1983-02-18

STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S.O. 21


Mr. John Evans (Ottawa Centre):: Madam Speaker, I would like to draw the attention of the House to some optimistic indicators which encourage optimism and suggest that the national Government has been pursuing proper and prudent policies. First, inflation has fallen to an annual rate of only 8.3 per cent as of today. Housing starts are up from a low of
86,000	in September, 1982, to 165,000 last month, a 90 per cent increase. Sales of passenger cars increased 37 per cent between July and December of 1982.
The Conference Board of Canada's index of consumer confidence rose 36 per cent, from 54.8 per cent in the second quarter of 1982 to 74.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 1982.
Senior business executives have become more optimistic about the near-term prospects for the Canadian economy. According to the Conference Board survey of business, attitudes and confidence in Canada's investment climate have also improved.
Pension funds in 1982 showed a sharp improvement over 1981, according to private surveys. Equity funds have increased 39.1 per cent over the past six months.
Finally, the Toronto Stock Exchange 300 composite has risen from about 1850 in mid-December to 2150 in the past week.
A large part of the credit for this improvement should go to the Government, which has addressed the economic situation through hard work and constructive policy initiatives. This is in contrast to those in the Official Opposition whose negativism and lack of policies are destroying their Party from within.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Madam Speaker, yesterday in Warsaw, Zbigniew Romaszewski of the
Polish Solidarity Movement was sentenced to four and a half years in prison by a military court for activities which, in any other country, would be considered legitimate in defence of the freedom of information and expression. His wife, Zofia, was sentenced to three years in prison at the same time.
This is what the military regime is doing in Poland, seeking to extinguish those flickers of freedom that Solidarity has been struggling to keep alight. When will the Government protest? Is it making excessive demands to speak out about what is happening and carrying information to others?
Are Romaszewski and his wife guilty of making excessive demands which our Canadian Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) hoped the military regime in Poland could keep Solidarity from making? On December 18, 1981, only five days after the steel curtain of martial law had descended upon Poland, Canada's Prime Minister said:
Hopefully the military regime will be able not only to keep Solidarity from making excessive demands-
The record of the Government in verbal support of freedoms throughout the world, at Helsinki, for example, and Madrid, is not matched by its diplomatic protests when specific incidents of suppression of freedom occur, as they are occurring today in Poland.


STATUS OF WOMEN
Mrs. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Madam Speaker, women have not achieved equality in Canada. In October, 1981, the NDP asked the Government to establish a Standing Committee on the Status of Women. Unfortunately the Minister responsible for the Status of Women did not support this request. Since then, the economic situation for women has drastically deteriorated, while many more women are left alone to raise children and to face unemployment and poverty as they grow older.
We are pleased that the slow learner Conservatives have finally supported our request which we recently reintroduced to House Leaders. Because 52 per cent of our population remains disadvantaged, it is essential that there be one standing committee which will monitor all legislation affecting

February 18, 1983
women, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and which will receive annual reports from all Government Departments concerned with women's programs, and undertake special projects to benefit women.
The Government and the Minister responsible give lip service to equality, yet they have not even implemented the 1970 recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. There has been no increase in daycare. The wage gap has widened. Government restraint has worsened economic hardship. Government action on pension reform has been shelved. The Government has refused mandatory affirmative action.
To begin to right these wrongs, the Government must agree to establish a Standing Committee on the status of women as a priority for parliamentary reform.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. Denis Ethier (Glengarry-Prescott-Russell):: Madam Speaker, under Standing Order 21 I rise to encourage the Government to continue to develop positive and constructive policies aimed at achieving energy security at a fair price for Canadians.
Three years ago the Government pledged to establish a "made in Canada" blended price for oil, resulting in lower costs to Canadian consumers.
I further urge the Government to continue progress on such projects as the Nova Scotia offshore, the synthetic crude refinery and benzene plant at Scotford, Alberta, and the Beaufort Sea exploration. The Government, in the absence of any specific and constructive suggestions from the Opposition, should continue to encourage economic development through initiatives, such as the Office of Industrial and Regional Benefit, to ensure that the Canadian industrial and manufacturing benefits from these projects are maximized.
Finally, I urge the Government to encourage the creation of jobs in different regions by ensuring that energy maintains its central position in the Government's approach to industrial and regional development, giving Canadian industry a price advantage by keeping costs low.


THE PRIME MINISTER
Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Madam Speaker, we are on the verge of entering the fourth year of this first session of the 32nd Parliament. It is unprecedented in Canadian history. As we look back we see three years of fumbling, blumbing, Government intervention and interference, broken promises, helter skelter policies and, for most Canadians, dissipated
illusions, shattered confidence, and broken hopes and dreams. The Government has not only fractured the parliamentary system but has broken faith with the Canadian people. Canadians say that they have had enough. As the Board of Dromore might say,
Pierre, you're nimble; Pierre, you're quick.
But you, and your manoeuvrings, make us sick.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, Oh!


LABOUR RELATIONS
Mr. Sid Parker (Kootenay East-Revelstoke):: Madam Speaker, I rise to express my concern and the concern of my Party over the vicious attacks that have been made against working people in this country over the last few months, and to express our belief that it is not working people who are responsible for the problems of Canada.
The federal Liberal Government began these attacks a few months ago with its six and five program which broke the contracts of workers and stole money from pensioners. The Conservative Government of Ontario, which had already shown itself ready to use its full power against hospital orderlies but not even to pressure doctors, was quick to follow the federal Government.
The most drastic, vicious and immoral attack on working people, however, has come from the Government of Quebec.
In its recent legislation it even had to suspend its own Charter of Rights which is supposed to provide basic mini-mums of freedoms to citizens in a democracy.
Like the federal Government, it broke contracts and stole money, perhaps showing Rene Levesque's Liberal roots. But it went further and threatened firings and slashes in seniority and pensions. Such cuts in seniority will most hurt union militants who may then be laid off because of lack of seniority. Such moves are union bashing in its most vicious form.
The Government of Quebec has absolutely refused to bargain in good faith with its workers. We would now like to call on the Government of Quebec to restore collective bargaining and to bargain with its workers, treating them as citizens in a democracy rather than as scapegoats to be attacked for the Government's convenience.


THE ECONOMY
Mr. David Smith (Don Valley East):: Madam Speaker, in view of the continuous diet of gloom and doom being meted out by the Opposition, this third anniversary of the election of
February 18, 1983

the present Government is an appropriate occasion on which to take stock of some good economic news.
Interest rates are now at their lowest level in five years, and of course lower than at any point during the Clark Government, and the downward trend continues. The cost of living index dropped to 8.3 per cent in January and, over the past six months, has only been increasing at an average annual rate of 4.2 per cent. The previous six months it had been increasing at an average annual rate of 12.5 per cent.
Non-COLA wage settlements were down to 7.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 1982, a drop of 50 per cent from a year earlier. Surely that is evidence that the six and five program is in fact working.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


David P. Smith: Employment increased in December and stabilized in January, after a period of continuous decline.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


David P. Smith: The Canadian dollar has strengthened, capital outflow has reversed, foreign investment has increased, and corporate profits have started to go up after dropping for five consecutive quarters. These trends, Madam Speaker, attest to the basic strength of the economy, the correctness of the Government's policies, and justify optimism that the stage is set for economic recovery.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. John Bosley (Don Valley West):: Madam Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister who in April, 1980, sent his Minister a set of guidelines for their behaviour. If I may quote to the Prime Minister one of his guidelines:
In any official dealings with former office holders, Ministers must ensure that they do not provide grounds or the appearance of grounds for allegations of improper influence, privileged access or preferential treatment.
My question to the Prime Minister is this. Has he determined whether the Deputy Prime Minister, when he participated in a press conference in April, 1981, to announce the Scotia Coal Synfuels Plant, was aware of those guidelines? Also, has he determined, if the Deputy Prime Minister was so aware, why he felt it was reasonable to breach those guidelines that day?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member and his colleagues keep returning to those guidelines. He has read them again this morning. I have great difficulty in believing in the seriousness of this attack by the Opposition. We talk of improper influence. Here is a public project in which the Government of Nova Scotia
Oral Questions
Crown Corporation is associated, as well as an Alberta public corporation, Nova, a federal Crown corporation, Petro-Canada, and a private sector giant, Gulf. They are doing something which has been asked of them under the energy policy, in other words to provide for oil substitution schemes.
Money is paid out from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Nova Scotia. If there is any improper influence it must have been on Nova Scotia. They have to authorize-


Mr. Crosbie:: That's really stretching.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: That is not stretching. The money comes from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Nova Scotia. Nobody is suspecting that they were subject to undue influence. This is a project that they badly need and that they hope will proceed. It has been known since the announcement in the Spring of 1981 by many people in that Province, certainly by the Government of that Province.
Where is the improper influence? What is the privileged access, Madam Speaker? When a consortium that is well known and operating above board applies to the Government so that it can pay funds for a policy of the Government which is beneficial to the Canadian people, oil substitution, beneficial especially to the Maritime Provinces which have been asking for this type of scheme for many years, where is the preferential treatment?


Madam Speaker:: Order, please. It would be helpful if we could keep the answers short.


DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER'S PARTICIPATION IN PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT
John William Bosley: Madam Speaker, it is inconceivable that one would maintain it is the responsibility of Nova or the Government of Nova Scotia to make sure that ministerial guidelines are followed.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John William Bosley: I repeat my question to the Prime Minister. The deal, according to the Prime Minister, was not finalized as of April, 1981. Why was the Deputy Prime Minister involved in announcing that deal, creating the impression of undue influence in contravention of the Prime Minister's guidelines?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member returns to undue influence. I repeat, what is the preferential treatment when we know that the same Deputy Prime Minister and the same Department had been turned to by many other people across the land?
As I say, every Province across Canada had such a fund originally provided out of federal Government money but put in the trust of the Provinces, and over the years few applications, if any, I am told, were turned down under this oil substitution program. Where is the undue influence? Where is the preferential treatment, if anyone with a reasonable scheme

February 18, 1983
Oral Questions
beneficial to the Canadian energy self-reliance program, beneficial to creating work in Nova Scotia, is approved by a Government Department? Where is the scandal? What is the shock? Why is the Opposition, two years later, seeking some hidden motives for something which was public at the time and which, as I repeat, was entered into by a consortium, including a Crown Corporation of the Government of Nova Scotia?


RATIONALE FOR GUIDELINES ON MINISTERIAL CONDUCT
John William Bosley: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister cannot have it both ways. Either there was no deal in April, 1981, in which case what he is saying may be correct. What he just said is there was a deal in April, 1981, in which case there was a two-year guideline. My question to the Prime Minister is this: what is the point of guidelines if the Deputy Prime Minister is allowed to go in April, 1981, to sit beside a man who was a former Minister of the Crown, and pretend he does not know he is a former Minister of the Crown, apparently, and announce a deal which takes $1.9 million of public money? What is the point of guidelines if they can be broken so easily, and the Prime Minister can then say there is nothing wrong with the deal?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The point of the guidelines, Madam Speaker, is to ensure two things: first, that public trust is not exploited unduly by people in the private sector, including-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, Madam Speaker, I fail to understand the cause of this hilarity. Maybe 1 have missed some subtlety over there, but I doubt it. The point of the guidelines is to ensure two things; first, that the public trust not be abused, not be exploited improperly by people in the private sector and, second, to make sure that the integrity of the public sector be preserved, and seem to be preserved. The Hon. Member talks about the April announcement. I explained yesterday that that announcement was made in Nova Scotia before the deal had actually been signed by the federal Government-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -and by the Minister responsible for it. But members of the consortium knew they had something which was desirable under the policy. They had had a consortium, including all these public corporations. They were appealing to the Government of Nova Scotia for funds. For all I know they may have already been told by the Government of Nova Scotia that the funds would have been forthcoming. I am told they even began to expend some of their money in the beginning of July, 1981, and that is why the announcement was made retroactive to the end of June. Therefore, all this was above board. It is a plan which the people of Nova Scotia welcome. It is a plan which the Government of Nova Scotia welcomes. It is
a plan which the Government of Canada welcomes. It is a plan under which no one exercised any undue influence. No one got any undue advantage. The public trust-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The public trust was respected, Madam Speaker. And I suggest that the people over there are just trying to cover their own backsides by digging into the past and trying to find scandals where there is no scandal.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


QUERY RESPECTING PUBLIC TRUST
Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, for three days the people of Canada have watched the Prime Minister bob and weave and duck around this issue, and with every day his actions get sleazier.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


An Hon. Member:: Right on.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: The people of Canada are fed up with the preferential treatment that Ministers of this Government are giving to their former colleagues, whether it is Macdonald, or Buchanan, or this particular case. Either guidelines exist to prevent that sort of treatment, or they do not. I would like to ask the Prime Minister, in this case, why was his Deputy Prime Minister in a situation in Cape Breton in April, 1981, where he exploited the public trust which the Prime Minister has had the nerve to throw out this morning?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, Madam Speaker, if the Deputy Prime Minister was exploiting any public trust, the Hon. Member knows or should know that he was doing it in the company of John Buchanan, the Premier of Nova Scotia.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: They were there-well, they are laughing at their own well-known Tories. What was dishonourable about the Premier of Nova Scotia being there?


Mr. Wilson:: How about the federal public trust?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Here was a project which was good for his Province. Here was a project which was being announced-


Mr. Fraser:: He was not getting a personal benefit out of the deal. That is the difference.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, Madam Speaker, I hear the Member from Vancouver now talking of a personal benefit. Who was getting a personal benefit out of this deal? Certainly not the Minister. If there was any benefit, hopefully it was a political benefit that both the Premier of Nova Scotia and the Deputy Prime Minister were hoping to get from the people of Nova Scotia who had the good sense to see that this was a useful
February 18, 1983

operation, beneficial to them, if ever it does in fact prove to be feasible.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, the guidelines in question are the guidelines of the Prime Minister of Canada, not of the Premier of Nova Scotia. It is his duty to see these guidelines are enforced.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: And what he has been doing these last few days is defaulting on that duty, as he has over the last couple of years with regard to former Cabinet Ministers, and with regard to his current Cabinet Ministers.


MONITORING OF GUIDELINES
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Madam Speaker, since the Prime Minister has defaulted on putting these guidelines into effect, did he at least ever consider going to the Deputy Registrar General and asking that official, who is responsible for monitoring these guidelines, whether any of these activities were in default of the guidelines which he, the Prime Minister, supposedly enforces in this country?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I want to point out to the Hon. Member that I did not suggest they were the guidelines of the Premier of Nova Scotia, although I accept that he must, like everyone in public life, want to be guided by good standards of morality. I am not suggesting they are his guidelines; they are our guidelines. But I am suggesting that his presence there must be some reassurance, even to the Member from Kingston, that this was not a sleazy deal, which is the word she uses. This was something above board, beneficial to his Province.
When I am constantly referred to my own guidelines and the words "preferential treatment", why would the Premier of Nova Scotia give preferential treatment to this abominable former Minister that the Hon. Member seems to be referring to? Why would he be doing that? He would not, Madam Speaker. He would be dealing with this group because he thought it was beneficial to his Province. Therefore, there is no preferential treatment, and if there was, once again it must come from the Province which holds the most money and which is going to spend the money. Therefore, it seems to me that the Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister cannot be accused of giving preferential treatment when it does not come from them, it comes from the Consolidated Revenue Fund of Nova Scotia.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


INVOLVEMENT OF FORMER MINISTER
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Madam Speaker, I have a question supplementary to the questions just raised. It seems
Oral Questions
to me the Prime Minister is introducing a couple of red herrings which do not go to the root of the issue here.


Mr. Nielsen:: Just two?


John Edward Broadbent: One is that he keeps asserting the deal was beneficial for everyone involved. Let us say that is beyond dispute and set it aside. Then he points out that Nova Scotia was involved and therefore tries to suggest in some way that that makes it entirely acceptable. Surely, Madam Speaker, the point is that Mr. Gillespie was a former Minister of this Cabinet, not of the Government of Nova Scotia.
To come to the question of appearance, since the guidelines refer with equal emphasis not only to wrongdoing but, in the Prime Minister's own words, provide as follows;
Ministers must ensure that they do not provide grounds or the appearance of grounds for allegations of improper influence.
Surely "appearance" is the essence of the case that is being made.
I want to ask the Prime Minister if he does not agree that an impartial Canadian, not a member of any political party, looking at the situation involving a former minister, could conceivably reach the conclusion that there was the appearance of wrongdoing?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I think I can assert that unequivocally. If there were really an appearance of wrongdoing, if this was a scandalous thing in its very appearance, if it had been obvious that something was wrong here, why, only two years later do we hear about it? What kind of apperance is that? When it was announced publicly in the Province, when it was then signed, when it was on television, when it was in the news, when there were press releases-there is the appearance-who said, "This is terrible? This is awful?" Who said, "There is wrongdoing there"?
Some day, two years later, because once again both Opposition Parties are looking for red herrings, they dig this up out of the distant-not the hidden past but the known past.
What are the appearances of wrongdoing once again when public figures, including the Deputy Prime Minister and the Premier of Nova Scotia are on a platform making an announcement which is carried far and wide, and suddenly, two years later, these guys over here just realize that the appearance is wrong?


John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister's interesting rhetoric is all beside the point.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Chretien:: Where were you before?


John Edward Broadbent: The Liberals should just listen to the question. The Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources asked

February 18, 1983
Oral Questions
where I was before. I say to him and to the Prime Minister that this is news to me that has emerged in the last few days.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Where were you?


John Edward Broadbent: The question of integrity is surely being raised now. The question of the appearance of wrongdoing is being raised now.


QUERY RESPECTING APPEARANCE OF WRONGDOING
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, I should like to ask the Prime Minister if he does not agree that a decision involving some of his Ministers was reached within the two-year period, in principle, that has been disputed here? Would he agree to that? Would he agree that one of the central Ministers involved-surely the signing Minister is now the Minister of Finance-would he agree that the Deputy Prime Minister, also acting within the time period of two years, publicly made an announcement?
If he agrees with all this, even assuming that we are just now becoming aware of it, surely he must conclude that such a deal, that provides profound financial benefits for one of the former Ministers, is leaving us with the appearance of wrongdoing? That is the issue.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the appearance of wrongdoing assumes that there will be some wrongdoing.


John Edward Broadbent: No, no.


John Carnell Crosbie: There was.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, if there has been no wrongdoing, then our case rests.


John Carnell Crosbie: Yes there was.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If there was no wrongdoing, and therefore if the Hon. Member wants to contrive in his thoughts that there is some appearance, and he discovers that later, that is a problem in his mind. But if there is no wrongdoing, there is no wrongdoing.


REQUEST THAT PRIME MINISTER DEMAND RESIGNATION OF MINISTERS
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, just as in the case of the judges' affair, the Prime Minister is confusing legality with morality, and legality with the parliamentary traditions that used to exist in this country. He always makes that confusion.
The issue here is not, in fact, the honesty of the Minister of Finance; it is not the honesty, I say to the Prime Minister, of the Deputy Prime Minister; it is the appearance of improper conduct. There was a minister of the Crown in Great Britain, a finance minister, who resigned because, inadvertently, a newspaper story revealed some information about a budget.
There was no suggestion that the minister of the Crown in Great Britain was involved in wrongdoing, but he was involved in the appearance of wrongdoing.
I say to the Prime Minister that, if his guidelines mean anything, he should act and demand some resignations. If not, he should have the minimum of integrity and scrap the guidelines entirely.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member makes a parallel with former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Dalton, who inadvertently let out a budget secret. That secret hit the newspaper headlines before the Minister had read his budget. This, according to the tradition, is something that you should not do, and therefore the Minister chose to resign.
What is the parallel with this case? Do we have a former Minister who comes in secret and tries to arrange something under the table which will be beneficial to him? We do not. We have a former Minister who is trying to earn his living out in the private sector.


An Hon. Member:: Poor Alastair!


An Hon. Member:: At S600 a day.


John Carnell Crosbie: Pass around the hat.


Mr. Hees:: Pierre, you are breaking my heart.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I, too, am amused by the hilarity over there because I mentioned former Ministers who were trying to earn their living. The laughs came mainly from those who were never former Ministers, particularly the Hon. Member for Calgary who never quite made it to the Cabinet for reasons which may have to do with guidelines or not.


Mr. Andre:: I did the honourable thing; why don't you?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: And his seatmate, the Hon. Member for Northumberland, who wished he had made it to that Cabinet, but who never quite made it either.


Madam Speaker:: Order, order!


ROLE OF ALASTAIR GILLESPIE
John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister who is certainly exhibiting hircine tendencies in this whole situation. What we allege, and what I would like the Prime Minister to answer is this. We say that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance conspired with Mr. Gillespie, a former minister, to breach the guidelines so that Mr. Gillespie could secure a privileged contract and certain favours from the Government. That is the situation as it appears to us. It is a conspiracy of sleeze.
February 18, 1983

Has the Prime Minister investigated whether Mr. Gillespie or any of his agents, or associates, spoke with or to anyone in the office of the then Minister of Energy, either on his exempt staff or to the Minister himself, about this contract in Cape Breton which involves a process he had been involved in when he was a Minister and before the two-year period was up? Has he done that? Has there been a thorough investigation of that aspect of the matter, forgetting signing the contract which was cleverly left until 23 days after the two years expired. That is an obvious expedient and just shows that they were aware they were ignoring the guidelines.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I am back to the words used by the Hon. Member about preferential treatment. Once again, I cannot appeal to Members on the other side, I appeal to the court of public opinion. Where is the preferential treatment given in this particular case by the Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, or anyone in the Government, when they are giving, once again, not in secret to a former Minister of one of my Governments- they are giving publicly to a consortium which is applying a policy which is beneficial for Canada and beneficial for the people of Nova Scotia and not receiving any undue benefit? They are trying to carry out an enterprise which is asked for by the Government of Canada and by the Government of Nova Scotia. Where is the preferential treatment, Madam Speaker?


John Edward Broadbent: There is the appearance.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The Leader of the NDP keeps talking about the appearance. Where is even the appearance of preferential treatment when people in the private sector-once again, not once individual who happens to be a former Minister but a whole public consortium including Crown corporations of the provincial Governments, including the private sector, including a public corporation-


Flora Isabel MacDonald: They knew where to go.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Where is the secret? Where are the appearances of wrongdoing when everything is above board and is following government policy?


John Carnell Crosbie: Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister did not answer my question about whether any inquiry has been made into contacts between Mr. Gillespie and his agents and the Minister and his agents. He did not answer that question.


POSSIBLE USE OF PUBLIC FUNDS
John Carnell Crosbie: Does the Prime Minister not realize that his administration now has the appearance and is, in fact, steeped in patronage, favouritism and sleaze? That is the whole problem that we are asking about. Can the Prime Minister assure us that we have not $750,000 that was being made available in certain circumstances in this situation to Mr. Gillespie, through the favouritism of the former Minister of Energy who is now the Minister
Oral Questions
of Finance, and the Deputy Prime Minister? Is that not patronage and sleaze and favouring people, the same as the Macdonald favouritism, the Judd Buchanan favouritism, the CMHC directors favouritism? Does he not realize that his administration is steeped now in favouritism and corruption, and that a full inquiry by an impartial body is needed to clear the air, if that is possible?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, as usual, when the Hon. Member wants to make sleazy accusations, he shouts them. The sleaze is in his mind and in his mouth when he says-


John Carnell Crosbie: Go to the public.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: He is distorting the facts. Whether he is doing it deliberately or not, I leave you to judge, Madam Speaker. But he is distorting the facts when he says that $750,000 is made available by this Government-


John Carnell Crosbie: Made possible for him to gain.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -made possible, Madam Speaker, by virtue of a contract which I understand was negotiated by Gulf, which is common practice, which may happen if the project is worth-while, and which is-and I checked on that-along the lines of arrangements that are constantly made with minority shareholders when the majority shareholders want to buy them out. This is some hypothetical happening which will take place in the future, under a contract negotiated by Gulf Canada, which may or may not result in some reward for work done. We do not know whether it will happen. If it does happen, not only will it not come from the Government of Canada, it will not even come from the Government of Nova Scotia because it is specified in the contract-and the Members know it because they have been quoting the contract-that Mr. Gillespie will not receive money from those public funds. The Hon. Member knows that, and he is making a sleazy accusation.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: Well, go to the public on this; call an election on this and see if they understand.


APPLICATION OF GUIDELINES
Mr. Tom McMillan (Hillsborough):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. If the Gillespie scandal does not qualify-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Thomas Michael McMillan: -as a breach of the Prime Minister's own conflict of interest guidelines, what in the Prime Minister's view would constitute such a conflict of interest involving a former Minister? What conceivable set of circumstances would fall under the guidelines if this one does not?

February 18, 1983
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member is asking hypothetical questions. I gave examples of hypotheses earlier when I said that if the former Minister had come, once again, in secret with a deal which was beneficial to him-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, do they or do they not want examples? I will not give hypothetical examples because the imagination of those people over there just turns toward sleazy things.


PURPOSE OF GUIDELINES
Thomas Michael McMillan: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister. What is the purpose of the Prime Minister's guidelines if they can be breached by any member of the Crown, knowing full well that he can count on a justification for any wrongdoing or any apparent wrongdoing? What is the purpose of the guidelines when a Minister can get away with the kind of thing that the Minister of Finance did when he was Minister of Energy?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the purpose of the guidelines is so that some impartial observer, of which I do not see many on the other side of this aisle, can look at Government conduct and have some test against which to say, "Well, this is reasonable and this is not". My case rests with the public, that this was a reasonable operation, not a hidden one, not one which gave undue advantage to a former Minister of the Crown.


NATIONAL ENERGY PROGRAM
Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. What we appear to have is a number of the main planks of the National Energy Program collapsing around us-the Canada-Newfoundland negotiations the Vancouver Island pipeline, the energy revenue projections to the Government, exports of large volumes of gas, and renewing exports of light crude. It appears that the collapse of the National Energy Program and the collapse of the economic programs which were underpinned by it have now been reduced to chaos.
Would the Minister of Energy be prepared to acknowledge that the Government is responding in an ad hoc manner to crises which arise from day to day? Would he be prepared to indicate when we in the House might get an update to the "Update of the National Energy Program", so that there would be some clear guidance as to where we are going?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, I think the question of the Hon. Member is not very clear. I just have to say that, of course,
there was a turn in the oil prices in the last few weeks because OPEC nations could not agree on a price.
The energy policy still applies. We have international prices for imported oil and for new oil produced in Canada. We have a different price, 75 per cent of that price, for old oil in Canada. The policy still applies and still works. That we have a large surplus of gas in Canada that we want to export, I think the Hon. Member cannot blame on the national energy policy. When we have gas in sufficient quantities that we can export it, he should be rejoicing. It is because of the energy policy that there was some drilling, that there were some finds in Canada that made that possible.
I do not think the Hon. Member can say that we have to restart everything, but because of the possible collapse of the price of oil we will have to change some of the prices. We are monitoring the situation at this time. When the situation will be clarified because of what is happening in OPEC, we will act accordingly, but I think that the energy policy is still there and that it is still a good policy.


Raymond John Skelly: The only thing confused in this House was certainly that answer, and I think that confusion is spilling over into the country as a whole.


OIL PRICES
Raymond John Skelly: Madam Speaker, I would like to come back to the question, as the Minister pointed out, of the 75 per cent price on oil and the made-in-Canada price. Certainly, if the Government were prepared to have that blended price tracked downward as the price of world oil dropped, Canadian fishermen, farmers and manufacturers would all benefit and, in all likelihood, Canadian goods from Canadian manufacturers would remain competitive in the world marketplace. Would the Minister give us a solemn or ironclad agreement that they will live up to their commitments and maintain that 75 per cent price on old oil and the blended Canadian price, which should be a little less than the Canadian price of oil? Will he make that commitment in the House?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, I said earlier that the policy as stated by my predecessor is still the policy. When we see what will be the level of international prices for oil, if there is some need to change the policy we will announce it to the House of Commons. It is premature at this time because nobody can know exactly what will be the level of oil prices next week, next month, or in six months. According to developments we will make the necessary adjustments that will be needed. Of course we are not the only players in that. I am in consultation with the producing Provinces that have an interest in that. I understand there will be some meetings with Mr. Lougheed very soon on that. We have to talk to the producing Provinces because they have an interest in it. After these consultations, we will decide if we have to change the policy or not.
February 18, 1983


THE ADMINISTRATION
Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon West):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. It concerns this whole matter of conflict of interest of Members of his existing Cabinet. The Prime Minister asked a question of the people of Canada: "Who says there is any appearance or in fact any suggestion in anybody's mind in Canada as to impropriety in what has transpired as far as the arrangements with Mr. Gillespie are concerned?" I will tell the Prime Minister that it was Mr. Alastair Gillespie who was quoted as follows:
Gillespie admits that outsiders-"ordinary people"-might believe his role as an energy minister and the experience he gained there gave him a privilege or special advantage to get the development going.
That is who said it, for one person. I suggest to the Prime Minister that the guidelines are clear. There is a prohibition, an absolute prohibition, against a former Minister making representation on behalf of anybody, let alone himself, to his former Department. Does the Prime Minister not agree that that is in breach of conflict of interest?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: On the part of whom, Madam Speaker, of Mr. Gillespie or of the Minister who did not even hear about it? What is the Hon. Member driving at?


KNOWLEDGE OF MINISTER OF ENERGY, MINES AND RESOURCES
Ramon John Hnatyshyn: The Prime Minister cannot avoid answering a simple question as to whether or not that is a breach on the part of Mr. Gillespie of the specific and explicit conflict of interest guidelines set down prohibiting Cabinet Ministers, after they have left their portfolios, from dealing with their original Departments.
Yesterday the Prime Minister suggested that the former Minister of Energy, the Minister of Finance, was absolved of any responsibility because "he did not know of this transaction." I assume that if it was determined in the course of our investigation that the Minister of Finance was aware of any of the circumstances with respect to this project, he would be expected to resign his portfolio.
Has the Prime Minister had a full discussion with his Minister of Energy to determine whether or not he, or any Member of his exempt staff, had any knowledge with respect to this transaction which was announced by the Deputy Prime Minister in April of 1981 ?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Yes, Madam Speaker, I have had discussions, as I said to the House yesterday, with the Minister of Finance. He has checked his agenda, he has checked his books, he has checked his memory and he has checked his files. He was not aware of this arrangement.


Mr. Nowlan:: Has he checked his conscience?
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: He has checked something that the Member for St. John's West would not know anything about-his conscience.


John Carnell Crosbie: What deadly wit.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, it is not deadly, Madam Speaker, but when I address it to a man whose wit is already dead, I think it is sufficient.


John Carnell Crosbie: You are the Dustin Hoffman of the Liberal benches. Come on, Tootsie.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, we have the Member for St. John's West who wants to get into this but who is not prepared to ask questions.


Madam Speaker:: Order.


ROLE OF PETRO-CANADA
Harvie Andre: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. During this period in question the present Minister of Finance, who is the former Minister of Energy, had in his office a Mr. Mike Phelps. We subsequently learned through the activities of an investigative reporter that his salary was being paid by Petro-Canada.
Given that these guidelines specifically state that Ministers must conduct themselves in regard to Crown corporations that fall within their jurisdiction in the same way as if they were a direct responsibility of the Departments, can the Minister assure the House that Mr. Michael Phelps, whose salary and the mortgage on his home was being paid by Petro-Canada, did not know anything of this transaction or this arrangement or had any discussions with regard to this consortium of which Petro-Canada was a part, and for which the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources was supposedly responsible to the House and to the country?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, I have checked the whole file. I did not see anything in relation to Mr. Phelps. I have checked with Petro-Canada and I asked the President of Petro-Canada if he had informed the then Minister of Energy about this deal with the consortium. The Chairman of Petro-Canada, Mr. Hopper, said that he did not inform the Minister at all, directly or indirectly.


John Carnell Crosbie: What about verbally? The shredders have gone berserk.


REQUEST FOR TABLING OF DOCUMENTS
Harvie Andre: Would the Minister review that matter and examine this question? The Scotia Coal Synfuel project deals with the conversion of coal into transportation fuels, gasoline and diesel specifically. The funds for it came from federal money put into an oil substitution

February 18, 1983
Oral Questions
fund which arises out of a 1977 agreement between Canada and Nova Scotia. That agreement deals entirely and exclusively with the use of alternates to oil for the generation of electricity.
In other words, the agreement and the fund are to deal with alternate ways of generating electricity and not for the conversion of coal into transportation fuels. I presume that since this money was used in a way that was inappropriate to the agreement and the authorizing authority of the fund, there must have been some amendments to the agreement and the authorizing authority. Will the Minister make a commitment to the House to table those amendments to the funds authority and to the agreement which authorized them to use this money in an inappropriate way to fund Mr. Gillespie's income problems to which the Prime Minister alluded?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Madam Speaker, I do not have anything to add to what the Prime Minister said. This money was under the control of the Government of Nova Scotia. It was transferred to them, as the Hon. Member said, following the agreement of 1977. In this proposition, the consortium had the agreement of the Nova Scotia Government that it was a proper use of the money to make oil out of the coal available in Nova Scotia rather than importing oil.


Harvie Andre: That is not what this said.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: I think it was to form an alternative to the importing of oil from abroad. According to Premier Buchanan at that time and the officials of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources at that time, this program was a good one to find an alternative to imported oil. I guess it was the feasibility study that was financed with the agreement of both Governments, as signed by the then Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources in September, 1981.
For the Hon. Member to pretend now that the money was not spent according to the guidelines, it would have been a breach of the agreement between Nova Scotia and us, and, according to the Premier of Nova Scotia, not only was it desirable to do that within the policy but he was a promoter of that project.


TERMS OF CONSORTIUM AGREEMENT
Mr. John Thomson (Calgary South):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. He is denying that his Government conferred a benefit on a former Cabinet Minister, Mr. Gillespie. My understanding of the terms of the agreement between the consortium and Mr. Gillespie is that, in the event that he wishes to sell his equity interest in the consortium, the consortium will pay him $250,000. On the other hand, if the consortium approaches Mr. Gillespie and asks him to sell his interest, they will pay him $750,000.
In the Prime Minister's opinion, what did Mr. Gillespie do to earn the $250,000 or the $750,000? I would like to suggest that what he did was to arrange a loan to the consortium from the federal Government of $1.9 million.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member missed a couple of the points which were made earlier in the discussion. He suggests that the federal Government conferred a benefit on Mr. Gillespie. That is the whole point. It did not. The federal Government does not have these funds. They were transferred under the oil substitution agreement. They were transferred to the Consolidated Revenue Fund-


Some Hon. Members:: Wrong.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: If they would pay attention over there, maybe they will not be asking the same question over and over again. These funds were in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Government of Nova Scotia. That is point No. 1. Point two, the agreement says that none of these funds will be used to pay Mr. Gillespie. Point three, the agreement was not negotiated by the Government of Canada, by the former Minister of Energy or by the Deputy Prime Minister; it was negotiated by the members of the consortium among themselves, so that the minority shareholder-it was negotiated in fact by-


Mr. Crosby:: It was negotiated by P. J. Read in the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: It was negotiated by Gulf with Mr. Gillespie.


Howard Edward Crosby: P. J. Read.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Well, this is done all the time when a consortium is put together with minority shareholders and when the majority shareholders want to preserve an option to buy them off. If they exercise that option, yes, Mr. Gillespie will presumably receive the funds mentioned by the Hon. Member. He will not receive them from the federal Government. He will not even receive them from the Government of Nova Scotia. He will not receive them under a deal conceived by this Government or even by the Government of Nova Scotia. He will receive them under a deal conceived by the shareholders themselves.


DURATION OF GUIDELINES' APPLICABILITY
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Prime Minister. Throughout the Question Period the Prime Minister has been suggesting that the two years elapsed time before raising this case has somehow been crucial to the issue of the appearance of wrongdoing. In his view is there some kind of statute of limitation on the appearance of wrongdoing? Is it two weeks, two months, or two years? Surely the Prime Minister's argument is absurd. I would ask him to comment on that.


February 18, 1983


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, if the Hon. Member had done his homework he would know that there is no statute of limitations. It is not one year, it is not two years, and it is not five years.


John Edward Broadbent: That is right.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The guidelines which apply to Ministers do not state any period of time.


John Edward Broadbent: Right.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Therefore, the only relevance of the two years was whether the Minister himself could conceivably have thought of the fact that this former Minister was under another guideline. Former Ministers are under the two-year rule. Because, in the first day in which this question was raised, the Opposition Members kept speaking of dates and of the two-year guideline, it became apparent that they were not even right on their facts, that it was more than two years before the present Minister became involved in the deal. That does not mean that, if it had been more or less, that the guidelines, as applying to him, would have changed. I am not making his defence on that point.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: You did yesterday.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am just making his defence on the fact that the eternal guidelines have not been breached because there was no improper influence, there was no privileged access, and there was no preferential treatment.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: "Or the appearance".


John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, if the Prime Minister had listened to the question with care, he would find that I was referring to the time of the incident, occurring some time ago, and to the appearance of wrongdoing emerging now, which he seems to think is somehow irrelevant to the argument. We on this side of the House think it is crucial. We think he is wrong. However, I would like to ask the Prime Minister another question.


POSITION OF PRIME MINISTER
John Edward Broadbent: The other assertion which the Prime Minister seems to have been making throughout the Question Period is that there is some kind of equation between proper Cabinet leadership, Cabinet responsibility, and legality, whereas those of us who believe in parliamentary Government know that there is a distinction between morality and legality in political practice.
If he wants to make this equation, does he not realize that a system of guidelines which refers to appearances is really irrelevant? Does he not realize that what he is really saying is that all we need in this country is the Criminal Code? If that is
Petitions
what he is saying, does he not realize that he really does not understand what is required in a parliamentary democracy?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member prefaced his statement by three preambles, each one of which began with "iF\ The "ifs" should be answered in the opposite way. I do understand that there is a difference between criminality and guidelines, and therefore the conclusion which the Hon. Member drew was false. Once again, the appearance is something which-


Flora Isabel MacDonald: One that you can throw out the window.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: The only reason I talk of the lapse of time is that, if it were obvious, then it seems to me someone would have thought of complaining about the indecency of this before. I am not saying that there is a prescription, that there is a statute of limitations, but there is a test which is well known and which I will not insist on-


Howard Edward Crosby: Time heals all wounds.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -but which has been used time out of mind: Quad semper, quad ubique, quad ab omnibus.


John Carnell Crosbie: That's the Jesuit coming out.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I know that this is beyond the Hon. Member for St. John's West, but I can say-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


John Carnell Crosbie: Res ipsa loquitur.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Now I will turn to Greek.


John Carnell Crosbie: "The thing speaks for itself!"


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Oh, you don't have to translate it.


John Carnell Crosbie: I am translating it for you.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Thank you. How about translating the Greek, "Ta zoa etrekhe"1 And that applies to him.


John Carnell Crosbie: Andrezesthe krateousthe.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


PETITIONS
Madam Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the Clerk of the House has laid upon the Table reports of the Clerk of Petitions stating that he has examined the petitions presented by Hon. Members on Thursday, February 17, 1983, and finds that the petitions meet the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.
Privilege-Mr. Herbert PRIVILEGE

February 18, 1983


Mr. Hal Herbert (Vaudreuil):: Madam Speaker, my question of privilege deals directly with the right of a Member of Parliament to have free and unimpeded access to his or her office at any and all hours of the day and night and not be subjected to any recording of his or her comings or goings.
Last evening, after ten years of free access to my office in the Confederation Building, I was stopped and asked for identification. This in itself is not an issue, although there were somewhat humiliating aspects in that it was carried out in front of other employees who have been aware of my identity for the last decade.
My privilege was, in my opinion, violated when my name was recorded on a list. Inquiries elicited the information that my entry and exit to my office was to be recorded on each and every occasion after 7.30 in the evening. As Your Honour is aware, our committee activities, which are an integral part of our work here on Parliament Hill, continue until ten o'clock p.m. and sometimes later. Whatever security measures may be felt necessary should not apply solely during our evening work period, as if such work times differred from any other time during the day.
Of additional concern is the use to which such lists can be put if they fall into the wrong hands since there is no verification of their authenticity. Quite apparently, since an Hon. Member is not asked to sign in and out, an identity mistake can be made which might not bother anybody in the private sector but which could have considerable influence on the assessment of the conduct of an Hon. Member by his constituents.
Personally, I consider the recording of the times of entry and exit of an Hon. Member in and out of his or her office during regular working hours to be an invasion of his or her privacy and a practice fraught with abuse which could have a direct influence on the election of the people's representatives.
On the assumption, Madam Speaker, that you recognize that I do have a question of privilege, may I suggest that you take the matter under advisement. May I further suggest that, at least during the interim period, no records be kept of the movement of MPs between the hours of seven o'clock a.m. and eleven o'clock p.m. on weekdays.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: First, I do not believe that this is a question of privilege; it concerns administrative decisions. I would welcome a discussion in my office with either the Hon. Member or the representatives of the different Parties.


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: It certainly is privilege.


Madam Speaker:: I want to say to the Hon. Member that the presence of anyone in the buildings which we call the House of Commons is recorded and has been recorded for a long time. These records are kept in order to ascertain who is in the
buildings and how many people are in the buildings for security and fire reasons. We have always kept a record of the number of people who were in the buildings, expecially after hours, because one must assume that most people have left their offices by that time.
As for the Hon. Member being required to sign his name, I am sure that was a mistake. Members of Parliament should not be required to sign their names when they go in and out of the buildings, because the guards are trained to recognize Hon. Members. Perhaps the Hon. Member was unlucky and had to deal with one of the guards who happened to be new or simply did not recognize him. It is quite clear that Hon. Members do not have to sign in and out of their offices. Other people who enter the buildings will be required to sign.
Concerning the records, I can assure Hon. Members that those records are not kept on our files forever. They are automatically destroyed. They are simply kept for the purpose of knowing who is in the buildings on a particular day for fire and security reasons.


Hon. Marcel Lambert (Edmonton West):: Joining in the discussion on that particular point, may I indicate that on many occasions it is impossible for the security staff to ascertain who is in the building or who is leaving the building. There are many social occasions when people are going in and out of the buildings between ten-thirty o'clock p.m. and eleven-thirty o'clock p.m. There is no record being kept at that time, nor has there been a record kept, as to who is going in or out, be it stranger, employee, officer of the House, Member of Parliament or Senator.
I would suggest that this is an administrative matter, as Your Honour said. The rules state that administrative matters are to stand referred to the Members' Services Committee. Since Members and their privileges are being affected, I find it strange indeed that this matter was not referred to the Committee for consideration before action was taken.


Madam Speaker:: It can be referred to the Committee. If the Hon. Member for Vaudreuil (Mr. Herbert) wants to refer it to the Committee, he is perfectly free to do so.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: The Chair.


Madam Speaker:: Not necessarily the Chair. The channels through which the Speaker is informed about requirements or requests from Members is through the Management and Members' Services Committee. If the Hon. Member for Vaudreuil is not satisfied with my answer today, of course, he can refer the matter to the Management and Members' Services Committee.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: You should ask the Members.


Madam Speaker:: I might also ask the Members. It is an advisory committee to me and I may ask them to examine this question. What I am telling the House is that the Members

February 18, 1983

present have always been recorded, as far as I know. The information that I just received this morning is that every single person who enters the building is recorded, be it for a social occasion or something else. That is a necessity for security reasons and in case of fire. If Hon. Members object to that kind of administrative decision, I am quite willing to discuss it and I am sure that the guards will be happy to comply with any future instructions that we give them. I am just informing the Members of what the situation is at the present time.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: That is patently wrong.


Madam Speaker:: It is not wrong.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Blaine A. Thacker (Lethbridge-Foothills):: Madam Speaker, I wish to present a petition signed by some 60 petitioners from the City of Lethbridge and region. They wish
Order Paper Questions
to voice their opposition to the restrictions placed on the importation of Japanese automobiles. The implications of these restrictions prompted them to avail themselves of their ancient right to petition this House because their personal futures and freedoms are at stake. This is certainly a justification for their desire to be heard and a stimulus for action on the part of this House to consider their grievances.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 4,640, 4,651 and 4,658.


Mr. MacKay: What are the ten largest contingent liabilities included in "Pending and Threatened Litigation" in Volume 1, Section 12.7 of the 1981-82 Public Account of Canada and, in each case, what are the amounts of contingent liabilities and the details of litigations?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of Supply and Services: Amount of Contingent Liability (Amount of claim)
as at March 31, 1982	Contingent Liability
(1)	$ 1,000,000,000	Claim related to ownership of land(2)	$ 181,000,000	Claim related to ownership of land(3)	$	130,000,000	Breach of agreement(4)	S	125,000,000	Claim related to ownership of land(5)	$	95,000,000	Damages(6)	$	71,000,000	Loss of revenue(7)	$	62,000,000
Claim related to memoranda of agreement
Description
Plaintiffs are claiming unextinguished aboriginal title over a large area of northern Alberta, including the exclusive use and enjoyment of all the natural resources in the area claimed. Plaintiff have impleaded the federal and a provincial Crown corporation and several major oil companies. They are also asking the Court to declare void all permits and leases already issued for the exploration and extraction of natural resources in this area. In the alternative, if these aboriginal rights are held to have been extinguished, they ask for compensation of one billion dollars.
Plaintiffs allege that the 1909 surrender was invalid because there was no proper surrender meeting, no proper notice of a meeting, and no majority of the Band as required by the Indian Act.
Alleged breached of the Crown's obligation to provide health and social services under the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement.
Claim relates to a 1902 surrender. Allegations of fraud, coercion, breach of trust and the majority issue.
As a result of the importation of tobacco plants and the subsequent outbreak of "blue mould" disease, an action has been initiated against the Crown for its alleged negligence in failing to prevent the above-mentioned outbreak.
Plaintiffs allege that, subsequent to the 1957 surrender of reserve lands for leasing, the Crown failed to exercise the degree of care, stewardship and prudent management required of a trustee, with a resulting loss of revenue to the plaintiffs.
Plaintiffs seek a declaration that five memoranda of agreement to provide funds for a variety of needs are valid and enforceable and seek an order to the defendants to give immediate effect to these agreements.

February 18, 1983
Order Paper Questions
Amount of Contingent Liability (Amount of claim)
as at March 31, 1982	Contingent Liability
Description
(8)	$	60,000,000	Breach of trust obligations	Plaintiffs allege that under a treaty the Crown undertook to provide them with a reserve sufficient to allow one square mile per family of five and that this obligation was not fulfilled.(9)	$	60,000,000	Civil action	Plaintiff claims harassment, wrongful seizure, false arrest, false imprisonment, economic loss, loss of profit.(10)	$	50,000,000	Claim related to ownership of land	Plaintiffs allege that the surrender in 1908 was invalid.


Mr. Mayer: What is the over-all cost of the annual "farm enumerative survey" that is done by Statistics Canada and what is the information gathered used for?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of Supply and Services: Statistics Canada reports:
The Farm Enumerative Survey is a general purpose annual survey conducted in the designated Canadian Wheat Board area at an estimated cost of $1.1 million for the fiscal year 1982/83. The statistics produced from the survey are used for many different purposes. Expenditure and acreage data provide a major portion of the data used in the calculation of payouts under the Western Grain Stabilization Act. Farm expenditure estimates are also used in calculation of net farm income which, in turn, is part of the calculation of Canada's national income. In addition, data related to farm crop production are used by farmers, farmer co-operatives and such agencies as the Canadian Wheat Board in planning crop production and marketing strategies.
Livestock information from the survey provides an indication of the future supply of animals and animal products. All segments of the agriculture and related industries are thus provided with unbiased information to be used in planning their production and marketing activities.
Finally, all Farm Enumerative Survey data are of relevance to federal and provincial Departments of Agriculture in the development and management of policies and programs aimed at the food and agriculture sector.
1982 AVERAGE LIVE FED CATTLE PRICE


Mr. Hargrave: 1.	What was the average live fed cattle (steers and heifers) market price for 1982 as required by the Agricultural Stabilization Act?
2.	What was the previous average five year fed cattle market price immediately prior to 1982?
3.	What was the previous average five year fed cattle market price prior to 1982 adjusted for the cost of production factor?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: 1. The average market returns for the 1982 marketing period are estimated to be in the range of $74 to $74.50 per cwt., basis A1/A2 steers and heifers.
2.	The previous five-year average market price (same basis) was $65.49 per cwt.
3.	The previous five-year average market returns, adjusted for the cost of production factor, has not yet been calculated.


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


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Erik Nielsen: That, in light of the Government's outright betrayal of the Canadian people and its repudiation of its 1980 election promises to reduce unemployment, combat inflation, avoid inflationary tax hikes and excessive energy price increases, reduce the deficit, and implement an industrial strategy for Canada, this House calls upon the Government to face its responsibility to Canadians and take immediate action to live up to the commitments that it made in 1980 or resign.
He said: Madam Speaker, today is a tragic anniversary in the history of this country. In the words of President Roosevelt after Pearl Harbour: "This is a day that will live in infamy". I refer, of course, to February 18, 1980, the day on which this Government was elected to office. It was a day which inaugurated the most dismal and disastrous three years in the history of our country.
Three years ago today, a country that was prosperous, a country that was buoyant, a country that was full of hope and promise, started on the long, downward path of Liberal Government despair, ineptitude and disaster. Canadians who were gainfully employed three years ago are now walking the streets. Firms that were prosperous three years ago and that
February 18, 1983

had some hope are now in the bankruptcy courts. The pleasant, smiling countryside with its prosperous farms is now rapidly becoming deserted and full of despair, due to the mismanagement of the Liberal Government sitting opposite.
Young people have been forced out of their homes; others have seen their hopes of security blasted and torn asunder. Older people have seen the Government renege and cut back on their hopes of a worry-free old age, paid for with their own contributions. Not even the widowed mother or orphan has been spared by a Government which spends without stint to realize its own peculiar centralist and socialist objectives, and passes on the bill to Canadians without explanation or without apology.
One must go back to the 1940s to equal the distress and uneasiness which prevails in the economy today. This country has been run headlong into an economic crisis of the first magnitude, due largely to the mismanagement and incompetence of this Government. Brief after brief after brief, from both labour and management, have made it clear that the economy has been staggered by a series of rude shocks deriving from this Government's policies or lack of action.
Nothing is so urgent in the minds of millions of Canadians who have been made to suffer because of this Government's indifference and neglect as to remove this Government from office. Incompetent, inept, untrustworthy, careless in its corruption and heartless in its approach to the problems, this Government has lost the confidence of the Canadian people.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: One after another, its policies have proven to be exactly the wrong remedies at the wrong time. From FIRA to the NEP, from the CIDC to Canagrex, they have turned out to be incredibly costly, cumbersome and destructive.
Trust remains a major ingredient in human affairs. Trust has departed from this Government. Canadians do not trust this Government. Foreign countries do not trust this Government. Our friends and allies do not trust this Government.
Yesterday we had one of those little vest pocket lectures which spring so readily to the lips of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) whenever he is in trouble. Like the squid of the underseas caverns, he retreats first this way, then that way, emitting an opaque cloud in order to befog the issue.
It is hard to believe that a man of the Prime Minister's intelligence fails to understand that when two Ministers sign a contract providing monetary gain to a former Cabinet colleague, that conduct is not condoned in any code of ethics in the world from the Code of Hammurabi to the Judeo-Chris-tian ethic.
I come now to the shabby record of broken Liberal election promises. It is a shocking spectacle, Mr. Speaker. It is the record of a Government which over and over, blatantly and furiously, broke its word to those Canadians who had accepted on trust its sparkling promises, promises about full employment; promises about an industrial strategy; promises about a buoyant economy! Promises! Promises! Promises!
Supply
Here was a Government and Party which promised, in the words of one of their former crystal ball-gazing leaders, "A new heaven and a new earth". Nothing was sacred to this Party and to that Prime Minister. In election after election they promised a brighter world and a nobler future. They promised megaprojects. They promised high technology. They promised something for the aged, something for youth, something for the newly married, something for students, something for the scientists and something for the farmers. Those promises now read like a litany of broken dreams.
As Canadians contemplate the wreckage of those bright dreams-the farm foreclosures, the abolition of the Crow rate, the monopolistic food marketing policy of Canagrex, the sprawling empire of Crown corporations responsible to no one but the Prime Minister, the bankruptcies, the unemployment, the incredible expenditures, the demand on Parliament for blank cheques-they can only ask themselves whether they are dreaming.
When I was a young boy I read Robert Louis Stevenson's book "The Wrecker". Members will recall in that book that a group of unprincipled individuals lit bonfires on the beach to lure ships on to the shore so that the sailors could be massacred and their property plundered. That is what Canadians must be thinking of today when reflecting back on the lure of the promises of 1980 and what they are getting today.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: No Government in the history of any free Western nation with a parliamentary tradition has ever been so irresponsible or so reckless. No Government has so quickly lost the trust of the people, the confidence of investors and the friendship of our neighbours and allies. The reason is that this Government is totally unpredictable. The only predictable thing about it is that if there is any way of screwing up things, it will do it.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Erik Nielsen: I say that with my usual good feeling. What did they say in 1980? They were going to establish a petroleum pricing and auditing agency. They were going to construct a reversible pipeline to the Province of Quebec. Somewhere along the line that got reversed. The Government's share of increased oil prices through PetroCan would go to the poorer regions of Canada. I presume those are the regions where "Dire Straits" is located.
They were going to boost alternate energy through an alternate energy corporation. That would take in wind, sun, tidal power, biomass and liquid coal. Well, the last one proved a bonanza for at least one former Minister. As for the wind, they have not harnessed it yet, except here in the House every time they speak. As for the sun, it is still shining in spite of them. It is the only thing left in this country that is free.
On January 17, 1980 the Prime Minister promised to double track the CNR. He must have been serious. He is still

February 18, 1983
Supply
promising to double track the CNR. On January 10 the Prime Minister said the Liberal Party would provide hundreds of thousands of jobs. They did that. The only hitch was that the jobs were in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and West Germany.
He said we would expand FIRA so that Canadians would control the economy. FIRA helped the economy like the earthquake helped San Francisco. He said he would set up an international trading company. Probably this would follow along the lines of similar state corporations in the Soviet Union and the satellite states. They have not done this yet because is still some of the domestic economy they have not finished wrecking.
The industrial strategy would encourage workers to become shareholders in the firms in which they work. They should have followed through on that one. So many firms went bankrupt, nobody wanted them but the workers.
There are some relevant quotations from the Prime Minister. They do not have quite the ring of Chairman Mao nor the predictability factor of Nostradamus, but for the student of broken promises they are not without a certain macabre interest. In Toronto on January 12, 1980 the Prime Minister said:
This Party will not simply stand by and let the recession come.
No. They brought it on.
We will fight it and overcome it.
The Prime Minister in his own personal Pilgrim's Progress was ready to wrestle anything, anywhere, any time. He would wrestle inflation to the ground. He would fight and overcome. He did this by the simple expedient of jumping into the 707 and taking off. In January, 1980 the Prime Minister said:
We have an economic program for the eighties which will enhance dignity, create opportunity and provide security.
It did just that, but the people it reached were few in number. They were all either in the Cabinet or were ex-Cabinet Ministers. In February, 1980 in Toronto the Prime Minister really got off a bomb:
I would want to manage the economy in such a way that interest rates would in fact come down-
Then there was the famous statement by the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray), who said on CITY-TV on February 7, 1980 that he would resign his seat if interest rates did not come down. Somehow, as time went on, his seat became more precious than his own personal integrity.
Then we had the Prime Minister's personal formula. He said:
We would bring interest rates down by fighting inflation, not by manipulating the dollar.
So much for bright words tarnished by subsequent events. The Prime Minister got off some gems in January, 1980 when he said:
The deficit will be reduced in a phased and orderly fashion.
We will not add to the deficit by adding new programs.
As the poet said:
Words, words, words, I know not what they mean.
We are at a point now where this whole nation has expressed a total lack of confidence in this Government. We are at a point now where this whole nation wants them to go. Consumer confidence has dwindled away. Business and industry are consumed by uneasiness and uncertainty. Investor confidence has plummeted to zero.
At the present time the most serious impediment to the recovery of our economy is the presence of this Government. The single most constructive act which this Government could perform in the best interests of this country would be to resign and give Canadians back their inalienable right to elect a Government of their choice.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


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


Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure for me to follow the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Nielsen) in discussing this very serious questions and very serious motion.
Three years ago the Liberal Party perpetrated the greatest electoral fraud in Canada's history. After an election campaign in which every possible deceitful promise was made to the Canadian people, that tired old gang took over again. Today we want to examine in the House some of the promises made to the Canadian people by this fraudulent gang of thugs and bring them forward for the Canadian people to examine once again.
On February 9, 1980, they said that a new Liberal Government will work to reduce unemployment through a program of responsible fiscal and monetary management. What happened? In January, 1983 a record 1.6 million Canadians were out of work with a net loss of 578,000 jobs between August, 1981 and January, 1983. The unemployment rate in January, 1983 was 12.4 per cent compared to an unemployment rate in January, 1980 of 7.6 per cent; and according to the Economic Council, the unemployment rate will be in excess of 10 per cent for the next five years.
Unemployment Insurance benefits in 1982 were equal to $8.5 billion, more than the combined Government spending of the four Atlantic Provinces.
But more serious than the 1.6 million Canadians who do not have a job, Mr. Speaker, are the 500,000 Canadians who are so discouraged that they have given up looking for work, and the 390,000 Canadians who are not working to their full capacity. That is a situation which just cannot be allowed to continue in this country. Forty-eight per cent more workers are unemployed now than in 1979. In the past, unemployment has risen because the number of jobs has not increased as fast as the labour force. Today, unemployment is rising because jobs are simply disappearing. The year 1982 was the first time in a quarter of a century that we had a year-over-year decline in the number of jobs.
February 18, 1983

In my riding of Simcoe North, the number of people employed in the service and manufacturing sectors has fallen by 16 per cent since that election of 1980. It is bad in the Orillia area, which I just referred to, but it is even worse in Midland and Penetanguishene where there is an unemployment rate of 33 per cent, which is a result of the failure of this Government to live up to any of their promises. Midland and Penetanguishene had ten manufacturing plants completely shut down. RCA, with 1,220 employees, is shut down completely. We went to see the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce in the summer of 1982 and he promised help in arranging for the sale of this plant, but he has done nothing. The Liberal Government has done nothing to help RCA and those 1,220 Canadians who want to work. It failed them completely. That is the legacy of the 1980 election promises for the riding of Simcoe North.
This Government said: "We will not simply stand by and let the recession come; we will fight it and we will overcome it". That is a quote from the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) in January, 1980. But, Mr. Speaker, they did not fight it. They did not overcome it. They did everything possible to bring on the recession. That promise was kept in reverse. The Government brought on the recession which Canadians are now fighting.
One of the favourite tactics of this wasted front bench of the Liberal Party is to attribute the poor state of our economy to international factors. Let us deal with some of those international factors. In the United States the GNP has dropped by only 1.9 from its peak in the third quarter. In Canada it has dropped 6.9 per cent. Why do we have to drop that much farther and that much faster than the United States if we are linked to them, as they say? Industrial production in the United States dropped 11.5 per cent by October of last year from a high level, while in Canada the corresponding figure was 18.8 per cent. I ask the Liberal Government again, why does industrial production have to drop so much faster and harder in Canada than the United States if it is an international situation?
Manufacturers in Canada reported in the third quarter that they were operating at the lowest level of their capacity since records were first kept in 1961. I ask Hon. Members opposite, did they promise that they were going to have that effect on the manufacturers of Canada, on the production, and on the jobs which have been lost as a direct result of their inaction, ineptness and lack of caring for anyone who works in this country?
Let me talk about the famous Liberal energy policy. They said: "The Liberal price hike will be less than half of what the Tories plan to inflict on you; we will negotiate an increase of less than 14 cents". That may sound like a specious comment out of the comic section of the newspapers, but it is not, Mr. Speaker. It is a comment made by the present Prime Minister. This is by far the most often broken promise of the Liberal Government. Gasoline prices, which were promised to rise only
Supply
14 cents, have gone up 17 times. The price of OPEC oil is going down but Canadian prices are continuing to go up.
The Government did not promise exactly the kind of national energy policy we got, but we got one all right. Canadians got a national energy policy and, brother, did it do something for us. The Government's energy policy resulted in oil rigs leaving Alberta and the cancellation of the Alsands project, which would have meant jobs for hundreds of thousands of Canadians; the cancellation of the Cold Lake project; the loss of the spin-off benefits, not just for Alberta where the oil is in the ground, or British Columbia or Saskatchewan, but for Ontario. We in this Party happen to believe that the energy policy is something which should benefit all Canadians, not from a price standpoint so much as from a job standpoint, because those jobs which could have been there for us in the energy industry are in all Provinces. That is what this Government neglects to consider when it looks at the electoral map and sees there are no seats there for it in Alberta, so it just does not care. In the meantime, it inflicts pain and misery on the entire country.


David P. Smith: Nonsense.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: If it is not true, you tell me where the jobs went.


David P. Smith: We love Alberta.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Yes, you love Alberta. That kind of love anyone can do without, thank you very much.
I would like to refer to my riding once again. In my riding of Simcoe North, we wanted the megaprojects to go ahead because we have industries that supply the energy industries. We have Fahramet, a company in my riding which produces refractor tubes used in the energy industry. But what happened? As a result of the Liberal national energy policy, it went on work sharing. It cut back on its staff. That is the result in my riding of what the Liberal Government has done about energy prices.
In Canada we now have a $27.36 billion, or whatever it is today, deficit as a result of the mismanagement of the Liberal Government and its failure to keep its promises. We have an interest burden. Interest on our national debt is $700 for every man, woman and child in Canada. That is $1,700 per year per taxpayer. The interest on the debt in 1982-83 equalled 4.8 per cent of Canada's Gross National Product. When the present Prime Minister took office it was 2 per cent.
This country, as a result of mismanagement of the economy by the Liberal Government, has lost its fiscal flexibility. In 1968-69 one tax dollar in nine was needed to service our debt. Today, one tax dollar in three services our debt. As a result of the massive Government borrowing the private sector interest rates go up.
Lastly, when we talk about the deficit we talk about the confidence which people have in the country. The confidence in this Government, Mr. Speaker, is absolutely gone. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) this week had the nerve to ask us (a) to let him introduce a Bill without any financial information, a Bill to borrow money; and (b), without any

February 18, 1983
Supply
notice to go ahead and introduce his Bill so he could borrow some $19 billion. Both Parties on this side, Mr. Speaker, have rejected that offer because he comes forward with no financial statements, no projections. Oh, yes, he has offered us projections to March 31, and I would venture to say that, given that the Minister of Finance has only six weeks in which to goof on those predictions, probably his prediction for this year is as close as any prediction any Minister of Finance in that Government has ever made. That is not saying very much, but we are saying it because he has only six weeks to goof, so that is probably going to be the closest prediction. But once again, it is a broken promise to the people of Canada who put that tawdry group in office on the basis of their election promises.
I have a minute or two, Mr. Speaker, and I want to talk about bankruptcies. Just what has happened to the Canadian economy as a result of the Liberal Government's inept handling of the financial situation in this country? Personal bankruptcies have climbed. There has been a 46 per cent increase in the number of personal bankruptcies since 1980,- thanks to the way this Government has handled the country's affairs. Those bankruptcies cover the manufacturing section, construction section, all areas of the economic sector, all as a result of the failure of this Government to do anything about the economy.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I say that this Government has made promise after promise which it will be reminded of over the next few months and in the next election. There is no question but that it is going to be with a heavy heart that every Member on that side seeks re-election if he or she has the nerve to go back to the people and say: "Yes, I am the candidate who promised you lower energy prices. I am the Member of Parliament who sat here from February, 1980 and watched interest rates skyrocket, bankruptcies climb, watched foreclosures and powers of sale. I am the Member of Parliament that you could not get hold of when all those problems were occurring. But I am back here and I am promising once again to give you all of those things." I tell you, Mr. Speaker, and I tell the Members of the House on the opposite side: this time it will not wash.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order. Questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Scarborough Centre (Mr. Kelly) on a question.


Mr. Kelly:: Mr. Speaker, the Opposition Parties seem to be advancing the thesis that if a government is low in the polls, as this Government is at about 30 per cent, then it has lost the moral right to govern and should resign. I am wondering if the hon. gentleman subscribes to that thesis.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I did not understand the question. If the Hon. Member would repeat the question, I am certainly prepared to answer it.


William M. Kelly: Based on what he said and what his predecessor said, it would appear to me that the Opposition is developing
the argument that any Government low in the polls, as this Government is at 30 per cent, has lost the moral right to govern and should resign. I am wondering if he subscribes to that.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, the suggestion from the Hon. Member on the other side that there are any morals on that side of the House threw me off, and that is why I did not quite understand the question. I want to assure the Hon. Member that polls have nothing to do with how you govern, but morality and trust do, and you just do not have it on that side.


William M. Kelly: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that he and others on that side do in fact subscribe to that theory, which they are pressing very hard: so if there is any intellectual honesty on that side of the House-which I think is an important ingredient in any debate in this Chamber-I am asking him if he felt that way back in 1979 when his Government's standing in the polls was at 23 per cent.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, first of all I must confess amazement. Perhaps the Hon. Member was not here for Question Period and did not see the lack of morals on that side. Perhaps he did not notice that. I should tell him that the lack of morality is all on the Liberal side of the House.


Mr. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to put a question to the Hon. Member on the judgment he is making of other people. I wonder if he would explain to this House what is more immoral than making moral judgments of others?


John Carnell Crosbie: No wonder they support the Government.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, I can see you shaking your head and I share your amazement at the question after what just occurred in Question Period.


William M. Kelly: Mr. Speaker, I never had the opportunity to engage in this particular aspect of the proceedings of the House and I beg your indulgence and that of other Members while I try to become acquainted with this new system.
The Hon. Member for Simcoe North (Mr. Lewis) was attacking the energy policy of the Government by insisting, on the one hand, that our oil prices were so high that they were hampering the consumer mercilessly, yet insisting on the other hand that oil prices were not high enough because the oil rigs had left the country in despair of getting higher prices. I ask him which of these two criticisms reflects his policy or that of the Conservative Party. Are oil prices too high, when you are wearing your eastern consumer hat, or are they too low, when you are speaking from the western perspective? Make up your mind, if you have one.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Well, the one thing about this Party, Mr. Speaker, is that we do have a western hat, whereas the Liberal Government, as everyone knows, has no western hat and no northern hat; and in fact when you take questions from that particular Member you wonder what they have under the hat they wear in Ontario.
February 18, 1983


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, I count myself fortunate to have the opportunity to enter this debate on the third anniversary of the election of this Government on February 18, 1980. It was my intention to take some time to comment on the constructive alternatives and policies that the mover of the motion, the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Nielsen), put in his remarks to support his criticism contained in the motion. However, I am somewhat taken off guard because, if you review his speech and the speech of the Hon. Member who has just spoken, there is, of course, not one single sentence with one single idea, one single constructive criticism, offered by the Opposition. Therefore, I am really caught short because I have nothing positive or constructive to respond to in the comments of the speakers thus far.
It is important in any government, in any mandate, to reflect on what I perceive as being some very high points and, indeed, some very low points in my experience, which in this Parliament has been exactly three years. My election to this House for the first time, therefore, was on February 18, 1980. I found myself fortunate to have been part of this Parliament which after a long time finally adopted, and is in the process of implementing, a constructive, comprehensive national program for the development and protection of the energy resources that are so important to all Canadians.
History will recall no doubt that in this century the initiative taken by the Government, given a mandate by the people of Canada on February 18, 1980, will go down as one of the most important economic initiatives of any Government at any time. The first objective of the plan, to secure adequate supply for future generations, has been achieved. The second objective was to achieve that at a fair price, and that has been accomplished.
The Opposition are critical, in part, of some of the pricing policies of the Government but they did not indicate that their policy, as I understand it, is to charge a price at least 10 per cent higher than that which prevails under the National Energy Program. Indeed, some Members of the Party opposite have argued that the price should be even higher than world price, that we should lead in soaking Canadians in the area of pricing. We have not heard any policy from the Conservative Party but I have perceived this from public statements by individual Members of that Party.
That was a high point of the last three years of this Government of Canada. Probably equally important and certainly as important and fulfilling to me was the opportunity to be part of a Government that was responsible for patriation of the legal framework of this country and the return of the Constitution. More important in that process was the granting to all Canadians in future of the Charter of Human Rights, which is second to hone in the world. Those words come from the Leader of the New Democratic Party. The Charter grants rights and protections for every Canadian from coast to coast into the future, and it is second to none in the world. For me it has been a thrill to be part of this Parliament and of the
Supply
process that resulted in that achievement. It is no mean achievement by this Parliament.
I was in the Chamber on the evening that the results of the referendum in the Province of Quebec were announced. That referendum was the springboard in the energy and activity that resulted in the return of the Constitution. I was here when we received the information that the majority of people in that part of Canada said they were Canadians first. Following that, all Canadians through their representatives, federal and provincial, joined in seeking the return of the Constitution to give us a basis from which to address the future, not as it affects the individual Canadian through the Charter of Rights but through the representatives of federal and provincial Governments, and to proceed to the next challenge. That is the continuing and most important challenge of this Parliament, the achievement of economic recovery in the country and the formation of an economic base that will emerge hand in hand with the legal and social services that have been achieved through the Charter of Rights.
The third and equally important highlight is my small role as a Member of this Government and of this Party in signalling to the Canadian people that this Parliament would address leadership in the process of economic recovery. We did that by signaling to Canadians that restraint was important. I knew that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and senior Ministers of the Government have, through intergovernmental meetings, attempted to draw the support of the Provinces. I think of their meeting in January or February, 1982 on the restraint program.
Unfortunately, I suppose, it was a little too soon. When the Government found out it could not carry the support of the Provinces, it introduced a program of restraint in the budget of 1982. At that time it adopted a restraint program which applied, first of all, to Members of this House, to Members of the other place, to those who assist this House, this Government, agencies of the Government and any agency that has contact with the Government. We said that restraint would have to be one of the first steps in a long program of economic recovery. The program has been dubbed the six and five program. On the initiative of this Government and supported by the Official Opposition, it was felt that that was the place to start economic recovery, to show that if we had any excess of financial ability it should be used in productive ways and that other people should be willing to make sacrifices. We started that program in the House of Commons. I predict that in years to come it will be identified as a very significant start on a program of economic recovery in the country.
Like all industrial countries and like all developing countries in the last few years, we have reached a watershed. The old economies do not work and the old systems are creaking. The world economies have reached a watershed. We know the challenge of this country and other industrialized countries as well as the developing countries is to establish a new restructuring. Better ways must be found to make the economies work.
22992

February 18, 1983
Supply
In summary, Mr. Speaker, those are the high points to me. I count myself privileged to have been a Member of the House involved in these very important initiatives and to be a Member of the Government with some input into the decisions and leadership demonstrated in this short three-year period.
There were also low points, Mr. Speaker. I will not dwell on them because the Opposition has spent the last 45 minutes painting an unconstructive, doomsday scenario. You would not think that anything was possible or that there was any hope for Canadians if you believed that doomsday scenario.
I offer this observation on the low point in the hope that it might be instructive and constructive. I compare the operation of this House and its federal system of government with my personal experience in municipal government in Metropolitan Toronto. As Mayor of the borough of Scarborough and a member of the Metropolitan Toronto Council, I found that we addressed problems quickly. I suppose it is the nature of the animal that the system of local government seems to be able to respond more quickly than the federal Government. I cannot describe the depth of frustration, for example, in watching this House take six months to attempt to get $300 million of assistance for the housing industry while I was housing Minister.


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


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. When the House rose at one o'clock, the Hon. Minister of State for Finance had the floor.


Paul James Cosgrove: Mr. Speaker, before the adjournment of the House for the lunch period, I was reminding Hon. Members and those observing the debate in the House of Commons today that February 18, 1980 was the initiation of this Government and that we were at the three-year anniversary of the mandate of the Government. Also I indicated that, in my view, this Thirty-second Parliament of Canada would be recorded as one of the most productive and significant in the history of all Parliaments of Canada.
I did that, drawing to mind three initiatives taken by the Government. The first was the securing of energy resources for Canadians in the future, brought under the control of all Canadians at a price which was affordable and which was 10 per cent less than the price of the Official Opposition, in a national program which is successful, even at this point of our mandate, and beyond our expectation of achieving conservation by Canadians in energy at a rate and degree we did not think would be possible when we began the program.
Second, this Parliament will be remembered because Canada received its own constitutional ability, with Governments sharing power in the country, to make agreements in the future as to how legal structures and laws will be amended to suit Canadians. Of course, a major component of repatriation was the inclusion of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, described by the Hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party (Mr. Broadbent) as the best Charter of Rights in the whole world.
Finally, the Government is in the process of addressing economic recovery. I reminded Hon. Members that the First step was the issue of restraint. We felt that all sectors of the Canadian economy and its people, but more important this House and we as Members, had to demonstrate leadership in the area of restraint, and we did that. The six and five program, as it has come to be known, was supported in the House by the largest majority of Members, including the Tory Party and the Liberal Government. The program was a start toward bringing some realism to the recovery of the economy which for Canada, being a trading country, was very important. I am referring to the issues upon which everyone reflects these days-the issue of productivity and the issue of the efficiency of our economy to compete with world markets.
I concluded my remarks by indicating that my experience was previously in municipal politics and by comparing it with the way in which the federal Government and the Parliament of Canada operate. Unhappily, the comparison was a disappointment. I have been a Member of the House for exactly three years. I have been disappointed by the slowness of the House in addressing economic problems in Canada. I fear for many sectors of the economy if we take as long for them as we did to get assistance for the housing industry, which has relied upon the Government for years and years for support. We tabled in the House a Bill to put $300 million into the construction of apartments, and it took until March to get it out of the House and build apartment buildings. Why, when that industry was in such trouble, did it take so long? Why did the industry have to go into turmoil?


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Because you were incompetent.


Paul James Cosgrove: I will tell the House why. It was because the Opposition stonewalled it. We had to use closure to get that money into the economy.
Now we are addressing the issue of economic recovery that is before us. We are addressing the plight of the unemployed in this country who are looking to this Parliament for some small assistance in refunds of income tax which they have paid. They are not working now and want refunds of the money which they earned.
What is this Parliament doing? We are asking that this Parliament give some urgency to that issue. We, as a Government, ask that this Parliament sit evenings to consider that
February 18, 1983

matter. We should be sitting on weekends to consider the plight of the unemployed. Where is the sense of urgency in this system in addressing the plight of the unemployed? I find it very disappointing. It is extremely disappointing in comparison to the role that elected politicians play at other levels in this country. I do not wonder at the frustration of Canadians who observed Question Period today, while the economy and helping those who need help go unaddressed.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Gillespie needs it all right.


Paul James Cosgrove: This is a negative motion. There is not one whit, word, sentence or paragraph of constructive suggestion from the Opposition; nor has any Opposition Member said anything constructive.
I have indicated that this Government, for example, has put over a billion dollars into the housing sector in the last 18 months. The $3,000 home grant has been responsible for over
150,000	sales of houses in this country, a good part of which involves new construction which, in turn, contributes to the work force.
We have taken many other initiatives. I think of the employment initiatives of this Government and the $500 million which drew support from the Provinces in the form of millions of dollars and is creating jobs across the country.
Last evening I had the opportunity to review a number of projects under the NEED Program that are having positive effects in communities in the Province of Ontario, where I reside. There are programs for building bridges, repairing recreation centres and firehalls. These are projects which are necessary for many communities, but more importantly, they are creating jobs. This Government is about the task of assisting those people in Canada who are looking for work.
Mr Lewis: Gillespie and Macdonald.


Paul James Cosgrove: This Government is being assisted in that effort with funds from the provincial Governments. We are being assisted with funds from the municipal level. All of these levels of Government are contributing in a positive and cooperative way to the provision of jobs. Employment is our most important challenge.
I repeat that this is a negative motion. There is not one indication in it of anything right about this country. There is no hope to be found in the Opposition resolution which is before us today. No one from that side will admit, for example, to the housing starts which have increased to an annually adjusted rate of 165,000 in January. Will they admit to the increase in the sale of passenger cars of 37 per cent from July, 1982, to a total of 66,800 in December, 1982? Will they admit to the Conference Board of Canada index of consumer confidence jumping 36 per cent, from 54.8 per cent in the second quarter to 74.7 per cent in the fourth quarter of 1982? Will they admit to senior business executives indicating optimism for the prospect of the economy, according to the Conference Board's survey?
Supply
Will they admit to Canada's trade surplus jumping to $21.6 billion in December, 1982, which is a 157 per cent increase from the previous record of $8.4 billion in 1980? Will they admit to the year-over-year rate of increase of the CPI having declined to 8.3 per cent in January of this year? Will they further admit that non-COLA wage settlements fell to 7.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 1982? Will they admit that the Bank of Montreal has reduced its prime rate to 11.25 per cent? Will they admit to those things, Mr. Speaker? Will they admit to anything positive about the economy? I doubt it.
In summary, this Government has shown leadership which will be recognized with the three items I have referred to. This Government has identified economic recovery not only as its challenge but as the challenge to all Canadians. The Prime Minister said in his television address that the recovery will be faster, longer lasting and more firm if, in the process of recovery, Canadians can form a new partnership and new hope for the future in working together. I wish all Hon. Members of the House would join in that optimism.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Questions, answers or comments.


Mr. Friesen:: Mr. Speaker, the Minister received an extra two minutes for his speech. I hope that does not detract from the ten minutes we have for questions.
I listened carefully to what the Minister said and I took accurate notes. I believe he will find that I quote him accurately, if he checks the blues. He said that he was proud to have been a part of this Parliament which obviously, written in the past perfect tense, indicates that he is already anticipating his eminent departure from this place. He said that the Charter grants rights to Canadian citizens. I would ask him if the Charter grants rights or did Canadians already have those rights?


Paul James Cosgrove: Mr. Speaker, I am flattered that the Hon. Member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen) would deign that I am an eminent Member of this Parliament.


Benno Friesen: Imminent, not eminent.


Paul James Cosgrove: Possibly there may be some imminent departures, but not so imminent, no doubt, as the present Leader of his Party.
I am somewhat puzzled by the Hon. Member's question, which I guess reflects the malaise of the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party participated in the debate which resulted in the Charter of Rights being supported by his Party. Now he has a question. Obviously, he did not support his Party. He has misgivings about what his Party voted for. He has misgivings that the Charter of Rights is not a good Charter. If he would specify those misgivings, I would be very interested to listen to his suggestions about how the rights of Canadians can be better secured than by the present Charter.


Benno Friesen: The Minister is afraid to answer that question because he knows, as a result of the Question Period today, it

February 18, 1983
Supply
is obvious that Canadians do need protection. 1 am afraid that the Charter may not give as much protection as we need from this kind of Government. I would like to ask the Hon. Member a question concerning his reference to the pride he took in "leadership in economic renewal" as Minister responsible for housing. There are a number of sites in my constituency where there are excavations which now have grass and weeds and water in the bottom of those excavations because the housing policy was changed many times within six months. Is that his idea of economic renewal?


Paul James Cosgrove: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, the Government has directed over a billion dollars in the last 18 months from other sources of its operations to a variety of housing initiatives in this country. The Hon. Member must be living in another world if he does not recognize that the housing needs of Canadians are changing, that the needs of Canadians, depending upon age groups and other considerations, are changing all the time. The Government must be responsive to changing markets and changing needs. Using the Member's own riding, for example, the allocation to non-profit and co-op housing increased while I was Minister responsible for Canada Mortgage and Housing. Those people looking for low and moderately affordable accommodation had to be served. There was an overabundance of expensive apartment accommodation and we had to address the needs in the particular markets. Therefore, we had a variety of programs by which to address those needs. I have indicated the Canada rental supply plan, the Canada mortgage renewal plan and the non-profit and cooperative housing plan. These were all flexible and addressed needs as they arose in a changing housing environment.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, before asking my questions I would note that the Minister of State for Finance (Mr. Cosgrove) did indeed have a distinguished career as a municipal politician. He ran twice for the seat he now holds and then won it on the third occasion, and we hope to send him back there. However, in his present capacity as Minister of State for Finance, I wonder if he could assist the House with some simple mathematics.
In December, 1979 the price of heating oil was 70 cents a gallon. In December, 1982, after the completion of Liberal promises to hold down the price of energy, it was $1.40 a gallon. Could the Minister announce to the House the difference between $1.40 and 70 cents, to give us some idea what percentage increase that would be?


Paul James Cosgrove: Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on the Hon. Member's observation about my attempts to seek election to the House of Commons. What he says is quite true. As a matter of fact, it was a remarkable experience. Over the period of 15 months, I attempted to run on three occasions. I lost by 30,000 votes on the first occasion, by 10,000 on the second, and I won by 10,000 votes on the third attempt. I happen to represent the largest riding in Canada.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: That is their problem.


Paul James Cosgrove: I persisted because I was concerned, for example, about the housing policy of the Government in office.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: How about the energy policy, Paul?


Paul James Cosgrove: I am not so sure if the Hon. Member was a part of that Government, but I was concerned about its housing policy which would do away with non-profit and co-op housing.
However, on that point, I do not apologize. I thought the
10,000	majority that I received in order to come to the House was adequate. Certainly it was larger than the 66 votes which the Hon. Member received when he squeaked by to get into the House.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: I told the truth. That is the difference.


Paul James Cosgrove: Concerning the area of oil pricing, I do not know if the House Leader of the Tory Party was present when I indicated before lunch that no matter what the prices are under the policy of the Government, which is to restrict prices to 75 per cent of world price, it is 10 per cent less than the Official Opposition policy which was passed at the last national conference. I am sorry, I am not referring to the convention which was just held in Winnipeg, because the Tories did not deal with policy at that convention. However, the year before they did deal with the issue and recommended that the price be increased by 10 per cent over that which is the policy of the Government.


John William Bosley: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a short question of the Minister, who has made quite a lot of his concern for the unemployed. If I quote him correctly, "We should be sitting weekends to address the problems of the unemployed", I suspect that many of us would agree.


Mr. Fisher:: It would not hurt. You would not sit in the evening the other day.


John William Bosley: However, this week Liberal Members have refused to let committees sit in certain circumstances, so let us just put that on the record.
I take it that since the Minister believes the House should be sitting in some special committee form, he is saying, in effect, that the decision by the Government to refer the question concerning economic growth to the Macdonald Commission and to give it three years to report is a decision he does not support.


Paul James Cosgrove: Mr. Speaker, that is a very witty question by the Hon. Member.


An Hon. Member:: It is a serious question.


Paul James Cosgrove: He has surprising, flexible, delightful wit and can use it to effect in the House. However, I must reiterate that that is a difficulty with the House. There are witty questions when what is at stake is the future of over one
February 18, 1983

million unemployed who are waiting to receive funds to assist them because they are unemployed. Instead of solutions, we hear witty questions.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: And witless Ministers.


John William Bosley: Mr. Speaker, let me ask the question in a more straightforward manner. The Minister is having some difficulty understanding a straight question. If this side of the House were to support an urgent joint committee on unemployment, would the Government side of the House support abandoning the Macdonald three-year delay?


Paul James Cosgrove: Mr. Speaker, in my personal view I think the House should first address the plight of people who are unemployed in Canada-


Blaine Allen Thacker: Why don't you do something?


Paul James Cosgrove: -and receiving very modest benefits, who are trying very hard to find employment and are looking for additional income.
The way in which the House can most effectively assist those people with their incomes at this time is to address speedily the legislation presently before the House, which the Government has asked the House to consider, for example, in the evenings, but which was blocked by the Hon. Member's Party. That is the way in which we can address the problem.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: They were out campaigning.


Paul James Cosgrove: A long-range study, a restructuring of the economy, which is the mandate of the Commission on the economy, is not the answer to the unemployed nor to those people who are looking for cash in hand at this point.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, the motion before us today is a rather interesting one, and we intend to support it. We support the intent of the motion, which states:
That, in light of the Government's outright betrayal of the Canadian people and the repudiation of its 1980 election promises to reduce unemployment, combat inflation, avoid inflationary tax hikes and excessive energy price increases, reduce the deficit, and implement an industrial strategy for Canada, this House calls upon the Government to face its responsibility to Canadians and take immediate action to live up to the commitments that it made in 1980 or resign.
That is a solid motion, but it is a little out of balance. What it requires is an amendment. Therefore I move, seconded by the Hon. Member for Beaches (Mr. Young):
-and that this House further recognizes the failure of Her Majesty's Official Loyal Opposition to fulfil its responsibilities in this Parliament and recognizes that when its members formed the Government in the Thirty-first Parliament, they broke as many promises as the present Government, but in a shorter period of time. Since there is no appreciable difference between the Government and the Official Opposition, they should both follow the example of the former Leader of the Official Opposition and resign.
I would like to discuss the first part of the motion in the context of some of the difficulties we have had with the present Government. I am astounded that anyone could be proud to be identified with some of the programs which have come forth, especially the National Energy Program. Over the last three years, the National Energy Program and the remarks of the
Supply
Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the many Ministers of Finance to the people of Canada have been complete disasters. This situation has extended back even beyond the life of this particular Parliament and has been created by the attitudes, I would say, of the individual who leads the Liberal Party and who acts as Prime Minister in the House.
I would like to recall some comments made by the present Prime Minister prior to the 1979 election. At that time there was unemployment in the country, difficulties experienced by farmers, concern over the proliferation of nuclear energy, about which he made some interesting comments.
First, he said that farmers were nothing but chronic hitchers. He directed that comment, in public, to people who were suffering from some very serious problems. To the unemployed who met him in Vancouver, he stated that if the unemployed wanted jobs, they should "get off their arses and go look for them".
With regard to nuclear energy, there was also concern over the incredible waste of money which the Canadian people had been saddled with over a period of time. Nevertheless, when people expressed legitimate concerns, such as the question whether the Japanese were planning to dump nuclear wastes in the ocean, the Prime Minister turned around and told those people: "Look, you are going to get nuclear power whether you like it or not".
I submit that the kind of attitude which has been displayed over the terms of office of the person who leads the present Government shows that he is not the kind of individual who should lead the country and draw people together at this very difficult time. However, he did not learn from his defeat in 1979. In reality, the Conservative Government was not elected on its merit in the Thirty-first Parliament. It was elected as a rebound action from the Liberal Government being thrown out of power and, I would assume, the Prime Minister being thrown out of power.
But we went on further. The Prime Minister had some very interesting comments to make in this Parliament, and we had one of the best examples of it today. There is very serious concern about the behaviour of the former Minister of Energy, Alastair Gillespie, and his access to Department of Energy officials, officials who worked for him in the past, and his connections with Hon. Members and colleagues in the Cabinet. Then to be involved in a very lucrative arrangement in the Province of Nova Scotia is beyond all question a very serious, serious matter in this House. The flippant answers of the Prime Minister will add nothing to resolve the issue of the confidence of the Canadian people in that Government and, frankly, it will not be resolved.
It is interesting to recall the significance of the finger being ' waved at individuals. Certainly there is concern out there, but that kind of response should not happen.

February 18, 1983
Supply
We can go back to the appointment of Michael Pitfield to the Senate. I would like to point out that that act, in the minds of many people, is absolutely disgusting but is consistent with the Liberal Government's policy of "We will take care of our own". The conduct of the Prime Minister, his contempt for the Canadian people, his contempt for the Parliament of Canada, is just astounding. Lie says that the people do not care but, mark my words, they do care. The 30 per cent in the polls indicates that they care. The absolute contempt with which the present leader of the Liberal Government and the Liberal Members' support of that leader leads me seriously to question anything they have done.
Without dwelling further on the transgressions of the Prime Minister through this Parliament, which have been very serious, we have had questions raised in the issue of the urea formaldehyde foam with certain individuals and certain Government organizations. There has been no satisfaction given, no attempt to come clean.
We had problems with the uranium cartel, the setting up of that cartel, that implicated individuals in the Government and political appointees within the Government service. That was never addressed fairly in this House. Again we are faced with the same kind of problem today and that question I am convinced will not be dealt with fairly.
Over a period of time we have also seen the Prime Minister deal with Parliament in a very contemptible manner, and not just the Prime Minister but Members who serve in his Cabinet and other Members of the House. We have found a great many vital issues that face the people of Canada removed from this Parliament. Those issues are outside of Parliament. They are resolved by the Liberal Government outside of Parliament.
We have had a very difficult time with the transportation system in the country. That has largely been dealt with outside of this House of Commons. We have dealt with problems of unemployment and problems of the nature, the structure and the operation of the economy. Those have been stalled and will be dealt with outside of the House of Commons.
The Bertrand report in which serious allegations were made against the major oil companies in Canada came forward, but was it referred to the House of Commons or to the people who represent the people of Canada for a decision? Not a chance. It was shuffled off into a commission which has trotted back and forth across the country until, literally through exponential decay, public interest has disappeared.
We have a population in this country now who has no confidence in the Liberal Party as a result of the long historical trend in its behaviour. They have no confidence in the Prime Minister and they have no confidence that that group respects this Parliament. That is a very serious situation.
Unfortunately, that leads to a problem, and I pointed out that the motion probably needed amendment and balance to point out the role of the Official Opposition in the House. I would like to take a few minutes to point out that the people of Canada are not being well served by the Official Opposition. In fact, we have spent a great deal of time in this House in character assassination. That is a function of the very serious
problems that we have had in this House, where one group says: "In the last election we got crucified for making commitments, and therefore we will make no commitments to the Canadian people; we will concentrate on eroding the confidence of Canadians in the people who govern this country". That is the appeal of the Conservative Party to the electorate.
I would go back again to the issues that have been dealt with in this House. The Conservative Party refuses to fulfil its responsibility as the Official Opposition in this Parliament. It refuses to put forward alternate policies and suggestions. The people of Canada in selecting a Party in the next federal election are faced with the possibility of getting rid of the Liberal Party but unfortunately the Conservative Party are offering forward no constructive option.
I would point to the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) as an example of probably the most typical and strongest argument on this matter. When leaving the lock-up one day when they were considering the budget, he announced that the Minister of Finance had come forward with a terrible budget, and I completely agree with him, it was a disaster. Nevertheless, when he walked out of that lock-up and the press said: "Sure it is bad, but what would you do?", his comment was: "If I told you what we would do, we would never be elected". That will stand for all time as a great quote on the Conservative Party's position on serving the people of Canada.
When we go back and look at the matter of urea formaldehyde foam, for months the Conservative Party fought in this House, telling Members how they were at one with the people who were suffering out there, but when it came down to making a proposal, what would they would do? Had they done that, that would have acted as a lever to move the Government, but their only position was that there is too much UFFI and it is the Liberals' fault. They refused to put forward a position.
That has also happened on the bail-out of Dome. The Leader of the Official Opposition said that he did not know what they should do, that they should probably refer it to a parliamentary committee. That was another cop-out.
The Conservative Party as the Official Opposition in this Parliament has failed miserably in its responsibility to the Canadian people to put forward alternatives. There are certain questions of moral responsibility, of appropriate activity for Cabinet Ministers, that are certainly valid questions in this House; but there is a tendency on the part of some people to see it boil over into character assassination for long-term political gain, rather than to clarify what is appropriate behaviour in this House and establish relevant, pertinent guidelines for conduct. That should be the end result of the current exercise.
Mention has been made in this House of the former Minister of Energy's program. I used to think that when the Prime Minister changed the Cabinet it was to remove an individual from the Finance portfolio who had done less than a noteworthy job-three failures in an attempt to come up with a
February 18, 1983

rational budget. It was probably not just the removal of a Finance Minister who has been judged by many people to be incompetent; it was probably to remove an incompetent Energy Minister.
I want to speak for a moment on the National Energy policy as we are in a very interesting situation. The National Energy Program that was put forward in 1980 as a vehicle through which certain Government commitments were made proposed a number of key points: fair prices, fair treatment, security of supply. It went along for about a year and a half. The Government pushed through in a very vigorous manner Bill C-48, which was the legislative platform for that national energy policy; but by the time that Bill was part way through they found that they had to gut it. The Liberal Party, in concert, I would say, with the oil companies, gutted that Bill.
It moved forward again, but the basic assumptions in it were wrong. Then we had the national energy update in which it was admitted that revenue projections and certain activities were not going to be fulfilled; for instance, the collapse of the megaprojects. We found a situation where the economy would not benefit during this period from the National Energy Program, that revenue projections were not going to be sustained, and basically the assumptions and the circumstances upon which that program was built had changed and were in fact no longer appropriate. Therefore the Government was forced to change it.
We are in a situation today where we can point to numerous situations that have changed again. The recent decision of the National Energy Board approved very large exports of natural gas to the United States in the face of the Americans attempting to force down the price of gas. Essentially we are going to give away the resource in order to try and get some kind of cash flow going.
The Government came up with a proposal to export 40,000 barrels of light crude. Members of Parliament were told that we had 900 years' supply of oil and, therefore, could export it at almost any price. Very shortly after that we moved into a situation where we were told by the same oil companies that the projections they had made were wrong, that there was a very short supply and, therefore, we should put the price up.
We are now faced with the same kind of situation. The oil companies say that we have a surplus of oil in the Western Basin, that we should export that oil, but in fact we have a long-term shortness of supply so we should jack up the price to the world price. We have the Minister saying today in a waffling, mealy-mouth way that he intends to bow down to blackmail from the oil companies and pressure from the Provinces. They will no longer live up to their commitment to maintain a blended price for Canadian oil below the world price based on the old oil 75 per cent of world price.
We have a situation where the Government is backing away from firm commitments. It has seen the megaprojects collapse. It is trying to pump as much cheap gas as it can into the United States in order to bail themselves out. A very poor decision. We have a situation where we are again exporting
Supply
light crude. A week ago Thursday the Minister said in Vancouver that they are reviewing the whole matter of a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island. I ask somebody on the Government side to stand up and come clean. One of the main issues was fairness in the national energy policy. Is it fair to the people of Vancouver Island who have seen the price of energy become one of the main factors, along with interest rates and business bankruptcies, in making fishing a very difficult activity in which to make a living? The difficult transportation system has driven up the cost of living.
Is the Government prepared to be fair to the people of Vancouver Island? It is certainly willing to build a pipeline East. It made a commitment of a $150 million basic grant for a pipeline to Vancouver Island. Now the Government is waffling out of it.
It is also committed to conversion costs on the Island to assist people to convert from very expensive oil to an alternate energy program that will be maintained at taxpayers' expense at 65 per cent of the equivalent price of oil. It is not fair to the people of Vancouver Island. The Minister and the Government should live up to the commitment to provide these people on Vancouver Island with the alternative.
The main point is that the National Energy Program has collapsed. The National Energy Program update has collapsed. There is no doubt that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) must be pulling out his hair wondering where he will get all the money to fund the deficit and fund Government programs which are being strained to the nth degree. The Government made some very wrong projections on the economy. It made all the wrong projections on the source of revenue for energy. Because of the entire depressed nature of the economy, revenues are away down. However, demands continue for basic social institutions, health programs, Unemployment Insurance and income-support mechanisms. There are certainly difficulties in those areas. By and large it is based on incompetence.
It is unfortunate because the Government had a choice over the years to develop a broadly based industrial strategy in this country, but it failed to do so. It had a chance to strengthen our manufacturing sector to ensure that Canadians, instead of the Japanese and Europeans, use our raw resources and would realize the employment benefits from the value added. This has been a disaster in our forest industry where the Government has failed to act in an appropriate manner. It has not acted in an effective manner in the shipbuilding industry. Basically it is a question of incompetence.
There is no doubt that the motion before us this afternoon is appropriate. This Government has treated Parliament with contempt. It has treated the people of Canada with contempt. It has been absolutely incompetent to the point of being immoral in handling some of the basic, critical issues that have faced Canada over the last three years. I am certain that the people of Canada will not allow this Government to proceed into the next Parliament. There is no doubt that the disillusioned people of this country will react in the same way as they did in 1979.

February 18, 1983
Supply
The lack of balance in this resolution is that it fails to assign appropriate blame to the Official Opposition, whose conduct in this Parliament has been as bad as that of the Government. As my proposed amendment states, there is no appreciable difference. Therefore, they would be a poor choice to replace that particular organization on the Government benches at the present time.


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


John Carnell Crosbie: For debate, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Debate will come in a moment.
Before recognizing the Hon. Member for the purpose of debate, I would like to deal with the amendment suggested by the Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River (Mr. Skelly). I will read that amendment and then indicate what I think is probably lacking in terms of procedural acceptability.
The amendment suggests that after the Official Opposition motion, there ought to be a comma and the amendment would read as follows:
-and this House further recognizes the failure of Her Majesty's Official Loyal Opposition to fulfil its responsibilities in this Parliament and recognizes that when its Members formed the Government in the Thirty-first Parliament, they broke as many promises as the present Government but in a shorter period of time. Since there is no appreciable difference between the Government and the Official Opposition, they should both follow the example of the Leader of the Official Opposition and resign.
I have considerable difficulties with that amendment. In the first instance, I find that the language in the amendment is argumentative rather than related to the motion put by the Official Opposition. I am not sure that Parliament foresees in its procedures an opportunity for Hon. Members to enter into particularly partisan points in the way that this is expressed.
I wanted to say that and yet at the same time explain to the Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River that my duty is not to consider whether a particular motion is partisan, obviously, but to see whether it fits within the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. I would refer the Hon. Member to Standing Order 58(3) which reads:
Opposition motions on allotted days may be moved only by Members in opposition to the Government-
In that regard this amendment qualifies.
-and may relate to any matter within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada-
I begin to have questions obviously.
-and also may be used for the purpose of considering reports from standing committees-
The essence, the nature and the purpose of an Opposition motion on an Opposition day is to fulfil its function of addressing itself to the business of the governing of the country. I find that the amendment proposed by the Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River does not address itself to the issue of governing the country or the issue that is put forth in the motion made by the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Nielsen), but rather is addressed to the Official Opposition in the House of Commons.
I will, if the Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River sees fit, cause further research to be done. I wanted to offer him that opportunity to ask that the Chair research this matter further.
On the face of it, and in view of Standing Order 58(3), I have to find that this amendment is out of order. In my view, it does not fulfill the implicit understanding of the purpose of an amendment to an Opposition motion, as is referred to in Standing Order 58(3).
I realize that I have not referred to any precedents in that regard. If the Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River wants me to cause the Table Officers to seek out the necessary precedents, I will do so. If he feels he can accept my ruling at the moment, we can proceed.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, in order to facilitate the House and your responsibilities here this afternoon, I will simply accept the ruling at the present time. I felt it was an objective, honest, forthright statement of what we, as Canadians, have observed in here, and, again, I would abide by your ruling.


Maurice Adrian Dionne: 1
believe you have made a wise ruling, Mr. Speaker, and I think you should look at the main motion in the same light. It is just as fallacious as the amendment proposed thereto, and does not deserve to be credited with any amendment.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Order, please. That intervention certainly does not help the Chair. When I used the word "partisan", obviously the House of Commons is a partisan institution, and I did not mean in any way to derogate from the right of the Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River (Mr. Skelly) to use the forms of the House in that regard. I simply meant that an Opposition motion should really be addressed to a criticism of the Government-that is all I meant-and not necessarily to a criticism of another Opposition Party. If that is acceptable, we will proceed, but I did undertake to offer the Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River the opportunity to have further consideration of the appropriateness of his motion, if he so saw fit.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, I am glad that you saved the intervenor from New Brunswick-I have forgotten the name of his district for the moment-from the embarrassment of dealing any further with his suggestion about this main motion. And I am glad that you saved the Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River (Mr. Skelly) from the same embarrassment.
The New Democratic Party, Mr. Speaker, at the moment, remind me of a flea or a nit trying to crawl up the leg of a noble animal such as the Newfoundland dog or Labrador retriever. They want to try to persuade the public that we are not the real Opposition in this House, that somehow they are the real Opposition-they who put the Government in here; they who moved the motion which put the Government here,
February 18, 1983

and their Leader who crawled into bed with the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) on the Constitution. The two Parties are head to head, cheek to cheek, toe to toe and knee to knee. I am going no further because there are certain standards of decency which are observed in this Chamber. So the Hon. Member for Comox-Powell River was saved from a lot of embarrassment.
When these nits get on the back of our legs we take up the other leg and give a little flick and the nit or the flea goes back to its accustomed spot, which is where the NDP are going after the next election. They are very much interested in the leadership of our Party. We have had many marvellous Leaders and we may have many more marvellous Leaders, but I am too modest, Mr. Speaker, to pursue that theme.
The Minister of State for Finance (Mr. Cosgrove) spoke in this debate and he is certainly a good example of a man with his mind open at both ends. His mind is completely open and the wind whistles through the hollow space. He did not deal with the motion at all. The motion deals with the Government's repudiation of its 1980 election promises, and I will back that statement up. The motion deals with the question: Has the Government a mandate when it has completely turned its back on its solemn promises to the Canadian people and has operated now for three years in direct contravention of what it told the public?
We have all seen in the last three years what the Prime Minister stands for. He stands for whatever he thinks the public will fall for. We saw this here this morning in Question Period, with the Prime Minister trying to make believe that there is no moral crisis afflicting his Government in the area of the conflict of interest guidelines. As long as he thinks the people will fall for his explanations, no matter how specious, he will put them forward, and about the worst advice I can give him is to be himself and to keep on being himself.
What was the public asked to give the Liberal Party a mandate for in the last election? There is not too much evidence of what they were asked to do by the Liberal Party, or of the promises the Liberals made, because they did not make all that many promises. However, unwisely on January 12, 1980, the Prime Minister, who was then the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Liberal Party, spoke in Toronto at a Liberal campaign college. None of them graduated because going to college has not helped them much, except to win elections. At this particular college, he outlined the platform of the Party to 500 Liberal candidates, campaign managers and Party workers from Ontario. After outlining his platform, he said, and I quote:
It would be the height of irresponsibility for any Party to make promises in the heat of an election campaign that could not be acted upon.
That is a very fine sentiment, of course. We, of course, completely agree with. It would be very irresponsible for him to do that. But what promises did he in fact make? He went on to say this, before he outlined the five themes which persuaded the Canadian people to vote for him, and I quote:
There is a prior commitment that I want to make clear. Liberals will do what we say we will do. And if we can't do it, we won't say it.
Supply
That was a revolutionary departure for these poor cretins at that policy conference to take in. They had never heard that before. But this is what the Prime Minister said:
Liberals will do what we say we will do. And if we can't do it, we won't say it.
Let us see if they did what they said. Have they observed the mandate they were supposed to have had? The Prime Minister also said, and I quote:
Our program for the 1980s consists of five major commitments:
The first commitment is, and I quote:
-to manage more rigorously the nation's finances in order to make more effective use of the taxpayers' money.
Has the Government met that major commitment? Between January, 1980 and now, what have the increases been in Government spending? In the year 1979-80 when the Prime Minister made that promise, the public accounts spending was $50.4 billion. This year it is going to be at least $80.4 billion. That is an additional $30 billion of spending. Is that managing more rigorously the nation's finances?
The deficit in the year 1979-80 was $11.4 billion. That was bad enough. It was a large deficit. It was the twelfth we had had in a row. But this year it is going to be $27.2 billion; that is almost two and a half times as much. When the Prime Minister promised to manage more rigorously our finances and to make more effective use of the taxpayers' money, our interest costs in that year were $8.3 billion. This year they are going to spend in excess of $17 billion. That is double. Is that managing the public money more rigorously? Is it making more effective use of the taxpayers' money when the interest bill is doubled in three years. This year $17 billion is being spent which does the public no good at all. It is just paying interest on the past debt. That was the first major commitment, and we can see from what I have said that it was completely broken.
Second, the Prime Minister said-and this is how he got into office-"We are going to achieve energy security at a fair price for all Canadians". Has he achieved energy security? Only in the sense that this year there is a greater supply of oil in the world than demand because of the fantastic recession we have had, but not in any other way. The tarsands plant and the Alsands plant have not gone ahead. The Cold Lake heavy oil plant has not gone ahead. The Beaufort Sea project is stumbling along. The Hibernia oil field off Newfoundland is just bumbling along because of the Government's greed and refusal to give the Province of Newfoundland a fair deal. And on and on it goes. We have had no increase in energy security.
By the way, in connection with that particular main plank of his platform, the Prime Minister also said this on February 12, 1980, and I quote:
The Liberal price hike would be less than half of what the Tories plan to inflict on you; we will negotiate an increase of less than 14 cents.
That is 14 cents a gallon. That was a deception beyond all deceptions, Mr. Speaker, because the public knows what has happened to oil and gas prices since the Prime Minister made that promise. In December, 1979 gasoline was selling at $1.14

February 18, 1983
Supply
a gallon. In December, 1982 gasoline was selling at $2.15 a gallon. The price has doubled.
In our budget, Mr. Speaker, we did not impose any tax on heating oil because we know the lower-income people generally use oil for heating. We know the Atlantic Provinces are heavily dependent on heating oil. The infamous 18-cent tax did not apply to heating oil at all, only to transportation fuels. But what has this Government done to help the lower-income Canadian on heating oil? Why, it was 70 cents a gallon in December, 1979 and it is $1.40 today. That is an increase of 70 cents a gallon, double the price. That is what this Government did to give Canadians energy security at a fair price. The Liberals have gouged them in every way you could conceive on energy prices. They have imposed more taxes than one could even dream of. Most of those increases are in federal Government taxes.
That was the second great plank of the Government's platform. Then, of course, the Prime Minister's third great policy was to develop, and I quote:
... industrial policies that will provide jobs, spur growth and increase Canadian ownership and control of the economy.
Well, in regard to that latter bit about increasing Canadian ownership and control, the Government has increased our ownership in the oil and gas industry minimally but at a cost to Canadians of interest rates that went sky high because of the Government's new energy policy and its anti-American rhetoric and the rest of it. It cost Canadians tens of billions of dollars in unnecessary interest rates to do that. But what is the good of Canadians owning our economy when the economy is diminishing, not growing? What price Canadian ownership then?
Well, Mr. Speaker, what about the industrial policies that will provide jobs? Do you know, Mr. Speaker-and this is why the Government should resign today-what has happened with jobs under this Government since it came into office just three years ago? We have added to the unemployment rolls 652,000 people. In January, 1980, there were 949,000 Canadians unemployed. As a result of three years of this Government, with the promises it made to provide jobs, the official rate is now 1,598,000 unemployed, an increase of 652,000. That is
652,000	Canadian families betrayed by this Government which promised it was going to develop industrial policies to provide jobs and spur growth. Spur growth, Mr. Speaker? Last year the Gross National Product went down 5 per cent. In other words, we Canadians, have 5 per cent less to share among ourselves this year than we had a year ago. Our Gross National Product did not increase, it did not stay the same, it went down 5 per cent last year. That is called spurring growth. In addition, there has been a net loss of jobs since the summer of 1981, just 16 or 18 months ago. We have lost 578,000 jobs in Canada. Is that spurring growth? Is that the industrial policy which will provide jobs? Surely to God, Mr. Speaker, this is a total betrayal of this Government's commitment to the Canadian people.
Well, Mr. Speaker, the public might think to themselves: could there be any further betrayals of our interest? Why, yes, there certainly are further betrayals because the Prime Minister at the same meeting said this:
We must endorse the right of every Canadian to have a job.
That is what that monumental mountebank, that hypocrite who now leads this country said, and I quote him again:
We must endorse the right of every Canadian to have a job.
Well, there are 1,598,000 Canadians out there wondering what that means. What is the good to them of a Prime Minister who endorses the right to have a job and then does nothing to keep his promise? The hypocrite!
The fourth plank in that program, Mr. Speaker.
To build greater economic strength in each region of the country as the basis for over-all Canadian prosperity.
Well, Canada is devastated from coast to coast. British Columbia, one of the most booming regions of Canada, has been devastated in the last several years. It has almost as high an unemployment rate as Newfoundland. Newfoundland has been devastated even more than it was already by a Government which has done everything it can to inflict pain upon the Government and people of that Province by cutting back DREE spending and economic assistance, by doing everything it can to damage that Province because they want a fair deal on the offshore mineral resources. That is what this Government has done for the regions of this country.
The fifth great plank was this, Mr. Speaker, and this is the greatest betrayal of them all. I hope the Minister of Public Works (Mr. LeBlanc) will listen to me. He is supposed to be a man of some sensitivity but he is having his ears filled now with some specious nonsense by the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans). I want the Minister of Public Works to listen. This was the fifth plank in the Prime Minister's platform:
To enhance the security of the individual by helping those who most need assistance.
That was the solemn pledge to the Canadian people on January 12, 1980, by your Leader at the campaign college in Toronto. The Liberals were going to enhance the security of the invdividual by helping those who most need assistance. He went on to say this, Mr. Speaker:
And most important of all, we must guarantee the income security of our older citizens. Retirement should be a time of peace rather than a time of fear.
Can you hear the violins being played while the sanctimonious Prime Minister assured our older Canadians that retirement should be a time of peace rather than a time of fear? What did he do then? He led the Government which reduced indexing, which took away from the income this year of 1.1 million Old Age Security recipients. He put the boots to
200,000	Public Service pensioners. That is how the Government enhances the security of the individual. That is how it helps those who most need assistance. Well, who have the Liberals helped? Why, they have helped Alastair Gillespie. We have seen how the Prime Minister's heart was rended today for Alastair Gillespie. Poor Alastair was forced to the private
February 18, 1983

sector. The Prime Minister said here in the House today that poor Alastair had to go out and be like an ordinary Canadian and look for a job, "and we had to fix poor Alastair up." That was the implication. This Toronto industrialist, Alastair Gillespie, our hearts were supposed to cry for him when we have 1,598,000 people who the Prime Minister has not fixed up with some fancy deal through the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Chretien) and the Acting Deputy Prime Minister; this sleazy, tawdry affair that we are exploring in this House today.


Mr. Nystrom:: Let us pray.


John Carnell Crosbie: The Liberals are going to enhance the security of the Liberals who are heaped upon the CMHC Board of Directors. It is not good enough that they should get $150 a day; their pay is going up to $450 a day. For Sylvia Sutherland, a defeated Liberal in Peterborough in the last election- that is her only qualification for being a director of CMHC- $150 a day was not good enough to attend meetings here in Ottawa; she has to get $450 a day.


Mr. Gauthier:: Don't attack people who cannot defend themselves.


John Carnell Crosbie: The retired President of CMHC, Mr. Hession, said that $450 a day was "pretty low" for directors of Crown Corporations. Imagine, pretty low! Yes, it is prettry low, low in the sense that it is pretty damn mean. It is pretty tawdry. It is a scoundrelly thing to do to give the directors of CMHC a 200 per cent increase and to reduce the incomes of old age pensioners and Public Service pensioners. That is who the Liberals are helping, their friends and pals. That is the security they are enhancing. Those are the people they think need assistance most. Donald Macdonald, the corporate lawyer from Toronto who is supposed to save the Liberal Party from Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Turner, is to get $850 a day on his Royal Commission. Why? Because poor McCarthy and McCarthy's overhead costs would go to hell if he did not get this from the public Treasury. This is the hero who is to save us from John Turner. This is the Party, Mr. Speaker, and I quote again, which will:
-not simply stand by and let the recession come. We will fight it and overcome it.
When are they going to start fighting and overcoming the recession? Ronald Reagan is going to pull us out of our recession temporarily, to some extent this year, but the Government of Canada has done nothing to pull us out of anything. The Prime Minister went on to say this:
All this we will do. And more. So that is our commitment.
Well, that is the point of our resolution today, Mr. Speaker. The Government has not met those commitments. It has repudiated those commitments. The Liberals have got themselves here in office and they have done nothing but roll in the trough. I said the Prime Minister's conduct today was hircine, it was goat-like. It had the smell of a goat when he attempted to defend the indefensible here today. The Liberals have become a coalition of looters, Mr. Speaker, despoilers, favour
Supply
seekers, patronage granters, patronage receivers, murky influence peddlars, jesuitical justifiers. Did anyone ever see such jesuitical twisting and turning, as we have seen the Prime Minister do in the last several days when he was trying to justify the immoral plundering of the public purse by the cutpurses of the twentieth century led by a dacoit who will defend anything his Ministers, his former Ministers or the Liberal Party associates will attempt to do.
That is why we have moved this motion, Mr. Speaker. It is not because we expect the Government to pay any attention or because we think there are millions watching this Chamber today, but because we want to have on record what we think of the disgraceful spectacle we face in this Chamber week after week, day after day and month after month.
I say to the Prime Minister that if he wants to give the people of Canada a chance to judge the conduct in the Lalonde-MacEachen scandal-the Maclonde scandal-let us have an election now. Let him call an election now. We do not need a leader in this Party to clean your clock in an election. We will bollix you. Give us six weeks and we will devastate you. We will wipe you out. You will be lucky to have a remnant left. Go to the public on your betrayal of your commitments and we will stun you into insensibility. You will not survive. There will be none of you here for the rest of the twentieth century, and it is just about time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Questions and answers or debate.


John Carnell Crosbie: What about a question? Where are the questions?


An Hon. Member:: It is not worth it.


John Carnell Crosbie: Chicken.
[ Translation]


Mr. Andre Maltais (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) and I think a good title for his speech would be: "Variations on an unfinished theme". I could not believe my ears, Mr. Speaker, here in the House of Commons, when, as the Hon. Member said earlier, millions of people might be watching the proceedings they probably seldom heard such arrant nonsense. It is very easy for the Opposition to say more or less what they like, except that when people have to make up their minds in a year or two, they will have to vote for the party they think is the most responsible, and if they remember this speech by the Member for St. John's West, I think it would make a rather peculiar impression during an election campaign. Imagine, a political party that says it does not need a leader and does not need ideas to be elected. Mr. Speaker, such a party would be disaster for this country.

February 18, 1983
Supply
I would like to give some statistics on what has been done by this Government in the past three years, but first I would like to refer to the motion put by the Opposition party, which says, and I quote:
That, in light of the Government's outright betrayal of the Canadian people and its repudiation of its 1980 election promises to reduce unemployment, combat inflation, avoid inflationary tax hikes and excessive energy price increases, reduce the deficit, and implement an industrial strategy for Canada, this House calls upon the Government to face its responsibility to Canadians and take immediate action to live up to the commitments that it made in 1980 or resign.
Mr. Speaker, if I may draw a parallel between what was said earlier and what the situation is today, I would like to refer to what is happening in my riding in connection with the mining companies Iron Ore, Sidbec-Normine and Wabush Mines or else companies such as Quebec North Shore and others in the private sector that are having problems. If I wanted to see things in black and white, Mr. Speaker, as the Opposition preferred to do just now, I could say that Iron Ore's problems were brought about by its President, Mr. Brian Mulroney, a well-known figure whom I know very well and for whom I have a great deal of respect. But I will not follow the lead of the Opposition. I am not going to say that Iron Ore's problems were brought about by the President of Iron Ore. It is a matter of economics, and when they say that we have increased unemployment in this country, I could answer that unemployment in my area is due to Mr. Brian Mulroney, because we have a town that is about to disappear and people who have been laid off. It is very easy to make fancy speeches and say whatever comes to mind, under the cover of parliamentary immunity, without taking responsibility for one's statements. It is easy to indulge in crass rhetoric and to establish a relation of cause and effect between a weak economy and high unemployment, but I think that if we are to be the least bit reasonable and realistic, we must make comparisons that take the economic situation into account. I really deplore the fact that in the House, everything the Opposition says boils down to entirely haphazard discussions in which no connection is made with socio-economic questions and in which there is no rhyme or reason or logic. Instead of proposals and alternative solutions, there is only the same old refrain we have been hearing for well-nigh twenty years, which is that everything this Government has done badly, and that its decisions have always been the wrong decisions.
Mr. Speaker, this crass rhetoric is one reason why I am tempted to say that the Official Opposition may not be ready to form a new Government, because it has no real solutions to propose. All they do here in the House is repeat the same old thing, day in and day out.
Mr. Speaker, if we compare Canada's position to that of the United States, we see that all things being equal, Canada's public finances are in better shape than those of the U.S. If we examine the proposals made by Mr. Miterrand when he ran for office, these were measures to reduce unemployment, strengthen the franc and upgrade the industrial sector. Two
years later, France has record levels of inflation, record levels of unemployment and the value of the franc has plummeted.
The Official Opposition had all the answers. It is very easy to be in the Opposition and to say that if the Opposition were in power, it would settle most of the country's problems. In France, the former Opposition has been in power for nine months, and has done what it could during that time. There are no miracles. A responsible Government must tell the people that it cannot work miracles. But when I hear people say in the House that nothing at all has been done, well, if it is not rhetoric, it is very close to being a lie.
I would like to say a few words about expenditures that were made by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce in 1981-82. For industrial expansion alone, which means in the private sector, grants totalled $98 million in 1980-81 and $119 million in 1981-82. Guaranteed loans totalled $231 million in 1980-81 and $131 million in 1982. In other words, the amount of money spent on grants to help private enterprise was greater than the amount spent on guaranteed loans. With respect to defence industries, Mr. Speaker, there were $142 million in
1980-	81 and $262 million in 1981-82; for the development of export markets, Mr. Speaker, $17 million in 1980-81 and $24 million in 1981-82; for shipbuilding and modernization, $102 million in 1980-81 and $143 million in 1981-82. The Opposition will note that the amounts have steadily increased.
For research and development in the field of energy, the amounts vary between $4 and $6 million for both years. For the Department of Regional Economic Expansion, $180 million in 1980-81 and $206 million in 1981-82. The Federal Business Development Bank was allowed $484 million in 198081 and $460 million in 1981-82. The National Research Council obtained $3 million in 1980-81 and $4 million in
1981-	82. The grand total, Mr. Speaker, is $5,234 million in 1980-81 and $8,189 million in 1981-82.
Of course, if we went into details, we would realize that some positive achievements were made. The Official Opposition should recognize those facts and suggest whatever should be done to extend the effects of such fundings. We would be interested in hearing such suggestions from the Official Opposition, but we never do. And this is what Canadians would like to hear. What are the proposals brought forward by the Official Opposition. We would like to compare them with our government policies so that a better choice may be made. Such is the advantage of democratic debates: we know exactly what is going on so that the best choice can be made advisedly. It is too bad but the Hon. members opposite have never heard about alternatives.
To give still further facts which are not only related to figures, we could point out some plans and complementary agreements signed since 1978 but I will only go back to 1980. I will give you an exemple in Quebec and in Ontario. In Quebec, under an agreement signed on June 20, 1981, with respect to
February 18, 1983

the development of transport, the federal government will pay $3,600,000; for forest development, $110,400,000. Some $24 million to promote the tourist industry, $105 million to upgrade the pulp and paper industry, $25.5 million from the Federal Government to build a newspaper mill in Amos, $5.5 million for Quebec's Societe Interport, $60 million to modernize pulp and paper mills in Ontario, $33 million for eastern Ontario, $10 million for rural development in northern regions, and $21 million for Sault Sainte Marie's infrastructure. I wish I had enough time to give concrete examples of what is being done by the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce to help our industries become more competitive and put our private sector on a sound basis. It is very important for our private sector to operate on a self-supporting basis, for it will then be able to seek ever expanding export markets, create more jobs and generate revenues to pave the way towards better days for the Government and all Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, in the Drummondville area, the Soprema Company has just announced a $3.7 million investment in a roof sheeting plant. It is an international company based in France and it will receive a $1 million grant from the Federal Government.
What I find astounding in this debate, Mr. Speaker, is the bad faith of Members opposite. When the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister or Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Lumley) signed the most important contract for the private sector of Canada, the Bombardier contract, the Progressive Conservative Party raised objections about the way the Canadian Government had awarded the contract. Our Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce deserves praise for taking calculated risks with a view to landing that contract. We all know that even the Americans were extremely shocked and critical about the way we had managed this deal, but still we did succeed in keeping the contract and getting people back to work. When it was announced that the Department of Industry, Trade and Commerce, through the Minister, had just signed the contract, Hon. Members on the other side raised hell about it. And yet, that is the best example of a Government which has made a significant contribution by signing that agreement; we will now be able to make progress in the field of new technology and open up new markets while competing against countries such as France and Japan. That is what counts, but Members opposite cannot find anything constructive to say about it.
Perhaps they should stop making empty speeches and give us more logical and more responsible arguments, and indeed tell us just what they would do if they were on this side. I would also like Members of the Opposition to tell us whether they would have signed the Bombardier contract if they had been in office. Yes or no, Mr. Speaker, would they have given jobs to the people in the regions of Montmagny-L'Islet and Valcourt? Or would they have helped promote the establishment of a new technology in the United States? I hope they will give me an answer to that because I think it is important.
Supply
Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for St. John's West should have remained in the House to follow the debate on this important issue of fisheries. During the three years I have been a Member of this House, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has made wonders for Eastern Quebec and Eastern Canada, streamlining all our infrastructures, making it possible for our fishermen who live far away from the national capital to benefit from capital investments and thus compete on world markets with such countries as Norway, Finland and Sweden. That was something important that we felt we had to do and which we have done. Moreover, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane) announced yesterday a $200 million investment plan to update the fisheries, without waiting for the opposition to move a non confidence motion. So much so that the Kirby report which was made public yesterday contains the Task Force's 57 recommendations to improve the industry so that it may expand considerably and use advanced technology to compete with other countries.
Mr. Speaker, I suggest that any sincere person would realize that these are positive steps on the part of the Government, and should stop repeating in the House platitudes and vain arguments. It would be nice, for a change, to hear from opposition members a non-biased and rational debate, as well as suggestions to improve the situation. What is lacking most in the House, Mr. Speaker, are new and creative ideas. That's what is missing! They rely on the Government to take action, and they never have any new initiative or solution to put forward.
Mr. Speaker, it is important to note what the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) has done over the last three years to rationalize the sea, air and rail transport operations within his Department. Let us look at what is happening to Interports in Montreal and the corporation of the Old Port in Quebec City. Projects worth millions of dollars have been initiated in both cities, and they are being funded either by the federal government alone or else in a proportion of 60 to 40 p. 100 by the federal government and the Province of Quebec. I shall just mention the Centre des Congres.
We can boast of outstanding achievements, Mr. Speaker but readily admit that the present economic situation is difficult for everyone. Yet, compared to other countries, Canada is doing quite well in the middle term. It is true that the Canadian dollar is weak compared with the American dollar, but we should perhaps be telling Canadians that our dollar is now at its real value, except that in relation to the French franc, the British pound or the German mark, our dollar is very strong on European markets. We must realize it. We should stop cultivating our guilt complex and our negativism, because we are doing well in certain areas, but tend to look only at our failures. Talking about our successes, Mr. Speaker, I should perhaps add for the benefit of the Opposition that we are now merging the operations of the former Department of Regional Economic Expansion with the Department of Industry, Trade

February 18, 1983
Supply
and Commerce into one large Department to ensure a better regional presence so that we may help small and medium-size businesses and provide assistance to those who want to expand their present business. Mr. Speaker, there soon will be before the House a bill merging these two Departments, and I hope that we shall have the support or at least the views of the Opposition on this matter and that their proposals or additional ideas will help make our proposal even better. The merging of these two Departments is an important step in the Canadian government's efforts to provide assistance to various kinds of businesses.
Mr. Speaker, I know that our time is very short, and realising that the oppositions motion aims at asking for the Government's resignation or calling an election, I wish to point out that we certainly have an unemployment problem, but as I said earlier, we cannot blame the situation on the Government, just as I would not blame the board of directors of certain companies in my region. It is quite wrong to say that the Government has no industrial strategy as we shall see when the Government introduces a complete revision of our industrial legislation in the very near future. The Members opposite say that inflation is rising, Mr. Speaker, but I believe that is because they have not seen the latest figures. We are fighting inflation and all of us, as Canadians, shall win that fight. In the last three months, the price index has gone down and inflation has shown obvious signs of weakening.
As for interest rates, Mr. Speaker, we see that the bank rate has already gone down to 9.5 per cent, which puts the mortgage rate at 11.5 per cent, while these same rates were reaching 18 and 20 per cent one year ago. These are very encouraging signs, Mr. Speaker, and the Opposition had better have another look at the figures they quoted, and try to understand them.
Mr. Speaker, I invite the Opposition Members to show much more creativity and responsibility, and any solution they may suggest in this House would be greatly appreciated because Canadians have no use for people who cry over spilt milk, what they need are people who can suggest solutions or provide answers.


John William Bosley: Mr. Speaker, I should respond directly and immediately to some of the comments of the previous speaker. Our motion is intended to take the form of a report card on the Government's record on the third anniversary of its election.
The Hon. Member's defence of the Government's record over the last three years does not refute any of the items in the motion. He did not make any reference to the items that the Government promised to deliver, nor has he in any way indicated that the Government has delivered on those promises. The consistent response from the other side is that they want to hear what the Opposition would do if we were in their place. Those Members do hear what the Opposition would do
if it was the Government. Various Members from this side, including the Hon. Member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson) and others, do make suggestions to the Government when we are debating economic issues. Therefore, I suggest that the Hon. Member is wrong in his analysis. The purpose of this motion is to indicate that this Party had the courage to go to the people in 1980 and tell them precisely what needed to be done in this country in economic terms. Members opposite went to the people and said different things, I believe. The Member for Mississauga North (Mr. Fisher), a Liberal on the other side, is even shaking his head at that statement. I take it that what he is saying is that the Liberals went to the people and told them the same things that we did. That clearly is not true.
Liberals clearly told the people different things from what we said. But let me remind the Member from Mississauga North of some of the promises that the Liberals made. The question for debate today is surely not what this Party would do if it was in power today. That is a matter that will be debated on other days when there are economic policy projections discussed in the House. It is a matter that will be debated in the next election. The Hon. Member knows that. The question for today, three years after their election, is whether the Government has delivered on the promises it made in the election campaign. It is no defence for the Liberal Government to attempt to explain what it has done by telling us about all the money it has given to people.


Donald W. Munro: Spent.


John William Bosley: The money it has spent. That is in fact proof that the claim the Liberal Government made that it would exercise fiscal restraint has not been honoured.
Canadians are becoming increasingly aware that the country cannot be put back to work simply by having the Government take more money from the private sector or anywhere else and spending it on job creation programs, however well intended. There is a trend line which Members opposite have to face. Every year that the deficit goes up, unemployment goes up in lock step with it. There is a relationship between those two facts. Simply, the more money one takes from the system where it is being spent efficiently and puts into the bureaucracy for however well intentioned programs, the greater the loss to the national system. The pursuit of that policy will only result in more unemployment.
The Government cannot defend its failure to keep its promises by talking about what it has spent its money on. The consequences of that spending has been that the Gross National Product has fallen as a direct consequence of Government policy. The same Liberal Party campaigned against our budget on the basis that it would allegedly put 100,000 people out of work. They said that this was unacceptable and there must not be a policy that would put 100,000 out of work. That claim was not right in the first place. However, the Liberals turned around and implemented a policy that has put in excess of
February 18, 1983

650,000	people out of work. Therefore, it is true that the Government honoured its promise not to put 100,000 people out of work. It honoured its promise by putting 650,000 people out of work. Some honour!
I would like to talk about the restraint that the Hon. Member opposite refuses to discuss or defends by talking about what the Government spent its money on. The Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) gave some examples of that lack of restraint, but I would like to put some of those figures into context.
I realize that the Hon. Member opposite does not like us to repeat Liberal promises and discuss their performance; that is his privilege, but I will repeat some of their promises. They promised to "manage more rigorously the nation's finances in order to make more effective use of the taxpayers' money". Further promises were made, as Members opposite will know, to restrain Government spending increases in line with real growth in the GNP. I subscribe to that policy. It is essential that the Government of Canada get its spending increases beneath actual growth in the GNP for the next while. However, what has the Government done? If Members opposite and other Canadians reread the budget of the Member for St. John's West, they will discover that those spending projections that we campaigned on were $17 billion less than what the Liberals have spent. They said that in their campaign promise, we were going to spend too much. How can they go to the people with any integrity to say that they will spend less than the listed figures of the Progressive Conservative Party and then come to the House, spend $17 billion more and show their faces in public? Not only the Liberal Party gets hurt when it fails to deliver on its election promises. I believe the attitude shown by that Party over the last number of years has led Canadians to mistrust politicians. As a result of their behaviour, not only the Liberal Party and the economy suffer, the credibility of Government itself suffers.
The spending increase in 1979-1980 was 10.3 per cent. In
1980-	1981, it was 15.4 per cent. The spending increase in
1981-	1982 was 19.6 per cent. The spending increase in 198283 was 20.5 per cent. Those are the Government's figures. How do they compare to the commitments of the restraint on which that Party went to the people to ask for their support? They do not compare. In fact, one should not have to go any further than that to prove the case that the current Government either did not mean what it said or knew it was not telling the truth.
Let me return to other issues. I would like to read the promise made by the Government at the time with regard to megaprojects which were to get us out of the dilemma. Others have already referred to the commitment on heating oil prices and other energy prices which the Liberal Government so radically broke. Members opposite have referred to the Conservative Party's commitment to 85 per cent of world price. You may remember that the Liberals went to the people and said that this was too high and that they would go to only 75 per cent of the world price. What they did not tell the people, however, was that they would add whopping taxes on to 75 per cent of the world price. The result of that has been
Supply
that the consumer pays more today for heating oil and every other commodity of its kind in this country to the federal Government than he or she would if our budget were in place. All the rhetoric in the world does not disguise the effective numbers.
Let me just put back on the record, while the Hon. Member for Mississauga North shakes his head, the fact that heating prices have risen from 70 cents a gallon to $1.40 a gallon, and we would not have imposed taxes. The Hon. Member for Mississauga North will know, if he looks back to our budget, that today heating oil would have cost in the order of 90 cents or 95 cents a gallon under our policy. There is no way he can disguise that fact. It is simply a matter of going back to the old budget and reading current figures.
I would like to speak on megaprojects and the Liberal promise. The Liberals said, "We must increase the economic might of Canada by strengthening each of the regions. We will make the big projects happen, whether developing fisheries in the Atlantic, rebuilding railways in the West, developing new manufacturing strength in Ontario and Quebec or expanding British Columbia's resource and trade potential".
The report was out last week that Ontario will face another job loss of at least 25,000 jobs in the next six months as a consequence of these-I was about to say "people", but that would be less than parliamentary-of these policies. Since that time, as everyone in the country knows, the major oil projects, the Alsands and Cold Lake projects, have been cancelled. Esso Resources' Judy Creek tertiary recovery project is gone. The Syncrude oil sands plant expansion has been postponed, and the list continues.
We Canadians-not only me, a Conservative Member of this House-were promised that we would see those developments placed back on stream. The Minister of State for Finance (Mr. Cosgrove), who was formerly known as the Hon. Member for York-Scarborough, earlier said that "this Parliament will be remembered as one of the most significant Parliaments in our history, or, to be more precise, the most significant Parliaments ever". It most certainly will. It will be remembered as the Parliament in which the Government of the day, having promised economic recovery, virtually deliberately destroyed the economy of the country. It will be remembered as the Parliament in which the Government of the day, when campaigning, said it was in favour of free enterprise, but when in office, moved the country toward national socialism faster and further than it has ever been done. It will be remembered as the Parliament in which a Minister of the Crown could say today, "We Canadians should be grateful because housing starts have been brought back up by Government programs to
165,000	units". Again I quote the Minister.
I think it is only appropriate to remind that same Minister that during the period of time in which he had responsibility for housing, because of the economic policies of the Government, housing starts fell from over 200,000 to 128,000 a year. We are supposed to be grateful for the fact that today we are

February 18, 1983
Supply
back to 168,000, when we need and have always needed
225,000,	when we campaigned with respect to the need and the rightness of encouraging housing development in this country through a mortgage interest deductibility scheme. The people of Canada were told, "That is not needed and unfair. Housing will grow all by itself".


John Leslie Evans: Have you seen the demographics?


John William Bosley: However, it was not true, and as a consequence of those-oh, this would appear to have excited some interest on the other side. It always does when Hon. Members opposite are reminded that they campaigned against helping the housing industry by providing mortgage interest deductibility.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: And the people agreed with us.


John William Bosley: They told the people, in campaign terms, that the continuation of making people pay for their housing mortgages out of after-tax money was fair. It is not fair. Canadians know it is not fair.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi)):: Order, please. I must remind Hon. Members that they are allowed to speak in the Chamber only from their place in the Chamber.


John William Bosley: Mr. Speaker, I think that this is my seat.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi)):: I was not speaking to the Hon. Member.


John William Bosley: I appreciate that, and I also know to whom you directed the comment. If the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans) prefers to stand behind the curtain and yell, that is all right. That is his privilege. He does not worry me.
The Liberals promised that housing would be made affordable and that there would be more housing for Canadians as a result of their policy. I repeat that the consequence was that housing starts fell from above 200,000 units to 128,000 units. I repeat that tenants in my constituency are facing a 0.2 vacancy rate as a consequence of these policies, because of the lack of recognition of what it will take to get the housing industry, which is the backbone of economic development in a manufacturing society, going again.
There are one of two things which should be done in relation to this question, and the Government can take its pick. First, there should finally be a recognition that property taxes are paid by people out of their after-tax income, and they should be allowed a deduction. Second, there should be a recognition that interest on mortgages is also paid out of after-tax income to people who are charged income tax on it as an income item. In other words, the Government makes housing pay double tax.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: That is ludicrous.


John William Bosley: The sooner the Government stops doing that, the sooner it will wind up with a rejuvenated housing industry, and the problem could be resolved in one of two ways. The
Government could either allow people a deduction for their property taxes and mortgage interest so they would not bear this double tax burden, or it could allow people a deduction for their property taxes to eliminate that double system. Because people who give mortgages are being paid with after-tax money, that mortgage income could be non-taxable, which would immediately lower the rate of interest on homes. It would immediately spur the housing industry and the sale of white goods, such as refrigerators, and carpets and all the rest. Those are the Government's choices. Instead of that, the Government, having promised Canadians that it would do something to help the housing industry, once again decided against that method in favour of a program of giving out grants. As necessary as they are to those who need them, every program like that, as every Canadian is learning, has a built-in efficiency rate of 50 per cent because it effectively costs one dollar to administer for every dollar, that is given out. I remind Hon. Members opposite that we made that exact point when the lottery Bill was in the committee. The Minister openly admitted that that program, like others, would cost 50 cents to administer for every 50 cents it gave out. That is exactly the kind of program which is now in place. The country does not need the interface of Ottawa. Let people help themselves through tax incentives. Let the system be just and let Canadians get on with building the country, because Canadians will put Canadians back to work in a much better fashion than would any Government in Ottawa.


Mr. Roger Simmons (Burin-St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, as my good television friend, Gomer Pyle, would say, "Surprise, surprise, surprise". Those tired old Tories are at it again. Look at their number, on a Friday afternoon. They amount to one-third of the number on this side, maybe? One-half, maybe? Let it never be said that those in that happy band of warriors over there, with all the answers for the economy, are not fighters. I watched my good friend, the Hon. Member for Don Valley West (Mr. Bosley) this afternoon. He is a fighter. I watched with interest my good friend, the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie). He is a fighter. They are fighters. They fight, they fight and they fight. Sometimes they even fight people who are not Tories.
I have watched with great interest the concern of the Tories in the past few days during Question Period and at other times, their concern on such issues as those addressed here in this particular motion, issues involving full employment, industrial strategy and energy prices. It has been most instructive to watch how that concern has been exercised, in particular, to watch the new parliamentary Leader of the Tories-


An Hon. Member:: The interim Leader.


Roger Simmons: -the best streetfighter of the lot, the Hon. Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen). After Winnipeg, and there was a bit of theatre, if we could go into it-
February 18, 1983


Howard Edward Crosby: I thought Chretien was a streetfighter.


Roger Simmons: If I ever saw the Tory follies it had to be Winnipeg, but that is another story-Tory follies, western edition. After that, the man who is now Leader of the Opposition-and do not think that happened by accident either, he was the obvious choice for the job-had his hands full after Winnipeg, of course, as you will have seen in the House this week. Just think of all those Tory MPs who had to be put into line.
That reminds me, and I must tell you for totally relevant reasons, I assure you, Mr. Speaker, about the day in January when I successfully stormed the British Parliament at Westminster, in broad daylight, with some wounds to show for it. Let me say that what I am about to say on this subject is so relevant that I submit that ever after you will be inclined to quote this moment in time as an absolute model for precise and totally unfettered relevancy in debate. I did not go to Westminster dressed for an accident so I had to borrow some clothes. I came back across the Atlantic with a shirt from my good friend the Deputy Government House Leader, the gentleman from Don Valley East (Mr. Smith) and a sweater from my good friend, the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington), the gentleman who is making so much of a contribution to the Procedures Committee these days, the former Minister of Small Business in the Clark administration. Indeed, he was the former Tory national caucus Chairman until quite recently, a demise not totally unconnected with the Tory follies in Winnipeg.
This brings me back to the subject of the Leader of the Opposition, the Member for Yukon. People are calling him, especially after Winnipeg, the kneecapper, kneecapper Nielsen, I cannot say that-I suppose it is "knielcapsen" for short. Let us look at his performance in the House this week and see how consistent it is with the concern in this particular motion for economy, for inflation, for reduced deficits, for employment, for an industrial strategy in this country, because that is the acid test. If the gentleman from the Yukon is putting his money where his mouth is, if the gentleman from the Yukon is pursuing in debate in this House the things he says he is interested in and that his Party is interested in, I have some real difficulty believing these words in this motion, as good as they are, as supportable as they are in terms of the individual concerns expressed. I have some real difficulty relating that to the Party that has been applauding like so many trained seals the mud-slinging of the Leader of the Opposition this week.
Winnipeg-what a night that was! My friend, the Hon. Member for Cumberland-Colchester (Mr. Coates), wrote a book, "The Night of the Knives". He had better get busy again. That title will not do for this time. I guess it should be "Machetes in broad daylight" or something of that nature this time. Dalton Camp should recall that night, although I thought he had a rather selective memory when he was lecturing the minority on television from Winnipeg.
Now, folks, if it were permissible in Parliamentary terms-


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker-
Supply


Roger Simmons: Oh, my good friend the Speaker is a very folksy person. 1 say, if I could, Mr. Speaker, to the few people who are left watching this program this afternoon on television, if you really want a yardstick on the people who authored this motion and who support this particular motion, I would say to you, compare this motion to Winnipeg and ask one question only. Can you imagine, if that is what they do to their own on national television, what they would do to you, the taxpayer, behind closed doors? What would they do to you if the public were not watching? I know the rhetoric, I know the statements of concern, I know how they say they would look after the people of this country. Thank you very much. If they look after the people of this country the way they have looked after themselves in the last few weeks, I for one taxpayer do not want to be looked after. Thank you very much, I will look after myself.
I speak from experience because I did listen with great interest to my good friend, the Hon. Member for St. John's West who regaled this House, as he always does, for the last hour or so, a man who has been at different times on both ends of the kneecapping exercise. After all, why is he not the finance spokesman now if he knows as much about the economy as he professed to know earlier this afternoon? We all know the answer to that particular question. That Member, the former Tory Minister of Finance for Canada who was also a Tory Minister of Finance in Newfoundland, this man who rose in his place today and talked about concerns for people who are unemployed, concerns for people who are poor, concerns for people who, through no fault of their own, are in desperate financial straits, that same man, when he was in a position to do something about it, did something about it, and I know because I was there. I sat opposite him in the Newfoundland House of Assembly and I will tell you one of several things he did. He, as Minister of Finance, wiped out, did away with, terminated, abolished a long standing Liberal program called the mother's allowance. This was a particular monthly stipend made available to mothers in Newfoundland and Labrador who had not necessarily access to other income. The Member for St. John's West, who exudes all kinds of compassion today, was very short on compassion that day in the Newfoundland legislature when I and others pleaded with him, "Do not do it, do not do it to the mothers of Newfoundland and Labrador", but he did it. Did he tell you about that this afternoon, Mr. Speaker? Did he use that as an example of the kind of compassion he has been known for over the years?
I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that you will pardon me if I am slightly less than ecstatic about this particular motion because resolutions in Parliament are like other things and objects and people in real life, you judge it by the company it keeps, and this motion keeps terrible company. This motion is keeping absolutely terrible company. It keeps the company of a man from St. John's West who did the absolute opposite of what this motion advocates. So I have difficulty keeping company with that kind of motion for very good reasons, for reasons of experience, long bitter experience at the hands of that particular gentleman from St. John's West.

February 18, 1983
4;'
Supply
Why is it that every time I read this motion about inflation and employment and industrial strategy, quotations from the Holy Writ come to mind? I think of quotes like "moat in your own eye" or maybe "physician, heal thyself'. Why is it that I find myself asking, if it is as simple as the Tories say, where were they, what did they do when they were in Government in 1979? Where was the Member for St. John's West during the several years he was Minister of Finance in Newfoundland? Why is it that the public debt in Newfoundland more than trebled during his tenure? It went from $900 million to $2,800 million in the five years he was Finance Minister. It took 23 years to go to $900 million, and in the next seven years it went from $900 million to $2,800 million at the hands of the fellow who is now going to solve all of our problems, with one particular motion. Physician, heal thyself.
The Tories are all marvellous talkers, wonderful, marvellous talkers, great talkers and abominable hypocrites, expert deceptionists, practised illusionists. Remember, when we were dealing with the Constitution not many months ago, the hue and cry from the Opposition? They were clean out of their skulls. They asked why we were spending so much time on the Constitution when the economy was begging for attention. Unemployment needed to be addressed. Do you remember that? Let me say for the public record that it was a fair criticism. It had no grounds in fact, but it was fair. It was a fair criticism for an Opposition to take.
Let us apply that same yardstick to them. The Tories say they are concerned about the economy. Let us be fair to them. They have talked about their concern in this motion. They said we should get on with it in terms of addressing inflation, unemployment and bringing in an industrial strategy. It is all there. I do not argue with the issues they want addressed. They have demonstrated on paper that they have a concern for the issues in that motion.
That is real concern, concern for unemployment and energy prices. On a Friday afternoon when most ordinary sensible people are getting ready for a leisurely weekend, the hardworking, the long-suffering Tories are here looking after the problems of the economy. If they have their shoulder to the wheel on a Friday afternoon, let us find out where the shoulder was on Thursday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon. Let us look, for example, at Hansard for Wednesday and Thursday and see how many questions the Tories put during a one-hour long Question Period on the economy, on inflation and on industrial strategy. How many questions were there? I see one on the Gillespie affair. The Leader of the Opposition asked the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) another question on the same affair; the old knee-capper really got down below the belt there, didn't he? Anyway, it was on the same subject.
How many questions were there on Wednesday or on Thursday regarding unemployment? I ask them, how many questions were there on energy? I ask them just to make a rough guess. Give me a ballpark figure. How many? I have gone through Hansard for Wednesday and Thursday. Just give
me a rough guess, fellows. How many questions were there on any of the subjects addressed in your motion?
Let me be completely fair. I would not want to leave here suggesting that all the questions were on the Gillespie affair, because that is not true. I want to say to my good friend the Minister of Transport (Mr. Pepin) that not all the questions on Wednesday and Thursday dealt with that. I have not looked at today's questions. I was not in the House for all of Question Period today. I want to be fair.
On Wednesday and Thursday the questions were not all on Gillespie. My friend, the Hon. Member for Durham-North-umberland (Mr. Lawrence) asked a question on another subject altogether, RCMP files. Never let it be said that the Hon. Member for Yukon and the Hon. Member for Durham-Northumberland engage in the same kind of mud-slinging. Oh, no. RCMP files. The Gillespie affair.


Donald W. Munro: The Lalonde affair.


Roger Simmons: I ask the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Saanich (Mr. Munro) how many questions there were on the economy. Will he make a rough guess? I will help him. It is fewer than ten in two days. It is fewer than five. Does he want to try yet? It is fewer than three. It is fewer than two. It is fewer than one. There was not one question on Wednesday or Thursday from the crowd that is now going to cure the ills of the country, help all the poor people and put everybody back to work with one motion.
How many times have they raised the issue in Question Period in two days? Not once. They were too busy trying to knee-cap. They were too busy trying to mud-sling. They were too busy doing what they are best at. That is why they are known unofficially as "Her Majesty's Permanent Opposition."
Now we have this pious rhetoric. This pious, pompous bit of nonsense from the crowd that never had any foresight. In terms of political instruction, even if they do not care a whit about the country, just in sheer, elementary, political terms, why did they not cover themselves by asking one or two questions so that they could keep on fooling the people? Why did they not do what they do best, continue to fool the people? At least they could have asked one or two questions to distract, but no. They were too busy trying to distract attention from their own internal Party squabbles by pointing the finger the other way, to be concerned about the economy, jobs and employment.
Don't give me this on a Friday afternoon when I would be better off at home taking a nap or something. Don't give me this pious rhetoric. Don't waste the taxpayers' money telling us one thing on a Friday when you spend all day Wednesday, all day Thursday and most of Friday doing the exact opposite. At least be consistent.
Finally, we have been saying for years that these are the things that need attention. Significantly enough, on February 18, 1983, three years after the people of Canada gave the Tories the message, they got the message. They finally understand the message we have had for three years. The message is

* [DOT]
February 18, 1983

employment, development and fair prices. We have had that message for some time.
I congratulate them on this important and happy anniversary for us and for them because three years ago today, they got back where they belong. I congratulate them on this happy anniversary for Finally getting the message that people are concerned about fair prices. I say, II vaut mieux tard que jamais-better late than never. Welcome to the club. Why do they not get their act together in their own Party, come into the House and do the job they were elected to do, provide constructive and responsible opposition to measures which this Government introduces which, in the opinion of the Opposition, may not be in the interests of the country as a whole? I hope they refine and re-find themselves. They need a little refining and a lot of re-finding. I hope they do both. I hope they then come in and do the job they have done so well over the years and which, with my best wishes, they will continue to do for many, many years to come. May I say to them, through you, Mr. Speaker, happy anniversary.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Questions and answers?


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Hon. Member would comment and follow up on his theme a little bit by observing that 134 Members were elected to this House to serve in the Opposition, 129 of whom have not bothered to show up this afternoon, including the whole of the New Democratic Party.


Roger Simmons: I thank my good friend for his comment and question. We are too painfully aware of the difference between words and performance from the Tories. The last part of my speech today dwelt on that particular theme. If we could take them at face value, it would be easy to deal with them. I am not saying we would agree with them. I do not believe we should aspire to the day when the Government and the Opposition agree on every issue. That would be bad for the principle of Government in this country. However, I would hope that we could aspire to the time when we had in the Opposition a group of men and women who at least do not give their support to a motion which shows their very hypocrisy. That is my plea this afternoon, that these people will come in here with constructive measures. They would be surprised. Sometimes they would have my support and the support of others on this side.


John William Bosley: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Hon. Member to finally complete his story about London since it would be the only part of what we heard so far that would be relevant in any way.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, there are many stories. The official one is this. He wears glasses, I wear glasses and my good friend the Acting Speaker wears glasses. There was a time when people were civil enough so that you could go about this country with your glasses on and count on them to be civil. These days you have to be a bit more inventive, so I put my arm in a sling. And who knows, my nightmare might come true and one day I might get up and put my wrong arm in the sling. Then the jig will be up. The truth is, I was with the
Supply
Procedure Committee immediately in front of the British Parliament. I went over a low barrier. I got over, but the coat did not, and here I am with my new look.


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Hon. Member for Burin-St. George's (Mr. Simmons) whether he has read the notice of Supply Proceedings and the Opposition motion.


Roger Simmons: Oh yes, Mr. Speaker, as a matter of fact, for the benefit of my good friend, the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Saanich, I am going to read it for him. It reads as follows:
That, in light of the Government's outright betrayal of the Canadian people and its repudiation of its 1980 election promises to reduce unemployment, combat inflation, avoid inflationary tax hikes and excessive energy price increases, reduce the deficit, and implement an industrial strategy for Canada, this House calls upon the Government to face its responsibility to Canadians and take immediate action to live up to the commitments that it made in 1980 or resign.
I believe that is the fourth time I have read it, but just now I did so for the Hon. Member's benefit. That is the motion, Mr. Speaker. I was fully aware of it and I found it to be very hypocritical. I appeal, particularly to a gentleman with the integrity of the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Saanich, to divorce himself from this particular motion, not because he does not believe it, I am sure he does believe it deeply, and I commend him for having beliefs, but because his Party's actions this week have betrayed him and betrayed the intent of this motion. What they have done this week is to address everything but any concern for the economy. I do not argue with him for holding beliefs, but I take exception to the fact he is not putting his money where his mouth is. He is not standing by his beliefs when he allows his Leader this week to mud-sling when he should have been speaking on behalf of the Canadian people.


Donald W. Munro: I was happy to learn that the Hon. Member for Burin-St. George's (Mr. Simmons) could read. The fact remains, however, he does not understand what we are doing today, Mr. Speaker. I can explain it for him. I am sure you understand it, Mr. Speaker. We are castigating the Government for failing to live up to its promises. The motion says quite clearly:
-the Government's outright betrayal of the Canadian people and its repudiation of its 1980 election promises ...
I agree that the matters following that are matters of concern to Canadians and to our Party, and they are of even greater concern to us, Mr. Speaker, because they represent promises which were made to the Canadian people in 1980 which have not been fulfilled. This is an expression of the concern which the Hon. Member says we do not have. Of course we have concern. I believe the Liberals should have concern also, Mr. Speaker, that they have failed to live up to the undertakings and promises they made three years ago today. And as for the concoctions of irrelevancies which we have just been subjected to, particularly the "London" story,
February 18, 1983

Supply
as I was waiting for that story to finish, I was wondering whether we might have been able to find one of those deck chairs somewhere which we could have brought in here, then we could have had the third "Ronnie" sitting with his hands on his knees talking about those irrelevancies, embroidering on them, and getting further and further away from the subject of his discussion. But I quite understand that perhaps a deck chair on the floor between the two sides of the House of Commons might be a little extraneous. However, I really found it extraordinary that the third "Ronnie" should have showed up at this particular time and accused the Progressive Conservative Party of fooling the people.
We are talking about the three year old record of a group of Liberals who claim to be the Government, and who claim to be governing, and who were fooling the people. I do not know whether this character who has just been speaking went to that campaign-


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Order. Watch your language.


Donald W. Munro: Well, "character" is a perfectly good word, Mr. Speaker. I do not know whether he went to this campaign college in Toronto in January, 1980, where the policy for the campaign was being outlined, and where the present Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), in addressing the pupils on the occasion, said:
There is a prior commitment that I want to make clear. Liberals will do what we say we will do. And if we can't do it, we won't say it.
Whereupon he went on and elaborated five different elements for these scholars who were assembled on that particular occasion. These were things which his Government would do if he could bedazzle the Canadian people into electing him and his Party. And lo and behold, the Party was re-elected. It has subsequently, Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to you, failed utterly to live up to the promises made on that occasion.
I will just take, for example, the very first one, which reads:
We have an economic program for the 80's which will enhance dignity, create opportunity and provide security.
Let us take those three points in order. Enhance dignity? We have been witness this week to a spectacle in this Chamber which virtually makes me ashamed of being a Member of Parliament, that we should be governed by a group of people who can so deny, repudiate, turn their backs on their own rules of conduct and behaviour, and still stand there and in the most casual way attempt to excuse their actions. The performance of the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr. MacEachen) in April, 1981 at Port Hawkesbury, sitting beside a former Minister of Government, and announcing a program, and obviously embracing the associated company with that program, is a complete-


John Leslie Evans: The Tory Premier of Nova Scotia.


Donald W. Munro: I am not talking about him. He at least had faith that everything had been done correctly by the Government of Canada, but he was very, very sadly deluded in that, was he not? Oh, he certainly was, Mr. Speaker. There they were, the Deputy Prime Minister and the former Minister of Energy announcing an energy program
which, I suspect, would involve paying royalties to South Africa. And if only they had known that. So you have two hypocritical actions there, one involving a former Minister before the two years were up, according to guidelines which his own Prime Minister had written and to which he subscribed, getting involved in a program which might very well require the payment of royalties to a Government with which they would rather not have to do business. That is dignity? That is the "dignity" to which this House has been subjected during this past week, and it makes me a little ashamed, Mr. Speaker, to find that the Canadian Government, any Canadian Government, could be associated with such an undignified procedure.
The Prime Minister also claimed in this school that he was going to create opportunities. And what do we see about creating opportunities? The unemployment rate at the time in 1980 was 7.5 per cent and the total number of unemployed was something in the order of 838,000 at the end of 1979. Whereas today, Mr. Speaker, twice that number are unemployed. The opportunities that were being created were the opportunities to go on the unemployment rolls. I do not think that is what the electorate really believed when they swallowed this. Creating opportunities to go on Unemployment Insurance?
The third offer was to provide security. Security of what kind? I do not know whether you are aware, Mr. Speaker, that since that particular time the growth of bank deposits in savings accounts has risen at an extraordinary rate. If I can quote from the National Finances published by the Canadian Tax Foundation for 1981-82, in 1979, the amount of personal savings have increased from about $30 billion in 1979 to about $80 billion today. That is not a reflection of economic security, that is fear. The general public does not know where it can, with confidence and security, place its funds.
At one time it was thought possible that if you had money to invest, you could invest it in the energy field. I do not know whether you have been following the trends in the energy field on the stock market, Mr. Speaker, but there are only one or two companies going in the right direction. Dome has gone down, and there are a good number of others. There are a number of loyal Canadians who would like to be able to invest in their country.
This was not a public undertaking to provide security, but it was an undertaking given to candidates and they went out and said, "Don't you worry, we will provide security." What has the Government done? It has squandered the revenue of this country in a manner which has never been seen before. This statement I have been reading from goes on to say that the program for 1980 consists of five major commitments. One was to manage more rigorously the nation's finances in order to make more effective use of taxpayers' money. Well, what were we debating yesterday, Mr. Speaker? We were debating a Bill to authorize this Government to borrow $19 billion. Now, I do not know whether this Bill has ever been contested
February 18, 1983

by the Chair as being an omnibus Bill and it should therefore be split up into two different Bills, one for the 1982-83 year, and the other for borrowings for next year. That is a possibility. It ought not to be presented in this form. Nonetheless, $19 billion is being sought. I wish I could find the figures on the borrowing. They are around somewhere amongst all these papers, but I would say it is something of the order of $45 billion to $50 billion which this Government has sought to borrow in this Parliament, while at the same time making the statement that it would manage more rigorously the nation's finances.


Jean-Robert Gauthier: Over three years? Come on.


Donald W. Munro: In three years. I now come to the commitment to achieve energy security at a fair price. The figure which comes to mind on the purchase by PetroCan of Petrofina is about $1.5 billion. That is part of the debt that your children and mine have to pay down the road, $1.5 billion to acquire a series of storefronts to match those acquired earlier for a somewhat smaller sum on the West Coast through the purchase of Pacific Petroleum. All the Petrofina stations have been repainted, and it cost $1.5 billion to repaint them, put up the signs, the Maple Leaf, and everything. But not one drop of new petroleum resources was acquired in that purchase, Mr. Speaker. Just the storefront, that is all. This is the manner in which you achieve energy security at a fair price. Fair price, Mr. Speaker? We find that in December, 1979, when that infamous resolution was passed down here-


Maurice Adrian Dionne: You mean the day you could not count?


Donald W. Munro: I was here. In December, 1979 we were paying 24.6 cents a litre for gasoline at the pump. That translates into a language which other people understand as $1.12 a gallon. Well, today, in Ottawa, it is about 42 cents or 43 cents a litre for regular.


Maurice Adrian Dionne: It is 43.3 cents.


Donald W. Munro: All right, 43.3. So we have an increase of 18 cents. Now, that is odd, is it not? Eighteen cents a litre. I remember hearing something about 18 cents a gallon at one particular time, and now we find it has gone up 18 cents a litre. Now, where are we? The national average was 25 cents a litre in December of 1979 and it is 47 cents a litre in September of 1982. I guess we get into the 18 cents business there, too. Rather strange. That is 22 cents a litre more on average.
I really wonder how these gullible people could have been soaked in by these promises-the promises about which we are speaking today-the promises that have been repudiated.
The fourth commitment was to develop an industrial policy that will provide jobs. Jobs for whom? For the Japanese? If we look at the statistics for unemployment in 1979 we would see how they were going to provide jobs. At that time 838,000
Supply
Canadians were out of work. Today, Mr. Speaker, at least
1,600,000	are out of work. Is that what they call providing jobs? The only way the Government seems to be able to provide jobs is to throw money around.
The Liberals were going to build greater economic strength in each region. I should like to give you some figures for the amounts of money that has been poured into the various Provinces through the Regional Development Incentives Programs. Newfoundland got $30 million; Prince Edward Island, $22 million; Nova Scotia, $79.8 million; New Brunswick, $81.2 million; Quebec, $530.1 million; Ontario, $94.7 million; Manitoba, $100 million; Saskatchewan, $33.6 million; Alberta, $35.3 million; British Columbia, $10.8 million; and Yukon, $0.4 million, for a total of $1 billion. That is since 1970, Mr. Speaker. Those figures hardly fit the promise to build greater economic strength into each region of the country as a basis for over-all prosperity.
The fifth undertaking was to enhance security of the individual by helping those who most need assistance. In last week's debate we heard what happened about that. The pensioners found that their pension cheques have been reduced from the undertaking that was given them to index to the CPI; instead they must conform with the six and five program.


An Hon. Member:: What about GIS?


Donald W. Munro: The GIS was left alone. The indexing of public servants' pensions was also reduced to conform with the six and five formula. Is that the best we can do for the security of the individual, to help those who most need assistance?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Are there any questions and answers?


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I have a brief question for the Hon. Member who referred to our definite ambition to help those who most need help. He will know that amongst people who file income tax returns at this time of year are low-income parents, single parents and the unemployed. These people definitely need help and the Government has indicated that it would like to get the refunds out to them as quickly as possible.
In light of his concern for the same people, could he tell us why his Party deliberately refused to extend debate on the income tax legislation last Monday night when we wanted to get that legislation through?


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, the income tax measures ought to have been brought forward many months ago. Hon. Members opposite have been changing their minds so damn often that we do not know quite what is going to be in the income tax forms.
Excuse the outburst, Mr. Speaker, but with all due respect I feel that it was necessary to use an expletive like that. The income tax forms for the collection of income tax ought to be before the House in January or even in December.

February 18. 1983
Supply
What worries me about the collection of income tax and the refunds is that people who file on a quarterly basis have to pay their tax before they receive the revenue. I do not think that is fair.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I should like to remind the Hon. Member that those tax measures were introduced in November, 1981 and more were brought in in June, 1982. The Finance Committee met to discuss them in the fall of 1982, and there has been extended debate both in public and in this Chamber, on those measures.
If we take the Hon. Member at his word, he could hardly claim ignorance of those measures after 15 months. If he does claim that, he should not be here.
Why did his Party refuse to speed up debate so that we could legally mail refunds to those people who need them the most?


Donald W. Munro: Mr. Speaker, I cannot understand why the Government did not bring in that measure earlier. I suppose it is difficult to bring in income tax measures until they decide how much the deficit will be. In November 1981 it was $13.3 billion and now it is $27.2 billion. They cannot make up their minds how much the deficit is going to be, let alone what measures apply to income tax.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to my good friend, the Hon. Member for Esquimalt-Saanich. I should like to tell him that one of the three people watching is my grandmother, and first he should restrain his expletives in response to my question.
He said he remembered the time when gas was 18 cents a gallon. Many of us remember that. I wonder if he also remembers and will put on record-and if he cannot, I can-that in the budget brought in by the former Minister of Finance, the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie), one of the appendices clearly sets forth a pricing schedule, which would have meant that gasoline prices and heating fuel prices at the pump in 1983 would be higher than they actually are at present.
Would the Hon. Member respond to that question without expletives?


Donald W. Munro: Mr, Speaker, I apologize to the Hon. Member for Burin-St. George's (Mr. Simmons) for having used a word with which he was not familiar.
I would be very pleased if the Hon. Member would send to me in the mail-and not by Canada Post, please, because it might take too long-a copy of this particular fabrication.


Roger Simmons: Of course I will do so, Mr. Speaker. Not tomorrow but on Monday. The Hon. Member has waited three years without reading the information, so I am sure he can wait another 48 hours or so. I will also send it to the people in my riding through my Householder. I have seen some of his Householders and I commend this kind of information to him because it would make an improvement on what was in his last one.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: May I explain a difficulty. It is often a courtesy to recognize an Hon. Member from the same Party by which the motion under debate was originally put forward so that it might be given the opportunity to complete debate before the end of the day. However, another tradition is that ordinarily we alternate speakers between left and right. Under the circumstances and unless I hear some other proposition, I would have to recognize the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans).


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, in a sense of fairness to the tradition I would be prepared to stop at ten minutes to five and split the time with the Hon. Member for Lisgar (Mr. Murta).
I have a few things to say about the motion before the House. I would like to look at the situation which faces us and at the options which are available to the Government to try to assess what it is that we are up against and why, in light of that, I think the motion is totally and wholly out of order.
We have been told on a number of occasions-and 1 firmly believe Canadians have come to realize it-that the economic disorders of the country are not solely those of Canada, and that the economic situation which Canadians are experiencing is not solely the responsibility of Canadians. We are an export nation. We depend very heavily for our Gross National Product, for our national income and for our livelihoods, on our ability to sell. What we have sold the most and sold best has been natural resources and the processed materials from them. It is well known on the West Coast that the lumber industry or the forest products industry is suffering, not as a result of policies of the federal Government or of provincial Governments, but as a result of the fact that these products cannot be sold in foreign markets. Also the mining industry is suffering today, not as a result of policies of the federal Government or provincial Governments, but as a result of the fact that we cannot sell nickel or iron ore in world markets because the markets do not exist as a result of world recession.
The same conditions, to a greater or lesser degree, as we are experiencing in Canada are being experienced by every western industrialized nation in the world. It does absolutely nothing for the psychology or understanding of Canadians for the Opposition to put forward a motion which inappropriately and falsely lays the entire blame on Government or Governments in this country for the economic situation we face. We certainly have a role to play. I defy Hon. Members opposite to say that the Government is not doing in a positive way everything within its means to resolve the problems we are facing.
We can trace the difficulties back for many years in all western industrialized economies. We were told in the 1970s that inflation had to be brought down. In fact, the Opposition demanded that inflation be brought down. It realizes, as we
February 18, 1983

realize, that if we let inflation get out of control, it creates massive uncertainty, cuts back on investment, reduces economic growth and drives up interest rates in the system. These kinds of conditions are not conducive to rising standards of living or being able to maintain present standards. For example, in 1975 Government policy implemented through the Bank of Canada began to restrain the economy or to do something about the inflationary problem. Other countries have followed suit with precisely the same policy because it was the only way to deal with the inflationary problem.
Inflation is simple. It is too much purchasing power chasing too few goods and not enough economic output. In this situation prices rise, and we have a productivity problem and an output problem. This is inflation.
Under a standard economic arrangement where markets are free to adjust, which does not exist in this country, United States, France or Germany-but it does exist in Japan to a certain extent-when demand falls, the incomes of all people in society would fall somewhat to reduce their incomes in line with the demand in order to combat inflation or to bring demand into line with output. This would stop inflation, but we have a system in which there are a great many rigidities and structural problems with labour-management relations and the way we do business in the country, privately, governmentally and otherwise. Our system adjusts to a reduction in demand. The only way to solve inflation is to reduce demand, so that we quit putting upward pressures on prices. The way our system adjusts to that kind of situation is that it leaves the majority of people with the high incomes they had prior to the fight against inflation and throws other people out of work. We have a compensation system in Canada which yields precisely that result. When recession hits, when demand falls, the majority keep their incomes and remain stable. It has no impact on their standard of living, but the minority gets thrown out on the street. This is the way our system works. I do not think that is how it should work.
The Japanese compensation system provides for greater flexibility of wages in management and labour, so that everyone shares in the income loss somewhat but no one suffers a dramatic decline in their standard of living. Our system does not operate that way. It operates in the manner I have described, and we see 1.5 million people thrown out of work. This is the way our system responds to the fight against inflation, which is necessary.
There is only one method of handling it. If we do not believe that the people thrown out of work should be asked to bear the entire brunt of a recession, or a fight against inflation, then governments have a responsibility, which all of us have recognized, to ensure that there is a social safety net to ratch these people before they are left destitute. We have done that in Canada. I might add, in a non-partisan spirit, that this has been done by past Liberal Governments with the introduction of unemployment insurance, welfare programs, medicare and pensions, all designed to cushion people affected by the adjustment process I have just described.
Supply
We are faced with a situation that is real. We know what it is. Also we are faced with some very real options. The Government can respond to this problem by reinflating the economy; in other words, printing more money, selling bonds to the Bank of Canada, taking that money and spending it, investing it, or giving it to people to ensure that their incomes remain above a minimal level. This would generate inflation again, and we would be right back into the same cycle. Also, the Government can increase taxes on those people who continue to have jobs in order to provide the funds necessary to subsidize those who do not have jobs. This is possible.
If we did that today, we would probably drive the economy further into recession because we would reduce the incentives to produce and grow. That is not a possible option. The only other option left to a Government faced with an economy in which the psychology is so badly shaken that individuals will not invest on their own and consumers are saving at high rates, is the classics Keynesian one-the Government borrows funds from the public and puts them into the marketplace to stimulate demand, or it can put those funds into the hands of individuals who are out of work and suffering, and let the deficit rise.
The Opposition screams that the deficit is out of control. There are many ways of analysing the deficit. Some people at the University of Toronto and in other places have analysed the situation and made a distinction between the structural and the entire deficit, that during a serious major economic downturn, deficits should rise; but just as true, during times of economic expansion, deficits must be reduced. I suggest that in this period of time, when deficits have risen, it is exactly what should happen in a society that has a system like ours and that adjusts like ours if we are not to allow people to become destitute, re-ignite the fires of inflation and raise the taxes to the extent that it will drive the economy further away from growth.
Effectively, we are running a deficit now because we are borrowing against the future. Deficits are tax liabilities for the future. Those deficits are justified and the actions are correct if they are incurred to invest in the future and to generate greater income for the future and provide more jobs for the future. That is precisely what the Government is trying to do with the deficit. We are trying to invest in capital infrastructure and in human capital through the skills and training programs. We are trying to invest and expand the potential of people and capital for the future which will generate the income and allow us to reduce the deficits.
Let me just say that we certainly have achieved some of our objectives and we will achieve more. We will achieve the objective of reducing unemployment. Finally, with respect to inflation, as of today it is down to 8.3 per cent. If you look at what inflation has been over the last six months on an annualized basis, it is 4.6 per cent. Annualized for the last three months, November, December and January, the inflation rate in Canada is running at 2.2 per cent. Inflation has come down. This is an achievement which will help bring down interest

February 18, 1983
Supply
rates and stimulate the economic growth, and that is how we will attack the unemployment problem.


Mr. Jack Murta (Lisgar):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that I appreciate the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans) relinquishing part of his time so I may participate and wrap up this debate this afternoon. I would also like to congratulate him on his speech. It was certainly one of the better speeches that was made this afternoon. Certainly, many people would agree with the general theme of his remarks.
I would say, however, that one of the things he obviously did not mention-probably because of lack of time-is that inflation is primarily caused by governments. The Government has shown its record for creating inflation. Obviously, we cannot insulate ourselves from world recession which has taken place, but the Government has played a major role in our experiencing higher inflation than necessary. That is what concerns Canadians the most at this time.
The National Energy Program is a good example of Government mismanagement which has caused a tremendous amount of money to leave the country.
The Hon. Member also failed to mention the fact that the economy has just not performed. The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, indicated in its 1982 estimates that Canada's real economic growth performance was the worst of any country in the industrialized world. Our growth as a percentage of GNP was minus 5 per cent. This is clearly part of the problem. The Government could obviously have played a geat role in this area but has not done so. Canada's performance was behind the performance of countries such as Iceland, Sweden, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Greece, Portugal and Turkey. Surely the Government must take some responsibility for the economic mess we are in when one sees these figures. These figures are given to us by what must be considered an independent and objective body that examines 24 countries in the world. It found Canada to be at the bottom, twenty-fourth.
Canada has a history of being a great democracy. It is probably one of the greatest in the world. Democracy involves free elections and people expressing their opinion in an election campaign.


Roger Simmons: Mr. Speaker, I will make my point of order very brief.


Donald W. Munro: Sit down.


Roger Simmons: I recognize that the Hon. Member has very limited time. Since there will be no time for questions, I wonder if he would permit a brief question.


Donald W. Munro: Sit down.


Jack Burnett Murta: Before the interruption, Mr. Speaker, I was saying that Canada is a great democracy in which people are elected after telling their voters what they intend to do if elected. The motion that we are debating today results from the 1980 election campaign. During that campaign the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), and the country, knowing full well that we were entering a recession, made to the people a series of statements that were as far from the truth as could be imagined.
One statement the Prime Minister made was, "This Party will not simply stand by and let the recession come." Obviously, the Prime Minister knew the recession was coming. He also said, "We will fight it and overcome it". He went on to say that the Liberals would fight to lower unemployment when the Conservatives planned to increase unemployment by 100,000 people. When he knew the recession was coming, he made a statement like that.
At the present time, in January of 1983, the unemployment rate is 12.4 per cent. In January of 1980, it was 7.5 per cent. At the present time we have some 1,598,000, almost 1.6 million Canadians out of work. That is some 650,000 more than in January, 1980.
It was statements like that that have been discussed today. The Prime Minister, knowing full well what would happen and that this country was possibly entering a severe recession which would make times much worse, purposely neglected to tell the Canadian people what was to happen. In effect, he sugar coated the pill for the Canadian people. Unfortunately, they swallowed it and elected the present Government.
That is what this debate is really all about. Unless the Government owns up and tries in a meaningful way-much in the way the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre indicated-to deal with the economy in a sensible fashion, not only will the Liberal Party be hurt by its statements, the whole democratic process of the country will be in jeopardy. People just do not believe what politicians say any more. I thank Hon. Members for their indulgence and I will bring this debate to an end.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: It being five o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House, pursuant to Standing Order 62(11), that proceedings on the motion have expired. This House stands adjourned until Monday at eleven o'clock a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At 5 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

4 [DOT];


Monday, February 21, 1983