amount being borrowed was motivated by political considerations.
Does the Hon. Member agree with those comments in view of the announcement yesterday in Saskatchewan of a more than $4 million investment in the largest livestock show in Saskatchewan? Does he agree with those comments in light of the announcement made yesterday in Alberta relating to the increase in the amounts invested for road building in Banff National Park? Does he agree in light of the announcement in his own riding of Parry Sound-Muskoka that the $20 million the federal Government is putting into the Coast Guard establishment in the town of Parry Sound itself is motivated by political consideration in view of the fact that that riding is represented by a Conservative Member? Yesterday in Timis-kaming, if memory serves me, the announcement was made of the paving of the airport for a full 6,000 feet. Is that again motivated by political considerations?
Does the Hon. Member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Darling) want to reflect on what he said and perhaps correct the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Saanich as well?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order. Before recognizing the Hon. Member to answer the question, the Chair must remind Hon. Members that the question is to be short and to

May 10, 1983
Borrowing Authority
the point. It has been suggested many times before that 90 seconds would be a reasonable time for a short and brief question.


Stan Darling: I appreciate the comments of the Hon. Minister of Supply and Services (Mr. Blais) regarding the many projects he has outlined. Those projects are included, I believe, in the Minister of Finance's budget which had some figures of $2.2 billion and then as high as $4 billion.


Jean-Jacques Blais: It was $2.4 billion.


Stan Darling: Certainly that money has to be spent around there and I appreciate especially the publicity given to the proposed expenditure at the Department of Transport base in Parry Sound amounting to $5 million. But that $5 million is certainly not all being spent this year, as I wish it was. I was with the Minister of Supply and Services, I guess it was a couple of years ago, when he made this announcement. Expenditures are being made on a gradual basis and a lot of these projects he has mentioned are being done on a gradual basis. I have heard of many of the projects the Government is proposing and has undertaken. Some of them will not be finished for five or six years down the road.
We have heard for a number of years about the frigate program. When I first came here the Government was going to build those six frigates at a cost considerably less than it is now. Where are those six frigates now? They are still on the drawing board. That program comes through the Minister's Department so it is about time he got them going and got the frigates, as I say, divided around the country, two to be built in Nova Scotia, two in Quebec and two on the west coast. That will generate jobs but it is money already pledged; and I could go on and on about other similar projects.


Jean-Jacques Blais: Mr. Speaker, I would simply indicate that indeed I gave a wrong figure; it is not $4 million for the Agribition, it is $5.7 million. As to the hon. gentleman's comments, he knows full well that since the frigate program has been my responsibility, it has proceeded in accordance with the schedule set. In addition, the Hon. Member is also aware, is he not, of the two 800 class navy tenders that I had the pleasure to commission within his area. He fully recognizes that is public funding from federal coffers and he fully recognizes as well that 90 workers in Parry Sound depend on federal programs. Of course, he is very cognizant of that fact and I am very grateful for it.


Mr. Cosgrove:: Mr. Speaker, in preparing its budget, and of course in coming to the deficit figures before us today, the Government took a lot of advice. I have before me a statement entitled "Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis from the Episcopal Commission for Social Affairs, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops". According to this statement, in recent years the Catholic Church has become increasingly concerned about the scourge of unemployment which plagues our society today and the corresponding struggles of workers in this country. The Bishops urge, Mr. Speaker, in developing strategies for economic recovery, that first priority must be
given to the real victims of the current recession, namely the unemployed, the welfare poor, the working poor, the pensioners, native people, women and young people.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order. I invite the Hon. Minister to relate his comments or remarks to those made earlier by the Hon. Member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Darling). The Minister is now quoting at length from a document.


Paul James Cosgrove: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I was indicating that this was part of the advice we received, that priority of expenditures should be for the unemployed, specifically those people I have made reference to. Therefore my question to the Hon. Member, who has spent a lot of time admonishing the Government for spending money to assist these people, specifically the $4.8 billion which is the main part of the budget designed to assist these people, is this. How would he suggest that the Government pay for that program designed to assist these people? By way of a deficit or by way of raising taxes? First of all, does he agree with the Bishops that this is an area the Government should address? Secondly, does he believe the deficit should be increased to do it? If he does not, what other ways does he recommend? Does he recommend an increase in taxes?


Stan Darling: Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the Minister, certainly I agree with the statement made by the Bishops. Certainly I agree that there are many disadvantaged people, unemployed people and people on welfare whom the Government must help. No question about that. We know the Government has to borrow because it does not have the money.
The Bill before us is for $14 billion. I am no financial genius but the Government is not bankrupt at the present time. As of April 30, a good many of us have been paying our taxes, not requesting additional tax refunds, so the Government should be in a most liquid financial position at this particular time. If the Bill had been brought in for $10 billion, I do not think the Government or the Minister of Finance would have gotten anywhere near the criticism they have. According to the records, the Government has that $2 billion at the present time. God knows how much has been pouring in since April 30.
Our Party is saying that the Government is too greedy and is asking for too much. If it spends the $10 billion and returns to Parliament with legitimate reasons to borrow more, Parliament will certainly grant the authority to borrow more money to carry on with worthy projects. But it is asking for too much and it will simply have the money sitting in the bank and be paying interest on it. I know high finance. When you have a large amount in the bank you get some interest on it but you do not get as much as you have to pay the bank. The banks have a sweet deal going for themselves. It loans the Government $14 billion while the Government has perhaps $5 million sitting in the bank. It is the Government's money and they will make money on the deal. That is the point that I disagree with
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and I am quite sure many of our Members on this side disagree with it also.


Mr. Lyle S. Kristiansen (Kootenay West):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak to this latest in a series of borrowing authority Bills, I believe it is fair to point out once again that this is the seventh borrowing Bill that Parliament has seen in the last 37 months, amounting to a total borrowing authority request of $77.3 billion, including the Bill before us today. In an effort to put that amount into perspective, on the basis of 1,123 days, which is three years and a month, that total breaks down to $68,833,482 per day. That is almost one half a million dollars a day for every Liberal Member of Parliament on the other side of the House.
It was interesting to hear the Minister of State for Finance (Mr. Cosgrove) refer to the Catholic Bishops' statement a few moments ago when he said there should be some emphasis placed, in terms of spending and priorities, for the care and support of 1.5 million unemployed and others in poverty or left out of our society. If it were the case that a significant proportion of these moneys were being spent for that purpose, those of us with some soul could at least understand the priorities of the Government for borrowing money to keep people alive and in good health. However, some of these moneys have been spent in heartless ways while other sums have been put to unproductive and counterproductive uses.
The main thrust of my speech will deal with one area of spending, both on the part of the federal Government and the provincial Government of British Columbia, for a project generally referred to as northeast coal. It is an example of how billions of dollars can be poured down the drain and not only wasted but spent in such a way as to destroy jobs that already existed as a result of public and private investment in the southeastern corner of British Columbia. The unreliable predictions of both the federal Government opposite and the Social Credit or social conservative Government of British Columbia have led to the waste of billions of dollars in competing not only with private sector money but with their own money that went into the infrastructure to develop southeastern coal resources a number of years ago, to improve the railway transport lines for that coal and build the transport and shipping facilities at Roberts Bank from whence the coal is shipped overseas.
As a result of the current wasted expenditures, despite all the warnings from both the Japanese and the industry in this country, those governments are destroying jobs, investments and the equity of shareholders who understandably thought they had a good investment in the coking coal of southeastern British Columbia.
There is a recent article in the April 21, 1983 edition of the Vancouver Sun, written by H. M. Halderson, a Vancouver mining consultant who in 1980 produced a report for the council of mayors of southeastern British Columbia on the effects of northeast coal development on their communities. That article concludes "Has the Government" ... both federal and provincial ... "shown good judgment in its investment in northeast coal? Subsidy to one segment of an industry at the expense of another and job creation in one part of the province
Borrowing Authority
that contributes to unemployment in another is hardly wise use of tax dollars."
The article ends with the question: "Does spending a huge sum to create production in the northeast when southeast mines can produce at a fraction of the Government's cost represent the restraint in Government spending of which we hear so much?"
The answer to the question is obvious to anyone who reads the article or is aware of any of the facts of that entire northeast project. The answer is that it does not make sense. It is not an example of restraint. It is, rather, an example of a Government-both the Liberal Government here and the Social Credit Government there-intent on churning out money and throwing it away to their friends in the private sector while refusing extended benefits to over 1.5 million unemployed in the country. Not only do they waste the money, they directly cause the lay-offs of hundreds more employees who are working in the southeastern coal fields of British Columbia. It is an absolutely insane policy which can be likened to someone standing in the back of a train and shoveling those billions of dollars out by the bucketful. The money is not only being wasted; it is causing the destruction of existing jobs.
I, along with the other people in southeastern British Columbia, are amazed by these policies. When politicians get into trouble they build pyramids. They have been doing so for 5,000 years. At least the edifices built by the Pharoahs are still standing. The pyramids and bubbles built by the federal Government and the provincial Government in Victoria crumble to dust before they have even been erected. Their collapse brings down everyone else with them.
These senseless policies are beyond description and can only be counterproductive. But they have become typical of Governments which would rather build new empires where there is little population and few communities so that they can let out contracts to their friends at public expense, rather than use the money intelligently to service communities which already exist and provide facilities for the people who already live there. They ignore the existing needs of people and dole out billions of dollars of public money in contracts to their friends. Those Governments then get together in some act of conspiracy, because they take the attitude that you offer more money to those who have when you want to give them incentives. But the Liberal and Conservative idea of providing an incentive to those who do not have is to cut their wages so that they will have to work harder, or to cut off their UIC to give them more incentive to work for lower wages.
That is what they have done with northeast coal. It has not been sufficient to destroy the communities and jobs for the people in southeastern British Columbia. By tampering with the Labour Relations Board and its rulings, they have broken provisions in union agreements that allowed workers to refuse to work alongside non-union labour. The result has been that we now see, as shown on the CTV network approximately a week ago on a program on northeast coal development, hobo jungles in which hundreds of people were standing in the cold

May 10, 1983
around campfires. For every person being paid $7 an hour on the job, being charged astronomical rates for very poor housing conditions on those jobs, ten are in those hobo jungles waiting for their jobs.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order. It being one o'clock p.m., I do now leave the chair until two o'clock p.m.
At 1 p.m. the House took recess.


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. Ron Stewart (Simcoe South):: Madam Speaker, it is very laudatory of the pro unilingual Secretary of State (Mr. Joyal) to announce the federal Government's participation in the 1984 celebration of the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the French explorer, Jacques Cartier's voyage to America. I commend him for having the foresight to present a half million dollar cheque to Quebec organizers this year for celebrations next year. I understand the total federal contribution will be $1.6 million. I also applaud Canada Post' decision to issue, jointly with France, a commemorative stamp in 1984.
This year, not next year, marks the four hundredth anniversary of Sir Humphrey Gilbert's discovery of Newfoundland, a possession of the British Crown and the first British colony. What did Newfoundland receive from our unbiased Government? A total grant of $394,000, with the cheque not yet forthcoming for this year's event.
Two years ago my colleague from Hastings-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington requested a postage stamp commen-morating in 1984 the heroic settlers known as the Empire Loyalists, but to no avail. The official terminology, as stated by the Minister's office, to be used in 200 years of development, because of opposition from Francophone groups. No joint U.S. Stamp and no announced funding-once again it is cut off all vestige of British heritage. If "Jack Carter" can get $1.6 million and a joint stamp with France, then we Englishspeaking, by population, deserve three times this amount for celebrations and our commemorative postal stamp.
Mr. Minister, fair is fair. What is good for the goose is good for the gander. Let us have equal treatment for all Canadians.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
[ Translation]



SHIPBUILDING


Mr. Jacques Olivier (Longueuil):: 

CANADA POST CORPORATION


Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Madam Speaker, postmasters in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan are soliciting advertising from local businesses to be placed in flyers printed by Canada Post, and distributed by Canada Post as it delivers the mail. Obviously, when you begin with a Government subsidized corporation and add to it a free delivery system, you can undercut the advertising rates of small weekly newspapers which depend for their very survival on the same advertising dollar.
Canada Post is not only subsidized by the taxpayer, it is also paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each year by these very same newspapers in delivery costs. This is a gross intrusion on the lifeblood of the weekly newspapers, given the fact that with their very own money Canada Post is undercutting them.
The Postmasters who sell this advertising are guaranteed a very handsome salary from the Government. On the other hand, salesmen who work for these papers are often paid on a commission basis. Postmasters are literally stealing from these salesmen.
Editors of weekly newspapers are a dedicated bunch. They are not in it for the money; they are in it to provide a much needed service to their communities.
This is a totally unfair and inexcusable use of taxpayers' money. This callous move by the Canada Post Corporation may push many small weeklies that are struggling to survive the recession out of business. The Minister responsible for Canada Post and the Minister responsible for the media-
May 10, 1983


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member for Prince Albert (Mr. Hovdebo).



EXPORT OF GRAIN THROUGH PORT OF CHURCHILL

Mr. Stan J. Hovdebo (Prince Albert):: Madam Speaker, I rise to speak against the federal Government's action in offering to rebuild the capacity of the Port of Churchill at the same time it has cut off further dealings with Poland, the country which receives most of its grain through that port.
Last year we exported 1.6 million metric tonnes of wheat to Poland, our third largest export market. This year we will sell almost nothing because the Liberal cabinet has cut off further export credits.
Last year the Port of Churchill exported 572,000 metric tonnes of grain. This year it will export far less because the Liberal cabinet will not allow the leading purchaser of grain to move through Churchill. The Government offer to upgrade Churchill is meaningless as long as it restricts potential markets.
Thus I must ask whether this offer was made in good faith in the first place. Since any upgrading funds for Churchill were conspicuously left out of the Western Transportation Initiative, I believe we can call Senator Argue's offer for Churchill another public relations ploy "that is full of sound and fury and signifies nothing".



ABORTION


Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, it is a continuing concern to me as a pro-life physician that the most vulnerable and voiceless in our society, the unborn child, is not given the fullest constitutional protection. The only protection afforded is the Criminal Code, Section 251, which makes abortion an indictible offence if not carried out in an accredited hospital, by qualified physicians, with consultation by three doctors, and only where the health or the life of the mother is endangered by continuing the pregnancy.
Even this protection is compromised by the interpretation attached to the word "health" of the mother. Should the definition of health be a medical or a legal one? Parliament did not define the word "health". The definition commonly used is the very broad one given by the World Health Organization, namely, "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity".
Therapeutic abortion committees were never legally empowered to use this extremely wide definition or similar concepts of health, in interpreting Section 251 of the Criminal Code. A
narrower concept of "health" is more appropriate. The law should only accept abortion as a medically indicated treatment when a majority of the members of a therapeutic abortion committee are of the personal, informed, and independent medical opinion that the life or physical or mental health of the mother is, or is likely to be, seriously and directly endangered by the continuation of the pregnancy itself. Furthermore, the committees should be held legally accountable for their decisions.



FISHERIES


Mr. Lloyd R. Crouse (South Shore):: Madam Speaker, a little over a year ago when the Kirby Task Force was created to deal with the crisis in the Atlantic fisheries it was faced with at least three problems of major importance-what to do about the economic plight of inshore fishermen, how to restructure the offshore industry, and what to do about marketing. To date the Task Force has failed on all these major problems. Groundfish prices paid in most of Atlantic Canada have remained virtually unchanged since 1979 while the costs of fuel and gear have risen steeply.
According to Kirby, fishermen as a group are living below the poverty line. Are we to assume that the Government condones this condition? However, according to the press of May 10, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane) announced, in St. John's Newfoundland, federal plans to spend $140.7 million on new installations across Canada. This is $60 million less than will be spent in the National Capital region this year for a new Museum of Man and a new art gallery. Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland will share almost equally some $106 million, with $12 million going to New Brunswick, $8 million to Prince Edward Island, and $8 million to British Columbia.
In a separate announcement in Matane, Gaspe, it was stated that $71 million out of a total of $224.5 million is to be spent on fisheries over the next five years for development of the Gaspe region. I urge the Ministers involved in these announcements to recognize the rights of parliamentarians, and make statements in the House so that Members can ask questions-


Madam Speaker:: Order.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: -about the priorities used by the Government-


Madam Speaker:: Order.


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: -when allocating funds for restructuring the Fishing industry.


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. Hon. Members must stop immediately. No one is entitled to more than 90 seconds.


Jack Wendele Shields: I stopped.

May 10, 1983



U4I0) NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS CALL FOR SUMMIT MEETING BETWEEN AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN LEADERS

Mr. Bill Yurko (Edmonton East):: Madam Speaker, on March 16 1 said the following in the House:
This fear and anxiety of nuclear annihilation comes not from delivery systems but from nuclear warheads which have multiplied unchecked in an almost crazy, insane, mad progression which must be checked and reversed. The task is to do away with nuclear warheads and their deployment. Summit level meetings are vital and mandatory.
The recent announcement by General Secretary Andropov to base negotiations on warheads rather than just missiles is an encouraging development.
On November 17 and again on November 24, 1982,1 moved motions in the House calling for unanimous support for a summit meeting within 18 months between President Reagan and General Secretary Andropov to strengthen nuclear detente and initiate the process for nuclear arms stabilization and eventual reduction. Twice the House would not give its unanimous consent. I hope it has changed its mind.
Since then Canadians were pleased to know that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) pleaded with President Reagan to hold a summit meeting. Everyone in the House should also plead and support unanimously the need for such a summit meeting. I hope the Government will put forth such a motion. I am prepared to circulate a petition for signature by all Hon. Members and Senators, supporting a summit meeting.



NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS


Miss Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), afraid to debate in the House of Commons the Cruise missile issue, has said in a planted letter to newspapers that Canadians who oppose Cruise missile tests are anti-American. Does the Prime Minister not know that the American people themselves are increasingly opposed to the continuation of the nuclear arms madness, that the House of Representatives has just passed, 278 to 149, a resolution calling for a mutual, verifiable nuclear freeze? Canadians who oppose the further escalation of the nuclear arms race and Canada's participation in it by testing the Cruise, do so in concert with the majority of Americans. Are the majority of Americans anti-American?
The Prime Minister says we must test nuclear weapons as payment for the American defence umbrella. Yet the Reagan strategy for a massive nuclear arms build-up, space based weapons, and winnable nuclear war, and the inevitable Soviet countering moves, is no umbrella. It is the shadowy Horsemen of the Apocalypse that Americans themselves are rejecting.
It is the Prime Minister, not Canadians, who is being hypocritical on this issue, saying that Cruise missile testing
will not be agreed to until progress has been measured at the Geneva talks, when we all know that he has given assurances to the Reagan administration that testing will go ahead. Or is this planted letter an attempt to soften up Canadians for Canada's next leap in the nuclear arms race?



CANADA POST CORPORATION


Mr. Jean-Guy Dubois (Lotbiniere):: Madam Speaker, today it is exactly one year and two days since the tragic death of Gilles Villeneuve, the Formula I automobile racer. He was a great Canadian and French Canadian who put his area, the Province of Quebec and Canada on the map in this field. Gilles Villeneuve was practically the first Canadian to become world famous in this sport. Much has been said since then, and this weekend, articles in the press commemorated this tragic event. Many people and organizations talked about honouring the memory of this famous figure who made a name for Canada abroad. I wonder, Madam Speaker, whether the Minister responsible for the Canada Post Corporation would be willing to issue a stamp commemorating Gilles Villeneuve as a great Canadian who became world famous and also helped to illustrate the values of French Canadians and gained recognition for automobile racing, a sport that did not have a large following here in Canada and that is now far better known, thanks to Gilles Villeneuve.



REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION


Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Madam Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Lumley) admitted that the ILAP program was finished as far as new applications were concerned. The Midland-Penetangui-shene ILAP Committee spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours in preparing its application for designation udner the Program. It has been waiting patiently for more than three months for a decision on its appliation, and the Minister has now decided that its application is worthless.
The people of the area need help because the unemployment rate is 33 per cent. They do not need more Liberal promises that another program is on the way which will solve all their problems. Stalling solves no problems; it creates problems. We on this side of the House urge the Liberal Government to show some concern for the communities of Canada such as Mid-land-Penetanguishene, and immediately move to bring in its industrial and regional expansion program.
May 10, 1983



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Scott Fennell (Ontario):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works. It follows on a question by the Hon. Member for Joliette on April 26 when he asked the Minister to explain why there was an exemption from the six and five program to selected employees of Canada Lands (Mirabel) Ltd. As reported at page 24864 of Hansard, the Minister responded that he would check, "but I would be very surprised if that were true". Two days later, on April 28, Order in Council No. 1983-1013 was cancelled and was replaced by No. 1983-1247. The second Order in Council retained exactly what the first one had in place.
Apart from dealing with the reasoning behind the exemption, will the Minister also explain what is behind all this mysterious activity? Why was he not aware of the original Order in Council regarding the employees of Canada Lands Mirabel Ltd. and the six and five program? Why was the original Order revoked just two days after we asked about it and replaced with one with the same result?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of Public Works):: Madam Speaker, when the Hon. Member asked me the question, I said that I would check into the facts because I did not remember whether this item had come before me. In fact, when I checked, it had never been submitted to me. This was a reorganization of the personnel of La Societe immobiliere du Canada (Mirabel) Ltee which took place many months ago. Outside experts were called in, with the permission of Treasury Board, to review classifications of that personnel equivalent to the classification levels in the rest of the Public Service. The report was given to la Societe which submitted it to Treasury Board. Treasury Board examined the issue and my colleague, the President of the Treasury Board, is in a position to answer.
My understanding is that the issue of classification and the issue of six and five are completely separate. It was felt that people who had positions similar to those in the Public Service should be given the normal salaries to which they were entitled.


Thomas Scott Fennell: That is ridiculous. There are two sets of rules-one for public servants, and one for employees of Crown corporations and employees of private corporations like Maislin.


ROLE OF CHAIRMAN IN NEGOTIATING SALARIES
Thomas Scott Fennell: Madam Speaker, obviously Mr. Goyer, the chairman of Canada Lands (Mirabel) Ltd., negotiated this Order in Council directly with Treasury Board. Would the Minister answer yes or no?


Roméo LeBlanc: Madam Speaker, I have no knowledge of who approached Treasury
Oral Questions
Board. There is a normal procedure for Crown corporations when they deal with Treasury Board.


APPLICATION OF RESTRAINT PROGRAM
Thomas Scott Fennell: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the President of the Treasury Board. Obviously he knows about this Order in Council and the Minister of Public Works should have known about it. Could he enlighten the House why the employees of Canada Lands (Mirabel) Ltd. were exempted from the six and five program when all other public servants at Mirabel were left in the program?


Hon. Herb Gray (President of the Treasury Board):: Madam Speaker, Section 16 of the Public Service Compensation Restraint Act indicates that the Governor in Council can exempt from coverage of the Act employees who enter into an agreement or who are covered by a compensation plan which is consistent with the six and five program. As the Minister of Public Works said, a compensation plan was put into effect which strictly followed the six and five program and, as a result, pursuant to a decision of Parliament, the Governor in Council applied Section 16.
My hon. friend is completely wrong when he says that the six and five program does not apply to the employees. The Act applies to them pursuant to Section 16. Their compensation plan is strictly within the six and five limits.


EXEMPTIONS UNDER STATUTE
Mr. Harvie Andre (Calgary Centre):: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the President of the Treasury Board. He just told us that because this Crown corporation, headed by Jean-Pierre Goyer, has negotiated an agreement with its employees which is in six and five, therefore the Public Service Restraint Act, in other words, the six and five program, would not apply to those Crown corporation employees. That is an absurdity on the surface of it. Will he tell this House how it is that this kind of exemption can be made from the fundamental promise by the Liberal Government that six and five applies to everyone in Government?
How is a Crown corporation allowed to be exempted without the Minister who is supposed to be responsible to this House knowing that? Can he also tell us how many other Crown corporations and how many other ways he has found to exempt these friends of the Government from the application of this law which the Government said was so fundamental and would be universally applied?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, if my hon. friend would engage his ear before engaging his mouth, he would have heard me say that the employees of this company are not exempted from the six and five program. The compensation plan applying to them is

May 10, 1983
Oral Questions
strictly within the limits of the six and five program. Further, Section 16 of the Public Service Compensation Restraint Act states that the Governor in Council can take this kind of step where employees accept a collective agreement or where a compensation plan is applied to them consistent with the six and five principle.
This is not the first time the Section has been used. It was used at least twice previously, to my recollection, when employees working within the Public Service negotiated an agreement with Treasury Board as employer whereby they accepted the six and five compensation framework and made adjustments within it. Therefore, these steps were taken before at the request of employees of the Public Service, and I am glad the Hon. Member is willing to say that they are friends of the Government.


REASON FOR EXEMPTIONS
Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, the Minister should ensure that his brain is in gear before engaging his jaw. How can he suggest that exempting Crown corporations from the six and five law is the way in which employees of Crown corporations comply with the law? That is an absurdity on the surface of it.
This is the same Minister who could not explain how it was that senior executives in the Public Service avoided six and five by simply upgrading. We now have twice as many managers as we had previous to six and five, which was another way of avoiding it. The Minister has not explained to the House how many Crown corporations and how many other groups have been exempted. He still has not explained why. We know it is Section 16, but why are they exempted?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, I am afraid my hon. friend is also unaware of my exchange with his colleague seated a few rows behind him on the subject, and the press release I issued explaining that we have not created more managers. There was the implementation of a new category of management, starting back in 1980, and in it are only those people who were managers previously. Therefore, it was not a device used in any way to create additional managers to whom the six and five program does not apply.
The second thing I want to say is that Section 16 of the Act passed by this Parliament said that the Act formally would not apply where there are agreements or compensation plans within the six and five framework. The employees of Canada Lands Corporation are not entitled to get more than six and five. That is the fact and exactly the case in so far as I am aware of it.


NUCLEAR ARMAMENTS
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. An article which appeared in many newspapers today quotes the Prime Minister on the question of the Cruise missile. The Prime Minister indicated that in part the development of the Cruise can be justified as being necessitated for defence against the deployment of the Soviet SS-20. While the SS-20 ought never have to have been deployed, the relevant question being pursued by many people now is whether this action by the Soviet Union necessitates a further escalation in the West.
Considering that literally hundreds of thousands of North Americans, including many experts, have said that now is the time to break the vicious circle of nuclear armaments, why is the Prime Minister not supporting this disarmament movement but instead continues to support the testing of the Cruise?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, I must first point out that there has been no request made of Canada to test the Cruise. There is, therefore, no support for the testing of the Cruise. It has not been asked of us and, therefore, we have not given an answer.
I just wish to correct the end of the question. The substance of the question is to ask why do we not support the peace movement now rather than say we should make sure that there is an answer within NATO against the SS-20. It seems to me there may be an honest disagreement there. To me it is not illogical to use the possibility of deploying the Cruise and the Pershing II to get the Soviets to withdraw all or some of their SS-20s. The argument, of course, rests on whether the SS-20s were necessary or whether they were just an escalation by the Soviets. If they are, as NATO holds, a needless escalation by the Soviets, the problem for the NATO force is how can we get the Soviets to de-escalate. There the proof of the pudding is in the results.
The two-track strategy adopted by NATO in 1979 has led Secretary Andropov twice to propose reductions of the SS-20, once in December and once just a week ago. Therefore it seems to me that we cannot condemn in advance any potential deployment by NATO of a European Euromissile if the result of it continues to be as it is now, a reduction in the number of these SS-20s.


VIEWS OF FORMER HEAD OF U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister, who has followed the literature on this with some care, I understand, knows perfectly well that whenever there is an escalation it is always justified by either side in terms of being a step required to get the opponent to come to terms with regard to negotiations or to de-escalate on the other side. I see the Prime Minister nodding to that. In short, it is
May 10, 1983

the kind of argument in which there is no empirical evidence to support strongly one way or the other.
The Prime Minister is not an expert in this field, nor am I. The former head of the CIA wrote an article last week in opposition to the Cruise. He can hardly be called anti-American. He said:
The Soviets are certainly not "superior" to the United States in any meaningful way today ... The present American retaliation potential is absolute.
Considering that Mr. Colby says that in terms of the present weaponry, does this not cause the Prime Minister to question his own judgment? Does it not pose for him the necessity of Canada joining with the U.S. Congress in calling for a freeze at this time?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, there are several questions contained in that. The actions of the U.S. Congress, or indeed of Americans who are arguing against President Reagan's over-all nuclear policy, are one thing. I am not supporting President Reagan's over-all nuclear policy. It is not my purpose to do so. I have not been asked to do so. What I am supporting is NATO's two-track policy. That can be accepted even if we agree with some of the statements quoted by my hon. friend.
I have not seen that statement by the former director of the CIA, but some of the quotes would be acceptable to me in the sense that there is certainly power of overkill in the United States now and power of overkill in the Soviet Union now. In other words, either side is in a position to destroy not only the enemy but probably a large part of humanity as well.
I do not know, Madam Speaker, what kibitzing is coming from the NDP. If they want a rational answer they should listen to me.


CANADIAN ROLE IN SEEKING DISARMAMENT
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister has just said that the United States is in a position to wipe out the Soviet Union. Of course the Soviet Union is now in a position to wipe out the United States, and both are potentially in a position to wipe out mankind. If that is the case, I should like to know the logic of the two-track position. Why is it necessary to go ahead with the Cruise? Does it not make much more sense for Canada to act as a peaceful power, to take serious steps to bring about nuclear disarmament in the world, instead of contributing to its escalation in the opposite direction?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, it makes eminent good sense. I hope we are acting as a peaceful power and a power that is seeking the eventual reduction of nuclear arms. That does not contradict my previous assertion that both super powers can destroy each other. That is the rationale of the deterrence that each side holds and which has deterred nuclear war since both sides have had the nuclear power.
Oral Questions
The Cruise, the Pershing II, and the SS-20s are a completely different argument. What NATO is attempting to do is answer a theatre nuclear arm, the SS-20. We are saying that in so far as the survival of the United States the survival of the Soviet Union are concerned, both have cause to fear each other and therefore they are unlikely to start fighting against each other. But what is to prevent the Soviet Union if it wishes to start a limited war in Europe with SS-20s? I do not know how limited it would be, but we know they have 300 or 400 SS-20s, each with three nuclear warheads which are capable of destroying all of western Europe. We know that as a fact.
How does NATO, which includes countries in Europe, counter that? It can only counter it by saying to the United States, "Well, if the Soviet Union attacks western Europe, you send off your big ones and destroy all of humanity."
Does it not make sense, Madam Speaker, in Europe to try to have a counter threat to the Soviet Union so that it will not use its SS-20s on western Europe, any more than it would use its ICBMs on the United States of America?


AGREEMENTS WITH SASKATCHEWAN ON USE OF TESTING RANGE
Hon. Erik Nielsen (Leader of the Opposition):: Madam Speaker, I have a brief question for the Prime Minister whose letter I read with interest, particularly where he made reference to hypocrites, and with respect to the statement made by the Hon. Member for New Westminster-Coquitlam and the questions of the Leader of the New Democratic Party. I am sure that the answer to the question is yes.
Do there exist in the Government of Canada four agreements: one of August, 1953; one of October, 1965; one of May, 1975, and one of April, 1981, signed originally by the Government of Canada with the Douglas NDP Government of the Province of Saskatchewan and latterly, in 1981, between the Government of Canada and the Government of Mr. Blakeney, the NDP Government of Saskatchewan, giving the Government of Canada exclusive use of the Primrose testing range in that Province, and making specific reference to missiles' testing, and again, ratified and reconfirmed in 1981 by the NDP Government of Mr. Blakeney, of Saskatchewan?
I think if the Government could table those four agreements, which I do not think affect national security, that would be of some assistance in sorting out the hypocrites and establishing the political stances of the political Parties on this question.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I would not want the Hon. Member to make too much of a phrase in which I said that the anti-Americanism of some Canadians verges on hypocrisy, but I think the question of the Leader of the Opposition stands. He has referred to some facts which are well known. I could not vouch for the exact dates that he mentioned, but I think the case that he intended to make by his question to me stands, perhaps, for the NDP to consider.

May 10, 1983
Oral Questions


REQUEST THAT AGREEMENTS BE TABLED
Erik Nielsen: Madam Speaker, I wonder if the Minister of National Defence would undertake to consider the request I have made with respect to the tabling of those four agreements. In that way we could all be fully familiar with the stance of the New Democratic Party and its obvious support of the testing of missiles under the NDP Government of the Province of Saskatchewan.


Hon. J. Gilles Lamontagne (Minister of National Defence):: Madam Speaker, I am ready to examine the proposition made by the Leader of the Opposition and will certainly look into it very carefully. If there is nothing confidential about them, they could be tabled. I am sure they would provide some light to the NDP.


SUPPLY AND SERVICES
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of the Environment my question is directed to the President of the Treasury Board who is supposed to be looking after the financial affairs of the country and the spending of money.
The Minister will know that yesterday the Minister of the Environment announced a sweetheart contract for de Havil-land Canada for $37 million to fix up a Dash-7 which is really only worth $12 million. The program was announced on the basis of special recovery. This is a cost to Canada of $100,000 for every job created.
Is this part of the Government's Special Economic Recovery Program, or is it really a program to recover de Havilland the same as the Government is trying to recover Canadair with sweetheart contracts for aircraft that may or may not be required?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of Supply and Services: Madam Speaker, I will be pleased to take that question. The purchase of the Dash-7 is part of the Special Economic Recovery Program. I might indicate to the hon. gentleman, who comes from Toronto where de Havilland is located, that I would have expected him to be more favourably inclined toward an announcement like that.
The aircraft is being purchased for ice reconnaissance purposes. It is an application to which the plane has not been put before, but to which it can be very readily adapted.
I should like to draw to the attention of the Hon. Member for Scarborough East, who asked a question about this in committee last week, that we are going to be incorporating Canadian technology into the Dash-7, involving side-looking radar which, of course, is being developed in Canada, with 85 per cent Canadian content, as a result of the initiative of Canadians in this regard.


COMPARISON OF AIRCRAFT TYPES
Donald Alex Blenkarn: Madam Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister where he gets the idea that people will buy this aircraft as a surveillance aircraft when he knows that it is a short-range aircraft. Its ability to stay over an air target area is less than 60 per cent of the 1950 vintage Lougheed Electra that is presently being used. How does he expect people to spend money to buy an aircraft that cannot perform as well as one with 1950 technology?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of Supply and Services: Madam Speaker, I can assure the hon. gentleman that the purchase is being made after due and very serious consideration. I would hope that he would have sufficient pride in Canadian technology to give every consideration to initiatives being taken by the Government and by a Crown corporation of Canada to develop Canadian technology not only for domestic purposes but for international purposes.
I might indicate to the hon. gentleman that it happens that in Canada we have ice conditions in the Great Lakes region for close to three months of the year.


FISHERIES
Mr. Alexandre Cyr (Gaspe):: My question is directed to the Hon. Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
The fisheries industry in Quebec is in very bad shape, if we consider the fact that today, processing plants owned by the Pecheurs Unis du Quebec have not yet started their operations. I know the Hon. Minister has submitted a recovery program, that is, a financing program to the fishermen and plant employees, and also to the financial institutions, so that 2,500 fishermen and factory workers can go to work.
Can the Minister inform the House today whether he feels that the proposed plan will be accepted by all parties, so that factory workers and fishermen can be given the assurance that they will be able to go back to work within the next few weeks?


Hon. Pierre De Bane (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Madam Speaker, the problem the Government has decided to examine is far more extensive than the case to which the Hon. Member for Gaspe (Mr. Cyr) is referring. In fact, we now have five companies in the Maritimes, including the Pecheurs Unis du Quebec, with a total of sixty factories, which are on the brink of bankruptcy.
In the event of a bankruptcy, there will be the usual sales of several million dollars worth of fish at fire sale prices, which
May 10, 1983

would depress prices for the 500 fish-processing plants on the Atlantic coast.
That is why the Canadian Government has suggested that if all creditors were prepared to join in a co-operative effort with the Federal Government, together we would be able to prevent a veritable bankruptcy epidemic.
At this very moment, every single creditor of these sixty processing plants, with 45,000 jobs that are on the line, have agreed to the plan, except for the Government of Quebec, which has seized certain assets. We must not forget that if one creditor starts seizing assets, all others will follow suit in order to recover their losses, and in that case, all the efforts of the Canadian Government would be-


Madam Speaker:: Order, order!


RAILWAYS
Mr. Les Benjamin (Regina West):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport who made it plain at his press conference last week that variable rates would be in his legislation. I am sure the Minister is aware that Mr. Snavely, who did a lot of his consulting work, said that this will depopulate the Prairies, even though he agrees with the efforts of the Minister. Would the Minister tell us if he is going to continue to insist on installing the principle of variable rates, which will allow the railways to continue to abandon another 44 branch lines, or nearly 2,000 kilometres of railway in western Canada, which was their initial objective? Some of those lines are in the basic network.


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, obviously my hon. friend wants the best of both worlds. He does not want to see the Bill, yet he wants to see what is in the Bill. I believe we are going to decide on that in a few minutes, and in the following days I will have ample opportunity to answer any questions on that particular subject.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Madam Speaker, we could not care less if we never saw the Bill.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: If the Minister would agree to withdraw it, go back to the drawing board and accept our alternative proposal, he would have no problems in western Canada.


REQUEST THAT GOVERNMENT TAKE EQUITY SHARES IN RAILWAYS
Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Madam Speaker, since statutory grain rates and rehabilitation of main railway lines in
Oral Questions
western Canada are two entirely separate issues, and since only about 15 per cent of track capacity will be used to haul grain, it is obvious, contrary to the mythology perpetuated by the Minister and others, that the railways will be rehabilitated to haul all commodities and people, not just grain. Does the Minister agree that he and the Government have a responsibility to protect the investment of the taxpayers of Canada for capital improvements on the railways, and obtain a return on that investment by way of dividends, by taking equity shares in the railways in return for the capital investment?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I can only repeat the answers I have already given. My hon. friend says he could not care less if he never saw the Bill. I was in the West on Friday. My hon. friend, the Minister of Agriculture, was there yesterday. Everyone we met said, before committing himself or herself one way or the other, "We want to see the Bill." This afternoon at a press conference I will have a chance to quote from different farm and other organizations in the West, way back to 1981, asking the Government to come up with a Bill on the Crowsnest rate. That has been said in the West for three years now, and I will demonstrate it by quoting from these people this afternoon. That is what we are doing.


REGIONAL ECONOMIC EXPANSION
Hon. J. Robert Howie (York-Sunbury):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion. The Minister of Fisheries has announced plans to spend $140.7 million-$12.2 million of it in New Brunswick- "to give tools to fishermen to improve their profession." He has indicated some very interesting programs to achieve that purpose. In view of the serious structural problems which have been identified in the fishing industry in Atlantic Canada and in Quebec, will the Minister tell the House if his Department has accepted, as a special target, the development of fishing related industries in Atlantic Canada and Quebec, such as the manufacture of deck hardware, navigational aids, fishing equipment, and medicines and chemicals from ocean resources, these industries where the big bucks are really being made?


Hon. Ed Lumley (Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Madam Speaker, first of all I would like to join with the honourable member in congratulating the Minister of Fisheries on the tremendous initiative which he has taken for the whole fisheries industry.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!

May 10, 1983
Oral Questions


Edward C. Lumley: Second, Madam Speaker, I believe the Hon. Member has enunciated very clearly the opportunities which could arise as a result of the development of that indigenous resource. My colleague, the Minister of Fisheries, in his previous capacity as Minister of Regional Economic Expansion, has already indicated to me several opportunities he sees in the manufacturing and processing side of the industry and we will be working together in this regard.


SUPPORT SOUGHT FOR ENTREPRENEURS
J. Robert Howie: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to hear the Minister mention the manufacturing and processing aspect of the industry. The Minister of Fisheries has just indicated that this aspect of the industry is in real trouble, on the verge of bankruptcy, and the Minister has indicated measures to make the fishing industry more efficient. I would like to know if the Minister of Industry will demonstrate some action in his Department in targeting for supplementary industries relating to the fishing industry, such as deck hardware and navigational aids, and industries which do not exist now in the Atlantic Provinces and in Quebec, and where there are really good paying jobs and a tremendous potential? Will the Minister activate his Department to move from being passive to being active in bringing together the entrepreneurs and the programs to help lift the fishing industry out of its doldrums and make the largest fishing potential in the world the most productive?


Edward C. Lumley: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member raises some excellent ideas and I would be more than happy to work with him in maximizing our potential in this regard.
* * [DOT]


SHIPBUILDING
Joseph Mario Jacques Olivier: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. Several months ago, the Canadian Government asked two companies for an analysis of the construction of several frigates. One of the companies is Scan Marine, located in Longueuil, and the other company is located in Eastern Canada and supported by U.S. know-how through the Sperry Corporation. Can the Minister inform the House whether he can confirm what the Conservative critic, supported by the Member for Joliette, said, namely, that the best ship is the one proposed by the company in Saint John, and that the analysis is now complete and has been submitted to Cabinet? Can the Minister confirm to the House today that the best ship is the one proposed by Saint John, as maintained by the Progressive Conservative Party?


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, I feel that as Minister of National Defence, my main responsibility is to ensure that our Canadian forces get the best possible equipment. I think that our main consideration must be to provide the most effective equipment available to our armed forces who must be able to use it for our country's defence. As far as the frigate program is concerned, two proposals were made to the Department, one by Scan Marine and the other by Saint John Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. Both proposals have been assessed as objectively as possible and without a hint of partisanship on the part of the Department. We have tried to weigh the pros and cons of each proposal and were very careful to remain as objective as possible. This assessment is now nearing completion and will be submitted to the Cabinet Committee on Defence and subsequently to various agencies which will have to check the assessment. An appropriate decision will be made, as objectively as possible, considering the interest of all Canadians.


CANADIAN HERITAGE
Mr. Bill Vankoughnet (Hastings-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State. In light of the program of support for national celebrations marking landmark events in Canadian history, a program which has allocated $1.6 million to celebrate the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Jacque Cartier's landing in Canada, and $1.5 million to the Toronto International Festival as part of Toronto's sesquicentennial, would the Minister indicate, other than negotiations, what actual contributions, financial and otherwise, his Ministry has made to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec or Ontario, to mark the bicentennial of the United Empire Loyalists' migration to Canada, in 1983 and 1984?


Hon. Serge Joyal (Secretary of State):: Madam Speaker, I can inform the Hon. Member that several months ago, the Premier of Ontario wrote to the Prime Minister of Canada, informing him that Ontario intended to celebrate this occasion but did not intend to spend considerable sums of money, in view of the economic situation. We expressed our interest to the Government of Ontario and indicated our intention to make a contribution to the festivities. A few weeks ago, I had a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture of Ontario who has promised to send me a list, by the end of May, of projects the Government of Ontario would like to submit to the Canadian Government for joint financing.
May 10, 1983


CANADA POST CORPORATION
William John Vankoughnet: Madam Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Minister responsible for Canada Post who recently announced the issuing of a postage stamp, jointly by Canada and France, for 1984, to commemorate the four hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Jacques Cartier's voyage to America. Has the Minister or his officials considered the issuing of a joint Canada-United States stamp commemorating the bicentennial of the migration of loyal Americans to Canada, for the 1984 stamp program?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs):: Madam Speaker, as you know, there is already one joint stamp issue being planned with the U.S. authorities. I am not ruling out the possibility that there could be another joint issue, and I think the Hon. Member's suggestion could be referred to the committee which advises the Minister on the selection of subjects for Canadian stamps.


AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry. Allen Industries were located in Hamilton. They have decided to move their plant to Richmond, Virginia. They make moulded insulation and they intend to sell by far the bulk of the moulded insulation they will make at that plant, to Ford, at Oakville. Will the Minister meet with Ford and Allen Industries and point out to them that, under the auto pact, there is indeed a requirement for some Canadian content, and that we are not going to tolerate this continuous moving away of plants from Ontario and other parts of Canada to the United States?


Edward C. Lumley: Madam Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for giving me advance notice of the question. I would like to advise him that my officials, as well as my colleague, the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, are already on top of the situation, and a meeting with the company is planned within a week.


FIRESTONE TIRE AND RUBBER COMPANY
Ian Deans: Madam Speaker, I am disappointed to hear about the Minister of Indian Affairs because nothing he has ever touched has ever worked. In the process of meeting with Allen Industries might the Minister be able to report to me on the outcome of meetings with Firestone
Oral Questions
Tire and Rubber Company, another company which seems to be running into serious difficulties in Hamilton, to determine whether or not Firestone is ready to go ahead with its expansion and whether it is likely to get the money promised it by the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs?


Edward C. Lumley: Madam Speaker, I know the Hon. Member is interested in this issue as are all Members from Hamilton, but again my colleague, the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, who has dedicated a substantial portion of his life to the economic betterment of the people of the Hamilton area, is on top of this matter. We are meeting with the Firestone people this afternoon. But I do know of the Hon. Member's interest in this regard, and I hope we will have a positive response for him this afternoon.


MEDICAL CARE
Mr. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. On April 22 the Minister wrote a letter to the James Bay Tribal Council regarding the Moose Factory Hospital ward closure, stating that the hospital would be able to operate with the ward closed. Since the closure of the ward the nurse-patient ratio has gone from one to four, to one to eight or nine. Can the Minister tell me if her Ministry is looking into adding additional staff to the hospital to bring it back to the ratio of one to four?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Not to my knowledge, Madam Speaker. The objective I have in the Department is, of course, the health and well-being of people. The ratio might have changed the way the Hon. Member suggests. However, the beds have never been fully occupied in the past and we have adapted to that in deciding on the allocation of staff to the Moose Factory General Hospital. I am satisfied for the time being that the health of the people there is well looked after.


QUALITY OF SERVICE
John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Madam Speaker, in checking this morning with the Tribal Council I have been assured that the service since the closure of that ward has decreased. Can the Minister tell me if her officials are prepared to meet with the Council as soon as possible to make sure health care needs are met?


Monique Bégin: Madam Speaker, I can reiterate to the Hon. Member, as I did to the local community, that there has been no reduction in services provided by the Moose Factory Hospital
Oral Questions
to the people of the James Bay area. Basically that is what counts. That is our objective, and it is well met.


PENSIONS
Mr. Vince Dantzer (Okanagan North):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Treasury Board who will know that in the Green Paper on pension reform, strongly endorsed by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of National Health and Welfare, there was a call for the splitting of pension credits on marriage breakdown. Does the Minister intend to change the Superannuation Act and the Diplomatic Service Act regarding that particular item?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Madam Speaker, this kind of question and a number of others involving the Superannuation Act will be considered by the Government in the context of the debate on the Green Paper. As yet the Government has not taken any decision with respect to proposals in the Green Paper concerning the private pension system, and we feel our decisions with respect to any changes in the Public Service system should be in the context of our consideration of the larger issues.


Vincent Martin Dantzer: Madam Speaker, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and the National Council of Women are today appearing before the Pension Committee. I am sure those groups will be very sorry to hear that the Government is dragging its feet on this issue when it should be the leader.


PROTECTION SOUGHT FOR EX-SPOUSES OF ARMED FORCES PERSONNEL
Vincent Martin Dantzer: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. It is my understanding that the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act does not include any provision for splitting of pension credits on marriage breakdown. The Minister will admit this is particularly important because members of the Armed Forces travel all over the world and it is very difficult for their spouses, who usually travel with them, to get employment during their careers. I would like to know what the Minister is doing to protect those spouses in the event of marriage breakdown.


J. Gilles Lamontagne: Madam Speaker, all of these questions on superannuation are under study in our Department. I admit to the hon. gentleman that in the Armed Forces there are some exigencies that are not the same as with other public servants. I assume him that I will look into the matter and give the Hon. Member an adequate answer in written fashion.
May 10, 1983


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Yesterday was an allotted day but as a result of the Government not having its Members in place, we were unable to vote. Consequently, on our allotted day we lost two and three-quarters hours of debating time which was being devoted to the very important mining industry in Canada.
I would ask the Government House Leader (Mr. Pinard), in arranging the House business for next week, if he would consider taking that loss of time into account and perhaps replacing it as soon as possible?
[Translation)


Mr. Pinard:: Madam Speaker, I shall try to count the Government days lost as a result of a similar attitude on the part of the Opposition, and as soon as I have been able to make some comparisons, I will be in a position to give the Hon. Member a more knowledgeable answer.


POINT OF ORDER
Mr. Doug Anguish (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order in relation to a question asked today in the House by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Nielsen). I believe he inadvertently misled the House in the preamble to his question. I would suggest that in relation to the question he asked about the Primrose air weapons range there are a couple of factors that bear on his statement.


Madam Speaker:: Order. I am sure the Hon. Member knows that that is not a point of order. He is simply pursuing the Question Period. He may do that tomorrow since that is the time when it would be appropriate.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Jean Lapierre (Parliamentary Secretary to Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, further to the question asked yesterday by the Hon. Member for the Opposition, I am tabling an

May 10, 1983

exchange of diplomatic notes with the United States concerning the unfortunate incident that took place in Manitoba.


COLUMBIA RIVER TREATY
Mr. Dave Dingwall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 46(2), I would like to table in both official languages the Annual Report of the Columbia River Treaty Permanent Engineering Board of the Governments of the United States and Canada for the period of October 1, 1981 to September 30, 1982.
* *
*


WESTERN GRAIN TRANSPORTATION ACT
Jean-Luc Pepin: that Bill C-155, an Act to facilitate the transportation, shipping and handling of western grain and to amend certain Acts in consequence thereof, be now read the first time and printed.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Madam Speaker:: All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


Madam Speaker:: All those opposed will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


Madam Speaker:: In my opinion the yeas have it.
And more than five Members having risen:


Madam Speaker:: Call in the Members.


Madam Speaker:: The motion is carried.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Madam Speaker:: When shall the said Bill be read the second time, at the next sitting of the House?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Madam Speaker:: The Hon. President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard), on a point of order.


Yvon Pinard: Yes, Madam Speaker. When you put the question, namely, when Bill C-155 would be read the second time, you gave the customary answer. I would like to make it clear to the House that we shall start consideration of the second reading stage of this Bill on Thursday morning at eleven o'clock.
2. We do not produce figures by income range on changes or unchanged returns. The totals are as follows:
1979	1980	1981*Tax	Tax	TaxYear	Year	Year(a) Assessed as	submitted	8,367,822	8,067,040	8,112,023(b) Revised by the Income Tax	Department	6,314,333	6,697,838	6,954,212
* These are preliminary figures, representing approximately 97.5 per cent of the total number of returns expected for the 1981 taxation year.
Source: Unpublished Statistics-"Counts and Amounts".
(c) Since the introduction of the T1 special return it has not been possible to produce statistics on the types of tax return preparers as the T1 Special does not provide a space for completion by the preparer.


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 question will be answered today: No. 4,745.


Mr. Lewis: 1.	How many individual income tax returns were filed for the (a) 1979 (b)
1980 (c) 1981 taxation year by taxfilers in the net income category of (i) under $20,000 (ii) $20,000 to $29,999 (iii) $30,000 to $39,999 (iv) $40,000 to $49,999 (v) $50,000 and over?
2.	For the same years and in the same net income categories, how many returns were (a) assessed as submitted by the taxfiler (b) revised by the Income Tax Department and assessed (c) prepared by someone other than the taxfiler?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of National Revenue):: 1.
No statistics are produced by "net" income category. The following are comparable statistics by "total" category, which is defined as net income from self-employment plus the total of all income from all other sources, as indicated on page one of the tax return.


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


Madam Speaker:: The question mentioned by the parliamentary secretary has been answered. Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
Total	1979	1980	1981*Income	Tax	Tax	TaxCategory	Year	Year	Yearunder $20,000	12,059,247	11,346,417	10,796,72720,000-29,999	1,842,067	2,269,389	2,584,29230,000-39,999	474,724	674,784	1,008,65040,000-49,999	143,694	227,638	340,39650,000 and over	162,423	246,650	336,170Total	14,682,155	14,764,878	15,066,235

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Cosgrove that Bill C-151, an Act to provide supplementary borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
* These are preliminary figures, representing approximately 97.5 per cent of the total number of returns expected for the 1981 taxation year.
Source: Taxation Statistics-1981 and 1982 editions Preliminary Taxation Statistics-1983 edition
Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Mr. Speaker, prior to the recess I was pointing out that the Government has been borrowing money during this session of Parliament at the
May 10, 1983

rate of some $68,833,482 per day, an amount, over this Parliament, of $77.3 billion in extra borrowing. I should like to continue my remarks and point out how the Government has absolutely wasted at least $1.3 billion of that in concert with the Conservative-Social Credit Government of British Columbia on a boondoggle called northeast coal. That misin-vestment, that misallocation of financial priorities has already made its devastating effect clear by the loss at this point of 460 permanent coal mining jobs in south-eastern British Columbia.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. The noise level in the House is too high. Would Hon. Members please hold their conversations outside.


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: About a week and a half ago BCTV carried a program showing the effect of the Government's policies in terms of putting working people at each other's throats even today in northern British Columbia. It showed a disgusting scene of workers coming in from the Provinces of Alberta, Ontario and Quebec to northern British Columbia, taking jobs away from British Columbians with Alberta contracts because the Conservatives and Liberals in the Social Credit Government of British Columbia had manipulated the Labour Code to open those jobs to non-union people. Workers from outside the Province with outside contracts were stealing B.C. jobs at the cheap rate of $7 per hour. They had to rent tarpaper shacks for their families, not good construction camps, but tarpaper shacks, at $450 per month for families sometimes with four children.
One worker who was interviewed on the program said that with $7 per hour wages, at the rate he was being charged for rent he would be better off to go back to Alberta and draw Unemployment Insurance benefits. The TV reporter asked him why he did not quit, and he said that if he quit he would not get Unemployment Insurance, and besides, in the hobo jungle just down the road there were ten guys willing to battle and replace everyone who had a job. The cameras went down to the hobo jungle. Some of us never dreamed that in this part of the twentieth century we would see such pictures again. It was right out of "Grapes of Wrath".
That is the kind of stupid, insane policy that the Government is fostering by churning out $1.3 billion in public moneys along with its Conservative cohorts in the Socred Government of British Columbia. It is just shovelling it out by the carload in order to give contracts to their friends, even though, because of declining demand which was forecast and declining prices which were forecast, the federal Government and the provincial Government of B.C. had some airy-fairy figures drawn out of a never-never land on which they based the $1.3 billion subsidy to that development.
Already 460 people in southeastern British Columbia coalfields have been laid off because neither the price nor the demand are sufficient for the coal that we already produce with existing rail facilities and existing port facilities. This is a suicidal policy. It is an example of how that bunch over there has thrown away billions and billions of public money. When it comes to a choice between investing in and assisting established communities and groups of people versus building new pyramids somewhere in areas that do not have an existing
Borrowing Authority
population, those people over there and their allies in the provincial Government of British Columbia will always choose to build new empires and leave people in existing communities to rot. No one knows why.
The Sun in Vancouver of April 21 carried an article by a Mr. Halvorson, a Vancouver mining consultant, in which he said:
The B.C. government, through that subsidy, created competition to an existing business, may cost people their jobs, and perhaps destroy the owners' investment.
So, by building with public money an alternative to the production and transport facilities we already have in the southeast, they are not only throwing away workers' jobs there but destroying the return on the private investment that already existed in southeastern British Columbia. They are doing that at the expense of the public purse. The article continues:
In the northeast coal project the provincial government is subsidizing two new coal mines into production through massive investment in railways and other infrastructure. Those mines will sell coal into an oversupplied Japanese market in direct competition to mines that already exist in southeastern B.C. There is little doubt that serious job loss, and even mine closures, could occur in the southeast over the next two year period.
There is no doubt, Mr. Speaker. It has already started to happen even without the northeast project coming on stream. Meanwhile, the people in northeastern B.C. are not even getting the temporary advantages of decent jobs at decent pay.
The contractors of northeastern B.C. are not getting the temporary advantages either. Because of the meddling of the Labour Relations Board, jobs are going to contractors from outside the Province. What kind of insanity leads to that kind of policy?
This is not the only area in which the federal Government continues to wastefully churn out public money. British Columbia is not the only place. Every time the federal Government decides to give some minimal cost-of-living increases to pensioners across the country, what happens? We see provincial Governments not only pocketing those increases but dipping further into the pockets of ordinary pensioners, ripping them off to fatten their own coffers at federal Government expense. When are those people over there going to smarten up and tell some of those Tory and Socred Provinces that they cannot just steal public money, and they cannot steal out of the pockets of pensioners in order to make themselves look better on the books.
About a week and a half ago a Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes from my constituency, dropped into my office and showed me their last cheques. The federal Government in its Old Age Security payment had given them each an extra $2.34. That is a good policy. People should have payments to keep pace. However, at the very same time, their supplemental cheque from the provincial Government of British Columbia was cut by $3.00 a month each. The federal Government gave them four dollars and the Province took away six dollars. In some cases the

May 10, 1983
Borrowing Authority
amount which the Province stole from those people was up to $50 a month per couple. The federal Goverment is allowing that to happen. What kind of agreement does it have with the Provinces? What kind of misplaced trust does it have in Tories and Socreds that it keeps on handing money over to them to stick in their own pockets?
About the only Government that I know of which has a worse financial record of getting deeper and deeper into debt at public expense than this Government in Ottawa, is the provincial Government in Victoria. Eight years ago it had an accumulated debt of some $4 billion which was spread over 100 years of Governments of all political stripes. That has more than trebled in just the last eight years. It is a record which almost makes the miserable record of the federal Government look good. That is the kind of wastage we are seeing at public expense continually.
Surely it is time, Mr. Speaker, for some new system of priorities. If the Government is going to go into debt, let it go into debt to create work and not simply to put people on welfare for years and years, not simply to pass on contracts to its friends, which is the only motivation we can think of for the northeast coal subsidy because it is going to devastate existing communities. We just cannot picture any other motivation. If Government wants to borrow, if it wants to use its existing financial capacity to build new industries, it must work out arrangements with some of our trading partners and, if we are going to sell resources and commit resources on a long-term basis, we must get something in return. We must have assurance that some of the facilities which will service these industries will be built in this country, with this country's labour and with this country's trained people. That would be a valid expenditure. It is time, Mr. Speaker, to put an end to the Government's just shovelling money out of the public bucket into its friends' pockets. Unfortunately, that is all that we have seen happening over the last number of years.


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


Lloyd Roseville Crouse: Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak on Bill C-151. This Bill seeks authority to borrow an additional $14.7 billion. To date, the Government has come to Parliament seven times in this session to seek more borrowing authority. In fact, the projected financial requirements of the Government between 1983-84 and 1986-87 total some $93 billion. This would indicate that Parliament is in for a steady stream of large borrowing Bills over the next few years. There are at least four distinct economic costs to continuing deficit financing of this magnitude. First, there is the ever-growing interest burden. This year interest on the national debt cost an estimated $17.6 billion, or the equivalent of $1,700 per taxpayer.
The second cost is the loss of fiscal flexibility. In the past the Government had the option of undertaking costly and significant fiscal measures to spur recovery. Today, Mr. Speaker, there is virtually no room remaining in which to manoeuvre.
The third cost is that the productive private sector when endeavouring to borrow is crowded out, and this is causing interest rates to rise. In the 1982 calendar year, federal Government borrowing accounted for 51 per cent of the net new security issues placed in Canada. If there was less federal Government borrowing, there would certainly be less demand for money and interest rates would be lower.
The fourth cost, Mr. Speaker, is one of confidence. The investment community does not trust a Government which continues to live so far beyond its means. They do not want to hold a currency which continues to be debased by excessive Government borrowing. As a consequence, our dollar is at a low ebb, thus driving up the cost of living in Canada. As the Government attempts to support the dollar, our job-creating capital has gone elsewhere.
By way of comparison between today's expenditures and those of 1968-69, when the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) took office, I wish to place on the record the total spending for that year as taken from the book entitled, "How Your Tax Dollar is Spent" as it was reported by the then President of the Treasury Board, the Hon. C. M. Drury. It is an amazing little document. I have kept copies of it in my files, Mr. Speaker. In this report, the total listed for all functions of Government in 1968-69 amounted to $10,767 million. That is truly amazing. We were then a nation of some 20 million people. We have grown slowly in population to 25 million, but spending on a public accounts basis has grown for this year to a total of $90 billion, an increase of some 555 per cent. The reasons behind this fiasco are well documented. For example, the Auditor General of Canada, Mr. Dye, comments as follows in his Report:
The commitment for $1.7 billion to Petro-Canada by the department, without commensurate responsibility, raises serious concerns.
In an appendix to his report, Mr. Dye also noted other deficiencies: inadequate management controls in overpayments totalling $285.3 million under four major energy programs by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources; the Department of Public Works failed to recover expenditures from Canada Post Corporation of $61 million; during fiscal 1981, the Unemployment Insurance Commission is estimated to have made overpayments of $178 million, and the list goes on, page after page.
We are speaking today about a vast expenditure of money. Some of it undoubtedly will be well spent. Unfortunately, however, I fear that a large percentage of the amount listed in the Bill before the House will be wasted or spent frivolously on so-called make-work projects. These projects do not necessarily improve the infrastructure of Canada, nor do they give meaningful or long-term employment to our people.
I believe it is way past the time when we should be giving recognition to some salient facts, and plan accordingly for some meaningful Canadian development. For example, Canada is one of the major trading nations of the world. Everyone seems to know that, Mr. Speaker, but the Government. Canada is also a major deep sea shipping nation, but not
May 10, 1983

everyone is aware of that particular fact. Here we are, a major deep sea trading nation, and yet we do not have a Canadian merchant marine. We have relied for years on being able to buy the shipping services we need in the marketplace. We are paying out more than $3 billion annually to foreign shipping lines for their services, while our unemployment rolls exceed
1.5	million people at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. This simply does not make any sense, Mr. Speaker, at least not to me. That is a lot of service, and the practice of buying it abroad derives directly from the current Canadian marine policy of depending on the world market to provide bottoms for carrying Canadian goods overseas. It is a policy which has satisfied our needs up to this point, but whether or not it will prove adequate for our future needs is open to question.
I say this, Sir, because our present policy is cast in doubt by a number of developments in the world of international shipping. Neither does it seem at all prudent at this moment to depend on the international shipping world to provide for Canadian concerns in our northern areas. Nor should we assume that the marine policies we depend on today will enable us tomorrow adequately to cope with problems arising from development of our varied and invaluable offshore resources. We have been able to rely on the free market for deep sea shipping because of a world-wide surplus of vessels has made it possible until now to buy shipping services at very good rates. However, economic, technological and political developments may soon reduce the size of the free market fleet on which we depend. Growth in the world economy, slow though it may be at the moment, will gradually reduce the available surplus of shipping capacity. Furthermore, much of the surplus capacity swinging at anchor today, as we say in Atlantic Canada, while shipowners wait for the market to sort itself out, may never sail again. They may never sail again! They may be so outmoded in terms of fuel efficiency and pollution control by the time world markets strengthen again that they will have become obsolete. This is the danger we face. The world surplus in shipping capacity is, in this respect, more apparent than it is real.
In addition, political developments may reduce the size of the free-market fleet on which current Canadian marine policy depends for its effectiveness. We could find before the end of this decade that Canada cannot as readily obtain, as it does today, ships to carry at competitive rates Nova Scotia's apples to Britain, or New Brunswick timber or lumber to Scotland, or Prince Edward Island's potatoes to Venezuela. The issue, Sir, is a bottom-line issue, it is a pocketbook issue.
I say to you, Sir, and through you to the Government, that anything which impairs the ability of a trading nation to sell its goods has potentially grave implications for the health of its national economy. In such a context the limitations of current national marine policy are readily perceived. These limitations also become obvious the moment the problem of exerting effective and necessary control over Arctic and offshore development is addressed.
We will likely see large-scale commercial shipping invade the Arctic before the end of this decade, Mr. Speaker, since
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Canada has proven hydrocarbon reserves in the high North. I was in Frobisher Bay, for example, only last year and I was informed that drilling operations at that time were being carried out in Davis Strait. However, Canada's position in its Arctic waters is that it has sovereign control. Now, Sir, in theory this means ships moving in the region, in particular the Northwest Passage, will be subject to Canadian regulation and control. United States interests, however, reject the notion of Canadian sovereignty over the Passage and they claim it as an international waterway in which all shipping should have access. But the reality of the situation is that we simply do not have adequate means to assert our authority over the North.
Unfortunately, our current national marine policy is not directed toward encouraging development in Canada of the marine technologies which would allow us to exploit fully our opportunities in the North or cope with the problems of sovereignty there, any more than it is geared to deal with the opportunities and problems associated with our offshore resource development. Our offshore resources afford us opportunities which extend well beyond catching fish, well beyond pumping oil. We have a chance to develop here and now in Canada world class technical and ocean engineering skills. We have a moment in time in which to begin building technologies and services which ultimately we can export as readily as we export anything else that we make in this country. But the time to sieze that moment, Sir, is now. We cannot fritter away this time while offshore resource development is in its infancy. The time to seize that moment is now not later when other patterns of satisfying those needs have established themselves.
Beyond all that, we need to develop such skills and technologies at home in order to safeguard our interests in actually harvesting offshore resources. The issue is too vital, I submit, to be left to others. No one else will care as much as we do about whether or not Canadian fish and Canadian oil are safely exploited, Sir, in the same waters and at the same time. We need to develop the means to control our own offshore expansion. No one should for a moment imagine that either offshore development or the controls and technologies associated with it can mature in a context other than one established in larger measure by a national marine policy.
It is not hard today, when you start talking about this matter of a national marine policy, to find yourself dealing with an amazing array of issues. The shipbuilders, the ship repairers, ship suppliers, marine unions, all legitimately have something to say on this particular subject. Up to this point we have had a marine policy in this country which has served the nation if not the industry very well. But circumstances, Sir, are changing. There are forces loose in the world of international shipping which may affect the way in which we shall conduct international trade. There are problems associated with Arctic and offshore resource development which require, at least in part, a marine oriented technological response from this nation. In short, we need desperately a national marine policy which takes into consideration these new realities. It must not,

May 10, 1983
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I say, Sir, be a regional or a parochial policy. International trade and resource development are national issues-national pocketbook issues, I might say.
Now, the Canadian Shipbuilding and Ship Repairing Association reports that in December of last year employment reached a ten-year low of 8,500 people, a drop of some 5,700 people or 40 per cent of their work force. In one area alone, namely the Atlantic trawler fleet, there is a need for ship replacement over the next ten years which will mean over $3 billion worth of shipbuilding work. Much of this will be lost to Canadian industry unless there is a change in the present policy which encourages domestic fishing operators to buy offshore. Not a single fishing vessel was ordered from Canadian yards in 1982. However, five were imported for a total of 27 trawlers brought in since 1979.
Our ability, Sir, to compete in world markets, our ability to control and protect our resources, impinges directly on the economic well-being of the nation as a whole. National marine policies which touch on such issues are as important to the people of Alberta or the people of Saskatchewan as they are to the people of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, or Liverpool, or Bridgewater or Lunenburg or Halifax. I say, Sir, that the national interest must come first. We must not confuse, for example, the laudable desire to build ships in Canada or create a fleet carrying the Canadian flag with the need first to get our goods to market in the most cost effective and efficient manner possible.
The objective in shipping, and I speak here with some experience, is to move cargo and not just to sail ships. The creation of a Canadian technology that would help support and control northern and offshore resource development presumes by definition the manufacture of made at home solutions to our problems. Perhaps what we should do in this area, in the short term at least, is to make it financially attractive for Canadians who now own vessels flying foreign flags to register those ships at home.
A national marine policy must be pragmatic, flexible and designed to encourage a range of responses to what I perceive is a wide range of challenges. There is no doubt in my mind that we are equal to the task of creating a policy which constitutes an optimum response to the marine problems which, I submit, now confront us.
I realize that the creation of such a policy will require that the task become something more of a national interest than I perceive it to be at present. But the fact that the time we have in which to act on these problems is rapidly growing short may provide the necessary sense of urgency.
Meanwhile, I am personally comforted by the fact that twice before in its history, this country that we all love so well, this Canada of ours, has been a major seafaring power and, in
my opinion, there is absolutely no reason why we cannot become one for the third time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Questions and comments? Debate.


William John Vankoughnet: Madam Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to rise and speak on Bill C-151, an Act to provide supplementary borrowing authority. However, I find it irresponsible that the Government finds it necessary, after the introduction of a budget, to ask for a $4 billion padding to an already out of control deficit.
This particular Bill is one in a long line of borrowing Bills. In this session of Parliament we have witnessed Bills C-30, C-59, C-111, C-125, C-128, C-143, and now we have Bill C-151.
In its April budget, the Government had the opportunity to indicate its fiscal requirements. Now it has chosen to seek more money after the fact, for some purpose it will not reveal to Parliament, a cushion of $2 billion for this year and a $2 billion pork barrel for the future.
One thing is certain with this Government, for every $3 that it spends it must borrow $1. Government Members state that one must borrow to stimulate. There is no stimulation in this borrowing, only regression.
In an atmosphere of mistrust, one must examine where some of the funds now being requested will go. It is clear from the Government's action that the employment situation and the future employment prospects will remain dismal for at least two million unemployed in this country for at least the next foreseeable few years. At precisely a time when recovery should be encouraged, a series of regressive tax measures are scheduled to pay for the enormous deficit that this Goverment has inflicted on Canadians. We will spend the first 18 months of economic recovery going back to square one.
One of the principal aspects of the Goverment's special recovery program is the so-called Special Recovery Projects of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) which are to be funded at $2.2 billion over the next four years. Only $1.5 billion of this represents new spending, of which $460 million is expected to be spent in the 1983-84 fiscal year. No project in this program can be under way until at least October of 1983. The impact upon the unemployed in Canada will therefore be delayed at least that long.
Unlike most Canadians, the Liberals do not understand that they have to pay as they go. Heavy borrowing and Government projections place a majority of tax increases in place for sometime after the next federal election. It is a deliberate attempt to stifle an incoming Government and to reduce the range of options it will be able to undertake to put this country back on the road to recovery. Instead of real job creation and deficit control, the Government is increasing net future tax increases totalling $5.7 billion over the next four years and deficits totalling more than $102 billion between now and 1986.
May 10, 1983

In their analysis of the Government's economic position, economists say that it will "have a negative impact on consumer spending by next year, reducing chances for the strong consumer-led recovery the Government is counting on".
On a fiscal year basis, the new tax measures give consumers a $75 million gain this year but take back $365 million and $1.3 billion respectively in the following three years. Canadians needed an across the board decrease in federal sales tax or a shifting forward of next year's anticipated income tax refunds to aid consumers and help the recovery through consumer spending.
The Government has repeatedly demonstrated that it is incompetent, untrustworthy and bankrupt of ideas to effectively govern this nation. It has undermined confidence in the future of Canada and broken down the spirit of co-operation and entrepreneurship that has built this country. The Government has betrayed historic liberalism in favour of a Government-dominated and socialistic controlled society, giving themselves the right to intervene in every facet of society.
The Government has misled Canadians on oil prices, interest rates, job creation, megaprojects, property rights and tax reform, only to mention a few. This so-called Liberal Party has been in power so long that it has lost touch with democracy while muzzling Parliament, changing the law through regulations and Orders in Council and hiding behind Crown corporations and partisan faceless bureaucrats.
The Government's record speaks for itself. There are over two million unemployed and investment has been driven out of the country. Over $10 billion left the country in 1981 because Canadians moved their money to a more receptive investment climate. This money could have created at least 400,000 new jobs in the private sector.
Economic performance in Canada has been dismal. Canada's over-all economic performance now ranks fortieth behind such countries as Equador, Taiwan, Burma, Cyprus, Panama and Algeria. The OECD ranks Canada twenty-fourth and last among all the major industrialized nations in the world. What is the Liberal answer to this? It appoints Donald Macdonald at $800 to $900 per day plus expenses to produce a report at least two years after his appointment.
In November, 1981, the then Minister of Finance predicted an $11 billion deficit. It is now over $30 billion and climbing. The Auditor General says that major Government Departments are sloppy money managers, that there is no direction in personnel management, that 70 per cent of Government contracts are issued without tender, and that there is little or no accountability for millions of dollars poured into Crown corporations.
It would be fair to assume that what is expected of the taxpayer of Canada in the realm of accountability should also be expected of those who govern, particularly at the federal Cabinet level. But of course this is not the case as this Bill C-151 and the previous borrowing Bill C-143 indicate.
.Bill C-143 was the largest borrowing Bill, for $19 billion, in the history of Canada. Only a month later we are asked for an additional $14.7 billion in borrowing authority. Of that, $4
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billion will be used, without doubt, to buy votes and pork barrel just before the next election.
Accountability is the cornerstone of the fiscal system of this country. The standard of accountability expected of those who deal with the disposition of taxes raised is far less onerous and in fact downright sloppy. The annual Report of the Auditor General of Canada is replete with page after page of instances in which the Auditor General is not permitted to delve into the affairs of federal Government Crown corporations.
According to the Auditor General, accountability has been limited, particularly as far as Parliament is concerned. Parliament is becoming further isolated from an increasing portion of Government activities. The growing practice of using Crown corporations to conduct a widening range of Government activities has so strained the capability of the existing accountability framework that Parliament may not be able to exercise its fundamental responsibilities for overseeing receipts and expenditures of public funds. The existing legislative framework for creating, monitoring and, where necessary, changing this abuse should be addressed by the House.
Nothing is being done to address waste such as has been reported by the Auditor General. Inadequate management controls in overpayments totalling $285.3 million have occurred under four major energy programs by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. The Department of Public Works failed to recover expenditures from Canada Post Corporation of $61 million. During fiscal 1981 the Unemployment Insurance Commission is estimated to have paid out overpayments of $178 million, and the list goes on page after page.
The accountability for public funds borrowed or otherwise has tended to decrease, and the degree of parliamentary scrutiny to which Crown Corporations are subjected varies from sporadic to virtually none. The information Parliament gets from the political appointments to these Crown Corporations with respect to activities of Crown Corporations is in most cases totally unsatisfactory. A clear authority and mandate for spending borrowed money, especially if it goes to Crown Corporations, should be spelled out and accountability to Parliament made mandatory.
The recent federal budget has a critical flaw in that it has been made to appear as offering something to everyone, but in point of fact it mortgages our future without any real current gain in consumer spending. Consumer demand is a key element in any recovery. The latest budget of the federal Government raises personal income taxes by a further $3.6 billion while at the same time increasing our national debt.
Unlike Prime Minister Thatcher or President Reagan, our Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) intends to cut the deficit by increasing spending as well as taxes. The share of Gross National Product now taken by Governments in Canada has already hit 40 per cent and is still rising.
We cannot afford to throw money around at a time when every third dollar spent is not covered by revenue but has to be

May 10, 1983
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borrowed. You cannot increase investment unless consumption accelerates. If this does not happen, consumer demand will likely stagnate, which will be coupled with increased taxes along with high profile public works programs.
The only light at the end of the tunnel in this country is the fact that the international economy shows signs of improvement. If we had a Government which could complement this recovery with positive private sector confidence in this country we would indeed see a significant turnaround in the near future. Every time the Government borrows large amounts of money, the private sector must meet Government sector financing head on. The result is increased pressure on inflation and higher interest rates.
Bill C-151 and all the other borrowing Bills for which this Government has come to Parliament this session is an exercise in fiscal insolvency. Based on the financial requirements of $26.7 billion and existing borrowing authority of $16 billion, Bill C-151 should be requesting from Parliament $10.7 billion, not $14.7 billion.
The $2 billion cushion for this year is horrendous. However, the second $2 billion that is being requested from the people of Canada as a debt for their children and their children's children can exist indefinitely. I believe it is a conscious effort on the part of the Government to deal with figures of such magnitude as to dwarf the ability of the average Canadian to understand the financial ruin of his or her country.
Is this Bill, one in a steady stream, one that Canadians are to expect as this Government buys time as well as tries to buy votes as it grasps for power?
The extra funds that are being requested in Bill C-151 do not respect any attempt to live within one's means. This should be particularly true for a Government if any example is to be made. The slush funds that this Government keeps to pay off the Donald Macdonalds and the Alistair Gillespies of this country must stop.
The change that is coming will benefit all Canadians. I hope it comes before this current gang makes a bigger mess out of our economy and our country than it has already created.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Are there any questions, or comments? Debate. The Hon. Member for Simcoe South (Mr. Stewart).


Ronald Alexander Stewart: Madam Speaker, I stand once again to register my deep disgust with this Government over its fiscal ineptitude, its horrendous mismanagement of funds and especially its flagrant disdain of the serious and growing debt it is imposing on the nation. Trusting this Government financially is like sending Jesse James to the bank with your bank deposit. For the seventh time in this session of Parliament, the longest session in history and still to be concluded, this Government is coming to seek permission to borrow more money. It approaches this House only three weeks after bringing in a budget which added $31 billion to our existing gross national debt of a staggering $134 billion.
With this Bill it wants to increase that burden by an additional $14.7 billion. Of this amount, $2 billion does not have to
be used this year; it may be carried forward into the future. The Government thus has a cushion of $2 billion for this year plus another cushion of $2 billion to be used in any year. Maybe it will be used for advertising. The federal Government is now the largest advertiser in the land, and perhaps the money will be used for the next election campaign to tell Canadians how good the Liberal Government has been.
I do not think any Canadian really wants to trust this Government with any more money than is necessary. Approval of this Bill would bring our gross national debt into the $180 billion range and this figure will likely soon reach the $200 billion mark. It is a legacy of debt to our children. It is disgraceful and it is disastrous for the country.
The projected financial requirements of this Government for the next four fiscal years total $93 billion. There is every reason to assume that the Government will be repeatedly back before the House over the next few years asking for permission to borrow even more money. Canadians' only hope in all this is that a general federal election will be called soon so that this Government can be turfed out and an end put to this greedy and irresponsible grab of taxpayers' dollars.
The debt created by this Government and being added to by this Government is becoming, if it has not already become, a permanent fixture in our lives. Not a very pleasant reality, I am sure.
A noted economist was reported as saying that even an economy with full employment could not wipe out Canada's debt load. Imagine that even with full employment! It is unreasonable to assume that the deficit we now bear is cyclical and will vanish when things get better. This is just not the case. Yet when introducing his budget last month, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) had the gall to claim that adding to our over-all debt would eventually reduce it. 1 do not know how he does his mathematics. Does he really think Canadians are that stupid or that gullible? The only thing I feel sad about is that not more of a clamour is being put up by the Canadian public.
The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) is the great man who gave us the just society. Now we have just a society. He gave us "the land is strong". We know the land is strong otherwise we would not have been able to stagger under the burden that we have had. It is the Government that is weak. The same Prime Minister who years ago boasted he had wrestled inflation to the ground now has a Finance Minister who claims he can beat the deficit into submission. That is tough talk, but that is all it is, talk. Talking will not eliminate the deficit, and that must be done before this country can prosper. Increasing the tax burden on Canadians will not eliminate the deficit. Further spending will not eliminate it. Only a cut in spending and proper fiscal management will do so, coupled with immediate action to halt unnecessary spending. That will put the brakes on the runaway deficit and it will allow the Government to gain control of the situation, if it is willing to bring in the measures to do it. A prime measure, indeed an absolute
May 10, 1983

must, would be the strict adherence to the historic and traditional necessity of accountability.
This Government is not spending its own money and it is not borrowing money in its own name. It is spending the money of the Canadian taxpayer and it is borrowing money which will be paid back by the Canadian taxpayer. Surely the Canadian taxpayer has the right to demand accountability from those who take these actions on their behalf.
Accountability means responsibility. We hear so much of human rights, but how many times do we hear about human responsibility and the responsibility to the Canadian people of that Cabinet across the way? When you use something that belongs to someone else, you are responsible for how it is used. When you do something in someone else's name, you have the responsibility to do it right. If you fail on one or both counts you must consider yourself responsible. You must consider yourself accountable. It is very simple, it is traditional, it is honourable and it is a concept that should be followed in this House, but which heretofore has not been. It is a concept of which the Government is either unaware or absolutely dismisses. This lack of accountability on the part of Government takes many forms. We have Ministers avoiding responsibility for their own actions and those of their Departments-such as the unresigned, the unrepentent leaker across the way. We have Ministers who avoid the responsibility of Parliament by announcing Government policy in public forums, such as the letter of the Prime Minister in the press today and his three stilted television appearances. We have Ministers who either participate in or condone the questionable dealings of former colleagues vis-a-vis Gillespie. We have a Government which avoids its responsibility to Parliament and to Canadians by an abusive use of Orders in Council to create everything from Crown corporations to positions of patronage, to odious and objectionable legislation, and even to internment camps. This deliberate avoidance of accountability is costly to Canadian taxpayers as well as being an affront to Parliament, to ourselves who represent the people and to the people themselves.
Many strong and reasoned objections have been raised regarding the Government's seemingly endless creation of Crown corporations. In his recent Report the Auditor General raised the alarm regarding the dangers inherent and evident in the existence of these agencies of Government. He said-and rightly so-that Crown corporations are "sub-Government" and that they should and must be accountable to Parliament and to the shareholders, which of course is the Canadian public.
It is common knowledge that the nation's actual deficit is far higher than the figures I have just stated. The debts being incurred by Crown corporations are not included in the Government total and they are not audited. In many instances tax dollars are being poured into these corporations with scant regard for the manner in which the funds are being spent. The actions of management are not subject to public or parliamentary scrutiny, and only inadvertently do we learn of the magnitude of the waste involved or of the gross ineptness of operations. I refer, for example, to CIDA and its top-heavy
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management, the debt load of Haiti of $22 million of taxpayers' money and the project being scrapped. There is no accountability and there have been fraudulent payments specifically pinpointed as being fraudulent, such as one for over $100,000. No one is accountable, and there have been no firings.
The Government's handling of the Crown-owned aircraft company, Canadair, is the most recent example of the inefficiency and waste of Government intervention and why it needs to borrow more money. The Government, without consulting Parliament, has given the company more than $1.5 billion, and the Prime Minister has said that Canadair will likely be asking for more money later this year. The final bill to the taxpayer for the development of the Challenger executive jet may reach the staggering sum of $2.3 billion, for an aircraft fitted with Lycoming helicopter engines.
Adding to the problem, the Government recently put Canadair under the management and control of yet another Crown corporation-the Canada Development Investment Corporation. It sounds wonderful! CDIC is not accountable to Parliament, so there can be little public confidence in entrusting this Corporation to handle the problems of another. The very creation of CDIC and the manner in which it is being run gives clear indication to any Canadian willing to think about it of the fundamental and costly error Government makes when it enters the private marketplace. Formed initially to get the Government out of the Canada Development Corporation, over which it tried to but could not gain control, CDIC was handed responsibility for Ottawa's interest in half a dozen firms. Naturally the corporation exists by virtue of 17 Orders in Council, not by the authority of Parliament. Sell it and reduce the deficit; that is what really counts, not borrowing money.
There has been debate over whether the Corporation was created to permit Government to gain control and power over the private sector or to provide more positions of patronage. It is my feeling that both motives apply. The chairman of CDIC is none other than Maurice Strong, a long-time Liberal and friend of the Prime Minister. The company president is Joel Bell, the architect of the Government's short-lived competitions policy, of the Foreign Investment Review Agency, that millstone around our necks, and the national energy policy. Lots of luck at the gas pumps! Joel Bell was also the man who devised the formula for a tax on consumers to pay for Petro-Canada's purchase of Petrofina. That tax is continuing even though it has been paid. This year Canadians will probably pay $800 million at the pumps, which they should not be paying, to bail out Dome Petroleum. The two men running the Corporation report to Senator Jacob Austin, formally the Prime Minister's principal secretary and directly connected with Canada's involvement in the uranium cartel-another sweetheart! All three of them are dedicated interventionists. Given what we have seen from their past accomplishments, we can be sure their attitudes have not changed.

May 10, 1983
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In addition to Canadair, another Crown corporation now under the umbrella of CDIC is the de Havilland Aircraft company. It too is financially strapped and has been offered a pledge of financial support using Canadian tax dollars. Just this week the Government announced that it will be purchasing a number of Dash-7 aircraft produced by de Havilland for use as water bombers. Of course there is the budget scam known as a job-creation program for the purchase of water bombers, but it all depends upon whether the Province matches the federal Government. It seems that the only reliable customer for this Crown corporation is the Crown itself.
Earlier the Canadian military purchased a few of the Dash-7s for use as executive transport in Europe. The planes were purchased by the Department of National Defence as a replacement for the Cosmopolitan aircraft. The age of the plane to be replaced necessitated a new model, but the underlying reason for the purchase of the Dash-7s was that Canada wanted to sell them to overseas nations and we had to be seen as supporting our own product. Now we know that the $12 million Dash-7 is to be converted, to the tune of $37 million, supposedly to monitor ice. Ice could be monitored a lot cheaper than by spending $37 million on a $12 million aircraft. Canadair and de Havilland are two sinkholes now owned by Canadians who are expected to pump even more money into the gaping maws of each. As I have mentioned, the three men who now control the direction of CDIC played a large role in the creation of Petro-Canada. Petro-Canada is another perfect example of the serious problems which result when the Government intervenes in the private sector, problems which ultimately translate into debt.
Last year the Government imposed a tax upon the consumption of oil and natural gas to finance the purchase of Petrofina by Petro-Canada. As I stated, it should be over at the pumps, but Canadians are still paying that tax. Now it has decided to extend that tax to give the Crown corporation revenue to finance projects in the energy field. Grandly advertising itself as a genuine Canadian feat the corporation tells Canadians, "It's ours". According to a recent Gallup poll, Canadians do not share or accept the proud claim of possession. Some 60 per cent of those polled said they made absolutely no effort to buy their gasoline from Petro-Canada stations, and 45 per cent thought the corporation should be sold, so do I. Canadians fully realize the only thing that is ours is the debt being incurred by Petro-Canada.
Tax dollars are being used by an arm of this Crown corporation-it is a new one, another goody called Petro-Canada International-to assist developing nations to find their own sources of oil and gas. Last year the budget for Petro-Canada International was $21 million. That amount is to more than double this year to $55 million, and the person in control of it answers only to the Minister, not to the House.
Canada will spend almost $80 million in two years to help nations like Tanzania, Senegal, Thailand and Sri Lanka supposedly to become energy self-sufficient, with no assurance of achieving that. Because Petro-Canada is a Crown corporation, not accountable to Parliament or to the taxpayer, the
Government does not have to bother justifying anything. How can the Government justify taking tax money from Canadians to aid others when Canada itself is nowhere near self-sufficient in energy? The megaprojects are all cancelled, and the Beaufort Sea project is gone. It cannot even justify the millions and billions it spends on other foreign aid in the form of what it terms soft loans. The Auditor General also raised this issue at the time he presented his very interesting Report. He said that the $4 billion in interest free loans given to developing nations should really be classified as gifts and should be recognized as such for purposes of accounting. Is it any wonder we have to borrow even more billions of dollars? They have been frittered away. By keeping these gifts or grants on the books as loans, the Government is concealing funds which should properly be listed as debts.
I think it is significant that whatever area of Government we examine-and it does not matter where one looks, be it the Report of the Auditor General or the financial situation of the country-the common denominator is not deficit, it is debt. It is deep, dark, dirty, dreaded debt. We have official debts. We have Crown corporation debts. We have debts disguised as loans and letters of comfort. I would suggest that the Government write a letter of comfort to the Canadians who are underwriting these debts. The greatest comfort Canadians could have would be to receive a letter from the Government in the form of a writ announcing the calling of a federal general election. That would truly be a letter of comfort to Canadians.
The Government is before us asking for permission to plunge the nation even deeper into debt. The deficit being incurred by the Government in the name of all Canadians clearly reveals its incompetence to handle its affairs. A major part of the problem is that the Government, through Crown corporations, either establishes companies in competition with those in the private marketplace or tries desperately to salvage companies which cannot compete successfully in the marketplace.
I would now like to touch on the bilingual program in Canada. All of us support the Official Languages Act, but it is being twisted, warped and no longer has merit in the marketplace or in Government offices. Linguistics now take preference over merit. The total cost of the bilingual program, which is absolutely non-productive spending, in 1981-82 was $433,597,000. The projected cost for 1982-83 is $453,222,000.
Maybe we could take a minute to see if this is being done equitably and fairly and whether the money is being well spent. Maybe we should examine a speech by the Secretary of State (Mr. Joyal) to the Federation Acadienne de la Nouvelle-Ecosse on November 13, 1982. At page 2 he said:
-because everything we undertake and everything we are doing to make Canada a French state is part of a venture I have shared for many years-
On the same page he states:
-making Canada a French country both inside and outside Quebec-
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If we look at the spending he is talking about, this half a billion dollars. We find that he said this at page 3:
-financial support will be required to fund the cases, to fund the actions that will force the courts to rule on what "where numbers warrant" means and what an educational institution is, because, you know you and I have a long memory now.
A little later on he states this with regard to financing:
Francophone rights cannot be bought, sold, subtracted, divided or multiplied in terms of dollars and cents in the budgets of a troubled economy, and that will apply, I promise you, for as long as I am Secretary of State for Canada. If I have to cut back some programs-and I've already done so-there is one area in which I have no intention of using the scissors: the advancement of Francophone rights in Canada.
On page 8 we read this:
Accordingly, the first thing I did when I joined the Secretary of State Department was to tell the bureaucrats to prepare a development program for French universities, or rather French universities across Canada, in light of the resources and economic characteristics of each region.
Obviously we are going to spend more money. I now refer to Hansard for March 2, 1981 page 7773 where the Hon. Member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert) asked Question No. 1,934 as follows:
What is the budget for the current fiscal year of the Official Language Minority Groups Directorate of the Department of the Secretary of State and what is the (a) percentage (b) per capita allocation of this sum to each official language group?
The answer was:
The budget of the Official Language Minority Groups Directorate for fiscal year 1980-81 is $15 million.
The answer stated that the allocation of the budget was as follows: Francophones outside Quebec, $14,073,800 or 94 per cent, Anglophones in Quebec, $926,200 or 6 per cent. I do not call that fair. We all want and have rights in this country. That does not smack of rights to me.
The Financial Post is now carrying stories about what is happening in this country. You must be bilingual to have a job at the Fredericton airport. This applies even to those who have worked there for 15 years. I quote from the article:
None of the eight women who staff car-rental booths at the airport speaks French. To satisfy the new policy, all must either learn, or be replaced.
"1 think it's stupid" says an angry Judy Martinson.
She claims that in 12 years staffing the airport's Avis booth, she has never had problems with a customer because of language.
This is to be implemented at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Wabush, Newfoundland, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury and North Bay in Ontario. There will be a tremendous backlash if we do not start treating Canadians all equally.
I pointed out in the House today that $454,000, almost half a million dollars, is being allocated to the celebration of Jacques Cartier's discovery of North America. We all laud that. We applaud it. We want to do that. The total cost is $1.6 million. But when we are talking about Gilbert, the first colonizer of Newfoundland, this year we can only come up with some $394,000. Does that smack of equal rights and is the money being spent properly? There is a litany of horror
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here that does not support the merit system, only by merit of linguistics.
My colleague, the Hon. Member for Carleton-Charlotte (Mr. McCain) in a recent speech decried the fact that he voted for this legislation. He too, as are all of us, is not opposed to the Official Languages Act, but terribly opposed to the way it is being negated. At the conclusion of his speech he said:
I must, Mr. Speaker, say to this House, to my constituents and to Canadians, that I have been betrayed in the bilingual program. I supported it. I have to ask that it revert to what it was. Canadians have been betrayed and their resources mismanaged.
That is one aspect of this. We know economically that everything smacks of mismanagement. I conclude by saying that as English-speaking Canadians, we demand fair treatment-not special treatment, just fair. We demand that the merit system remain in place. We demand that the deficit be cut and that linguistics not be given preference in the job market.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 45, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The Hon. Member for Kootenay East-Revelstoke (Mr. Parker)- Energy-Government coal pricing policy, (b) Request that coal acreage be returned to British Columbia; the Hon. Member for Halton (Mr. Jelinek)-Trade-Request that trade offices be established in Taiwan, (b) Possible sale of Candu nuclear reactor to Taiwan; the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie)-Medical care-Scheduled imposition of user fees in Alberta, (b) Inquiry respecting introduction of legislation.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Cosgrove that Bill C-151, An Act to provide supplementary borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
Mrs. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, on April 21 I, as the Member of Parliament for Vancouver East,

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sponsored a community meeting on unemployment which may be of considerable interest to the Members of the House and certainly, I hope, to the Government. About 150 people turned out. There was quite a mixture of unemployed people, people from different ethnic groups in my riding, representatives of Canada Employment and a number of resource persons. We were pleased that Bishop De Roo of Victoria, who is involved in the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and their statement on "Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis", opened this session.
There was very profound discussion. Also, we had six workshops, I would like to state some of the findings of these workshops which were made up of ordinary people. People who are unemployed and very depressed came up with some very positive suggestions from which we may all learn. Also, in the householder, which was mailed to every constituent, we included a questionnaire. Replies are beginning to flood back.
I will be glad to make this available if anyone is interested. The replies to some of these questionnaires show feelings that we never see in Parliament. We have statistics, generalizations and reports. We think we know our own riding, but it really hits you when you hear from individual people. For example, an unemployed copywriter feels isolated, depressed, rejected and worthless even though he has considerable skill.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The Chair has a little problem with relevance at this point. I know a borrowing authority Bill gives a fairly wide scope. Perhaps the Hon. Member could relate her remarks to the subject of the Bill.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: I certainly will relate it. I assumed it was implied in the topic. Much of the money to be borrowed under Bill C-151, $14 billion, will be used for job-creation programs. I wish a lot more of it was being so used. The unemployment situation in Canada is truly disastrous.
I want to go back to those very interesting recommendations which I hope will be of interest to the Government because they deal with that very thing and show how the money could be used much more effectively. Some of the human resources that do not cost much are being wasted. They could be mobilized for more self-help and positive programs.
I will mention some examples of people caught in this situation, just to bring matters down to earth. Most of us cannot even comprehend $14 billion, but my examples show real life.
There was an apartment manager and former landscaper who is now on welfare. They only help he feels he is getting from the employment office is that he has been put on a waiting list there. An unemployed secretary is losing confidence but has all kinds of good suggestions for things that could be done. A young man of Chinese extraction, aged 22 is an accountant. He has a part-time job now, after looking for a job for eight months and wasting 200 resumes in the process. A child-care worker with a university education cannot get work. There is a yardsman where crews have been reduced and he feels that the unions have not cared enough. An unemployed timekeeper with lots of experience is on welfare. A
trucker aged 53 has lost his recall rights through the union but he has ideas on employment of younger people. A single mechanic aged 25 lives in a dump and says he has lost his goals, and that to survive he begs, borrows or steals. An immigrant whose son is not working feels that we need more manufacturing and better co-operation between labour and management.
I could go on and on giving examples but there is not enough time, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to bring to the attention of the House something that is related to a Bill and the kinds of things that the money should be spent on.
In Vancouver East, unemployment has increased 125 per cent over the past year. Workers who had expectations of a good life for themselves and their families actually suffer culture shock. I find that it is almost worse for people who have been comfortable with savings and a home and who are not the chronic unemployed on welfare. They experience culture shock as they lose cars and homes and in many cases families as a direct result of unemployment. Young people told me that they cannot get into the system. They are told in grandiose terms that they are the hope of the future, the pride of tomorrow, yet they feel hopeless, disenfranchised and discouraged. They cannot get training or jobs and so cannot gain experience. Older people face extreme pressures as children in their twenties and thirties return home to become dependent on their parents.
We held this meeting in the Native Indian centre. Native people, with 75 per cent unemployment, suffer the greatest hardship. Immigrants find that their skills are not being used they cannot get welfare because they are immigrants. Often their sponsors are unemployed as well. Families are under considerable stress and are breaking up. Poverty is worse than ever and crime is increasing. This is what we were told by people working with the unemployed and by the victims of unemployment. As I said, the group came up with a number of recommendations in six workshops. They had some survival tips.
First of all, they want more information regarding Canada employment job-creation programs. The respondents to the questionnaire said over and over again that they do not know what Government programs are available.
Job-creation programs should not be restricted to those on Unemployment Insurance. This is discriminatory. Many young people and women who have not been able to get into the work force and on Unemployment Insurance feel that the jobs are going to the lucky ones, those who at least have Unemployment Insurance benefits. Welfare rates should be increased considerably. There were a number of recommendations that will be passed on to the provincial Governments. There should be free bus passes so that unemployed persons can go to look for work or training.
It was felt that much could be done in community job creation. The money that is available at present for many short-term, stop-gap job-creation programs might be better
May 10, 1983

used in co-operation with the community to create community enterprises that would offer more permanent jobs. That would be a better investment for some of this $14 billion in the Bill. Government grants and programs should respond more to the people. Again, the bureaucrats and the Government lay this on from Ottawa and take a long time to set it up, so much money is spent on the bureaucracy when there could be a more creative way of working with the communities and using their ideas. Action is needed to minimize bureaucratic red tape and to improve Government services. It was felt that we should reexamine the whole question of obsolescence and expand training programs.
There were a lot of complaints about training programs, Mr. Speaker. The Minister says that the new Training Act will be beneficial and more programs will be available. But people in the community find that there is a five-year wait for many training programs.
The Government should introduce long-term employment programs instead of band-aid programs. There should be more offices for part-time and casual employers. In Vancouver there is one office that is quite separate and is inaccessible to a lot of people. It was suggested that there offices should be part of every employment office so that more part-time and casual jobs would be readily available.
There should be job creation for native people who face the greatest unemployment, and this should be given higher priority bu all levels of Government. There should also be affirmative action. There should be more funds available for reforestation jobs and there should be an increase in the amount of Government land available for public housing programs. More environmental cleanup and pollution control in the rivers and lakes as well as the other areas is required. Native counsellors are needed to replace non-natives to work with native people in employment offices.
The workshop on technological change and training had some very good suggestions. It felt there must be more education of the public about technological change. There is great fear and misconception abroad. This requires long-term planning toward human beings. I should like to stress that, Mr. Speaker. We are talking about incentives for high-tech training, and a lot of the money provided by the Bill will likely go toward tech-change incentives. Yet we are not planning for human beings. We cannot stop technological change; we need it but we can also invest in human beings and retraining for alternate kinds of jobs, for shorter work hours. More attention should be paid to a guaranteed income.
People should begin to prepare for several career changes throughout their lives. Education programs must be changed. It was pointed out repeatedly that our institutions are out of date and are not really training people for the future. A fundamental restructuring of education is needed. High school students are being misinformed. They are being offered training programs in traditional careers which are no longer relevant.
Employed and unemployed people must work co-operatively. Unions must be just as concerned with the unemployed as they
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are with union members and people who have never been in a union.
The Unemployment Insurance Act should be changed. It is based on the assumption that people are cheaters. There is a negative, punitive quality in our Unemployment Insurance Act. Applications for Unemployment Insurance should be simplified.
Wages for Government programs are too low. There should be a minimum wage standard and better co-operation between federal and provincial Governments to make sure that we do not exploit people who are victims of unemployment.
We had assumed that the youth would go into other workshop groups, but they said we have forgotten them and left them out just as everyone else does. Of course, a group was formed especially for them. They felt that unemployed youth and students should not be treated differently in the Summer Canada Program, for example, which excludes youth who are not students, that this was a kind of elitist approach. Young people who have been out of school and out on the streets all winter still cannot get summer jobs. Therefore, they felt there should be general job-creation programs to open up opportunities for all youth. Youth should have a voice. There should be an advisory committee of youth, and youth must organize and lobby and be heard. Out of this meeting, I am glad to see that they agreed to form such a group.
Private industry should do more to help young people to get jobs and experience, even those who are training in colleges. The co-operative kind of training which is being done in some colleges, where there is training on the job, is extremely important. Even if it does not pay, many young people would be willing to do this in order to gain the experience which will qualify them when a job does becomes available. These young people have said that the educational system must be more relevant and honest so that young people will not be so disillusioned. Career courses are trite. Higher education should respond more rapidly and realistically to the needs of youth.
We had a workshop on workers' co-operatives, which I spoke to in the past at some length and which I will not mention today.
We feel that job-creation funds should be made available to small business, and perhaps people on Unemployment Insurance, during a developmental stage, should be allowed to work both in small businesses and in community co-operatives, if it is training people and creating permanent jobs.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, we, in our community-and I would suggest other Hon. Members might be interested-have a continuing group which will be concerned about unemployment. We have also a workers' co-operative group which formed out of this experience. I will personally be meeting with the Minister of Employment (Mr. Axworthy) and his officials, to try to work co-operatively in a non-partisan way to deal with these recommendations on behalf of unemployed people in my riding, who are very typical of Canadians generally.

May 10, 1983
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Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, I am going to spend the 20 minutes at my disposal by taking advantage of this opportunity to tell the House some of the horrendous nightmare stories which have occurred because we have an uncaring Government which refuses to take into consideration the wishes of the majority of its constituents on priority matters pertaining to the spending of our dollars. I am going to deal particularly with the subject of the Metric Commission. The Metric Commission to some Hon. Members in the House might be perceived to be the kind of commission which is doing a service for the Canadian people. In reality what it is doing is creating one of the greatest cost drains to the consumers in Canada. At the same time it is causing the Government of Canada to require huge sums of money-and I am not talking about thousands or millions but about billions of dollars- which are being consumed by the Government of Canada, through the suggestions of the Metric Commission, to bring about this forced "march to metric".
It would not be so bad, Mr. Speaker, if we had a Government which would instruct, request or demand of our Metric Commission that it show some cost justification for a forced "march to metric". What we have is a situation where we have to go south of the border to the United States in order to obtain a study which was taken there so we would have some idea of just what it is costing to ge metric in Canada. I can report to this House that in the United States, the General Accounting Office of the United States Government commissioned a study to find out what it would cost if the American people went metric against their will. The final conclusions of the GAO are that the major reasons why the American industry and businesses backed away from going metric is that it would cost between $60 billion and $100 billion. This is what it would cost in the United States if it were to bring about a mandatory "march to metric".
In Canada there was also a report, and an update, on the move to metric during the short time of the Conservative Government in 1979. The big stumbling block concerning metrication in the U.S. was the inability to determine costs and benefits which were cost justified. A report prepared by the Conservative Government in 1979 stated that, based on the limited cost data available to the Comptroller General of Canada, the cost would be somewhere around $100 billion in the United States. So we not only have it confirmed by the General Accounting Office in the United States, but it is reported in our own records in the House of Commons.
Having said that, I wonder what is the reason that we have such an interested group of metric commissioners spending at will hundreds of millions of dollars to bring about this "march to metric". After four years I finally obtained a list of the metric commissioners; where they came from, what they did, how much they get and why they are there. We have a litany of Liberal involvement in Party politics sitting as 20 paid commissioners on the Metric Commission. What do these 20 commissioners receive in remuneration for their work on the Metric Commission, which is paid for by borrowed tax dollars by this Canadian Government? They receive $250 a day plus all their expenses. We have Liberal campaign managers. We have Liberal fund raisers. We have Liberal candidates to feed
it in provincial elections. Not all of these people, but most of them, constitute active Liberal involvement in Liberal activities across this nation.
We are to believe, as Members of Parliament, that we are going metric because industry wants it, because the construction industry wants it, the industrial sector wants it and the grocers want it. That is simply not true, Mr. Speaker, and I say this with all due respect to those who are in the House of Commons. The grocers did not want it. They passed a resolution at their meeting before the Order in Council was passed that they did not wish to spend the money on going metric in the retail food sector of Canada. The Government could have saved $32 million a year if it had listened to the retail sector, particularly the grocery sector, who specifically held press conferences and attended meetings of Government officials and said it did not wish to go metric.
What about the people? What do the people think about a $32 million Metric Commission budget? That is $3 million in salaries, $2 million in propaganda, advertising. What do the people of Canada think? We could refer to surveys carried out by independent groups. We could go to Dominion Store which surveyed not less than 68 per cent of its store retail purchasers who did not wish to go metric. We could go to the Canadian Federation of Retail Grocers, 85 per cent of whom were surveyed. We could go to CKO, National News, Radio which commissioned an independent consultant in Toronto to carry out a survey. What was the result of that? Even the school children, even the young people in the age group of 18 to 25 do not wish to go metric. And we have a Metric Commission laced with dollars by this Government, this uncaring Government. We have a Metric Commission laced with taxpayers' dollars which is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
We thought in 1974, when we set up this Metric Commission at an annual budget of $44,000, that that would be ample in order to assist the various sectors in this country to go metric. That $44,000 annual budget in 1973-74 has grown to a $32 million annual budget with a $3,200,000 annual payroll for the Metric Commission in its ivory tower here in Ottawa. We saw an Order in Council passed by the Liberal Government in 1971 which said there shall be up to 15 commissioners, people with their snouts in the trough, the pork barrel group of Liberal workers, at a daily rate of $250 plus expenses. Orders in Council have since been passed requiring more metric commissioners; there are over 20 of them now. Why, they have the editor emeritus of the Lethbridge Herald, a Liberal, whose job it is to shadow me across the country writing letters to the editor. This same Cleo Mowers, metric commissioner, editor emeritus of the Lethbridge Herald, while a commissioner, was paid by the Toronto Globe and Mail to write an article on the editorial page of the Globe and Mail on the reasons why we should go metric.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Hear, hear!
May 10, 1983


William Henry (Bill) Domm: I hear a "hear, hear". Who said that? A Liberal! Let me tell you, you are paying a metric commissioner with taxpayer dollars to advance the policies of the Liberal Government.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Sure.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: He has no business as a commissioner being paid to write articles by the publisher of the Globe and Mail. That is a conflict of interest. And when I, as a lowly Member of Parliament write a letter to the Globe and Mail asking for equal space to give the Opposition view, they turned the letter down because it did not meet their criteria. That is selective journalism, it is dangerous and you support it, and you have no business as a Member of Parliament condoning such an inexcusable action.


Mr.   de Corneille@: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is addressing another Member directly, and I believe he should be speaking through the Chair.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: I am sure the Hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm) will take note of the comment.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: I said: "The Hon. Member opposite had no business", and that is perfectly parliamentary, to the best of my knowledge.


Roméo LeBlanc: Your knowledge is limited.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member has made his point. I think Hansard will disclose what took place.


Mr. Taylor:: Your conscience is hurting, that is your trouble.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Let me show this House of Commons how inexcusable the Metric Commission budget is. Can you imagine a Metric Commission in Canada today letting a contract for $89,000 to a consultant in Unionville to rewrite the football rule book in order that we can change Canadian football to metric? That is $89,000. If that is not enough, can you imagine the letting of contracts to fitness organizations under the guise that the organizations are bringing about body measurement in metric? They spent $50,000 to spread that propaganda across the nation. Can you imagine Metric Commissioners spending $2,000 to have their pictures taken, framed and hung in the Metric Commission offices? They would do well to hang those pictures in some other area after they have deceased. What kind of restraint program is it where you allow that kind of money to be spent without any concern for the Canadian consumer?
Let us listen to what the President of a major grocery store chain, Loblaws, has to say. Let us listen to what Dave Nichol said as he paid for a radio commercial. He said:
I'd like to give you all the details-
He is referring to one of the products:
-but one of the problems of doing a radio commercial for a supermarket is that the Government in some areas of Ontario insists that with a number of products you have to give the details of your specials in grams or kilograms, but in my opinion, people also want to hear about ounces and pounds, so it takes you 60 seconds to cover just a few specials.
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Is that consideration for the retail sector, to double its advertising cost in order that the Government can control the media in the move to metric? Why is it that in a Government which says all the retailers, carpet dealers, service stations and grocery stores must go metric, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) has let a contract for housing to be built in the Yukon Territories and there is not a metric measurement in the blueprints? How does the Government justify pumping gasoline by the gallon at the Canadian Armed Forces base in Trenton? How does the Government justify weighing parcels at small retail store post office operations, and saying it is all right to weigh parcels in pounds, you do not need a metric weigh scale, but when you go to the front of this same store which is selling groceries, it is illegal to have an Imperial weigh scale? How does the Government justify that? How does the Government justify letting a contract for the CF 18A, the largest contract ever let by any Government in Canada, and it is built totally in Imperial measurement? How does this Government justify letting a contract to Madam Benoit and Bruno Gerussi for $110,000 so they can travel across Canada cooking up metric souffles? There is the release and they are proud of it. The Metric Commission thinks that is just topnotch. Here we have a Metric Commission which lets out a contract for $150,000 for consultant fees to work on different modules of the metric study. Imagine, consultants, all listed here, paid $150,000 to help them ram it down the throats of Canadians!
How does this Government justify a policy which allows the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs to insert a pamphlet entitled "The Metric Way" to be inserted in the Family Allowance and Old Age Pension cheques when it is laced with untruths? Why is the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Mr. Ouellet) not protecting the Canadian people against false advertising when in this brochure it says that the world is going metric and Canada cannot afford to hold back, and that includes the United States? Well, I will remind the Minister that the U.S. threw out the Metric Board, changed all the gasoline pumps at Shell, Amoco and Chevron back to gallons, and there is hardly a retail outlet anywhere in the U.S.A. where you can buy meat in grams.
Between the United States and Great Britain we do 86 per cent of our exporting in Imperial measurement. Members across the way look as though they doubted this. You are going to use wheat and say we take bushels, and since we are going to convert to metric tonnes we will sell to Russia in metric. Good Lord, Mr. Speaker, we have sold to Russia in metric any time they wanted our metric tonne, and we could sell them in metric if they wished and in Imperial by choice, not metric by force.
What about the Chairman of the Metric Commission, this gentleman who makes $275 a day plus expenses? That is Mr. D. R. B. McArthur who has an office on the third floor of 255 Argyle Avenue. He has rented space from a private firm and has large sofas, a VTR TV machine for transcribing television
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May 10, 1983
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shows. However, it is almost never used by McArthur who spends most of his time in Edmonton and is barely known by Commission staff-this in spite of the fact the Commission order calls for a full time chairman. That is the kind of costs that we object to in the move to metric.
Former Executive Director, P. C. Boire, once spent $7,000 of the taxpayers' money on the printing, distribution and mailing of a speech. Where did he make the speech? He made it to the American National Metric Council in Washington. That was $7,000 to print the speech which he made in Washington. I have all the correspondence and memos to substantiate this.
What about the $12,000 plus, not including staff salaries and overtime, for the production of a promotional calendar? I have here a calendar to commemorate 100 years of Canadian football. Mr. William Robinson, the Executive Director of the Canadian Amateur Football Assocation, said, "It is a good promotional vehicle for us. It did not cost us anything. But as a taxpayer, I could see the money being better spent." He not only said it, he said it on CP and over the air. The Metric Commissioners had the gall, in this football calendar that cost $12,000, to say that they had the suport of the Canadian Amateur Football Association. That is nonsense. We are being misled every time we turn around. If there is any doubt about that, ask the head of the Canadian Amateur Football Association.
What about the $300,000 that has been awarded to War-wick-Bradshaw, Liberal supporters, for contracts ostensibly for advice on the retail scale program? The costs of the retail scale program is a nightmare. We have scale companies voting us into metric. They are sitting on the Commission. They have voted us into metric and have had more votes at some of their meetings than have the people in the retail food sector. Imagine Toledo weigh scale companies from Japan and Germany having their company representatives sitting on the Metric Commission. They say "Yes, we want to go metric." They voted us into metric.
Finally, we cannot leave the subject without saying that the present Government has already announced the abolition of the Metric Commission. It will phase out over the remaining year and a half. That is just in time for the next federal election. At least in the five-year fight to get rid of this Metric Commission, which drains the Canadian taxpayers of $32 million a year and has spent $2 billion indirectly through the industrial and construction sectors for which only the consumer and sometimes the taxpayers who are not consumers can pay, we can save the country probably $6 billion to $10 billion, if we took the time to eliminate the Metric Commission.


Mr. Lewycky:: Mr. Speaker, is the Hon. Member aware that the person who produced a paper to bring us into voluntary metric, and we now have compulsory metric, is the same Minister who is now introducing the Crow rate changes in the House of Commons?


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the question. I would point out to the Hon. Member that it was the Conservative Government which abolished the Order in Council forcing metric on the retail food sector. The Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington), who is in the House now, was the Minister responsible at the time.
I might add that we have been accused of bringing in metric to the carpet industry. But I would remind Members on the Government side that while March 17, 1979, was the date on which the Order in Council affecting the floor covering industry was Gazetted, which was after the federal election, the Cabinet of the Conservative Government was not sworn in until June. It was the Cabinet of the Liberal Government that Gazetted the Order in Council on floor-coverings on March 17, 1979.
As far as metric and the cost to Canadian taxpayers is concerned, it was the Conservative Government which took action to reduce the consumer demands for dollars in order to pay for the insatiable appetite of this giant cookie monster, the Government and the Metric Commission, that have had their hands in the jar ever since the Commission was appointed at a cost of $44,000 annually and now costs $32 million annually.


Mr. Flis:: Mr. Speaker, would the Hon. Member who just spoke explain to the House how he justifies the fact that the Conservative Government of Ontario sent a dictum to all the schools in Ontario as far back as 1971 ordering all schools in the Province of Ontario from that day forward to teach the metric system? We now have students who have been raised on the metric system from Grade 1 to Grade 13. I would like to hear his views on what he would suggest to the provincial Government. Will he demetricate all these students who have spent 13 years learning the metric system? This is a policy of the Conservative Ontario Government.
I cannot understand why the Hon. Member is so quick to abolish metric when he knows that world trade is going metric and that whatever country goes metric will get the future markets in developing countries, such as those in the Middle East and the Pacific Rim.
I am fascinated by the fact that every time the Hon. Member rises to speak, it does not seem to matter what subject is before the House, he turns it around and speaks about one thing, namely metric. He is almost paranoid about it. Surely his constituents elected him to represent them on other topics than only metric. I fail to understand it and I would like to hear how he justifies the difference between the provincial Conservative position on the metric system and the federal Conservative Party's position on metric?


William Henry (Bill) Domm: I welcome the opportunity to answer the three questions as briefly as I can. The Hon. Member's first question concerned education in the schools. We have been educating students in schools on metric since 1871. I find nothing wrong with that at all. I believe it is a great attribute to be able to speak French and English, and I do not see anything wrong with being able to use both metric and Imperial. I am only saddened that our schools are not teaching both. I think
May 10, 1983

schools would be remiss in the responsibility to students in this nation if they dropped Imperial from their curriculum. I, as well as the Minister of Education for Ontario, have urged that a study be undertaken, which is now being done to justify the dropping of the Imperial measurement.
As far as the whole world going metric is concerned, it has been doing so since 1871. We are not against metric, but we are against bringing it in mandatorily at a time when it cannot be cost jusfified in sectors that do not want it.
With respect to the third question about my constituents, I do not know whether the Hon. Member polls his constituents but I polled mine. I challenge the Hon. Member to poll his constituents and ask if they support mandatory metric or if they would like a voluntary process of its implementation.
I polled my constituents last month and the results which came in this week show that 76.5 per cent, on a return of 5,300 ballots, are opposed to mandatory metric. I also asked if they would support a court case if 37 Members of Parliament were to go to court to fight the mandatory aspect or whether Members of Parliament should lie low and let the Orders in Council take effect. Of that number 73.4 per cent support the 37 MPs going to court. I only wish Andre Ouellet would do what he said-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Hon. Member is referring to the Minister by name.


William Henry (Bill) Domm: I am sorry. I only wish the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs would do what he said he would do in December of 1982 when he went on national television and called a press conference to say that if the 37 MPs opened a service station he would prosecute. Why will he not take the 37 MPs to court so that we can defend the right to choose versus the Government's right not to choose? Why will he not take us to court? He knows that we will not cut the seals. He cannot deport us as landed immigrants. He cannot do any of those things that he can do to Jack Halpert. Why will he not prosecute the 37 MPs? I wish he would.


Mr. Ron Huntington (Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, I must say that I always enjoy the vigour and the spirit of my hon. colleague, the Hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Domm) on this subject. I admire very much the crusade he is carrying in Canada against the mandatory imposition of the metric measurement system. He is to be commended, and he certainly has the support of his colleagues, at least on this side of the House.
We are dealing with yet another borrowing Bill, Bill C-151. The Government is back once more to the House asking for another $14.7 billion, at least $4 billion of which is not really needed. It is not in the Government spending plans or its budget, and the Government cannot justify it in this further request for taxpayers' money.
Of the $4 billion that is surplus in this seventh request to this session of Parliament, $2 billion is a little cushion, a little pad, $2 billion which the Government wants to tuck under the
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mattress to carry over into the next fiscal year beginning April 1, 1984.
What we have seen in the budget is a program of immediate spending with the idea of assisting some consumer spending, the idea of giving a lift to the spending and the cash flow of the country whereby the Government can say its policies and its six and five program and all of these things are working. We hear time and time again from one Minister after the other and even from some bank presidents in Canada that things are good, that we are through the recession, that we will come out of it and there are bright days ahead. With the spending programs of the recent budget, the Hon. Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) assures there is a bubble. Yes, there is a bubble coming as a result of the policies in the United States. Our great market to the south has its inflation under control, its interest rates are down and normally there is in Canada a nine-month lag following corrective measures or erroneous measures that take place in the U.S.A.
As I said, we are into the seventh borrowing Bill. I might remind Hon. Members that these borrowing Bills are in addition to Section 38 of the Financial Administration Act which gives the Government automatic power to borrow to retire maturing instruments or debt already in the system. Unless you get a memorandum from the Department of Finance and understand fully what this total borrowing is in order to handle maturing debt plus the interventionist programs of this interventionist Government, we really have difficulty in keeping a handle on just what is going on.
Bill C-151 is one more example of the cry of some of us that the whole process of supply and expenditure in the Canadian Government is out of control. The whole federal system is out of control. Both the federal and provincial systems in this country are out of control as a result of this idea that all answers to all problems of the population can be solved by the Government.
It seems that we have been conditioned to expect that Government will take care of all our problems and we no longer have a sense of self reliance among ourselves as a people. We are used to so much rhetoric on recovery and on the subject matter of Government programs, what they will do here and what they will do there that year after year we get program after program. If you go back and take a good, hard look, you find they are the same old programs on which the Government has not spent money that are being recycled with new words and being brought forward with new headlines to keep the people under some kind of opiate and under the illusion that this place is doing something constructive.
We now hear from the Minister of Finance and other Ministers in this Government that the recession is over, that we have this bubble of recovery. We heard that things are going to be good. We have had notice that even things like tax-free savings for equity in a home can be used to purchase furniture and consumer goods if spent within the next immediate period of time. All of these things are stimulants, but do we see the consumer really buying these measures and this

May 10, 1983
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rhetoric that all is well and that all will start moving again? Yes, I see out on the West Coast some recovery in housing sales. Prices have dropped about one third. Interest rates are down, and there is some stimulus and some movement there. If recovery is really on the way, Mr. Speaker, it is my opinion that we will not have a sustainable recovery in this country until we start to see capital goods move and until we start to see business and organizations within our economy that add to the value of goods starting to buy new plants, new equipment and replacing equipment which can no longer add to or improve productivity. Until we start to see a solid movement in capital goods, it is my opinion that we will not see a sustainable recovery.
Most people from the business community in Canada are quite pleased with the budget. It appears that the apparent continuing intervention and the apparent continuing attack on the disposable income of Canadian business and Canadian people has been arrested with the most recent budget of this Government. The Minister of Finance has certainly arrested the great concern we had as a result of the series of three previous budgets.
If the Government really means what it says in this budget, if the Government is withdrawing its interventionist attack on the business community, and if it really wants a sustained forward adjustment in the Canadian community, we will have to stop placing the blame for our dilemma on the cold winds of economic recession that blow from the north, that blow from Europe and that blow from the United States. For many years now we in Canada have been sowing the seeds of our own cyclical economic troubles.
I can remember a couple of years ago having the privilege of being invited as a Canadian delegate to a conference in Ditchley, England on the impact of lower rates of economic growth on western nations. I was shocked to find myself taking the minority position of one at a world conference table saying that the western world had to get used to lower rates of growth if we were to adjust to the future ahead because the Third World was rising and demanding its fair share of limited world resources and limited world energy. To stimulate consumerism is okay for the short-term effect. That is what the budget is doing. But you will notice, Mr. Speaker, that the budget and the spending required in Bill C-151 is short-term spending and short-term stimulation, with the cost of this immediate policy of this Government being postponed to 1985-1986.
What we are dealing with in this Parliament today is very short-term. The Government is not addressing long-term correction which will involve fundamental and basic attitudinal and anticipated change right across Canada. We hear the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) speak in these terms. He fascinates me when he speaks in these terms. But in my opinion he keeps blowing it by coming up with half truths or contradictory actions following a fundamental truth that he is addressing. As a result, he has thrown the country into confusion. He has thrown people like myself into confusion and his credibility is wanting in terms of long-term correction. His Government is involved in short-term, immediate political correction in preparation for an election down the road.
Whoever wins that election will have the job of paying for these immediate short-term policies.
Consumers are not buying. As I mentioned, there is some movement in housing on the West Coast, but basically consumers are sitting on their savings and reducing their debt. Until there is stability in the system, until we get away from the short-term cyclical interest rate, until we do some planning into the future as individuals, as corporations and as a nation, I suggest the measures in place today are very short-term indeed. Now we find banks pushing money. They are advertising and saying, "Come borrow, come buy", just after going through a couple of years of seizing, bankrupting and forcing people into soft and hard receiverships.
Every Canadian is involved in the recession. All expectations across the land, the expectations with which we have grown to live over the last two decades, have to be questioned, until we get those expectations back down to practical, realistic levels, until we start adjusting our attitudes to include a little compassion for the person who does not have a job. We have to get such persons back into the work force. We, the organized and the privileged, have to give a little and share a little in order to spread the economic adjustment we have to face over the next years. Until we get into this mode of thinking and accept the fact that our expectation levels have to come down and to be adjusted, what will we accomplish? We must get back to work and stop spending Government money. We must stop Government interventionist programs for losers and protectionism. The sooner we reduce our expectation levels and accept the fact that we have to move into a world of free trade the better. We must stop backing losers and start encouraging winners. Until we do that, the nation will not move ahead. It will not happen. All this spending effort-the budgets and the borrowing-will always be wasted until our basic anticipation levels and attitudes as a people and a nation change. That is the challenge ahead of us, and recovery will only come when this change takes place. I would personally like us to stop playing games with political rhetoric. All Parties in the House should start to address the fundamental need for change in our great country.
We can talk all we want about the magic of high technology ahead, that everything will be resolved with high-tech. If we drive our cars through Silicon Valley in California, we see that every parking lot in front of every high-tech factory is absolutely jammed with cars. If we continue to drive through the automobile assembly and manufacturing area of Oakland, we see grass growing through the blacktop parking lots and there are no cars. That is the magnitude of change which is taking place in the world.
We politicians in the House are not addressing this matter because we are too interested in short-term political gain and in short-term support of losers. It will come with change in attitude and it will come when we stop talking and dreaming about an industrial strategy which no one in the House can
May 10, 1983

define. It is just great for the socialists to yack about an industrial strategy, but the country needs an industrial environment. When we have an industrial environment which once again gets Government out of the boardrooms, off the backs of entrepreneurs, inventors and risk takers, and allows these people to activate that exciting thought and work process, we will start to move ahead.
My appeal in this debate on Bill C-151 is that the Government should keep moving back from its 15 years of growing intervention in the marketplace. Once again it should stabilize and spread the decision-making base across the country. Once again it should create an environment which attracts the brains of the world to Canada as it once did. If Canada did not have a good research and development environment in the private sector at one time, the Cowplands and the Mitchells would not be in Canada doing what they are doing for the country and for the world today in the area of high-tech. The spin-off in high-tech is unbelievable, even with what we have in the country. But it will take a change in attitude on the part of all of us, particularly on the part of politicians, if it is to come about.
I do not want to compete with the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) who is engaged in conversation. I can hardly hear myself as a result. Mr. Speaker, would you call for a little order?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, the supply and expenditure process of Government is out of control. If I may, I would like to return to that and say that if we are to give credibility to the House and to the Government, as Members of Parliament we will have to address this issue. As politicians we have gone through decades of politics of competition, being big spenders and promising programs. As a result, we have created a modern monolithic Government which is really in the control of bureaucrats. It is not in the control of Government Members, although they are responsible for the continuation of it and the deliberation of policy. If we are to address this, we in the House of Commons must learn a technique with which to build a system of calling both the Government and the bureaucrats to account. We must ensure that the criteria against which programs are delivered and against which spending is made are in fact enforced and adhered to as the functions go on.
The reason I raise this is that I could not believe what was developing the other day out of an examination of the Department of Regional Economic Expansion in the Standing Committee on Public Accounts under paragraph 15.9. This was the paragraph in which the Auditor General drew to our attention that $2.7 million of taxpayers' money had been delivered to an organization in the Province of Quebec. The money had been deposited in the Mercantile Bank and, as soon as the bank had the money three days later, it bankrupted the company.
When the tax resource has been delivered under the criterion of being of significant benefit to Canada and for the creation of permanent payrolls, when the administrators of
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programs such as that are careless enough to deliver that magnitude of assistance-and it lasts three days-when the beneficiaries are the shareholders of a company which went bankrupt because its bank indebtedness had been reduced, and when the beneficiary is a bank, I suggest it is just the tip of the iceberg in a behavioural and an accountability problem that Hon. Members on all sides of the House are not addressing. Credibility and respect for this institution will not return until we as Members of Parliament organize ourselves in a proper committee structure and until we demand the research resource we require to use the information available to us to create a method of disclosure which will eventually bring the behavioural problems in the system to account. The challenge is ours. Admittedly we are big spenders; we do not want to bring about a condition of accountability and control over the Government.
I am saying to you, Sir, and to my colleagues in this House that until we start to change our attitudes and demand of the system some credibility and accountability, this out of control spending process will continue. The system is going to collapse under it. That is why I appreciate the opportunity I have been given to offer a few comments on this seventh borrowing Bill in this session of the thirty-second Parliament.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Are Hon. Members rising to ask questions?


Mr. Blaine A. Thacker (Lethbridge-Foothills):: Mr. Speaker, you and I are beginning to be old debating partners because for the seventh time I am standing here as part of my duty to my constituents, a duty which I gladly accept and which they reinforce every time I speak to them, to oppose this outrageous borrowing Bill of the Liberal Government of Canada. This Government was elected on promises to reduce Government in people's lives, but since 1980 it has increased the role of Government dramatically. It has increased the debt being foisted on to our young people and which will affect them for the rest of their days. Indeed, it will affect our grandchildren.
There have been 15 PC Members and five NDP Members who have spoken to this Bill. From the Government side, there has been only one Minister and two Members. Are they responding to their constituents? I go into their ridings and talk to the people. They no more want to have their children and grandchildren being run into debt than the people in my riding. Obviously Liberal backbenchers are getting the same message, that this has to stop. Are they rising in this House to object? They are not. Indeed, they will once again stand and vote more deficit and debt for this nation.
Let us look at the statistics. The Government said it needed $26.7 billion in financial requirements this year. It already has $16 billion. On principle, one might say they need $10.7 billion. That should be the maximum amount of this Bill. When you look beyond that, you find it has $5 billion in the bank. That is the cash it now has. In fact, what it really needs in this borrowing Bill is $5.7 billion.

May 10, 1983
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Why is the Government coming to this House for $14.7 billion? Why are Liberal backbenchers not objecting to a Cabinet taking $14.7 billion in competition with our own people who need that money to put into plants, equipment and job creation? Creating jobs increases revenues to the Consolidated Revenue Fund. It reduces the welfare rolls and Unemployment Insurance. The Government should not be competing in the marketplace for $14.7 billion, but it is.
There are several possibilities. One is that the accounts that have been put before the House are incorrect. Possibly the revenue flow into the Consolidated Revenue Fund is down dramatically. We have heard from accountants that tax forms being filled out this year do not show the same type of income tax due and payable as in years before.
I have talked to some of my constituents. Because interest rates and costs have gone up so dramatically, there is no profit left in the system. Of course, there are fewer people working now than even a few months ago Therefore, revenues are down. If the Government needs $14.7 billion because revenues will be down, why does it not share that with this House? Each of us, whether on the Government side or Opposition side, has the long-time ancient historic responsibility, which is the number one reason why we are here, to control the financial purse strings of the Crown, and now the Cabinet of some 36 kings and queens.
The other possibility is that it is simply an election slush fund. That may well be it. Another possibility is that there is a deliberate strategy to maximize the deficits. In some of the programs that have been announced recently several hundreds of millions of dollars will be spread out over several years. The Government is fixing this into law. That may well be a Liberal Party strategy to bind any future Government that may not be Liberal-it certainly will not be Liberal-to any meaningful programs.
If that is so, that is the most abominable, dastardly thing they can do. It is trying to control the people of this country beyond the grave. Within this last year it should not have put policies in place that will go four or five years into the future, binding the then Government.
Some people have suggested it may be part of the continuing strategy to impoverish segments of our society so that they are controlled by Government. At one time our senior citizens had a lot of freedom. They worked, put a little money aside and had a nest-egg for their retirement. They were free. They did not need the old age pension. The Old Age Security was nice, but they were free to do other things.
When a Government has these deficits, rates of inflation and high interest rates, it leads to a collapse. Inflation destroys the nest-egg of these retired people. Members are getting more and more people coming into their offices who feel that they are just a ward of the Government, that without their Old Age Security cheque, they could not buy groceries. Are these
people free? Is that the kind of country we want for our senior citizens?
There is a plan to switch university students to a voucher system. At present, students can decide whether to study philosophy, history, religion or whatever. They make the decision. They can go to the Canada Student Loan Board and they are entitled to their money. The minute you switch to a voucher system, which is something this Government is actively considering, then the Government can decide to give a grant to someone studying economics but maybe not to someone studying history. That will be Government control over a historic freedom in our society.
We saw this in the oil industry. Prior to the National Energy Program, someone could set up an oil company. He could hire five geologists and drill where he thought there might be oil. He could deduct the cost of that against any revenue from that well. The National Energy Program changed that totally. Now he has to go to Ottawa and establish whether he is "Canadian" or not. If so, he will get a better grant than an entrepreneur from another country. Second, if he wants to drill in Alberta, he may get a 40 per cent grant. The bureaucrats may say that if you go farther and drill on the other side of an imaginary line, your grant will be up to 80 per cent.
That has fundamentally changed the nature of the oil industry from one where people were drilling and competing for oil exports. They now drill federal dry wells on federal lands. That is a waste of money. As a result, the conventional crude in Alberta, which started at 16 billion barrels, went down to 4 billion barrels, is dropping dramatically and will soon be gone. It is not being replaced. I wonder if I might call it six o'clock, Mr. Speaker?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Is that agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East-Revelstoke):: Mr. Speaker, on March 15, 1983,1 asked the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Chretien) to explain what the Government was going to do with the 50,000 acres in coal blocks in southeastern British Columbia now that the Crowsnest rate legislation was being brought in. The price of coal blocks was frozen at $2 per ton for domestic use under the terms of the Crowsnest Agreement. While I agree that it should be free, the Canadian Constitution grants control and ownership of resources to the Provinces.
May 10, 1983

I asked the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources to guarantee that the 50,000 acres of land would be returned to the Province of British Columbia. If the Agreement is broken the Province of British Columbia should have the lands turned back to it for development, according to its time schedule. Approaches have been made to the federal Government by various coal companies to develop the property.
What concerns me is that under the terms of the Crowsnest Agreement B.C. Rail will receive up to $635 million per year for the next three years for upgrading of the railway system while its subsidy coal company is applying to the federal Government for the development of these coalfields. I think that is wrong. The Province of British Columbia should have the opportunity of deciding how and when these fields should be developed, not the federal Government.
One of the reasons people in the west feel left out is that agreements such as the Crowsnest Agreement are likely to be broken or changed without their consent. Land should be turned back to whoever owned it when agreements were made between the Provinces and the railways.
I ask the Minister to make a commitment here and now that, if there are to be changes to the Crowsnest agreement, this 50,000 acres with a coal reserve estimated in the neighbourhood of $450 billion will be turned back to the Province. The Minister has stated clearly that the federal Government is the rightful owner of the property and that it would look into the situation if the problem arises. I think that is the attitude that has created the resentment which exists in the West.
I would urge the Minister to consider my comment and look at the very serious problems that will be created for the development of energy in the Province of British Columbia as a result. If Newfoundland has the right to offshore drilling, if Alberta has the right to energy and to set gas prices, surely the Province of British Columbia should have that property turned back to the rightful owner.


David Charles Dingwall: Mr. Speaker, I think it would be worthwhile to take a moment to review the history of the Dominion coal blocks. The Government of Canada holds the mineral and surface rights on two tracts of land totalling 50,000 acres, in the Crowsnest Pass coalfield of the Kootenay district in B.C. The Government holds these rights under the Crowsnest Pass Act of 1897. Under this legislation the Canadian Pacific Railway Company was required to carry certain products-including coal and grain-at fixed rates and to grant certain running rights on its railway lines subject to control of the Governor in Council. The Act also conveyed to the federal Government a portion up to the extent of 50,000 acres of any coal-bearing lands granted to the CPR as a subsidy for the construction of the railway by the B.C. Government.
While the Crowsnest Pass Act deals primarily with matters related to railway transportation, particularly those related to the movement of grain, the coal lands are dealt with in sub-
Adjournment Debate
clause l(i) which stipulates that coal be sold at $2.00 or less per ton.
As the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) stated in response to a question raised in the House on March 15, the reason the Government is introducing companion legislation to its Western Grains Transportation Initiatives is to remove the constraints on the exploitation of the Dominion coal blocks, mainly, repealing the Clause limiting the selling price of coal to $2 per tonne.
Historically, Mr. Speaker, there has been some debate between the Government of Canada and the Province of British Columbia as to who controls the coal rights in the Dominion coal blocks. This has hampered development of these resources. From the late 1960s to 1971, licences to explore this coal were granted by the federal Government to four mining companies. The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources did not renew these non-exclusive exploration licences in 1971 because of the aforementioned restrictive subclause 1 in the Crowsnest Pass Agreement, and the uncertainty about when such a restriction would be removed. The federal Government's energy policy is aimed at utilizing a rational mix of all the available domestic sources of energy.
In this context, the Government will be increasing its reliance on Canadian coal. Coal reserves in the Dominion coal blocks are considerable. They have been tested for quality and have been determined to be of good metallurgical grade. No serious development of these resources can commence until legal problems are resolved.
This brings us back to the amendments to the original 1897 legislation. The Government is hopeful that Transport Canada's Western Grain Transportation Initiatives legislation is passed through Parliament without any complications or delay, thereby facilitating the Government's expedient resolution of problems impeding, Mr. Speaker, the development of coal in the Dominion coal blocks.


TRADE-REQUEST THAT TRADE OFFICES BE ESTABLISHED IN TAIWAN. (B) POSSIBLE SALE OF CANDU NUCLEAR REACTOR TO TAIWAN
Mr. Otto Jelinek (Halton):: Mr. Speaker, the issue I am raising today is based on my questions to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) last week, on May 4, regarding two associated matters; namely, the potential sale of at least one Candu Reactor to Taiwan now, thereby creating some 25,000 jobs in Canada, and second, the need for us to join the rest of the modern world of international trade and commerce and establish a permanent, but non-diplomatic trade office in Taiwan in order to promote Canadian trade with that country.
Let me say at the outset, Mr. Speaker, that I was pleased that the Prime Minister did not reject these proposals outright, and in fact said, "If the Hon. Member wants to suggest that I take a trip to Taiwan, I will entertain the suggestion." I do suggest, Mr. Speaker, that the Prime Minister visit Taiwan to

May 10, 1983
Adjournment Debate
see for himself one of the fastest growing economies in the world today. He would also see the tremendous trade potential which Canada and Canadians are missing simply because we do not have any presence whatsoever in that country to promote trade. Yet, and I want to emphasize this, every other non-communist industrialized nation in the world has some form of a trade office in Taiwan, and they are taking advantage of that tremendous growth and potential in international trade in that country. Yet they do it without jeopardizing their diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. There is no question about it. Sweden was the last western country to open an office in Taiwan just this January. It has not lost one cent of trade with China. It has not jeopardized its diplomatic relations with Red China and it has increased its sales with Taiwan considerably, as have all of the other nations which are based there. Canada and Italy are the only two countries outside the non-communist industrialized world which are not represented there.
Why do I and others advocate such a move? The answer is very simple, Mr. Speaker. It is because international trade creates jobs in Canada. Canadians are today faced with the highest unemployment level in the history of this country and we are missing the boat in international trade, in Taiwan and elsewhere.


Jean-C. Lapierre: No.


Otto John Jelinek: The parliamentary secretary says, "no". He is going to read some prepared text, but he does not know what he is talking about. After my seven minutes I will give him a chance.
The United States Department of Commerce, for example, states that for every $1 billion American dollars in exported goods 24,000 indirect and direct jobs are created. Statistics Canada says that for every $1 billion of exported goods and services, 26,123 man-years of direct and indirect employment are created. Because Taiwan is one of the fastest growing economies in the world we must join the rest of the world in promoting Canadian trade abroad.
I was pleased to see that the Prime Minister appeared to be positive in his response, particularly from the quote that I just gave. Following my questions in the House and private meetings with Liberal Members, many of whom are on the Canada-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Committee, as well as in a conversation I had with the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Chretien), I was assured the Government would be looking toward improving trade relations with Taiwan for the benefit of Canada and Canadians.
It is urgent for Canadian businessmen and Canadians to have two things in Taiwan: a permanent trade office like other countries; and better and more viable travel arrangements, in other words, visa offices where visas are processed. Right now a Canadian businessman has to go to the U.S. in order to obtain a visa to go to Taiwan to do business and sell Canada.
The situation is the same for Taiwanese businessmen who want to come to Canada and buy Canadian, and they do. I am assured they want to buy Candu reactors. We already have one there. The Parliamentary Secretary may not know that, but it is an experimental one being run by the U.S.
Taiwan also needs our high technology because it has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. It is turning from labour intensive industry to high-tech industry. It needs our communications, our transportation equipment and our agricultural know-how, not to mention our raw materials such as coal, sulphur, pulp and paper, potash and so on.
I am delighted that the Prime Minister seemed to be positive. I am delighted that the Minister of Energy was positive in suggesting that such an idea of selling Candus and expanding our trade relations with Taiwan should be pursued. I know the Parliamentary Secretary is now going to read some prepared text about which he knows absolutely nothing, so I will give him the opportunity to do that, and pursue the matter with the Prime Minister and Minister of Energy at a later date.


Jean-C. Lapierre: Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the Hon. Member for Saint-Denis (Mr. Prud'homme), was just telling me to be nice to the Hon. Member opposite. His last remarks did not motivate me to be nice to him.


Mr. Blaikie:: Turn the other cheek.


Jean-C. Lapierre: I think the suggestions he has made are interesting. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) is interested in any suggestions made by any Member of this House. But the Hon. Member has to realize that the issue is not as simple as getting a free lunch. He should know that if the market was so great and the possibilities were so high, the private sector would have already established a trade office in Taiwan. Other organizations have done this. I refer to the Australian Chamber of Commerce, the Anglo-Taiwan Trade Committee, the German Federation of Trade and Industry and similar organizations from other European countries.


Otto John Jelinek: All supported by their Governments.


Jean-C. Lapierre: If the Canadian private sector is contemplating doing that, be sure the Government will give it serious consideration. We do not see any obstacle to the establishment in Taiwan of branch of a Canadian organization comparable to these others.
When the Hon. Member talks about selling the Candu, he makes it very simplistic, but it is not like selling a pair of shoes. It has a political dimension which cannot be ignored. The Canadian Government has a policy rooted in serious concerns about nuclear non-proliferation. There is no obvious mechanism for Taiwan's formal compliance with our non-proliferation requirements, namely, the signature of the NPT or an equivalent binding commitment to non-proliferation, or NPT-type full scope safeguards under an agreement with the IAEA, or bilateral agreement with Canada providing for fallbacks,
May 10, 1983

prior consent rights, physical protection and other provisions. Taiwan is not a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency and we cannot, having no diplomatic relations, sign a bilateral safeguards agreement with it. Naturally, it would be desirable if we could resolve such difficulties and sell a superior Canadian product like the Candu, but we must do so with full attention to the political situation and our non-proliferation concerns.
The Hon. Member was giving figures about jobs that are created in Canada by trade. I would like to remind him that if we use his calculations, 31,347 jobs are created by our exports to China. The Hon. Member should know that and take it into consideration. We have many links with that country. We are open to his suggestions, but he must realize that there is no simple answer.


MEDICAL CARE-SCHEDULED IMPOSITION OF USER FEES IN ALBERTA. (B) INQUIRY RESPECTING INTRODUCTION OF LEGISLATION
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have this opportunity to follow up on a number of questions I have been asking the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) during the last while concerning her announced intentions last year to bring in a new health act which would consolidate all the existing health care legislation in Canada and at the same time clarify national health care standards in Canada and the five basic principles of medicare.
I am concerned that we have not yet seen the Canada health Act. It apparently is still in the drafting process which has continued now for some time. As a result of this inaction or delay on the part of the federal Government things are proceeding at a pace which constitutes an ever increasing threat to the existence of medicare. I have said before on a number of occasions that it is not any one action by any one Province which can be said to lead to the end of medicare, but the combination of all things that have happened over recent years and months, in particular, which have contributed to a scenario in which we can see ourselves finding medicare, as we have known it and as Canadians have wanted it, being lost.
I urge upon the Minister of National Health and Welfare the concern that what she does or does not do in the near future will be extremely crucial to the future of medicare in this country. She cannot continue only with what has often been acceptable rhetoric and the arguments with which she has come to be identified. I recall as far back as before the 1979 election when she was Minister of National Health and Welfare and came to the rhetorical defence of medicare. I also recall when she was in the Opposition attending a conference on the crisis in medicare at that time.
Since then we have had the health services report which recommended that action be taken with regard to extra billing by physicians. We have also had the special Parliamentary Task Force on Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements which took place a year after the Hall Report and which made
Adjournment Debate
recommendations concerning extra billing, and in a number of other areas regarding medicare and the maintenance of national standards. It will be two years this September since that special Parliamentary Task Force on Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements made its report.
Alberta introduced a new regime of user fees, this spring. New Brunswick recently announced that it would be bringing in certain user fees for certain hospital services. Last fall we saw the Progressive Conservative Ontario Government initiate a system whereby hospitals are allowed to be run by American multinationals for a share of the profits they can generate by running those hospitals. We believe that to be in violation of the spirit of non-profit administration, one of the five basic principles of medicare.
I could continue with other instances in which the spirit and, indeed, even the letter of medicare are being violated by Provinces. We still have no concrete action on the part of the federal Government regarding a Canada Health Act. I understand how difficult it will be for the federal Government to bring in a Canada Health Act that will address all of these issue in a comprehensive and competent way, but I want the Government to do that, and I want the Government to do something soon in that direction. That is why I have urged the Minister to put a proposal before this House.
The Minister does not seem to have any luck with the Provinces. She has not met with provincial representatives for almost a year now. I do not think we can wait until we finally get around to having another meeting between the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the provincial Ministers of Health. I think what the Minister should do is put her proposal for a Canada Health Act before this House, table it as a white paper, or in whatever form she desires, and let Members of Parliament and the Canadian public respond to it. It will be a good document if it is the kind of proposal around which people can rally, and through which they can put pressure on their respective provincial Governments to come to the bargaining table here in Ottawa and bargain in the interests of medicare, and not just in the narrow fiscal or ideological interests of Progressive Conservative provincial Governments.
In closing, I might add that the federal Government also has a responsibility to act in the interests of medicare, not just in its own fiscal self-interest. It must put some money back on the table. The federal Government has to remedy some of the fiscal injustices it has done to the Provinces in the last year so that it can come to the table and bargain hard and bargain well for the future of medicare.


Mr. Jim Schroder (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, we are all aware that Canada's health care system and its health care insurance plans are facing extremely difficult economic times. It is precisely at such times that important programs come under the most stress and risk. We are also all aware of the sources

May 10, 1983
Adjournment Debate
of stress to the health care system. The demands for new health programs, new technology, growth in existing programs, upgrading of existing facilities and equipment, increasing wages and fees are some of these pressures. Perhaps all of them could be solved with a huge increase in revenues to the program, but we all know that this is not an available solution. Where would this money come from? From governments? From the consumers? From both?
It is clear that all sources of revenue are stretched to the limit. However, a wide range of revenue sources is being seriously considered in these times, as we see in the recent budget plans of Alberta and New Brunswick, in spite of long standing federal legislation on medicare.
Unfortunately, program legislation drafted 25 years ago under different fiscal arrangements is simply not well suited to meet the expectations of the public in the 1980s, particularly in light of our economic conditions. Nor does our legislation provide sufficient clarity for the provinces to know just what conditions are still necessary, as a minimum, to qualify for the very substantial contributions to medicare provided by the federal taxpayers.
It was with these stresses and risks in mind, as described by Mr. Justice Emmett Hall in his 1980 report "Canada's National-Provincial Health Program for the 1980's, and by the all party federal Parliamentary Task Force on Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements in its August, 1981 report, that the Minister met with the provincial health Ministers in May, 1982 to propose the new Canada Health Act.
The Ministers of Health agreed at the meeting that open and co-operative discussions should proceed quickly at both
the ministerial and official levels, to complete discussions as soon as possible on a new Canada Health Act to replace the existing Hospital Insurance and Diagnostic Services Act and the Medical Care Act. The Minister was very pleased that a basic commitment to high quality care and to the principles of universality, portability, comprehensiveness and accessibility of medicare was stressed by all.
The development of new legislation through federal-provincial consultation is a process which should itself facilitate the maintenance of conditions in the 1980s and beyond, because it seeks to arrive at a clear understanding of what Parliament intends to require of a Province in order that transfer funds will be provided for the health insurance program and of what the Provinces are committed to with regard to the medicare program.
I strongly assure the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Birds Hill (Mr. Blaikie) that work is progressing systematically and thoroughly on the new Canada Health Act and that as soon as it is appropriate the Minister will be meeting with the provincial health Ministers to complete the consultation process before introducing the new act to Parliament. This is a very important program to Canadians and it is essential that the time be taken to develop the act properly.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at two o'clock in the afternoon.
At 6.26 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Wednesday, May 11, 1983