1983-04-13

STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S.O. 21


Mr. Jean-Guy Dubois (Lotbiniere):: Madam Speaker, today I would like to take advantage of the provisions of Standing Order 21 to bring to the attention of the House and of the Cabinet that the situation regarding clothing imports is such that Canadian industry is being threatened. An article published in La Presse on March 17 said that imports from the Far East, including Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan and China, were creating an increasingly threatening situation. Before the Easter holidays, Government negotiators had meetings with representatives of the countries I just mentioned and unfortunately came home empty-handed. More and more imports are coming into the country and are threatening the livelihood of the people working in the industry. I would therefore ask Cabinet to examine the situation carefully, especially considering the many letters sent by the people concerned, and more specifically, by the Canadian Institute of Clothing Manufacturers, and also since my riding is being affected by this situation, I would urge the Government to look into the possibility of applying Clause 19 of the GATT Agreement so that we could keep the quotas, ensure that there will be no increase in clothing imports, in line with agreements we had a few years ago, and protect jobs in this industry, because, Madam Speaker, the garment industry has been severely affected by the present recession. I would therefore urge Cabinet not only to look into the matter but to make a decision as soon as possible.


INDIAN AFFAIRS AND NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Madam Speaker, it has become quite clear to everyone who has any knowledge of the situation that the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has become an anachronism, and those who live under its yoke cannot be blamed for judging it to be
an instrument of colonialism wielded by a heavy-handed federal Government.
The Hon. Bud Drury in his report to the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) recommended that the Department be disbanded and that its responsibilities be conferred on either the territorial governments or other federal Departments. What could be more logical than the Department of Public Works looking after public works, or the Department of the Environment looking after environmental concerns without the unnecessary involvement of another superfluous Department?
On the Indian Affairs side a consensus is rapidly developing that the Department should be replaced by a small secretariat, the function of which would be to co-ordinate funding activities and the work of other Departments in areas where they affect aboriginal affairs.
The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has outlived its usefulness, and its existence should be discontinued.


WELFARE
Mrs. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Madam Speaker, today the National Anti-Poverty Organization is meeting in Ottawa and will be hosted by representatives of all Parties this evening. I was actively involved with the poor people's movement in 1971 when, following a federal anti-poverty conference, this organization was first formed. Since that time many self-help projects have come and gone, largely because of inadequate funding.
I congratulate the early pioneers, and especially those women on low incomes who have raised their children in great difficulty and are still struggling to improve conditions in their communities. I also congratulate the new NAPO which has reorganized and is showing new energy this past year.
It is not easy for poor people who live on welfare or unemployment insurance to find the energy and funds to organize and fight for their rights, and to demand changes. Yet this is absolutely essential if they are to be treated not as victims but as human beings with hope for the future.
Fortunately, many new welfare rights groups are forming and are joining with organizations of the unemployed, with churches, trade unions, and concerned citizens across the

April 13, 1983
country. They are demanding changes. Many self-help organizations have demonstrated repeatedly that if they have funding they are quite capable of developing essential community services and non-profit enterprises that will help to train and put people to work on essential local services. Funds that are now allocated for make-work projects should be re-invested instead, in these kinds of permanent development. We have-


Madam Speaker:: Order, please.


ENCOURAGEMENT FOR UNIVERSITY ATHLETICS
Mr. Jack Burghardt (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Communications):: Madam Speaker, on June 25 the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union will hold its annual general meeting in Edmonton. High on the agenda of that meeting will be discussions on the role of universities in the development of world class Olympic athletes. An important contribution to that program will likely be made by the results of a joint study into aspects of university sport in Canada that is being undertaken by the CIAU and Sports Canada. The CIAU-Sports Canada study will examine the possibility of Government financial support for university athletic programs, travel subsidies for athletes, and scholarships for promising athletes.
As the 1984 Summer Olympic Games approach, increasing public awareness of the intensity of athletic competition itself, we should not overlook the intensity of athletic preparation involving in no small measure dedication, perserverance and sacrifice on the part of Canada's athletes.
Inasmuch as the joint study may well recommend increases in the funding for the development of university athletic programs and facilities, I would hope that this House will be prepared to support any recommendations which would encourage university athletics in Canada.

[ Translation]


HOUSING
Hon. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Madam Speaker, I have a few comments to make regarding the well-known Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program, usually referred to as RRAP. Yesterday, the Member for Levis (Mr. Gourde) remarked on the successful impact of this program, and I must agree that the Program has helped a great many people. The Hon. Member mentioned a broadening of the conditions for participating in the Program, but before those conditions can be made more flexible, I would like to ask both the Minister responsible for Public Works (Mr. LeBlanc) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde), now that a budget speech is about
to be brought down, to increase funding for this program. I made some enquiries and it seems that the demand for the program substantially exceeds the program's budgetary resources. The Government is advertising this program very well and very widely, but I wish it would practise what it preaches and make sure it has enough funds to meet demand. In the circumstances, I hope the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Public Works will understand the urgency of this matter for those who wish to take part in the program. I urge those who wish to apply, to do so, and I only hope their requests will be answered a little faster than is now the case, when many applications are being held up because of a lack of funding. If the Government intends to provide this service, it should have sufficient resources to do so.


HOME OIL TRANSFER PROGRAM
Mr. Ian Waddell (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Madam Speaker, last year, as energy critic for my Party, I went to Boston and visited the Citizens' Energy Corporation which is headed by Joseph Kennedy, eldest son of the late Senator Robert Kennedy. One of their programs was of particular interest to Canada, the HOT Program, or Home Oil Transfer Program. When home owners convert from oil to natural gas, some oil remains in their tanks in the houses or under the gardens. The Citizens' Energy Corporation pumps out the tanks, sells the oil, and donates the proceeds to the poor.
Mr. Kennedy later visited me here in Ottawa. He met with myself, the Hon. Member for Hillsborough (Mr. McMillan), as well as Joel Bell, Bill Hopper, and Peter Toews, all distinguished Canadian civil servants. Today Mr. Kennedy, brother Michael, and mother Ethel, are in Ottawa and will visit other Canadian cities to kick off a similar Canadian program with proceeds to go to a Canadian Robert F. Kennedy memorial and to the Salvation Army. If any Canadians watching or listening to the proceedings today, or Hon. Members of this House, want more information, I wish they would please contact me. Meanwhile, on behalf of all Hon. Members, may I welcome the Kennedy family to Canada and thank them for their efforts and ideas in this important area.
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THE PRIME MINISTER
Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: The Prime Minister of Canada (Mr. Trudeau) is a strong man and he has used his talents to destroy much of what all of the Prime Ministers before him built. He entered the Canadian "ring" and in one fell swoop-the national energy policy-all but killed the entire gas and oil industry. Then with a left hook-the excise tax on natural gas-he crippled agriculture and the agri-food sectors. Fighting madly, he struck at the men and women who
April 13, 1983

had worked for 40 to 50 years to build a business or a farm to use it as a nest egg for retirement, by eliminating annuities and enforcing capital gains which made retirement impossible.
Still thirsting for blood, he hit at the living standard of the superannuates, the old, and even the kids, by refusing them the allowances they had been promised. With fancy footwork he let the interest rates and federal taxes rise until hundreds of businesses went bankrupt and unemployment rose to two million. With a right to the confidence of the nation, and a left to free enterprise, he sent them both reeling to the mat. Then still thirsting for money, he borrows another $19 billion, raising the debt for Canadians to pay, to more than $150 billion.
Glorying in his achievements, he darts from the "ring" and goes to the far corners of the earth leaving his Canadians divided, frustrated and depressed. Too bad this man did not use his strength to build Canada instead of destroying Canada.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Miss Pat Carney (Vancouver Centre):: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Finance my question is directed to the Prime Minister. It concerns the numbers game which the Government is playing with the Canadian public on the size of the federal deficit for the fiscal year just ended.
Over the last 18 months the Government has produced five different estimates of the deficit. This creates confusion and uncertainty in the minds of Canadians because the Government's borrowing activities determine interest rates and the economic climate, which affects job opportunities. My question deals with the credibility of the Government. How can Canadians have any confidence in the figures the Government produces in the budget next week, given its past performance?


Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (Minister of State (Finance)):: Madam Speaker, the Minister of Finance indicated yesterday that the deficit would not be as high as that, for example, indicated during his statement to the House in October of 1982. But I would remind the Hon. Member that the Minister also indicated that one of the casualties of the downturn in the economy, and probably one of the contributors, has been the forecasters and their inability in this very erratic economic climate to project adequately or accurately any great distance into the future. He indicated as well that the detailed figures would be available in his budget next week, and the Hon.
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Oral Questions
Member, together with all Canadians, will have an opportunity of looking at them in detail at that time.


Pat Carney: Madame Speaker, my supplementary question is to the same Minister in the absence of the Minister of Finance, but first I would ask the House: would you buy a used calculator from that Minister?


MINISTER'S POSITION
Pat Carney: Madam Speaker, Canadians know that the budget deficit is financed by borrowed money, and the Minister's admission that he has overstated the deficit leads to the suspicion that he has inflated his borrowing requirements. The Minister of Finance and the Government have brought forward the biggest borrowing bill in the country's history. How can he avoid the suspicion that the Government is cooking the books so it can borrow more than it needs in order to avoid parliamentary scrutiny of its spending programs?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, I really cannot let the Hon. Member's introduction to the question go by unanswered. It is obvious that many Canadians are at this time, for example, buying houses at a rate which has greatly improved over the last few months compared to last year. Housing starts are up in the range of some 176,000. It is very apparent as well that Canadians in large numbers are buying appliances at a greater rate and in larger numbers than they have been in previous months. It is very apparent from the figures that retail sales are up considerably. Construction starts, as reported by the municipalities, are up considerably for the month of January. The Minister of Finance has indicated that these many positive signs augur well for the immediate and near future. With the support of the policies in next week's budget, we are also hopeful for the long term as well.


Pat Carney: Madam Speaker, in his reply the Minister ignores the fact that the one increase in statistics which bothers those on this side of the House is the two million people unemployed.


USE OF GOVERNMENT FUNDS
Pat Carney: Madam Speaker, our calculations indicate that the deficit has been inflated by about $2 billion. Are the Minister and his colleagues going to perform an act of magic, like a financial Merlin, and transform these phantom savings into increased spending in next week's budget?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, in her last supplementary and in the previous question the Hon. Member has implicitly asked about the veracity and strength of forecasting and detailing studies done by Government advisers. If she is not satisfied with those forecasts she could, for example, take a look at Data Resource

April 13, 1983
Oral Questions
of Canada which has published the same kind of forecasts as those to which I made reference. I ask her to take a look at some of the private sector forecasters who are talking about an improved performance in the economy, which is no doubt reflected in and partially due to the change in the economy over the last quarter. For example, I am looking at a report of Nuala Beck, Vice-President of Pitfield, Mackay, Ross, who has confirmed a more optimistic projection for the next quarter.


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Paul James Cosgrove: There are, Madam Speaker, with respect, many independent forecasters. If the Hon. Member is not satisfied with the Government's, there are many independent ones who agree with the Government's position.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PROVISION OF FIGURES
Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Madam Speaker, my question, in the absence of the Minister of Finance, who has apparently ducked today, is in connection with the lack of confidence of the people of Canada in the Government. Anyone knows that any Minister of Finance, any treasurer, ought to be able to tell what he receives in income and what he spends in payments to individuals. On March 15, 15 days before the year end, the Minister gave us what he said were the actual figures. The Minister of State for Finance confirmed those on March 28 and March 29, a day or two days before the year end.
Was the Minister deliberately misleading the House-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Donald Alex Blenkarn: -or is the Minister so incompetent that he cannot add or subtract?


An Hon. Member:: Or both.


Mr. Kempling:: He's just plain dumb.


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member has made comment that the Minister of Finance is not in the House today. I would draw to the attention of Hon. Members that 11 out of the 12 candidates for leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party are not in the House today. I would warn, Madam Speaker, that the attendance of the Minister of Finance in the House is better than any of those candidates this year.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REQUEST FOR RESIGNATION OF FINANCE MINISTER
Donald Alex Blenkarn: Madam Speaker, if the Minister of Finance were the treasurer of any company in this country and presented figures like this Minister of Finance did, to his Board of Directors, he would be fired without notice.


Madam Speaker:: Order.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: And my question-


Madam Speaker:: The Hon. Member is not to argue. He is now asking questions.


Mr. Nowlan:: Argument? That's a statement of fact. That's not argument.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: There is not much argument in it, Madam Speaker.
I want to direct a question to the Prime Minister. In order to restore some confidence in the country, will the Prime Minister, in view of the misrepresentations, the lack of disclosure, the wrong disclosure made just two or three days prior to the year end concerning the fiscal position of the country, now ask for the resignation of the Minister of Finance?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: No, Madam Speaker. I have heard the Opposition at least 20 times in the past six months asking the Minister of Finance to give projections, to give the Opposition figures on the future, to predict what the rate of unemployment will be, to predict what the level of inflation will be, and so on. The Minister of Finance has answered, almost each time, "These predictions are uncertainties. These predictions, I would rather not make them." Once or twice he tries to make projections which are helpful to the Opposition, and now they are reproaching him with making projections which are-


Mr. Nielsen:: How long are you going to be with us?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: -unhelpful. If they do not want predictions, they should not ask for them. If they get predictions, they should realize that they are subject to change.


Erik Nielsen: How long are you going to be with us?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: I am now asked by the Hon. Member for Yukon how long I am going to be with him. Madam Speaker, I do not know. I think it is time for him to go.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Patrick (Pat) Nowlan: Can't you get a sweetheart deal?


Mr. Broadbent:: Madam Speaker, we would only say that maybe they should both go together.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
April 13, 1983


AVIATION INDUSTRY
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. There is a report in today's press that Canadair Limited has given an American corporation a free executive jet, plus $4 million in cash. Could he confirm whether this report is true and, if it is true, whether he has discovered the reasons for such an incredible action taking place?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of National Revenue):: Madam Speaker, since the Minister responsible for this Corporation is a Member of the Senate, it is my responsibility to answer any questions put in the House. Unfortunately, I do not have the necessary information to be able to answer the Hon. Member's question. I shall make enquiries, and I shall then be happy to provide a more specific answer.


ALLEGATION OF FALSE SALES CLAIMS
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, I accept that answer from the Minister. The allegations about this company's behaviour are extremely serious.
I wish to ask another question regarding the allegations that will be made tonight, I understand, on a television program "The Fifth Estate". Is the Minister aware that allegations have been made already, and will be made publicly on television tonight, that this company has faked orders and has possibly misled a committee of the House in terms of claims for sales? If he is aware of these allegations, could he tell the House whether steps have already been initiated to investigate those claims?


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, I am not aware of such allegations. However, I may remind the House that the Government has established the Canada Development Investment Corporation for the purpose of improving management practices of certain Crown corporations, including Canadair. I am aware that some time ago, CDIC officials were making an analysis of the management situation in these corporations, including Canadair, and that as soon as the results are known, they will take corrective action if necessary, and nature of such action will be announced in due time.


REQUEST FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY
John Edward Broadbent: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the seriousness with which the Minister has responded to the question. I understand that an internal inquiry will be launched.
Oral Questions
My final question will go to the Prime Minister. Assuming that the allegation that Canadair has given one aircraft and $4 million to an American corporation turns out to be true, and assuming it is the case that the same corporation has misled a committee of the House in terms of sales, will the Prime Minister undertake to establish a full public inquiry under the Inquiries Act into the performance of this company, because thousands of Canadian jobs are at stake?


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, I think we can hardly draw any conclusions or make any commitments on the basis of allegations that are supposed to be revealed in a television program. All this is purely hypothetical. I suggest we wait until the facts are known, before making any decisions.


AIR TRANSPORT
Mr. Marcel Roy (Laval):: Madam Speaker, my question to the Minister of Transport concerns Mirabel International Airport. One year ago, a group of mayors from the Lower Laurentides-Laval region led by the mayor of Laval met with the minister of Transport to discuss the role of this international airport. The meeting was held one year ago this week. Can the minister tell us what has happened to date following his meeting with the north shore mayors, what the Department plans to do about freight transport, which was at the bottom of the representations made by the mayors, and whether he himself has already communicated with the Quebec ministers to discuss the road network development, namely the extension of road 13 and highway 50?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):: Madam Speaker, I cannot give a full report on the situation, but everything that was announced at the time has now been implemented with the exception of the proposal for duty-free fuel, which is being actively considered, and as the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources noted yesterday, I hope that a solution will be found in the near future.
Regarding the road network, we have no decision to announce jointly with the Quebec government. However, progress is being made for bus transport and we hope that certain amendments will be made to the proposals now in the hands of the Montreal Urban Community Transit Commission, which will greatly improve the flow of traffic between downtown Montreal and Mirabel. The Hon. Member also asked me ... A task force has been created, namely the group usually called the Levasseur Commission, and it will report within a few days. The relaxation of the Toronto moratorium is another thing that we have done. We are keeping in mind

April 13, 1983
Oral Questions
the interests of Mirabel in relation to certain extensions of the access to Toronto. These are all measures which have beneficial effects on Mirabel. Once again, what everyone considers most important is to establish a policy for duty-free fuel, which has not been done as yet, and this is where we are now focussing our efforts.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. Albert Cooper (Peace River):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Since 1981 in the field of engineering unemployment has risen some 500 per cent. In the next 60 days there will be about 7,000 engineering graduates hitting the streets looking for jobs. At present Canada is importing about 250,000 barrels of oil a day, which creates jobs in Saudi Arabia, not in Canada. When can we expect the Government to do something for those graduating 7,000 engineers?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 1 ask the Hon. Member to wait for the budget, Madam Speaker.


FISHERIES
Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. It is related to the Canada-U.S. agreement on Pacific salmon. It is my understanding that because of objections from Alaska the agreement has not been ratified by the United States. First though, is the ratification process complete in Canada? In any event, since it is not going to be in effect when the fishing season opens, because the season will be open in about a fortnight's time, what steps has the Minister taken to ensure that the fishery does not degenerate into a catch as catch can situation, thereby possible destroying what is a very rich fishery on the Pacific coast?


Hon. Pierre De Bane (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: Madam Speaker, as the Hon. Member knows, we have been negotiating for years with the United States about orderly harvesting of salmon on the West Coast. The treaty that has been negotiated, which will come before Cabinet for formal ratification in the near future and will on the American side have to go to the Senate, and which is supported by most fishing organizations in B.C., I think does reflect the principle of fairness that each country should harvest the fish it produces.
The Hon. Member refers to some opposition in Alaska. I hope that both in Alaska, like in Washington State, and the remainder of the Pacific coastal states, they will recognize it is in the interests of both countries to achieve this treaty. I am not looking at one country winning and the other country losing. Both will win because we will achieve fairness for fishermen on both sides.
The Hon. Member is asking me what will happen if the United States does not ratify the agreement. Frankly, I prefer to be an optimist, Madam Speaker.


POSSIBILITY OF FRICTION BETWEEN FISHERMEN
Donald W. Munro: Madam Speaker, there are the two questions, whether Canadian fishermen not being bound by any agreement with the United States may fish, and also the problem of disputes increasing the number of friction points between Canada and the United States, between Canadian and U.S. fishermen. What steps has the Minister taken, either in Canada or in Washington, to make sure that this situation does not occur?


Pierre De Bané: Madam Speaker, I can assure the Hon. Member that our director for salmon fishing in B.C. is in constant contact with his counterpart on the American side. Except for some incidents, of which the Hon. Member is certainly aware, they have managed up until now to do things in tandem so that the fears of the Hon. Member will not, I hope, be warranted.


MINES AND MINING
Mr. Thomas Siddon (Richmond-South Delta):: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Finance I would like to direct my question to the Prime Minister. The unemployment rate in the Yukon is in excess of 30 per cent, the highest unemployment rate in the land. The entire mining industry is shut down. Cabinet meets tomorrow and will hopefully discuss a proposal to save the Cyprus Anvil Mine and put the mine workers of Faro and the Yukon back to work. Will the Prime Minister undertake to have that matter discussed in Cabinet tomorrow, and will he ensure that the proposal for an interest-free fully repayable loan will be concurred in by Cabinet, so that we can get the economy of the Yukon back to work?


Paul James Cosgrove: Madam Speaker, of course it is not the practice to talk about Cabinet business in advance. When Cabinet has made its final decision on the item which has been before it for discussion, of course Hon. Members will be advised, as well as the Hon. Member's constituents-


Erik Nielsen: My constituents.
April 13, 1983


Paul James Cosgrove: -who are well aware and quite anxious to have that decision.


Thomas Edward Siddon: Madam Speaker, once again the Prime Minister shows his total disregard for the concerns and needs of the people of the Yukon. One wonders whether the federal Government really cares about the Yukon and the northern regions of the country.


REQUEST THAT PROPOSAL TO TAX NORTHERN BENEFITS BE RESCINDED
Thomas Edward Siddon: Madam Speaker, my question, if the Prime Minister will not answer, is directed to the Minister of State for Mines. Will she ensure that the Minister of Finance in his budget to be presented next week will take special measures to ensure a resurgence and a recovery of the economy of the North by rescinding all proposals to tax the benefits enjoyed by northern mine workers, and by providing some capital relief for the building of important infrastructures with respect to the power and transportation needs of the Yukon and the Northwest Territories?


Hon. Judy Erola (Minister of State (Mines)):: The Hon. Member will just have to wait until Tuesday evening, Madam Speaker.


MEDICAL CARE
Mr. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. She will be familiar with the telex she received on April 6 from the James Bay Tribal Council. It is with regard to the Moose Factory General Hospital, concerning the closure of one ward and the possible laying off of 16 employees. Can the Minister tell me what has happened? Is the Ministry reconsidering the problem?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Madam Speaker, there is no intention in my Department to close down the hospital, which is a very valuable institution. I think that is the main message that should be transmitted today to all parties concerned.


MINISTERIAL ASSURANCE
John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Madam Speaker, my supplementary question is also for the Minister of National Health and Welfare. I appreciate that the hospital will not be closed down. My concern is the health care of the people of the James Bay area, that the facilities they have today will not be changed and that the same service will be continued.


Monique Bégin: Madam Speaker, I do not understand if that is a question but, of course, I can give an assurance.
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Oral Questions RAILWAYS


CROWNEST PASS RATE-MINISTER'S POSITION
Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture whose Department has provided much of the research into the projected grain prices in order to justify the Government's policy of increasing the Crow rate. As an example, the estimate would indicate that by 1990 wheat should cost $12.40 a bushel and, therefore, farmers could afford to pay an increased freight rate. Since a slightly older study, using the same techniques, predicted $7.20 per bushel for wheat in 1983, and since the Minister in charge of the Wheat Board has just announced that the wheat price this year will be in the range of $4.50 or $4.60 per bushel, can the Minister tell the House what has gone wrong? Assumptions are probably no longer accurate. What is the Minister's position now in support of the Crow rate?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (MinisUr of Agriculture):: My position in support of the Crow rate has not changed, Madam Speaker.


RATIONALE FOR POLICY
Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: Madam Speaker, since the decision was obviously made with bad information, since the Minister is now faced with recommendations from the Wheat Board Minister to reduce rather than to increase acreage, and since the whole basis for this policy change was to take extra products out of the country, and the Minister in charge of the Wheat Board himself is recommending that we cut back, how can the Minister of Agriculture justify that stance? What rationale does he have for maintaining his policy of doing away with the Crow rate?


Erik Nielsen: Yes or no.


Eugene Whelan: Madam Speaker, I am not aware of what the Minister in charge of the Wheat Board has said about farmers planting wheat. I do know that I have not made such statements, and there has been no official Government statement that farmers should cut back on acreage. We have not taken an official position on what the United States of America is doing, that is, paying farmers not to produce. I do not know whether the Hon. Member is suggesting that we put millions or maybe billions of dollars into some kind of a program to pay them not to produce.


Victor Fredrich (Vic) Althouse: No.



April 13, 1983
Oral Questions


Eugene Whelan: He is not saying that. Personally, I think it is very wrong to tell them not to produce, because we only did that once and within two years we were sorry for doing it.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Maurice A. Dionne (Northumberland-Miramichi):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Today, in La Presse, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Mr. Jacques-Yvan Morin, said that he was, and I quote:
-counting on public opinion to prevent the Federal Government from setting up a CF-18 shooting range in the P.Q. riding of Lac-Saint-Jean.

Will the Prime Minister assure the House that the Quebec Government cannot have it both ways, that is, have the F-18s at Bagotville but not have the firing range there? If they do not want the firing range and do not want to provide the ancillary facilities, there is a place in New Brunswick called Chatham which will take the planes and provide the range.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Madam Speaker, I think the point is well taken. I think the Hon. Member has raised a suggestion which should bring the Ministers of the Quebec Government to reflect upon their contradictory position on this.


CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD
Mr. Stan Schellenberger (Wetaskiwin):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Transport who answers for the Minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board, and it concerns the issue of grain prices for farmers. Has the Minister of Transport been in touch with his counterpart? Can he say how he expects farmers to continue to produce, when the initial price offered by the Wheat Board continues to go down? Will he not encourage his counterpart to reconsider and at least keep the initial price the same as it was last year so that farmers will have some optimism?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, under any Government at any time when initial payments are anticipated there is a debate as to how high they should be. That debate took place this year among the Ministers, the same as it does every year. The general mood was to establish it higher than some would have liked but not as high as others would have liked. That is a judgment call, and the
Government makes it every year. This is the best we can make now. At the level at which they are, the general view is that the incentive to produce is still quite high.


COMMITTEES OF THE HOUSE
[Stage Direction]
'	LABOUR, MANPOWER AND IMMIGRATION
Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Privy Council or his Parliamentary Secretary. The Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council is in the House but he is not in his seat-he is still not in his seat.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Aloysius McGrath: Now that the Hon. Member has found his seat, I hope he has the same success in finding a chairman for the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration. Could he tell the House why this is the only standing departmental Committee which has not been struck? I am sure it has nothing to do with the two million Canadians who are unemployed, but I am told by the Clerk of the Committee that only the Government Whip can take the initiative in this regard, and I am not sure whether you, Madam Speaker, would permit me to ask a question of the esteemed Government Whip.


Mr. David Smith (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Madam Speaker, no, I do not know the answer to that question-


Erik Nielsen: Where is your seat?


David P. Smith: -but I will find out. I am sure a meeting will be convened very shortly.


APPOINTMENT OF CHAIRMAN
James Aloysius McGrath: Madam Speaker, if the problem is agreeing on a chairman, then I tell the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council that Members of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition are quite willing and able to provide a chairman for that Committee.


David P. Smith: Madam Speaker, there are many able Members on that Committee. I do not think finding a competent chairman is a problem at all.


CROWN CORPORATIONS
Hon. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister who reports to the House on
April 13, 1983

Canadair. Yesterday in the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections a document was produced which listed a group of Canadian businessmen who purportedly acted as advisers to a Montreal engineering firm, Les Ateliers d'TJsinage Hall, in its attempt to gain federal Government contracts. One of the people listed on the list of advisers was a Mr. Jacques E. Ouellette, a vice-president of Canadair Ltd. Therefore, will the Minister undertake to investigate this matter and advise the House if a Crown corporation vice-president is allowed, under current conflict of interest guidelines covering such officials, to sit on an advisory board of a private company seeking business from the federal Government in a field which is so closely related?


Pierre Bussières: Madam Speaker, I shall check the facts given by the Hon. Member and I shall also find out whether it is against the guidelines or common practice.


SUPPLY AND SERVICES
Hon. Sinclair Stevens (York-Peel):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Supply and Services who undoubtedly knows of certain testimony given yesterday concerning a company known as 109609 and which, it was represented, had a connection with the Hon. Member for Lincoln. As there was further evidence at the hearing yesterday that the Minister of Supply and Services did indeed respond to certain requests with respect to contracts-


Some Hon. Members:: Order.


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: -could the Minister of Supply and Services indicate to the House whether he has looked into these allegations, and what are his findings which he would like to share with us today?


Madam Speaker:: The Hon. Member knows that he may not ask questions in the House concerning Committees. These questions should be asked in the Committee.


Erik Nielsen: They are based on press accounts.


Madam Speaker:: Is the Hon. Member rising on a supplementary to a question which was not allowed?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: No, Madam Speaker.
Oral Questions CROWN CORPORATIONS


CANADIAN ARSENALS LIMITED-ROLE OF CHAIRMAN RESPECTING CONTRACTS
Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Madam Speaker, my earlier question and certainly my present question were based on press accounts. Undoubtedly the Minister of Supply and Services is aware of a Pierre MacDonald who happens to be chairman of Canadian Arsenals Limited and reports to the Minister of Supply and Services. Could he indicate to the House whether Mr. MacDonald at any time reported to him concerning certain contracts which have an involvement with a company known as 109609 and, if so, what has he been told about those contracts by Mr. MacDonald?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of Supply and Services: Madam Speaker, as I understand it, again from the press reports, it is the intention of the Committee to call Mr. MacDonald before it. Therefore it is a matter which is pertinent to the Committee's deliberations, and I have no further comment to make.


Erik Nielsen: Why not?


ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS
Mr. Tom McMillan (Hillsborough):: Madam Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. The Minister and the United States Secretary of State, George Shultz, evidently agreed in Washington this week to turn the urgent problem of acid rain over to a group of Canadian and U.S. scientists to see whether they could find some common ground on which to base a bilateral accord on acid rain affecting the two countries.
Since the very same approach has been tried unsuccessfully for the last three years, largely because the United States administration has undermined it at every turn, even to the extent of manipulating scientific findings, would the Minister tell the House what evidence Mr. Shultz gave to him to indicate that the same approach would be any more successful this time? Would it not be more forthright of the Minister to admit to the House, and through the House to the people of Canada, that he returned from Washington empty handed following meetings with his former classmate?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Madam Speaker, I do not think that what is proposed is a continuation of the process that had already taken place. In fact, that idea was tossed around at our meeting and it was abandoned because we finally concluded it would not lead to any further progress.
As the Hon. Member knows, there is a peer group of scientists now in the United States evaluating the results of

April 13, 1983
Oral Questions
working groups that have been dealing with acid rain, and likewise there is a scientist heading up a similar group in Canada. Both of these scientists are outside of Government service. It appeared to us that it would be very useful if the two scientists, working from an objective basis, could come together to try to sift out the differences because it is very difficult for me, or for Mr. Shultz, to deal with the matter when we are receiving conflicting advice from our scientists upon which we are attempting to base policy.
It seems to me that what we have proposed has the possibility of reducing what the Americans allege to be considerable scientific uncertainty.
We take the contrary point of view and say that there is sufficient evidence to move with abatement programs. That is the purpose of the exercise.
We hope the next time we meet to be joined by the two scientists and by the Minister of the Environment and the new U.S. administrator, who presumably will be confirmed in that office, Mr. Ruckelshaus, to try to move this very difficult problem forward.
 * *


NEW EMPLOYMENT EXPANSION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg-St. James):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Last year the Department of National Defence used some
4,000	term employees. These are temporary jobs. This year the Minister of Employment and Immigration has announced some 3,000 temporary jobs be allocated through the Department of National Defence under the NEED program. Already, by March 31, the Department of National Defence terminated some 1,000 temporary jobs. It appears as though the Minister is using the wrecking ball on existing jobs in order to be able to cut the ribbon on new jobs. Will the Minister take this situation seriously, will he investigate it, and will he take the necessary corrective action so that he does not destroy existing jobs in order to be able to announce new jobs?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member is quite mistaken in the suggestion that he has made. We have looked very carefully at the situation because it was brought to our attention by certain union members.
What in fact has occurred in a few defence establishments is that the term workers had a term contract for the fall and winter season and would then go back to work for the summer season. Therefore no workers who are normally employed on defence establishments are in any way being replaced under the NEED program. We have worked very closely with my colleague, the Minister of National Defence, and received his assurances and those of the base commanders. I would suggest
to the Hon. Member that he is quite mistaken in the allegations he is making.


REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATION
Cyril Keeper: Madam Speaker, the Minister may claim that myself and the union are mistaken, but I remind him that last year the Department used 4,000 term positions and this year he has allocated 3,000 temporary NEED jobs. Some 1,000 term positions have already disappeared and the year is just beginning. Even though it is difficult to document the situation on the job, the union has begun to do that. For example, in Gander, a janitor, a food service worker, both regular full-time workers, have been replaced. In Goose Bay, three labourers who were on term-


Madam Speaker:: Order. Does the Hon. Member have a question?


Cyril Keeper: Madam Speaker, is the Minister aware that these replacements of term positions by temporary NEED jobs has begun to happen, that it is being documented, and that the criteria for his NEED program stipulate that the new NEED jobs should be extra employment and not replace existing activities? Will he take this matter seriously and investigate?


Lloyd Axworthy: Madam Speaker, the Hon. Member is correct in one small portion of his statement, and that is that the NEED program is designed to provide additional employment. But we have looked at the situation very carefully as it applies to defence establishments. What he is suggesting is not in fact taking place. What we are doing is providing incremental jobs to do work that would not otherwise be done. I would suggest to the Hon. Member, as well as to certain representatives of the union who are raising these objections, that it would be much more helpful if they would co-operate with the program rather than raising this kind of criticism.


LABOUR RELATIONS
Mr. Maurice Harquail (Restigouche):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour. It has to do with the prolonged negotiations between Eastern Provincial Airways and the pilots. I ask this question on behalf of all Atlantic Canadians. Could the Minister of Labour give us some assurances and indications of what steps will be taken to try to resolve this dispute which is having an unduly serious effect on the economy and on all Canadians in that part of the country? I should hope that through the good offices of the Minister of Labour we could bring about an acceptable solution to this serious problem.


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Minister of Labour: Madam Speaker, I welcome the interest Hon. Member has expressed
April 13, 1983

on several occasions. I would like to inform him and the House that negotiations between the parties broke off on April 5 without settlement. As I understand it, the key issue is the question of the status of pilots who were hired during the strike. At the present time the Canada Labour Relations Board plans to hold hearings starting next Monday, during which all parties will be heard. I will be glad to keep the Hon. Member informed about any developments.


AGRICULTURE
Hon. John Wise (Elgin):: Madam Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Finance I want to pose a question to the Minister of Agriculture. He has in the last year and a half spoken very frequently and has spoken publicly and positively with reference to additional funding required for the Farm Credit Corporation. He has also spoken publicly and positively with reference to the need for implementation of the agri-bond concept, with reference to the need for capital gains as relates to people in the agricultural industry, and with reference to some reductions in the cost of farm fuels, all of these being budget items.
Has the Minister had some discussion with and made some representation to his colleague, the Minister of Finance, with reference to these four items which he has spoken positively about on numerous occasions in the last year and a half? Is the Minister satisfied that these discussions have been influential enough to provide some positive results in these four areas for the budget on Tuesday night?


Eugene Whelan: Madam Speaker, we have had discussions. I am sure the Hon. former Minister is known for his patience. He will have to be patient and wait until Tuesday night.



PUBLIC SERVICE


Hon. Elmer M. MacKay (Central Nova):: Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. He will recall that last August he approved a contract with Mr. Walter McLeish who, at that time, was still the official of his Department in charge of the Canadian Aviation Transport Administration. Mr. McLeish took early retirement some three months after the Minister had submitted the contracts to the Treasury Board. Given the Treasury Board guidelines of May, 1978, on contracts for the services of former Government officials in receipt of Government pensions, which specify that a contracting process between the Government and employees who take
Oral Questions
early retirement must "withstand the closest scrutiny", would the Minister tell us whether the $43,000 contract to Mr. McLeish for 80 days at $450 per day was given to him as an inducement in the usual way for senior mandarins to fatten their pensions, or was it to get rid of him because of the adverse reaction to his job performance as outlined in the Dubin Aviation Commission of Inquiry?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, in my Department as I think in all other Departments there is a procedure under which former employees of the Department, people who have retired from the Department, can be rehired on contract. I am just following the normal Government practice. Indeed Mr. McLeish is now on contract and doing work which I would think would be very important to the future of the air industry in Canada. He is exploring ideas with the Americans as to the maximum use of air space between Canada and the United States in terms of navigational aids, air control, equipment and procedures, et cetera. He should produce an analysis which might lead to a common approach by Canada and the United States on the manufacturing of equipment. This is a very important subject indeed, and I am delighted to have Mr. McLeish in charge of it.



RESPECT FOR TREASURY BOARD GUIDELINES

Elmer MacIntosh MacKay: Madam Speaker, the Minister will know that a confidential departmental memorandum dated July 23, 1982, a full four months before Mr. McLeish retired-that is what I am getting at-raises doubts about whether the contract did not breach Treasury Board policy of 1974 concerning employer-employee relationships.
Would the Minister give us some assurance that the letter as well as the spirit of the 1974 Treasury Board guidelines were fully respected in the case of this rich contract for Mr. McLeish? Will he also assure us that there will be very close scrutiny as to whether public funds will be flowing into Mr. McLeish's companies, be it the Aero Development Company or his numbered company, No. 116598?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Madam Speaker, I am aware of that. At the time there was the possibility that there might appear to some people to be a conflict between the interest of Mr. McLeish's wife, if I remember clearly, and himself. She is part of a consulting firm which was bidding on that contract. For reasons that my Deputy Minister is in charge of, this was not continued. It has been resumed since. I am waiting for a decision. It was to prevent the appearance of what might have been seen by some people as a conflict of interest that the contract was not pursued at the time.

April 13, 1983
House of Commons HOUSE OF COMMONS



APPOINTMENT OF PRINCIPAL CLERKS

Madam Speaker:: I am very pleased today to announce to the House the appointment of two Principal Clerks. These two promotions are of particular significance in that they exemplify the willingness of the House of Commons to promote equality in the career paths of the employees of the House of Commons. That has to mean to promote women.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Madam Speaker:: Let me say, however, that these two appointments were made through a regular competition and that the two new Clerks who come to us today are very qualified.
I thought it was important to signify this to the House because obviously it is a breakthrough at the Table of the House of Commons.

I therefore take great pride in introducing today our two new Clerks, Mrs. Mary Anne Griffith, who will be principal clerk in charge of research for the Table-

-Mrs. Mary Anne Griffith, who is Principal Clerk in charge of research for the Table; and Mrs. Nora Lever, who becomes Principal Clerk in charge of committees and private legislation.
[ Translation]
Mrs. Nora Lever will be principal clerk of the Committees and Private Legislation Branch.


Judith A. Erola: Madam Speaker, I welcome and congratulate Mary Anne Griffith and Nora Lever, the first women ever appointed to the Table of this House. Their presence in the House will do much to enhance the position of women in our society. They will serve as visible symbols of equality in our political system. It is important that our institution reflect the reality of Canadian life, the fact that 52 per cent of Canadian women over age 15 are in the labour force.
I am confident that these Table officers will bring along with them a wealth of experience and special qualities that will serve to enrich this House.


Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Madam Speaker, I want to offer the congratulations of this Party to the two persons who have been appointed to the Table today even though we were not advised in advance that this was being done by the Minister responsible for the status of women.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: I should like to offer the very real appreciation of this Party. If I were to make a comment on that, Madam Speaker, I would only say that it has not come
soon enough. I should also like to make the point that we expect to see many more appointments like this in the future. These have been a long time coming and they are indeed welcome. We hope to see many more.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Madam Speaker, on behalf of the New Democratic Party I also congratulate the two new staff members at the Clerk's Table. Certainly we will look forward to working with them.
We also congratulate you, Madam Speaker, for the leadership you have shown in demonstrating moves toward affirmative action, not to mention the implementation of a day care centre in the workplace. We have also noticed women working in other branches of the House of Commons staff. We hope, however, that this means a definite step toward affirmative action in all Government Departments, and certainly in the election of women to the House of Commons as well.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Len Gustafson (Assiniboia):: Madam Speaker, I should like to present a petition on behalf of over 3,300 people in the Weyburn areas to the Honourable the House of Commons of Canada in Parliament assembled.
The petition of the undersigned of the Province of Saskatchewan, who now avail themselves of their ancient and undoubted right thus to present a grievance common to your petitioners in the certain assurance that your honourable House will therefore provide a remedy, humbly sheweth that we object to the Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin's transportation proposal announced in Winnipeg, February 1, 1983. It will cause serious economic hardship to grain producers, rural communities, service industries and to the entire provincial economy, through substantially higher freight rates, loss of family farms, abandonment of branch lines, fewer grain delivery points and a massive transfer of economic wealth from Saskatchewan to the railways and other regions. Wherefore we demand that the present statutory Crow rate be maintained. And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. Dated Wednesday, April 13, 1983.


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. 4,546 and 4,753.
April 13, 1983

[ Text]


Mr. Hawkes: With reference to the Therese Casgrain Award (a) who selected the members of the national selection committee (b) how many members are on the committee and, in each case, what is his/her name (c) how are the members selected for the committee (d) what are the members' job designations (e) are the members to serve for a certain length of time and (i) if so, for how long (ii) if not, for what reason?


Mr. Jim Schroder (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: (a) Members of the National Selection Committee are chosen by the Minister of National Health and Welfare and act in a twofold capacity to select nominees for: (1) Therese Casgrain Award, (2) Lifestyle Award (another voluntary award program administered by the Department).
(b)	The committee is comprised of five representatives from National Health and Welfare and seven others involved in voluntary activities throughout Canada as follows: Mrs. Pat Fulton, Mr. Pierre Couture, Mr. Ronald Pitt, Mrs. Olivette Gareau, Mr. Bernard Lattion, Mr. Roger B. Mondor, Mrs. N. Krangle, Mrs. Jacqueline Neatby, Mrs. Alphonsine Howlett, Mrs. Doris Ogilvie, Mr. Tim Sale, and Mr. Charles E. Rheaume.
(c)	A list of proposed members is submitted by the Department of National Health and Welfare's Public Affairs Directorate, which administers the award, and the list is approved by the Minister. Consideration is given to these persons' present and past occupations and to their knowledge and involvement in health and social services related voluntary activities.
(d)	The members' primary task is to examine nominees for the award and to submit their recommendations to the Minister. They also provide advice and guidance with regard to the promotional and procedural aspects of the awards. Mrs. Jacqueline Neatby is the chairperson of this National Selection Committee.
(e)	Yes, members serve for a determined period of time: (i) for a minimum period of two years, (ii) N/A.


Mr. Mazankowski: Was a study done for the National Research Council to evaluate the transfer of research results from universities to industry and, if so (a) who performed the study and at what cost (b) what were the major conclusions and recommendations (c) what steps has the Government taken to implement the recommendations?
Mr. Jim Peterson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Economic Development and Minister of State for
Science and Technology): In so far as the National Research Council is concerned the answer is as follows: No.


David P. Smith: I would ask, Madam Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.
Canadian Forces Superannuation Act [ Translation]


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-PUBLIC BILLS

["Order, please. It being six o'clock p.m., the House stands adjourned until eleven o'clock tomorrow morning, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 2(1).\nAt 6 p.m., the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.", 'Thursday, April 14, 1983']
Madam Speaker:: Shall all orders listed under Private Member's Public Bills preceding No. 458 be allowed to stand by unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, March 30, 1983, consideration of the motion of Mr. McKinnon that Bill C-658, an Act to amend the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence.
Hon. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, I would first of all like to thank the House for their co-operation in allowing me to stand my Bill over until this time when it could be given full discussion. This is a rather unusual Bill. I have given it a lot of thought. It has been on the Order Paper for a couple of years.
If I were to be asked what there is about this Bill to recommend it to the House, I would quote Edmund Burke, who we all know and revere as a politician of outstanding stature in the days in which he lived. Just about 200 years ago when he was running for nomination in Bristol, in taking questions at the

April 13, 1983
Canadian Forces Superannuation Act
end of his speech he was asked why he wanted to be a Member of Parliament. He replied:
I want to be a Member of Parliament so to have my share of doing good and resisting evil.
Today all Hon. Members will get a chance to have their share of doing good. I believe that "evil" is a bit hyperbolic for this situation, but there has been an injustice done in the Superannuation Act of the Canadian Forces for many years. A volunteer ex-serviceman has given me permission to use his name as an example of a case which I believe has resulted in a very serious miscarriage of natural justice. I did what I could to get this injustice corrected by writing to various Ministers, to the President of the Treasury Board, to the Minister of National Defence and to the Minister of Justice. I wrote to them on several occasions with no result. If ever I saw a case where people hid behind regulations and bureaucracy had its way, it was in the case of Lieutenant Eric Haywood of the Royal Canadian Navy.
In a letter to the then President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Johnston) on April 5, 1982, just over a year ago, I pointed out these facts, and I quote:
In 1966, then Lieutenant Eric Haywood, of the Royal Canadian Navy, was released from the Royal Canadian Navy for misconduct. He had been convicted on December 20, 1965 on five offences dealing with misappropriation or theft. He and a civilian accomplice appear to have stolen or misappropriated $606 worth of photographic supplies from the Royal Canadian Navy.
Whether he was guilty or not is a question I do not wish to quarrel with. Quoting from the same letter:
He was convicted in a civilian court and sentenced to two years on each count, sentences to run concurrently. He served something in the order of one year in jail and was then paroled.
His accomplice in this serious act was tried with him. They were tried in a civilian court for, I believe, two reasons; one, the regulations which operate in the Department of National Defence forbid them to sentence an officer to detention and, clearly, there was a likelihood of Lieutenant Haywood being sentenced to confinement in some court or other where they did not have such restrictions, such as a court martial. Second, his accomplice was a civilian. I will have quite a bit more to say about what happened to the two men who were accomplices in this act.
Mr. Haywood was released from the forces under Item 1 (b) of the table to Article 15.01 of the Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Royal Canadian Navy, which is entitled "Service Misconduct". At the time of his release the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act had the following provisions for the payment of benefits under the Act for members whose retirement was due to misconduct. Section 10 provides that a contributor who is compulsorily retired from the forces by reason of misconduct is entitled to-and in subparagraph (b) it says, and this is the critical subparagraph which my Bill amends:
-in the discretion of the Treasury Board if he has served in the Forces for ten or more years, the whole or any part specified by the Treasury Board of any annuity to which he would have been entitled under this section.
That means that the Treasury Board can decide to pay him all of his pension or any part of it. In fact, they could do away with it entirely. Under this authority, ex-Lieutenant Haywood was informed by the Treasury Board that he was to lose 50 per
cent of his pension. It should be noted that this meant an additional punishment, without a trial or any representations made on behalf of the person most involved, Mr. Haywood. The fact that the Treasury Board is not a judicial body and the fact that the judge in a court in Saanich, British Columbia deemed that a jail sentence was sufficient punishment for misappropriation with an accomplice of an amount equivalent to $606, seems not to have influenced the Treasury Board at all. It, as I have said, added its punishment of a 50 per cent loss of pension. The amount which Mr. Haywood lost because of the findings of the Treasury Board was something slightly over $50,000 a year ago. The amount is now over $55,000 which he has lost. In my letter of April 5, 1982, I said:
I am asking you to review the equity and justice of this heavy penalty imposed on top of the penalty for a first offence.
Frankly, it seemed to me that the two-year prison sentence for a first offence of stealing $606 was a fairly heavy sentence in itself. Then he had an additional $55,000 fine imposed by a non-judicial board in Ottawa. I pointed out to the then President of the Treasury Board in my letter:
I have discussed this matter by correspondence with the Minister of Justice and the Minister of National Defence. The Minister of National Defence in replying to a representation of mine, informed me on March 9 that the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act was amended in 1969 and again in 1977. He then went on to say
"Insofar as Mr. Haywood is concerned, if his case had arisen after the amendments to the Act, there would have been no change in the amount of the annuity which would have been referred to the Treasury Board for consideration. The policy of the Treasury Board appears to have changed, in that at the time of Mr. Haywood's release it seemed almost automatic that a retirement for misconduct would result in a fifty per cent reduction in the member's annuity.
Today, the Board is perhaps more compassionate and reductions in the area of twenty to twenty-five per cent are customary."
I respectively submit that Mr. Haywood has long ago paid the full price for the crime that he committed and that his pension should now be restored.
I finally received an answer to that, and I do not know what civil servant prepared it for the Minister. The then President of the Treasury Board, I assume, took responsibility for it. I would like to read part of it, which might give an idea of the kind of reply I have received from all of the Ministers on this matter. The then President of the Treasury Board said, and I quote:
The recommendation to the Treasury Board was based on a certification of the Service Pension Board, as constituted under Section 22 of the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, that the retirement of ex-Lieutenant Haywood was compulsory because of misconduct and a concurrence that a recommendation to the Treasury Board of a 50 per cent annuity to Mr. Haywood was warranted.
This recommendation to the Treasury Board was based on the prevailing policy of the Treasury Board at that time which was that a 50 per cent reduction in the annuity payable to a member dismissed for misconduct was appropriate. You will understand, therefore, that the 50 per cent pension reduction subsequently approved by the Treasury Board in the case of Mr. Haywood was fully in accord with decisions taken during those years in numerous other similar cases of release for misconduct.
It is quite true, as the March 9, 1982 letter to you from the Office of the Minister of National Defence indicates, that in the misconduct cases which the Treasury Board has reviewed in recent years (and these have been very infrequent), the Board has approved reductions in amounts lesser than the 50 per
April 13, 1983

cent reductions approved in earlier years. This, I feel, is a reflection of more recent views concerning the extent to which pensions payable to contributors who are released from employment for reasons of misconduct should be abated.
He then goes on to make a very curious remark for a Minister of the Crown and President of the Treasury Board, and I quote:
There is, of course, no legal means by which the Treasury Board's decision concerning Mr. Haywood's pension could be altered at this time.
That is the reply I receive from everyone. They feel that they are not the rulers of this land, that they are not the Cabinet of the country; they are just poor, unwitting people who have to go along with and obey every decision they have previously made. I am particularly dismayed that a Minister of the Crown would write such garbage to me. He continues in his letter to me, and I quote:
Even if it were possible for the Treasury Board to reconsider the matter, any decision to do so would not, of course, be fair to other contributors who were similarly dismissed from the Forces for misconduct and were awarded a pension benefit reduced by 50 per cent.
I think that sums up what I meant when I said that various Ministers are beating around the bush, trying to avoid their responsibility in this matter. Now, Mr. Speaker, I went to the trouble of looking up who can be discharged for misconduct. It is possible to have a kind of subliminal fine, in this case $55,000, added to the penalty without either the person involved or the judge who passed sentence understanding it. Because the man was discharged under a provision which calls for misconduct releases, he pays that fine whether he knows it or not. I am sure the judge did not understand that. The relevant part of the Queen's Regulations is Article 15.01, which reads:
Service Misconduct.
when convicted by a service tribunal of a serious offence that warrants release under this category: when convicted by service tribunals of a number of offences indicating a course of misbehaviour that warrants release under this category: when convicted by the civil power of an offence of a serious nature related to the performance of his duties which would have warranted release under this category if convicted by a service tribunal:
That is the one under which they no doubt released Lieutenant Haywood. But how do you like this one? It reads "Illegally Absent", and it applies to someone:
who has been illegally absent and will not be required for further service under existing service policy:
So you can be released for the misconduct of being absent without leave. I point this out so you will understand, Mr. Speaker, how wide ranging this can be. The Act and the Queen's Regulations provides for release from the forces for what really amounts to a trivial offence if they feel like letting you out for that reason.
As I said, I tried every way I could to get some action on this matter without the rather unusual step of producing a Private Member's Bill in an attempt to get the rules changed. I was forced to this because of the inaction or unwillingness of any of the Ministers to seize their responsibilities and do something about such an injustice.
Canadian Forces Superannuation Act
Now, I think the explanatory note in Bill C-658 is fairly clear to everyone. It reads:
The purpose of this Bill is to limit the extraordinary discretion of the Treasury Board under the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act to reduce substiantially pensions of Canadian Forces personnel who have been discharged for misconduct, sometimes for less than major offences.
The new scheme would basically limit Treasury Board's power to intervene by deeming the total period of pensionable service to expire at the time of the commission of an offence and allowing that period to be reduced by a maximum of twelve months for the purposes of calculating the annuity payable.
In this particular case Lieutenant Haywood had 26 years' service when he committed a crime. He does not wish to quarrel with or debate whether he was guilty or not. They found him guilty; he accepts that. They sentenced him; he accepts that. But what he finds difficult to accept is that they took away 13 years, one half, of his pensionable service. Now, if during that period of time his service was actually of a character such that he was misconducting himself, it is not Mr. Haywood who is in trouble; it is the Armed Forces who are in trouble if they cannot find out in less than 13 years that people are doing things which would lead to misconduct releases.
I do not think the Bill needs any further explanation except for Clause 2 on the back page of the Bill. It provides:
Section I shall be deemed to have come into force on January 1, 1946.
Now, there is a very fine legal point here. The present Superannuation Act was not in force at that time. It did not come into force until July 8, 1959. If the House wanted to amend my Bill to change January 1, 1946 to July 8, 1959, I would be quite willing to do so. It is a very fine legal point because the Bill in 1959 gave Treasury Board the authority to deduct the vested rights a serviceman had before the Bill came into effect. I expect you could get into quite a legal argument over that if you wanted to do so.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out the difference between these two people who were convicted on the same day, by the same judge, on the same charge. One was a civilian, one was a service officer, and both were sentenced to two years' imprisonment. When they came out on parole, I believe at the same time, the civilian went back to his job but the service officer was not allowed to go back to his job. He was thrown out forever. That is an additional punishment.
Not only that, the civilian can go ahead making his plans for retirement; anything he had accumulated previously was still waiting there for him. If he had an annuity, no one cancelled it; if he had a lot of bonds in the bank to live on in his old age, no one cancelled them. The service officer finds out that not only did he have to do his time and lose his job, he has also lost $55,000 so far. This seems to me to be a simple injustice, and I would like to see it corrected. I have been trying for over a year and a half to get it corrected, and Bill C-658 is kind of a last recourse. So I ask for your indulgence, that the Bill be passed and sent to the appropriate committee for further action.


Mr. Doug Anguish (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to rise to speak in support of the Bill put

April 13, 1983
Canadian Forces Superannuation Act
forward by the Hon. Member for Victoria (Mr. McKinnon). It seeks to protect the pensions of Armed Forces personnel who have been forced to retire because of misconduct.
As the Member said, there are often cases where the charges and penalties are quite trivial compared to the past record of the person who is suffering the consequences such that this Bill is trying to correct. Lieutenant Haywood had 26 years of service and was forced to retire from the Armed Forces because of this conviction. That he lost 13 years of pensionable service time seems to be very unfair and very unjust indeed.
I would hope that, if the Bill moves beyond Private Members' hour today, the Hon. Member who introduced the Bill would consider looking at the implications of this kind of activity as it applies to the RCMP as well. I am not sure that exactly the same case applies, but if it does, I would certainly want to see members of the RCMP included in this type of Bill.
We all know the good job that members of the Canadian Armed Forces perform for us. In active service during World War I, World War II and the Korean conflict many Canadians put their lives on the line for our democratic freedoms in this country. Since the United Nations came into being Canada has participated in peacekeeping forces throughout the world and many service personnel served very admirably on such missions. Of course, we are all aware of the good job that our Armed Forces personnel do in search and rescue and helping out in times of national disasters. I know very well the job that the Canadian Forces personnel sometimes do when they are called into my constituency, The Battlefords-Meadow Lake, to help fight forest fires when there are not the person-power resources available to get some pretty extensive blazes under control. Although this is sort of a peripheral role of the Canadian Armed Forces, they certainly act in reply to the call of the country whenever we are in trouble in terms of armed conflict, national disaster or search and rescue. Quite often they are asked to do this with old and outdated equipment, inadequate resources and material to perform their jobs.
I know that all people in Canada enter the Canadian Forces of their own free will; in some cases it is for jobs, and in other instances as a service to their country. In a great many cases it is to obtain training that they want to take with them when they do in fact leave the Canadian Forces. One of the things, of course, which they plan on when they join the Canadian Armed Forces or the RCMP is the pension which is available to them.
The Bill before us today will correct some of the inequities which take place as a result of the discretionary power of the Treasury Board in terms of cutting pensions of those Canadian Forces personnel who may have done something of a trivial nature which has offended the Armed Forces, with the result that they have been asked to retire, sort of amounting to a forced retirement. When they are asked to do this, it means cutting their pensionable years in half. It is a great hardship on
such personnel in their retirement years. In the case of Mr. Haywood, he had planned for some 26 years as an active member of the Canadian Forces, only to find himself in a very dire situation, I would imagine, having only half the pensionable time which he would expect to have served out in his term with the Canadian Forces.
As I mentioned earlier, I would also like to have this Bill applied to members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who, as well as the Canadian Forces personnel, often put their lives on the line for our country in service to us in times of natural disaster or whatever the call might be.
The New Democratic Party supports the intent of the Private Member's Bill introduced by the Hon. Member for Victoria, and we would be very happy to see the Bill go through the House this afternoon.


Mr. W. Kenneth Robinson (Etobicoke-Lakeshore):: Mr. Speaker, I note that the explanatory notes of Bill C-658 state:
The purpose of this Bill is to limit the extraordinary discretion of the Treasury Board under the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act to reduce substantially pensions of Canadian Forces personnel who have been discharged for misconduct, sometimes for less than major offences.
Taking it from there, I would say that contrary to what one reads in the explanatory notes, the discretion of the Treasury Board under the provisions of the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act is not extraordinary but, rather, is similar to the discretion presently exercised by Treasury Board pursuant to Regulation 41 of the Public Service Superannuation Act, which reads as follows:
Where a contributor is convicted of an indictable offence committed by him while employed in the Public Service, if the Treasury Board is of the opinion that the commission of the offence by the contributor constituted misconduct in office, any annuity or allowance payable under the Act to or in respect of the contributor shall be reduced by such amount as the Treasury Board, in its discretion, considers appropriate.
Therefore, one will see from this statement of the Public Service Superannuation Act that the individual in question is being treated just as fairly and could not expect any further fair treatment than that. Furthermore, contrary to what you read in the explanatory notes, no Canadian Forces personnel, to my knowledge, or to the knowledge of the Department so far as I know, has ever been discharged for misconduct for less than a major offence.
I submit to Your Honour that this offence was in fact a major offence. It was not only one offence, it was a series of offences. There were, in fact, five offences.
The definition of "contributor" in paragraph 10(4)(b) of the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act is found in paragraph 10(5) and reads as follows:
For the purposes of subsection (4), a contributor described in this subsection is any contributor who is compulsorily retired from the regular force.
(a)	as a result of the carrying out of a punishment of dismissal, or dismissal
with disgrace, from Her Majesty's service;
(b)	by reason of his having been convicted under
(i)	section 296 of the Criminal Code, or
(ii)	section 120 of the National Defence Act for an act punishable under section 296 of the Criminal Code-
April 13, 1983

Paragraph 10(5)(b), which really deals with one of these sections about which we are concerned, continues:
By reason of his having been found guilty of an offence under section 104 of the National Defence Act that was found to have been committed at a time when he was, by reason of his rank, appointment or employment or as a result of lawful command, entrusted with the custody, control or distribution of the thing stolen;
(c)	by reason of his having been convicted under any law of Canada, other
than section 84 of the National Defence Act, of an offence involving traitorous
or treasonable behaviour;
(d)	by reason of his having been convicted under section 78 of the National
Defence Act-
(e)	by reason of his having been absent without authority-
This was a Section of the Act to which reference was given by the Hon. Member for Victoria (Mr. McKinnon).
Any member who receives any one of the above-noted punishments or commits any one of the above-noted infractions has been convicted of a major offence. As such, he should not expect necessarily to receive as a right the same pension benefits as a person who was released for reasons other than misconduct. It should also be noted that although the statement was made that misconduct releases may affect those who have committed less than major offences, no attempt has been made in Bill C-658 to amend the definition of "misconduct". It may be, then, that the Hon. Member may wish to do this in the future.
Consideration must be given to the fact that, at the very worst, a member released for misconduct will receive a return of contributions under the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and Supplementary Retirement Benefits Act pertaining to this. As well, he will receive interest thereon at the rate of 4 per cent compounded annually.
Any attempt to make the proper legislation retroactive to January 1, 1946, is unacceptable for two basic reasons. I think the Hon. Member has noted his own error in this, although I do not believe he gave the appropriate answer.
First, Bill C-658 is attempting to amend the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, and as the Act only came into effect in 1959, one cannot amend an Act retroactively to a point in time when the Act did not exist. The Hon. Member did point that out.
Second, any amendment in the manner proposed would be inequitable, as some ex-members would have already chosen a return of contributions rather than elected for reduced annuities, while other members in receipt of a reduced annuity would now be deceased. All members knew, or should have known, both the legal implication of their criminal activities and also the possible pension implications. I suppose we would say that there is a presumption of knowledge as far as the law is concerned. One is presumed to know. I think that applies to all of our laws. One is presumed to know the nature and consequences of one's act, and one is presumed to know the law; yet individuals sometimes choose to commit offences. As such, they should not expect special consideration at this late stage.
I further note from the explanatory notes:
Canadian Forces Superannuation Act
The new scheme would basically limit Treasury Board's power to intervene by deeming the total period of pensionable service to expire at the time of the commission of an offence and allowing that period to be reduced by a maximum of 12 months for the purposes of calculating the annuity payable.
In the application of this existing Section, it has been the practice of the Department in recent years to recommend the benefit equal to the benefit which would have been applied to members released for other reasons at the time of the commission of the offence. This, in fact, is a more liberal benefit than that which is recommended in Bill C-658. Moreover, the existing Section provides some discretion which might apply in exceptional circumstances. I do not really know whether special circumstances can be shown in this case, but perhaps they can. It may be that the longer period of service in itself, some 26 years, should be taken into account. It is a long period to find that one would have his or her pension reduced by one-half.
As the law presently stands, there is no reason why this decision would not stand in the absence of any other evidence to the contrary. There is, however, no such discretion provided for in Bill C-658, which is another amendment I would suggest to the Hon. Member if he intends to present the Bill on a subsequent occasion.
Since the Hon. Member is obviously referring to the Haywood case, I can mention it. I assume that was the case he was referring to when preparing his Private Member's Bill. The facts of the case are rather interesting and I suggest they should be put on the record. In October of 1965, this exmember was convicted by the civil authorities at Victoria, British Columbia, on each of five charges of fraud and theft under the Criminal Code of Canada. He was sentenced to the term of two years' imprisonment on each count, such sentences to run concurrently. In other words, he did not serve ten years, two years for each conviction, but the five two-year terms were to run concurrently. The charges arose out of the misuse of photographic equipment which was the property of the Royal Canadian Navy Photographic Establishment at Esquimalt, British Columbia.
As a result of his conviction the ex-member was released from the Royal Canadian Navy on May 31, 1966, under Item 1(b) of the table to Article 15.01 of the Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Royal Canadian Navy entitled "Service Misconduct".
At the time of his release the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act had the following provisions for the payment of benefits under the Act for members whose retirement was due to misconduct. I believe it is noteworthy that these Sections of the Act are somewhat different from what they presently are. In fact, the Hon. Member for Victoria alluded to them in part.
Section 10(5) indicates that a contributor who is compulsorily retired from the Armed Forces by reason of misconduct is entitled to:
(a) return of contributions, or

April 13, 1983
Canadian Forces Superannuation Act
(b) in the discretion of the Treasury Board, if he has served in the Forces for ten or more years, the whole or any part specified by the Treasury Board of any annuity to which he would have been entitled under this section if-
It goes on to indicate some other Sections as well. However, I think we should take into account that there is the presumption of knowledge of the law although it may not have in fact been known by the perpetrator of the crime. By the same token, I have never yet met anyone who was charged with a criminal offence who expected to be caught. One does not expect to be caught when committing a crime or it would not be committed in the first place. I can only assume that he did not expect to be caught in the first place. Since he was caught he should have appreciated the nature and consequences of his act.
In a meeting held on August 15, 1966, the Service Pension Board certified that it had determined that the reason for the retirement of the ex-member was compulsory because of his misconduct. At the same time the Board concurred that, in accordance with the provisions of a policy guide on discretionary awards, the member's retirement warranted a recommendation to the Treasury Board of a reduced annuity pursuant to Section 10(5)(b), Subsection 2, of the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act. The so-called policy guide was one adopted by the then Associate Minister of National Defence on discretionary authority of the Treasury Board to approve certain benefits under the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act.
On September 1, 1966 the Treasury Board approved an annuity reduced by 50 per cent, as has been pointed out. I am sure that at the time this was brought forward the amount involved was considered to be rather nominal in nature. The amount is as large as it is today due to the numbers of years that have passed since this order was made.
Apparently the ex-member has applied to the Service Pension Board on numerous occasions since September, 1966 for a review of his case. On every occasion the Board members were unanimous in their opinion that the Board ruling of August, 1966 and the subsequent award by the Treasury Board should not be disturbed. I think it is important to note that they were unanimous on every occasion that he took this matter before the Board.
The ex-member was subsequently granted a pardon by the Governor in Council in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Records Act. As a result of this pardon, the Service Pension Board was faced with the problem of whether the pardon vacated the disability placed on the ex-member's annuity and whether it meant that the annuity should be restored to its full amount. It should be appreciated that when one applies for a pardon it only pertains to the conviction that was lodged and not to any of the other consequences following therefrom.
The matter was referred to the Department of Justice which advised that the pardon granted under the Criminal Records Act did not affect in any way the decision of the Treasury Board to specify that the ex-member was entitled to 50 per cent of the total annuity that could be awarded to him under the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act.
When the ex-member was advised that the Service Pension Board decided that no change in the Treasury Board ruling with respect to his annuity was indicated as a result of the opinion from the Department of Justice, he appealed directly to the Treasury Board itself. After a complete review of all the material available on his case, the chief of the Treasury Board pension group advised the ex-member that as a result of the opinion expressed by the Department of Justice she could not accede to his request for a review of his entitlement under the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act.
In order for a decision to be reversed in this matter, the exmember would have to submit new evidence to the Service Pension Board concerning the original offence which led to his dismissal. As well, the nature of that evidence would have to be such that the Board could reasonably conclude that the reason for his release was not in fact misconduct as defined in the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act. I would suggest that this is indeed a very heavy onus upon this ex-serviceman. Obviously if there was any evidence it should have been presented at the time of his trial, and if there was any evidence available that was not presented, he may have had an appeal at that time.
In any event, that was not the case. In the absence of his ability to oblige this obviously extensive onus placed upon him, nothing further could be done. While the amount of the reduction may seem harsh by present day standards, we must accept the fact that penalties were more severe in cases of misconduct release at the time of the Treasury Board decision. It should be noted that in misconduct cases which the Treasury Board has reviewed in recent years, which have been very infrequent, the Board has approved reductions in amounts lesser than the 50 per cent reduction approved in earlier years. Obviously times have changed since this happened some 17 years ago. Perhaps there would be a great difference today and the amount would be less, but anyone who has received a sentence years ago cannot expect to have it reversed years later and have a lesser sentence meted out by the courts or the tribunal.
Of course, this is a reflection of the more recent views concerning the extent to which pensions payable to contributors who are released from employment for reasons of misconduct should be abated. I note that there has been a tremendous amount of correspondence in regard to this matter from various Departments, including the Department of National Defence and the Treasury Board, with the Hon. Member for Victoria.
I would point out to him that this is not as though it was a case of a first offence, as he has alleged. It is actually a situation in which there are five offences. Furthermore, they are not five offences where one conviction results; it is a case of five offences and five convictions. It is a case where there was an individual sentence of two years on each of the convictions. There is no doubt that the sentence which was meted out was a proper one for the court or the tribunal to consider at that time. The penalty was in fact served.
April 13, 1983

The Hon. Member for Victoria has talked about an additional penalty which this ex-member has had to bear, being the loss which he has sustained in his pension. I would suggest to the Hon. Member that if he wanted to consider it as a fine, it could have been part of the sentence. Not only would he serve a term of incarceration, he might have been fined as well. Moreover, I understand that he is assumed to have known the nature and the consequences of his act. He is not placed in double jeopardy, as the Hon. Member has suggested. These were five separate acts of major misconduct. The gentleman was charged on each of the five fraud and theft charges and convicted of each of them. To my knowledge there were no appeals launched on any of them.
I do not think you can analogize that the civilian and the service officer are necessarily in the same situation. The service officer knows what the terms of his service are. He knows he must follow the law. He knows there is a very high onus upon him. He knew or ought to have known that if he committed those offences that he did in fact commit and of which he was convicted, he would have to pay a penalty and the penalty could be very high, not only in terms of incarceration but also in terms of loss of pension. He knew or he ought to have known that the Treasury Board had the power to make this kind of determination. I would assume there had already been cases heard before this when Treasury Board utilized this same power.
This is a sad case, there is no question about that. This serviceman had 26 years of service. I suppose if he had taken an early retirement he would not have had the problem at all. But he did not take an early retirement; he chose to stay on. He commited the offences of which he was charged, convicted and he served his time. It is unfortunate for him but he had to follow the terms of service in his service career. He is, you might say, the author of his own misfortune in that he had to serve time and as a result lost part of his pension.


Mr. Roger Simmons (Burin-St. George's):: Mr. Speaker, I have a few words to say on Bill C-658 which is sponsored by the Hon. Member for Victoria (Mr. McKinnon). This Bill seeks to amend the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act.
My good friend, the Hon. Member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore (Mr. Robinson), has done quite a good job of informing the House of some of the circumstances from which this Bill flows. There is no doubt the Hon. Member for Victoria is well motivated, as he usually is. I appreciate full well what he is attempting to do. I just want to say to him in all candour that I do not think he can do what his Bill asks, not because he does not have a majority in this House to support his Bill in the particular issue, but because in principle it would be wrong for this kind of Bill to pass. If we reduce this legislature, this House of Commons, to a place where we have to tailor a Bill, an act of Parliament, to the particular circumstance of every individual in this country, the permutations are large in number. I did not say a Bill for every individual in this country. That would require only about 24 million Bills. I said an
Canadian Forces Superannuation Act
Act for every circumstance in the life of every person in this nation. You are talking hypothetically of billions of permutations.
What this House is intended to do is something different. It is not intended to write a rule book to address every conceivable circumstance in the country. It is intended, among other things, I submit, Mr. Speaker, to provide protection for people as a whole in this country, to provide opportunities for them, and to provide constraints within which they must operate.
The gentleman who is the focal point of this piece of proposed legislation knew full well the constraints in which he was expected to operate. It is my understanding, and the information which my friend from Etobicoke-Lakeshore read into the record has not been contradicted, that the gentleman concerned elected, as is his prerogative, to operate outside those constraints. For that there were penalties.
I do not believe the time of the Hon. Member for Victoria, my time or your time, Mr. Speaker, would be well served if we were asked in effect to change the rules after the fact. To present a case of someone who operated outside certain legislative constraints who would now like to have the constraints tailored to suit his circumstances; is there anybody in this country who believes that is a proper role for this Parliament to undertake? I do not, Mr. Speaker. I believe, knowing the gentleman from Victoria as I do-not well, but I believe I know him well enough-I do not believe he sees that as a role for this particular Parliament.
I say to him and to Parliament that I believe he finds himself in a fairly unenviable position. He has been supplicated by an individual who clearly has a very real problem, a problem which imposes upon him many financial implications. If a sweep of the pen could make the financial situation of that gentleman easier, 1 am sure in principle no one here would be against it. I am not against it. But I tell you what I am against, Mr. Speaker. I am against setting a precedent which would know no end. This case has floodgate implications. If after the fact you were to broaden the constraints which were well understood, legislated in good faith and abided by almost everyone, what would happen if you were told there was one individual who chose not to abide by them? I have said already that it is his prerogative to make that kind of election. But I learned a long time ago, and I believe everyone in this House has learned likewise, that for every act there is a consequence; and for every action there is a reaction. Everything you do and everything you say triggers a set of events. Simply put, I believe-no pun intended-that this man has had his day in court.
From what I have read, I believe he has been treated fairly. I believe it is time to let sleeping dogs lie. I say to my friend from Victoria, let us put this one to bed. Give the Hon. Member an "A" for effort. He has tried, and he has aired the case. He has aired it in a proper fashion. He has done the right thing by raising the case. The Hon. Member must know there is no way that this initiative can succeed. It cannot succeed because of the awesome precedent it has the potential of setting.
24450

April 13, 1983
Canadian Forces Superannuation Act
Much has been made of the pardon obtained in this case. As I understand the Statute under which this pardon was obtained, such pardons are intended to facilitate the future activities of those pardoned, not to undo the past. The pardon does not say that we will undo the past. It does not say that this never happened. It does not say that the finding of the court was in error. Do not let it be suggested for a moment that the provision of a pardon is tantamount to suggesting that the court was in error in the first place. We all know that was not the reason for the pardon or the spirit within which the provision of pardons was legislated. Pardons are there to facilitate the future activities of individuals who have need of such.
The discretionary power vested in Treasury Board in this particular type of case is there for very good reason. We often hear in a country as large and as diverse as ours, trying to address many problems, that our legislation could run into the danger of lacking some compassion and flexibility. We have a number of mechanisms for addressing the problem of potential inflexibility. We do it by setting out broad parameters in law or in legislation which we put through the House. Then we allow certain discretionary powers to flow from that broad legislation. If we were to make the mistake of locking into law or statute every single possible occurrence and were to try to anticipate every wrinkle which could flow from a statute and then incorporate in law a provision to accommodate that wrinkle, of course we would be here all the time, and I do not think we would be serving the country very well.
Thus we do something else instead. We vest certain discretionary powers. Who are these people in Treasury Board? Are they people who have an axe to grind with an individual, probably? Are they people who are on a witch hunt, maybe? Are they people who get their jollies out of adversely affecting the financial situation of someone thousands of miles away? I do not believe that; I just do not believe that. I believe those people who made that decision and exercised that discretionary power properly vested in law did so fairly, with compassion and at the same time dispassionately, without grinding any axes toward any particular individual. It is not that Mr. Speaker has to take my word for it because I understand the Department of Justice has indicated exactly what I just said. Justice has said that Treasury Board acted honourably and properly in this particular case.
We cannot have our cake and eat it too. We cannot in one debate parade the Department of Justice as an instrument of Government whose advice is listened to and in this debate forget the respect we have for that instrument and say that they should have no discretion, that we should cross every "t" and dot every "i".
Let us be clear about what we are talking. We have a case which has had the benefit of the full process-the judicial, the executive and the governmental process. The case has been
well aired, well heard and well adjudicated. I find no dissent. I find no minority reports from Treasury Board on the issue. I find no evidence that there were suspicious circumstances, and by that I mean circumstances which would tend to suggest that the individual was being scapegoated in some particular fashion. I find no evidence of any of this whatsoever.
Indeed, if we were to line up the forces on either side of the argument, we would find the Department of Justice, whose opinion I respect, on one side; we would find Treasury Board on the same side; and we would find Parliament on this side because it passed the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act in the first place. We would find them all on this particular side, save one or two individuals.
If I were in the gentleman's situation, I would be on the same side as he. Understandably we find the person whose pension has been adversely affected on the other side of the issue, and somewhat understandably the Hon. Member for Victoria is on that particular side of the issue. He is on that side for another reason, but an equally good one. Obviously he does not stand to gain financially in any way, but as a Member of Parliament he wants to be sure that he does the right thing. I think he is doing the right thing. If I were in his situation, I would be doing the same kind of thing. I would be airing this to the fullest extent. I would be ensuring that no stone was left unturned. I would have this matter fully aired on behalf of the gentleman concerned. But I suggest that these are the only two individuals, both for good reason, who are on the other side of the argument.
It is significant that of all speakers who participated this afternoon it is only the Hon. Member for Victoria who has spoken from his side. Maybe he wants to take a few minutes of the time of the House to find if there is someone else who will support the case he puts. I am not referring to his right to put that case. I support his right to put it, but I do not believe, in all candour, that he has a supportable case. That may well be the reason it is he alone who stands in the House and advocates his position. I say he does it because he has to. I do not say that in any pejorative sense. I defend his right to do what he is doing today, but having done it, I think he should put the issue to rest.
The case has been well aired. I believe that the right decisions have been made and that we would commit a travesty this afternoon if we took any steps which would undermine the decisions made in this case.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Allan Bruce McKinnon: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It will be very short. I am sure the last Member who spoke would not want to mislead the country unwittingly. The New Democratic Party supported my motion and my Bill.


Roger Simmons: I was unaware of that. I thank the Hon. Member for bringing it to my attention and to the attention of the House.
April 13, 1983


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):: Pursuant to Standing Order 24(2), it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and to proceed to the next order.
Shall all orders listed under Private Members' Public Bills preceding Order No. 466 be allowed to stand by unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


OFFICIAL LANGUAGES ACT
Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine) moved: that Bill C-666, an Act to amend the Official Languages Act, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture.
He said: Mr. Speaker, may I refer to the explanatory note on this Bill to amend the Official Languages Act. The purpose of this Bill is three-fold. It would amend and enshrine in legislation paragraph 7 of the House of Commons Resolution of June 6, 1973, on official languages and certain principles respecting employment in the Public Service of Canada and to extend its application to Crown corporations, the Armed Forces, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The amendment to paragraph 7 would provide that any person employed in the above-stated categories as of the Royal Assent of the Official Languages Act in 1969 would not be subject to the Act's provisions or the interpretations of the provisions. It would also ensure that private companies applying for or under contracts or subject to grants from the federal Government would not be forced to comply with provisions or interpretations of the provisions of the Official Languages Act which the Secretary of State (Mr. Joyal) is proposing in his Bill C-398.
This particular Bill would impose Sections of the Official Languages Act on the private sector, and for non-compliance they would receive jail sentences and fines.
The bill to amend the Official Languages Act would give greater credibility to the notion of the "merit principle" as a basis for hiring and promotion in the civil service by reinforcing the vested rights of a generation of civil servants who may be fully qualified for designated positions but who may not have had the aptitude to learn the French language and thus have been denied promotion.
I would point out that there has never been any all-Party approval for any of the items I have just mentioned. Any time this issue was raised in the House or elsewhere, we would get the standard answer from the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) or Members of his Cabinet that this has all-Party approval. I want to assure the House that there has never been any allParty approval to dead end fully qualified, English-speaking Canadians.
Official Languages Act
Another matter that is causing considerable concern across the country is a recent speech made by the Hon. Serge Joyal, the Secretary of State for Canada, where in his speech he pointed out that he is going to turn Canada into a French state. I have no recollection of any discussion in the House of a proposal to turn Canada into a French state. In this speech that the Minister made in Halifax, he also stated that he is going to make Canada a French country, both inside and outside Quebec. I do not know what that means and how that is going to affect English-speaking Canadians, but the plan to turn Canada into a French state is something that the Government should be explaining to the Canadian people.
In the Secretary of State's recent speech in Halifax, he stated:
My role as Secretary of State is first and foremost to ensure that my French compatriots in Canada feel with deep conviction, as 1 do, that this is their country and that it reflects their image.
I do not think we can argue with that. He goes on to state:
-the ambition of making Canada a French country both inside and outside Quebec.
The Minister certainly puts his cards on the table and tells us exactly what his aspirations are. He continued:
Because everything we undertake and everything we are doing is to make Canada a French state.
I imagine when he says "we" he is referring to the present Liberal Government.
Mr. Yalden, the Commissioner of the official languages program, has stated that it is time the Liberal Government told the country what its official languages program is all about; but its reluctance to do that is what is causing so much division and confusion in the country. I have acted in accordance with this statement of Mr. Yalden's by calling for debate in Parliament on this issue. Many of the points that the Liberals should be acting upon are described in my Official Languages Bill.
I would like to refer to a recent questionnaire that I distributed in my riding asking if my constituents would like to have a full and open parliamentary debate on whether they support the Liberal Government's policies of making Canada a fully bilingual country. I received the highest return on this questionnaire that I have ever received over the past 10 years. Ninety-seven per cent voted for having a full-scale parliamentary debate so the present Government could explain its bilingual policies to the Canadian people.
This questionnaire was also distributed widely throughout Ontario and I received approximately 1,200 of these questionnaires back. Ninety-nine point seven per cent of respondents stated yes, they wanted a parliamentary debate on the discriminatory elements of the Government's bilingual policies. You can see the concerns that we have across the country, Mr. Speaker.
Here are some points of discussion that we could have in regard to abuses of the Official Languages Act. Parliamentary

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Official Languages Act
legal opinion is that the Official Languages Act is very loosely worded and is open to broad interpretation. If a Minister instructs his Department to implement the Official Languages Act without filling in the details and thus without acting responsibly, then the discretionary powers of the officials charged with the duty are practically limitless. This results in the abuses of the original intent of the Act and opens the doors to broad exaggerations of the original policy. Examples of this are Franco-banks, quotas, hiring teams, and the dead ending of qualified Anglophones.
Here are a few examples of how unilingual English Canadians are being discriminated against as a result of the hiring and promotion practices of the present Government. These examples are evidence of the necessity for laws to protect English-speaking Canadians.
A former Member of a Government agency described by superiors as a "very loyal and dedicated" employee is threatening to go to court and sue for damages because of bilingual policies which prevent her from regaining her job. She has been denied re-employment only because she does not have a "desired knowledge of the French language". The following is an excerpt from her letter. I would also like to point out that this individual has two diplomas from two schools received upon learning and passing a test in the French language. This is what the individual has stated:
As an English speaking citizen of Canada, I find this unacceptable as 1 have proven that 1 am not adverse to learning the second official language. What I cannot understand is why any federal agency or Government Department for that matter is denying a Canadian citizen employment solely on the fact he or she cannot speak one of the second official languages. In the past the foundation of hiring and promotion was based on merit. Has this long established, fair and used standard of hiring the best suited person for the position been changed to one of linguistic qualifications only?
Unfortunately that is what is happening in Canada.
Furthermore, why are they not taking my qualifications and experience into consideration?
The staffing and personnel officer had written the following in regard to this individual in answer to this person's question regarding re-employment:
We would like to assure you that the reason not to process your application for re-engagement is based solely on a matter of bilingualism.
There has never been any all-Party approval for any such thing. The individual's appraisal reads as follows:
This young member impressed me quite favourably and I would have to say that the agency is losing a very loyal and dedicated employee.
The recommendation given at the time of the appraisal was that favourable consideration be given to an application for a position should she seek employment at some future time. Another staffing and personnel officer had made these comments: "She is reported as a good employee and should be given serious consideration should she reapply in the future."
This individual has all the qualifications but they will not rehire her because she cannot pass a certain level language proficiency test. A third authority in the Department said: "I agree with the recommendation to hire this person", but they
would not hire her because she could not pass the severe language training test.
I should like to read now from an RCMP directive. It is now under investigation by the Human Rights Commission which I hope will hand down a decision very shortly. It reads in part as follows:
Since there is still an urgent need to recruit first official language French bilingual applicants, I urge you all, Members and public servants to make a special effort towards the force's bilingual recruiting program. While normal recruiting programs such as advertising campaigns through the news media, participation in career days, high school visitation et cetera, have brought about good results, I firmly believe more can be done on an individual "word of mouth" basis. More specifically, people you come in contact with such as neighbours, acquaintances and relatives provide an excellent base to stimulate our recruiting efforts. Our employees are therefore encouraged to alert any person they may come in contact with whom they feel has the potential to become a member of the force.
What all this means is that they are recruiting one nationality for jobs in the RCMP and that fully-qualified, Englishspeaking members of the RCMP who do not have the aptitude to learn the French language and cannot pass the severe proficiency test are being denied promotion. That is ridiculous in a paramilitary organization. What we want is the most qualified police officers going to the most senior positions, but that is being disregarded.
I should like to quote now from a letter issued by the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs regarding hiring, recruitment and promotion of Francophones. The letter points out that this is being done to the exclusion of any other Canadian nationality. This is discrimination; it is special, preferential treatment for one nationality for hiring. The correspondence reads in part as follows:
There are many rumours circulating in the office that the hiring team presently seeking examiners has been instructed to limit their search to Francophones and particularly to unilingual Francophones. It has been further alleged that academically-qualified Anglophones have been rejected.
There has never been any discussion of any kind of policy like this and there has not been all-Party approval for any kind of discriminatory hiring and promotional practice. It is time that this matter was fully and completely debated in this House. The letter continues:
The possibility that these rumours could be true appears to be supported by the apparent attempt to keep bilingual positions open for those Francophones being hired rather than offering these positions to bilingual examiners presently in unilingual English positions. Such rumours have considerable impact on morale in the office and invite discredit. Such practices are also contrary to the "merit principle".
The purpose of my Bill is to make paragraph 7 law. It would enshrine the merit system in law so that the Government could not implement this kind of discriminatory hiring and promotional practice. The letter continues:
It is time that such rumours were squelched. Of the many ways in which you could do this, we would like to suggest that you assure all the staff of the office that these rumours are unfounded and that you support them by publication of the criteria being used for hiring.
English-speaking public servants have, since the passage of the Official Languages Act, consistently been losing ground in their attempts to be treated equally with their French-speaking counterparts. Another example is the case of an air traffic
April 13, 1983

controller who was going to lose his job about five years ago because he did not have the aptitude to learn the French language. Ele had to spend five years in the courts to try and save his job and finally had to go to the Supreme Court before there was a ruling that the Government could not dismiss him because he could not learn the French language. The Supreme Court ruled on a section of the 1973 language resolution. My Bill proposes that paragraph 7 be made law. Canadian citizens would then not have to spend five years in the courts in an effort to save their jobs because they do not have the aptitude to learn the French language.
I should like to quote a portion of a memorandum which was issued following an energy sector management meeting of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. It reads as follows:
From now on, all French-speaking candidates should be considered exceptional and, therefore, subject to clear-track hiring. Managers should feel free to hire Francophones without interference.
Why is only one nationality being declared exceptional, Mr. Speaker? I do not recall any discussions like that taking place in the debates of 1969 or 1973. There has never been all-Party approval to declare one nationality exceptional over other nationalities in this country.
An Armed Forces order states as follows:
Government policy dictates that departments and agencies are to ensure that an equitable participation of both official language groups is achieved. With the intent of meeting this requirement the CF attempts to maintain an Anglophone/Francophone cultural balance, relative to the NRG ratio, where possible, in each rank in each officer classification. To reach this balance, adjustments may be made to the merit list sequence in order to satisfy NRG requirements.
This points out that that merit is not always used for promotion in the Armed Forces. The order continues as follows:
Where such an adjustment has been made, the promotion of an officer who should have been promoted because of that adjustment, will be "protected". If his supervising officers' recommendations for promotion and his medical status have not changed, an officer whose promotion has been protected will be promoted when a new promotion quota is authorized for his rank and officer classification.
It could take years for that particular Anglophone to catch up, Mr. Speaker. He would lose out under an arrangement like this. This particular promotional practice has been under investigation by the Canadian Human Rights Commission since June, 1980. I hope it will hand down a decision in the near future.
One of the most ridiculous things I have come across is that today the Government is declaring that operators of English word processors be bilingual. For example, a fully qualified word processor operator cannot gain employment in the civil service because she is not bilingual even though the position she applied for is to use an English word processor. This occurred at the Export Development Corporation and is another example of discrimination. I would certainly like the Government to explain why an individual needs a knowledge of the French language in order to operate an English word processing machine. This person has a degree and all the
Official Languages Act
qualifications; she applied for the job to operate this word processing machine but was turned down.
I hope the Government will agree to make paragraph 7 law so that we can stop this type of discrimination in the Armed Forces, the RCMP and the federal civil service.


Jean-Guy Dubois: Mr. Speaker, on December 15, 1982, the Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie) moved for first reading of Bill C-666, to amend the Official Fanguages Act. I am rather surprised to hear him talk about discrimination in connection with official languages and members of the RCMP who must have a knowledge of both official languages for their work. I think it is deplorable that today, in 1983, fourteen years after the Official Fanguages Act was passed, this should be a subject for debate. I think it shows crass ignorance of Canadian reality, Mr. Speaker.
However, before proceeding with a clause-by-clause examination of the proposals being made by the Member for Win-nipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie), I would like to make a few general comments which, I trust, will provide some insight into the real nature of the amendments he is proposing to the Official Languages Act and consequently help to judge the relevance of his proposal.
Clause 1 of the Bill provides that the Official Languages Act is amended by inserting, immediately after Section 35, a number of new sections.
I wondered why the Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine decided to have the amendments inserted after Section 35, and why he used the same number, followed by decimals .1, .2, .3 and .4, and kept number 40 for the clause on contracts and grants.
If we look at Section 35 of the present Official Languages Act, we see that it provides that the Governor in Council may make such regulations as he deems necessary to effect compliance with the Official Languages Act in the conduct of the affairs of the Government of Canada and departments and agencies of the Government of Canada. Now, the purpose of Section 35 is to avoid encumbering the Act with measures that are regulatory and administrative instead of straightforward legislation. If we look at the proposals contained in this Bill, we see that some of them are purely administrative, while others have already been laid down either in legislation or in separate regulations. I think this is a very important point that we should bear in mind throughout the debate this afternoon.
I would also like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that the series of amendments comprised under Clause 1 of the Bill are presented under the general heading "Language of Work". I am not sure whether the Hon. Member means to restrict the scope of his recommendations to the language of work, since the

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Official Languages Act
Government has already provided that as a general rule, public servants, subject to the provisions of the Official Languages Act relating to service to the public, should be able to carry out their duties within the Government of Canada in the official language of their choice. If such were the case, this Bill would be even less commendable-if that were possible- because, on one hand, its long term effect would be to isolate such closely related goals as service to the public, equitable participation and working language, and on the other hand, it would legislate on aspects of the policy which do not exclusively relate to the working language as a goal. Indeed, the linguistic identification of jobs, the urgent and non-urgent staffing, as well as the exemptions apply to all civil servants, be they assigned to serve the public or to internal management or both at the same time, as it does happen fairly frequently.
In that respect, the Bill is far from being clear and, in my opinion, it reflects the sponsor's lack of familiarity with the Government's official languages policy. In any event, Mr. Speaker, we should rejoice that nearly ten years after the passage of the parliamentary resolution of 1973 by the House, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine is proposing today that we incorporate in the Official Languages Act new sections which, he states, are the extension of paragraph 7 of the resolution. That seems to me to be all the more relevant as the Hon. Member, I was told, did vote against the resolution in 1973. It does not come as a surprise to me.
Before rejoicing too hastily, however, we ought to ask ourselves whether we would be justified to take this step. Does the Bill stem from the Hon. Member's constructive intellectual progress with respect to the official languages program? Is it the omen of a better understanding of the Government's goals in the field of the official languages, an understanding based on a close, though belated, scrutiny of the Canadian reality in all its complexity?
When I read what the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine is advocating in his Bill, I detect, beyond its obvious banality, rather than an evolution of his thinking patterned, as we would have wished, after the evolution of the thinking of the great majority of Canadians, but indeed an almost obsessional relentlessness to stop any progress when it comes to the official languages of Canada.
Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member claims that this Bill is an extension of paragraph 7 of the 1973 parliamentary resolution. Not only is he straying away from it, as I will demonstrate in a few moments, but worse still he does not respect the letter and especially the spirit of the resolution in his Bill which is supposed to be a step forward in achieving the Government's goals with respect to the official languages.
Were we to endorse this Bill, we would collectively accept to backtrack, and I am convinced that the House and most Canadians would never agree to that. Since 1969, we have had 14 years of linguistic reform, 14 years of unmistakable
progress, 14 years of cooperation on the part of civil servants, which have made it possible to respect everyone's rights and provide our country with a Public Service which is increasingly qualified to serve Canadians in the official language of their choice. After so many years of sustained efforts, strategic withdrawals would be untimely, no matter how the Hon. Member is seeking our support.
Let us now consider this Bill clause by clause. Clause 35.1 provides that the chief executive officer of each public sector employee shall identify those positions under his direction that require:
(a)	the use of both the English and French languages;
(b)	the use of the English language;
(c)	the use of the French language;
(d)	the use of either the English or the French language.
The addition of clause 35.1 to the Official Languages Act does not alter in any way the official languages policy since the procedure for the identification of bilingual positions has been enforced in the Public Service of Canada since 1973 as well as those for the identification of positions where French or English are essential and those where either French or English may be used.
Indeed, since 1973, the identification of language requirements for positions is done within the Public Service of Canada on a continuous basis as soon as a new position is created or becomes vacant thus enabling managers to review constantly the language requirements of positions for which they are responsible to make sure that such identification is done in a rational way and on the basis of the clients' actual needs and/or according to their responsibilities at the working language level in matters of internal management.
At the very beginning of the linguistic reform, the fact that the Public Service was considered as being a bilingual institution had an effect on the identification of linguistic requirements of positions. With the 1977 policy revision which came as a result of a constant follow-up, according to which a position is only identified as bilingual if there is a need to provide effective services to the public or to employees, this situation was corrected and the linguistic requirements of the positions were based on the specific requirements of the job to determine the use of either language in carrying out the duties of a given position.
The Government is not trying to promote individual bilingualism but wants to make sure that bilingual positions are only created when needed so that uniligual individuals from both official linguistic groups may operate as much as possible in their first official language.
Indeed, when we look at the statistics, Mr. Speaker, we realize that the three types of unilingual jobs account for 73.6 per cent of all civil servants or 165,890 employees using one official language only as against 26.4 per cent or 59,432 employees using both official languages in bilingual positions.
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This means that within the functionally bilingual federal institutions, there are 165,890 employees operating in unilingual positions, of which 135,140 or 81.5 per cent are in jobs that are identified as exclusively English, 16,870 or 10.1 per cent in jobs identified as exclusively French and 13,880 or 8.4 per cent in jobs identified as either French or English.
As may be seen, without this proposal having ever been included in the Official Languages Act, the Government has already acted on this the way the program is being implemented. So there is nothing new in the Hon. Member's proposal. Why must we oppose the addition of clause 35.1 to the Official Languages Act? For the simple reason, Mr. Speaker, that it seems unwise to include in a statute provisions of an administrative nature. As I said, under section 35 of the Official Languages Act, the Governor in Council may make such regulations as may be needed from time to time, without the Act itself having to be brought back before Parliament. The administrative procedure for the formal linguistic identification of jobs that is used throughout the departments, Government agencies considered as departments and Crown Corporations under Schedule B of the Financial Administration Act, is followed to a lesser degree, according to the type of agency and the terms of reference of the Crown Corporations listed under Schedules C and D and others that are not.
While Crown Corporations are subject to the Official Languages Act and relevant Government policies, the program may be and is indeed implemented differently as in departments. Especially so, Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the identification of jobs as being bilingual or otherwise. For various reasons, some corporations have decided on a system in which the number of bilingual people required is determined, without formally identifying any of the positions involved as being bilingual. In some cases, such a format has its merits. This kind of flexibility would be lost were Bill C-666 to pass. By way of legislation this would convey to the official languages policies a kind of rigidity that was never intended by Parliament and from which the program has been spared up till now.
These measures, Mr. Speaker are purely administrative in nature. If they were to become compulsory, the official languages policy would be deprived of all the flexibility needed to meet the various conditions it is constantly faced with.
Earlier the Hon. Member referred to some kind of discrimination where a man had to fight for five years so as to keep the job they wanted to take away from him because he could not pass a language proficiency test under the Official Languages Act-just about anything is possible in this day and age-but I suggest he went a bit too far when he accused the Government of discriminatory hiring and promotion practices. He claimed that it was unfair because this man simply lacked the aptitude to learn French and that it was discriminatory to
Official Languages Act
make the learning of French a condition for hiring. I find this hard to believe in 1983, when Francophones are learning and being exposed to English, when Federal Civil Servants have easy access to all sorts of learning facilities, when a bilingual bonus is paid to all those who must speak both languages in the performance of their duties. Mr. Speaker, I think that situations such as this in 1983 ... The Hon. Member referred to cases where individuals had to spend 5 years in court, but when he started to talk about discrimination, Mr. Speaker, as a Francophone, I just could not buy that.
Under Section 35.2, the Hon. Member dealt in three paragraphs with hiring practices for bilingual, English-essential or French-essential positions.
The first paragraph states that knowledge of the English and French languages shall be included among the elements of merit to be taken into account in the promotion of employees and the appointment of candidates to positions in the public sector.
In the second paragraph it is stated that knowledge of both official languages is a pre-requisite for appointment to bilingual positions only, and that unilingual candidates who have in the prescribed manner expressed a willingness to become bilingual may participate in competitions for appointments to bilingual positions.
On the other hand, according to paragraph 3, where a position requires knowledge of one of the official languages, and not of the other, only candidates having an adequate knowledge of the required language may participate in the competition. Again, Mr. Speaker, these provisions do not really change the official languages policy. This fact is already recognized in another legislation, namely the Public Service Employment Act.
Section 10 of the Act states that appointments to or from within the Public Service shall be based on selection according to merit, as required by the Public Service Commission. This is a reassertion of the merit principle, a golden rule of the Commission. Under Section 12(1) of the same Act, which is related to section 10, the Commission may, in determining the basis of assessment of merit in relation to any position or class of positions, prescribe selection standards as the education, knowledge, experience, language, age, residence or any other matters that, in the opinion of the Commission, are necessary or desirable, considering the nature of duties to be performed. As for Section 20, it states that those employees appointed to serve in any department, or other portion of the Public Service, or part thereof, shall be qualified in the knowledge and use of the English or French language or both to the extent that the Commission deems necessary.
In addition, under section 30 of the Public Service Employment Act, where the Commission decides that it is not prati-cable nor in the best interests of the Public Service, it may, with the approval of the Governor in Council, exclude such

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Official Languages Act
person or class of positions or persons from the operation of the present legislation. This gives some flexibility about which, in my opinion, English-speaking or French-speaking people cannot complain.
Under section 35 of the Public Service Employment Act, the Governor in Council, on the recommendation of the Commission, may make regulations prescribing how these persons excluded under section 39 shall be dealt with. When it comes to staffing bilingual positions, imperative or non-imperative, some sections of the Public Service Employment Act apply in a particular way.
It is interesting to note that the only element of our policy which was retained in Subsection 35.2 (2) of the Bill is the provision concerning what is usually called in bureaucratic circles non-imperative appointments. This provision has applied from the beginning of the linguistic reform and allows all unilingual candidates to apply for bilingual positions if they express the willingness to become bilingual and are able to do so within a given period.
Temporary, and in certain cases, permanent suspension of the merit principle is made possible by Section 39 of the Public Service Employment Act. The resulting exclusion order, which suspends application of Section 10 of the Public Service Employment Act, already provides that, in all cases where bilingual positions must be filled on a non-imperative basis, unilingual and bilingual candidates are eligible and can be considered on an equal footing as far as their linguistic qualifications are concerned. This exclusion applies to people whose candidacy for a bilingual position is considered for an unspecified period.
Mr. Speaker, all this shows that the new paragraph 2 included in the bill adds nothing new to the official languages policy. Moreover, it does not take into account imperative staffing which requires in certain cases, where there is a need for specialized knowledge or techniques or where certain operational necessities exist, for instance, that the linguistic requirements of a given bilingual position be met completely at the time of the appointment.
Mr. Speaker, it has in fact been said that if the proposed paragraph 2 were accepted and included in the Official Languages Act, it would mean a delay of several years in the official languages program as it would deny various departments and agencies the right to bill certain bilingual positions, with candidates who are linguistically qualified at the time of their appointment, which would remove from the Official Languages policy one of the levers with which the government has been able to hasten the pace of linguistic reform, especially in the area of services to the public.
In a few words, and I shall close with this comment, there is no need to reaffirm in the Official Languages Act something that already exists in the Public Service Act and the exclusion order on Official Languages in the Public Service. There must not be any confusion among responsibilities and jurisdictions. I believe that the flexibility of the Official Languages Act gives
everyone of both official languages equal chances to apply for positions and I do not believe that there can be any suspicion of discrimination in 1983.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Madam Speaker, when introducing his Bill, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie), in explaining what he had in mind, suggested that he was trying to amend the Official Languages Act to make it more clear that the merit principle for those entering the Public Service and those in it should be made much more explicit. The Hon. Member is considered by many people in the city which I represent as being opposed to the whole concept of bilingualism. I say to the Hon. Member that if he is, if that impression is correct, then he is in the minority, not just among Canadians but, indeed, in his Party as well.
Because the Hon. Member suggested that much of what was being done was never approved by Members of Parliament, I want to put on the record a couple of paragraphs from a speech made by the then Leader of the Conservative Party in Parliament, Mr. Stanfield, when the Bill was being debated. The speech was made on May 16, 1969, and reference can be found on page 8790 of that year's Hansard. On that occasion, Mr. Stanfield said:
This bill is placed before the House to strengthen rather than weaken Canadian unity. It is put forward for the purpose of making Canadians, whether they speak English or French, feel at home in this country to the extent that this is practical, and making federal government services available in the two languages. This was the principle which was discussed at the resolution stage. It was warmly accepted by all parties, including the New Democrats and Credi-tistes. Our task now is to judge the bill in the terms of these general purposes.
In the next passage, a translation from the French language, he said:
The purpose of this bill is not to compel English-speaking Canadians to learn French, and vice-versa. This bill is aimed at providing French-speaking or English-speaking minorities with all federal government services in the language of their choice, as far as it is practical.
Mr. Stanfield went on to support the Bill in principle, and a substantial majority of Conservative Members of Parliament voted for the Bill at that time, so I believe did all Members of our Party, all Members of the Creditiste Party, and all Members of the Liberal Party.
I understand the concerns of many people in this country. I represent a very ethnic constituency in which a majority of the people are of neither English nor French origin. My father came to this country from the Ukraine almost 80 years ago. I represent people of all races, religions and colours. It would take me nearly all my allotted time to simply list the various groups of people I represent. There are Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, Anglo-Saxons, Yugoslavs, Greeks, and I could go on and on. They worry about this bilingual policy, and I can understand it. They worry that somehow this Bill and what the Government has done in recent years makes them second-class citizens. That is not true.
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This is a very large country geographically, and it has a pretty small population. As I have said, the people have come from all the continents. They are of different races, different colours and different religions.
The first Prime Minister of this country, Sir John A. MacDonald, helped set up the railway company, building the CPR from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Some of us may question the way in which he did it, and some of us may think that he gave away too much in order to do it. However, if that railway had not been built, there would not now be a country of Canada, because the economic lines on this continent run north and south rather than east and west. In a similar way, in the 1970s and through the 1980s, we have had to face up to the fact that the first language of almost a third of the people of this country is French. Eighty per cent of the people of Quebec are French-speaking. Close to 45 per cent of the people in New Brunswick are French.


Mr. McCain:: No, 38 per cent.


David Orlikow: I stand corrected by the Hon. Member who comes from New Brunswick. Almost 40 per cent of the people in New Brunswick are French-speaking. Their forefathers were here before Canada was a country. They very strongly believe that they have a right to be served in their language- French-when they have dealings with the federal Government, with any Department or agency of the Government; just as English-speaking people, for example, in a city like Quebec City, feel that they have a right to deal with the federal Government or any of its Departments or agencies in the English language. That is precisely what Mr. Stanfield, who was then Leader of the Conservative Party, said in the part of his speech which I quoted. That is what the Official Languages Act spells out, and that is what Members of Parliament, by an overwhelming majority, supported when the Bill was before Parliament and when it was enacted.
Does that mean that Members of Parliament, whatever Party they come from, agree with everything which the Government has done to implement the Official Languages Act? Of course not, Mr. Speaker. However, I say to the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine that a vast majority of the people of Canada understand the reasons we have adopted and supported this kind of policy. All the polls prove that. I do not have the time today, but when I spoke during the debate on this Bill in 1969, I placed on the record the results of polls which were taken across Canada at that time, and I could do it again if anyone is interested.
I say to the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine that he should realistically look at what is happening in our own city in which the percentage of French-speaking people is relatively small. An increasing number of young people are being urged by their parents to attend French immersion schools. I have a six year old grand-daughter who attends a French immersion school. The complaints in Winnipeg are not that we have too many French immersion classes but, rather, that we do not have enough. I do not think there is one Hon. Member from Winnipeg who can deny that.
Official Languages Act
The Manitoba Government has gone a step further. It has said to the people of Manitoba that where an appreciable number of people who are of neither English-speaking nor French-speaking origin want to have a good part of their children's schooling conducted in another language, they can have it. Therefore, classes in the public school system are conducted not only in English and French, but also speaking from memory, in German, in Polish and in Hebrew, and that program is being extended.
The French immersion program is growing by leaps and bounds every year. The only thing which holds it back from growing even faster than it has is financial constraint. I will deal with that topic in a few moments.
OO)
I want to make it clear that it has never been suggested that every public servant must be bilingual. However, I have received some complaints and have dealt with individual cases where I thought a Department was implementing the policy wrongly. After all, we must recognize that in much of Canada where about 95 per cent of the people speak English, few French-speaking public servants are needed to deal with them in French. Similarly, in many parts of French Canada where there are a small number of English-speaking Canadians, few English-speaking public servants are required to deal with those Canadians in the English language.
While I do not agree with every decision that has been made by various Departments, the basic principle of bilingualism is one that the vast majority of Members of Parliament supported when it was implemented in 1969. I am sure that Hon. Members still support that principle.
The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine quoted certain Government documents which specifically refer to encouraging francophones to come into a certain branch of the Public Service. To understand the real situation we would have to consider individual cases, not just in a few minutes in the House but in a committee where these cases can be studied in depth. The fact of the matter is that the Canadian Public Service has had far fewer francophone public servants in proportion to the number of French Canadians. When I was studying this question in 1969 there was a report which indicated that among the 1,100 senior public servants, just over 10 per cent were francophones. When this is compared to the 30 per cent francophone population, it is evident that we have never been overstaffed with francophone public servants. Despite the fact that this percentage is probably higher today than it was in 1969, I am certain that it is still far from 30 per cent.
I am not suggesting that quotas should be put in place. I am simply saying that when one looks at the issue realistically, the percentage of anglophone public servants at this time is still much higher in proportion to the anglophone population.
I wish to say to the Hon. Member that I can understand the Public Service making a special effort to hire more francophones, and I wish it would make a similar effort to include more natives in the Public Service. In order to accomplish this

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Canada Labour Code
we must change our old concepts about merit. While merit is an important factor when hiring and people should have the education and training that is needed for a particular job opening, if we adhere to the old ideas and very technical requirements of job merit, it will be generations before native people, for example, will enter the Public Service in any kind of appreciable numbers.
I hope the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine will consider this in the days to come: unless we make special efforts to persuade and recruit more native people into the federal and provincial Public Service as well as private sector jobs, they will remain among the poorest, least educated, least healthy, highest unemployed and worst housed in the country.
It is necessary for us to develop new concepts and consider affirmative action in order to deal with this problem. 1 am not opposed to federal Government Departments making special efforts to recruit francophones in areas where there have been very few of them or none at all. While merit is still an important consideration, in order to achieve our collective goal of uniting the country we must face reality and include people in the Public Service from all the groups which make up this country.
I previously indicated that I have occasionally felt a mistake was made in individual cases respecting bilingualism. The hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine, and I am sure many other Members, have heard of individual cases where people have felt they were unfairly treated because of this program, or perhaps some other program. When I have felt a mistake was made, I have taken it up with the Government Department concerned-sometimes successfully and sometimes unsuccessfully.
When we say that we support bilingualism in the Public Service, we are indicating our belief in the principle that the Public Service should be made more accessible and capable of dealing with Canadians in the language of their choice. While this policy specifically concerns English and French, there are many newcomers to this country who speak neither French nor English. It is important that they be able to deal with a Government Department or agency. Therefore, there should be people in the Public Service who speak the languages of our recent immigrants.
In conclusion, let me reiterate what I said in the beginning and what I have tried to say whenever this question has been debated in the House and elsewhere: that I and my Party support the principle of bilingualism which is the cornerstone of the Official Languages Act. We voted for it when it was introduced, as did the majority from every Party, including the Progressive Conservatives at that time. While we still believe that it is the proper policy, it is probably quite true that mistakes have been made. For example, I suggest that the program to train thousands of public servants to speak a second language, which was a major expense and effort, was a failure to a large extent and probably a mistake when it was conceived. Most of those people were unable to learn a second language sufficiently to be able to put it to practical use. A few
of those who did learn the second language use it very infrequently. I believe that the money and effort would have been much better spent in educating young people and promoting a second language at the learning stage. There are ordinary citizens in Holland, Belgium, Norway and Germany who speak up to three and four languages. It is only arrogance on the part of the English-speaking people to believe that everybody else should learn their language while they do not have to learn any other language.
Therefore, we support the idea of bilingualism which is enshrined in the Bill. We support the programs which have encouraged young people and other Canadians to learn a second language. While this Bill is fundamentally good, we believe it should be reviewed. The way bilingualism is being implemented, it should be carefully studied because mistakes have been made and should be corrected. I do not believe that this amendment adds anything to the objectives which we already have.


Mr. Leopold Corriveau (Frontenac):: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to speak to this amendment. After what was said by my colleague, the Member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Dubois), I would like to add a few comments on the Bill to amend the Official Languages Act tabled by the Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie).
The Bill's sponsor probably feels he is making only a few minor changes in the Act, without altering its basic principle.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order please! Pursuant to Standing Order 24(2), it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings.
Shall all items listed under Private Members' Public Bills preceeding No. 357 be allowed to stand by unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


CANADA LABOUR CODE
Mr. Lyle S. Kristiansen (Kootenay West) moved: that Bill C-557, an Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (unjust dismissal), be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration.
He said: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak to Bill C-557 I would like to say at the outset that the principle of the Bill is very simple and can be stated very briefly. It is simply that workers should not be fired for obeying the law. Conversely, what this Bill would do, if implemented, is to prevent an employee from being fired or otherwise disciplined by his employer for refusing to obey a direct order from his employer if he reasonably believed that if he were to follow such an
April 13, 1983

order his action would place him, the employee, in violation of any law or statute.
I think it goes almost without saying that the principle underlying the Bill itself is a reasonable one. It is a principle enshrined with regard to occupational health and safety legislation in many jurisdictions across Canada. It is one in which we have been engaged in discussions with the federal Government over the last three or four years in order to have the principle enshrined more appropriately within Part IV of the Canada Labour Code. This Bill goes much further than attempting to protect the right to health and safety of employees across this country.
That is not the kind of issue that initially gave rise to my particular concern with the need for such legislation. In fact my motivation stemmed from an incident that took place in the Queen Charlotte Islands, B.C. when sixteen loggers were arrested because they were ordered by their employer to cut an area that had been declared off-limits to logging by federal fisheries officials. Many of us felt the order of the federal Government was quite appropriate. It had followed a considerable degree of investigation and there had been considerable disagreement with the provincial Forestry Department in B.C. at that time. Irrespective of whether that initial decision not to log that area was correct, what was done was totally unfair. I and many others in British Columbia and I think across the country who were aware of the incident felt it was totally unfair to arrest and jail 16 employees of a particular logging company because they had followed the very clear and specific orders of their employer. The employer thought he was obeying the law as interpreted by the Government of British Columbia. He realized he was in some disagreement with the federal authority.
In order to allow employees to assist in the enforcement of law, I and a number of others feel it is rather important, not just for the sake of occupational health and safety, not just for health matters in a broader spirit, not just relating to matters of the environment or to matters of fisheries, that we should attempt to enlist the assistance of working people, men and women across the country, in standing up for the laws which we have enacted in our wisdom, in either the federal Parliament, the provincial Parliaments or elsewhere, and in the enactment of a law to protect society as a whole or particular sectors of it. It is unrealistic to expect a working person, particularly in economic times like these which are not so different from situations in certain industries even going back to 1979, to risk his or her livelihood and perhaps even the existence of families. We know what happens to families which go for extended periods in these times without a source of income. It is unfair to expect them to put themselves at risk and put their jobs, their livelihoods at risk, unless there is some protection for them.
The incident at Riley Creek which took place in the early months of 1979 again followed the enactment by Parliament in 1978 of a law to protect fish breeding and spawning rivers. Federal Fisheries officers had to arrest loggers when their
Canada Labour Code
cutting operations threatened Riley Creek, an important salmon ground in the Queen Charlotte Islands. Eight employees were arrested initially and a further eight later. Following long discussion and arguments between federal and provincial Governments, finally a stay of proceedings was instituted, but the lesson was quite clear.
Surely it is preferable in the enforcement of legislation, whether environmental or in dealing with health and safety, to have on the spot enforcement by citizens. If that can be done in a peaceful and legitimate manner it is preferable than having to hire additional large numbers of inspection and enforcement officers from either federal or provincial jurisdictions. In fact, the history of enforcement of many of our laws is a very sad one. We have many, many statutes on the books across Canada, federal and provincial, in which we either did not put enforcement mechanisms into play or, for financial, budgetary or other reasons, do not provide the wherewithal for hiring inspection and enforcement officers or for hiring sufficient numbers of them to attempt to ensure that the laws we have in place are observed. It is not enough to assume, as some idealistic people sometimes do, that because we pass a law it actually changes anything. There are too many motivations which cause people to act in other ways. We are all aware of those.
I have one example and although it comes under provincial jurisdiction, it is not exactly typical, but it is a glaring example of what can happen. In the Province of British Columbia for many years we have had an Act called the Factories Act which was passed in the 1920s or 1930s. In the late 1960s many of us in my corner of B.C. became aware for the first time, that there was such a piece of legislation. We phoned the provincial Department of Labour. We could not find anyone in any Department who said the Bill came within the responsibility of their Ministry or Department. Most people, even in the Department of Labour which was finally found to be responsible, did not even know of its existence. The Factories Act provided for health, working conditions legislation, heat and appropriate light in virtually thousands of industrial installations across the Province.
When the New Democratic Party administration of Dave Barrett was elected in 1972, we found that there were two inspectors, not only to enforce that body of legislation but to carry on the inspection required by law to ensure that any new industrial installation would comply with the laws and regulations as well. When we asked them how they did their job, we were told "telephon book inspections". At that time I asked them what they meant. I asked whether they telephoned the thousands of companies on the list, just the two of them, to see whether they were in compliance with the law. I asked, "Did you just ask them that question?" They said, "No, we did not have time to do that. We just copied the names of the companies out of the telephone book and into our records to show that we had considered them."

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Canada Labour Code
When it came to the working conditions of thousands of British Columbians in industrial installations, that was the kind of enforcement there was of the law which the legislature of that Province in its wisdom had decided to place on the books, presumably with some debate, some decades before.
I am not suggesting that we are sinning quite to that extent. A number of my colleagues and I took tours across Canada related to what we hope are still forthcoming amendments to the Canada Labour Code. We have been told that these amendments were coming since we were first elected in 1980. We visited many parts of the country. For instance, on the waterfront of Saint John, New Brunswick, there were only one or two federal officers presumably available to consider any breaches of health and safety regulations relating to the transport industry and the docks in that entire area. They also had many other duties which took them outside the immediate vicinity of Saint John. If we want some enforcement of the laws on the books, whether it is to protect the environment and, with the increasing exploration, presumably the development of many energy resources in the far North of Canada, surely it is important to have as much self-enforcement by the people working in those industries as possible. There is no way the Government, or almost any Government, could conceivably have enough people present throughout the Arctic or in the Canadian offshore to ensure that either environmental laws or health and safety laws are enforced.
We can all say that working people, like companies, ought to do their jobs, obey the law and do the right thing, even if they put themselves, their incomes or profits at risk. We know that people do not normally do that, so the least we can do is to provide some security of employment for those who, of their own volition, decide that they should stand up and attempt to enforce the laws of the land simply by refusing to pursue tasks which they know or reasonably believe to be in violation of the laws.
I hope Government representatives will seriously consider such legislation; whether or not it is in this exact form, certainly the thrust of it. Also I hope for the support of Hon. Members of the Official Opposition. I would be agreeable to withdrawing the Bill if there were agreement that the subject matter of it be referred to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration. We hope that that Committee will soon have an opportunity to consider the amendments to Parts III, IV and V of the Canada Labour Code, which we have been assured were coming for some years now. At the same time it would be appropriate, as Members from all sides are attempting to draw up a more reasonable definition of the right of employees to refuse to obey an order when their lives are placed in jeopardy, to realize that it is the right of Canadian employees to stand up in good conscience and say that they will not do work which violates the laws of the land as passed by the House of Commons or other legislatures across the country. I think that plea is clear and fair. I hope for the cooperation of Hon. Members opposite on this occasion, but if not at this time, hopefully at some time soon in the future.
Perhaps they would consent to the kind of request I have included in my remarks.
The principle that workers should not be fired for obeying the laws is self-evident. I hope other Hon. Members will see the issue likewise.


Mr. Andre Maltais (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce and Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciated the comments made by the Member opposite concerning the problem of worker safety, in connection with improvements to our labour laws which have now made it possible for workers to work safely without constraints that might engender problems of a physical nature or unfair working conditions, as a result of doing work that infringes, legislation that provides for the worker's right to job security and job safety.
Mr. Speaker, I am particularly pleased to be speaking to this Bill because I represent a riding where 85 per cent of the workers are unionized and employed in the private sector. Baie-Comeau, Port-Cartier, Sept-Iles, Schefferville, Gagnon and Fermont-everywhere I go I meet workers, and I believe I am very aware of the problems raised earlier by the Member opposite. I feel it is absolutely essential to have strong labour relations and just and fair laws that provide maximum safety for workers, because profits, production and a good labour force are also the result of laws that provide for a safe job environment.
On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, the Bill before the House today, Bill C-557, seems a little unclear in parts, because the Canada Labour Code already contains sections that are abundantly clear and already provide, practically word for word, the same elements as Bill C-557. For instance, in Section 184, it says quite clearly . . . But first I would like to quote from Bill C-557, which stipulates the following:
No employer and no person acting on behalf of an employer shall suspend, discharge, or impose any financial or other penalty on an employee, or take any other disciplinary action against an employee, by reason of his refusal to perform an act that he has reasonable cause to believe is prohibited by law.
The Canada Labour Code, Part IV, Industrial Relations, contains the following provisions regarding unfair dismissal and unfair practice, and if you compare both paragraphs, they are very similar. I refer to section 184.3, and I quote:
(3) No employer and no person acting on behalf of an employer shall (c) suspend, discharge or impose any financial or other penalty on an employee, or take any other disciplinary action against an employee, by reason of his refusal to perform all or some of the duties and responsibilities of another employee who is participating in a strike that is not prohibited by this Part;
(0 suspend, discharge or impose any financial or other penalty on a person employed by him, or take any other disciplinary action against such a person, by reason of that person having refused to perform an act prohibited by this Part;
Both these paragraphs deal with the right of an employee to refuse to take part in activities which he thinks may be contrary to the Canada Labour Code, as well as with the rights of employees who take part in a legal strike.
April 13, 1983

For all practical purposes, these provisions provide employees with protection against any disciplinary action an employer might take against them in violation of the Labour Code. This would apply to a strike situation, but it is going even further, for the Canada Labour Code is quite clear in two other sections which resemble closely those which appear in the bill introduced by the Hon. Member.
Mr. Speaker, Part IV of the Canada Labour Code deals with health, safety and protection of employees, and I think these are major items. It is very similar to what the Hon. Member is seeking through his bill. Section 81(1) of the Canada Labour Code states, and I quote:
81.(1) Every person operating or carrying on a federal work, undertaking or business shall do so in a manner that will not endanger the safety or health of any person employed thereupon or in connection therewith.
Then, there is Section 82.1 which states, and I quote:
Where a person employed upon or in connection with the operation of any federal work, undertaking or business has reasonable cause to believe that
(a)	the use or operation of a machine, device or thing would constitute an
imminent danger to the safety or health of himself or another employee, or
(b)	a condition exists in any place that would constitute an imminent danger to
his own safety or health,
that person may refuse to use or operate the machine, device or thing or to work in the place.
Mr. Speaker, I feel that we are really coming to the heart of the matter which the hon. member has raised, because the Canada Labour Code is clearly protecting employees both in strike and health or safety situations, when it states that an employee may refuse to use or operate a machine, device or thing or to work in the place.
Earlier, the Hon. Member gave an example of an incident he had witnessed in his riding, something to do with a forest worker who had experienced a problem because there were some factors which-it would seem, in light of the Hon. Member's remarks-did put his health or safety in jeopardy. I am surprised that anything like that might have occurred because the fact is that the Canada Labour Code is very clear about workers' rights. In that respect, I suggest that a reference to the sections I have just read would be ample proof.
And that is not all. It is clearly stated that, judging from the quotations given and related to Parts III, IV and V of the Canada Labour Code, any employee who is wronged, whether or not he belongs to a union and is protected by a collective agreement, has the option to launch an appeal in the case of unwarranted dismissal resulting from an order which itself calls for a violation of the Code. As to other laws, the Criminal Code also provides appeal opportunities for any employee forced to break the law by his employer.
In short, the Bill recommends close supervision of the application of the Canada Labour Code provisions relating to security and safety in the work place. Yet, I do not see what Bill C-557 adds at this time, because if you look at chapters 3, 4 and 5 of the Code, those aspects are very well defined. On the other hand, the Member raised a point about inspectors which is worth paying attention to. In my region for example, in my constituency of Manicouagan which I visit quite regularly, I meet a lot of union members. As I mentioned previously,
Canada Labour Code
85 percent of all workers in that area are union members. It is important to go and check whether the assessment of their work place or their working conditions by workers is well founded or true to reality. One often has to turn to the inspector, but according to all current collective agreements, if the worker is a member of a union, he can file a grievance. This is the usual method used by unions in order to correct problems relating to the application of collective agreements since current agreements cover quite obviously all the specific issues raised by the Hon. Member.
That explains why I have difficulty in seeing the advantages of the Bill proposed by the Member. We may be able later on to discuss it during the question and answer period, but on the basis of the earlier presentation by the Member, I have difficulty in seeing anything that is not already in the Canada Labour Code.
As far as inspectors are concerned, I believe that each company, each union and each employee should know the various possible recourses in cases of abuse where an employer or a foreman assigns a worker to operations in an environment that seems unsafe, and the same goes with respect to equipment or work site. But with reference to the Bill introduced by the Hon. Member, after I have read the proposal, it is my view that additions could hardly be made. I have here in my hand this Bill in which it is provided, and I quote:
The Canada Labour Code is amended by adding, immediately after section 184 thereof, the following section:
184.1 No employer and no person acting on behalf of an employer shall suspend, discharge, or impose any financial or other penalty on an employee, or take any other disciplinary action against an employee, by reason of his refusal to perform an act that he has reasonable cause to believe is prohibited by law.
Madam Speaker, this is exactly what is said in the Canadian Labour Code. And this would call for further clarification. If the aim is to protect the worker, such protection is afforded by collective bargaining. He is also protected by the Canadian Labour Code so clearly the worker is amply protected in that area.
But what I find amazing in the Hon. Member's proposal is that in my own constituency, I never had any workers coming to me and complaining that they were not adequately protected. If ever there was a lact of protection, it could have been at the Iron Ore Company where everyone was laid off, but then that is another kind of protection. It may be a matter for discussion with the next leader of the Progressive Conservative Party. The protection workers are now looking for is job security in my view, not the addition of new sections to the Canadian Labour Code. At any rate, I would like to discuss the matter with the Hon. Member, because when I read his Bill, there is something I find hard to grasp, because it seems to me that these are aspects that are already provided for in the Canadian Labour Code.
The other point that it would perhaps be interesting to raise at this time, Mr. Speaker, is how the Departments inspect the various worksites. I believe that it would be possible to improve the inspection mechanism. However, inspectors go out to the

April 13, 1983
Canada Labour Code
worksites to see what is going on quite regularly and there are therefore direct and regular contacts between the unions and the provincial and federal Labour Departments to determine what improvements could be made on either side. As far as I know, most often, management attends these meetings to see what can be done to improve the welfare of its workers. This occurs on a normal and regular basis in all businesses, whether big or medium-size. Even in the case of smaller businesses, provincial regulations provide normal and well-protected conditions for the workers.
Of course, Mr. Speaker, abuses are always possible. It is quite obvious that every eventuality cannot be foreseen. Two years ago, for instance, an underground gallery of the Noranda mine in the Abitibi region caved in and it was left up to the court to determine who was responsible, but the inspections had been carried out normally and the union inspectors had done their job. However, there can be unforeseen circumstances or cases of negligence. This cannot be denied. No statute can provide for every situation and it would certainly be unrealistic to think that every case can be foreseen and provided for in detail in the Canada Labour Code. This is quite unthinkable. However, to improve the situation, there is nothing to prevent the Hon. Member from making representations to the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration, perhaps to have additional regulations established. This would be a good thing. On this side of the House, we would be quite willing to consider new elements which could truly apply to the Canada Labour Code. However, I believe that a Bill designed to integrate the proposals of the Hon. Member into the Canada Labour Code would add nothing useful for the moment.
Perhaps it would be more interesting for a Standing Committee of the House to consider what can be done as regards regulations because in the Canada Labour Code itself the parameters are well delineated. It would be useless to amend the Code without providing further protection, because that is important. It is not enough to amend the Labour Code. We should really try to provide the worker with better protection.
If we look at the Canada Labour Code, as I said earlier, we will note that already there are provisions stating that an employee may refuse to perform work that he believes to be unlawful and the legislation sets forth certain procedures which must be followed. It would perhaps be advisable to give a few examples. There is the case of an employee who refuses to do some work because he believes it is prejudicial to his health. This is in a way the issue raised by the Hon. Member a short while ago. Now any employee who follows the correct procedure but who is fired by his employer for having exercised his right to refuse to work may lodge an appeal with the Canada Labour Relations Board. There definitely exists an appeal procedure, representative of the working world, the main task of which is to judge and interpret these circumstances. Naturally, if the employee has not followed the rules, the Canada Labour Relations Board will be unable to hear his claim; he could, however, refer to the provisions concerning
unjust dismissal contained in Part III of the Canadian Labour Code, under Division V.7.
I would also like, Mr. Speaker, to remind the House that the amendments to the Labour Code that were passed on September 1, 1978, allow an employee who believes he has been unjustly dismissed to bring an appeal if his employer is subject to the Code. Except, of course, that the employee has to prove that there was imminent danger. If I interpret correctly the provisions of Bill C-557, the question of impending danger is there, and if not, perhaps the Member could rectify later. I take it for granted that the Member wishes with his Bill to focus on the health and security aspects in the work place itself as well as on the methods or the equipment used.
That piece of legislation provided for security of employment for a larger number of people since it gave non-union employees unjustly dismissed the opportunity to get their job back, whereas before only union members could do that through collective bargaining. Indeed, when an employee is dismissed because he refused to work when he felt that his health was placed in jeopardy or something else, he can apply to the Canada Labour Relations Board, and if his grievance is really well-founded, then the Board is empowered to reinstate in his job the employee found unjustly dismissed. I believe that shows very clearly that there is some security of employment, and that responsibilities must be established by a third party which is neutral with regard to the case in dispute.
So on that point, Mr. Speaker, I think there is already some protection for the employee. There is no doubt that the sponsor of Bill C-557 is convinced that with these amendments employees will be even more able to refuse to do work they believe to be in violation of the law. I am sure no Member of this House, whatever his or her political affiliation, would be against legislation aimed at improving the situation. I suggest all of us want to improve labour conditions, to insure that people who work in a given sector can enjoy as much security as is possible. However, the bill being considered does not contain anything new, as I was saying, and that is where my problem is. That is where lies the difficulty we see, on this side of the House. Really, this bill does not bring forward anything new, whether we consider it from the point of view of law or from the point of view of security at work. That is my problem. As we have seen, under Parts III, IV and V of the Canada Labour Code that were quoted earlier, an employee, even if he is not a member of a union and is not protected by a collective agreement, has many possibilities under the Canada Labour Code to seek redress when he feels he has been unjustly fired after having been ordered to commit an act which would constitute a violation to the Canada Labour Code.
So, Mr. Speaker, I would like to emphasize this: the worker remains free to judge by himself of the security offered either by the company he works for, by the machinery or by the work place, and he remains free to refuse to work. Then, if he is fired for having done so, he submits his case to the Canada Labour Board. The case is reviewed by a third party and justice is done according to an assessment. I believe this
April 13, 1983

process does respect individual freedom and insure that justice is done.
For all these reasons, Mr. Speaker, and 1 will come to the point since my time is expired, 1 believe that at this stage, the reasons put forward by the Hon. Member are not sufficient ground and it would be difficult for me or for Members on this side of the House to bring our support to this bill. However, we would be most happy, Mr. Speaker, to receive advice pertaining to eventual amendments which would bring about something new. But for the time being, I suggest this bill does not propose anything new and would not provide more security for the worker.


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the Hon. Member has time left and would accept a question.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: I should inform the Hon. Member for Kootenay West (Mr. Kristiansen) that the previous speaker's time has expired. However, a question could be allowed by unanimous consent. Is there unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Lyle Stuart Kristiansen: Mr. Speaker, it struck me that the Hon. Member misunderstood the intent of the Bill. I would ask him to read Clause 184.1 again and see whether he would not agree that the intent is to protect broadly the right of an employee to refuse to commit an act that touched on matters outside his or her personal security, and is not meant to have the narrower intent whether a strike is in process or his own life or safety or that of other employees may be affected.
Would the Hon. Member not agree that the purpose of the Bill is to allow an employee, by refusing, to enforce other laws, for instance, affecting the security of the fishing industry or other elements of the population or hazards as a result of transportation regulations or environmental regulations such as the disposition of mine tailings or air and water pollutants? There are other actions which cannot be covered specifically in the law. Would the Hon. Member not agree that there is an argument to be made for legislation that would allow employees to enforce that other body of law, rather than society having to hire an army of inspectors to enforce each and every item?
[ Translation]


André Maltais: Mr. Speaker, first of all, 1 want to congratulate the Hon. Member for his dedication to the well-being of the workers. His concern is most legitimate and commendable, but I would like to remind him that fishermen are normally considered self-employed because they frequently own their boat and they carry personal insurance. If they are members of a fishing crew, they are covered by group insurance. Here is an example that the House may find amusing. A large part of the coast of Manicouagan is inhabited by fishermen. You know very well, Mr. Speaker, the conditions these people have to live in. If you go to sea and there is a storm, there is nothing to protect you because you are 10, 20 or 200 miles away in waters
Canada Labour Code
now under Canadian jurisdiction, and anything can happen. Fishermen on a ship owned by a company are frequently covered by group insurance. The ship is insured. But the captain must try to bring the ship back to port as fast as possible for protection. It is not through legislation that we are going to prevent storms.
There is also a second element. We were talking about fishermen and I think it is a good example. A clear difference must be made between the self-employed fisherman and the fisherman working for a company. Let us speak about personal and collective insurance. Fishermen are now covered by collective agreements and, in certain cases, by the Canada Labour Code, just like people working on a farm, in a pulp and paper mill, in a processing plant or a factory.
Therefore, I concur with the Hon. Member about the need for protection in some areas. There are certainly cases that have been overlooked and which must be reorganized, but when we speak of air quality and pretend that it is necessary to make sure that these people are not in danger, maybe we should apply the provisions of the Canadian Labour Code to fishermen working on a lake contaminated by acid rains. For example, in case of rain, everybody would have to go home because there is imminent danger. Therefore, it would be necessary to decide what that is and I think that many factors would have to be taken into consideration. So, I assume that the concern of the Hon. Member is sincere, but as far as the application is concerned, it is not legislation at this stage which will permit to improve things, but that would probably merit further attention. I gave examples, Mr. Speaker, which may seem extreme to some Hon. Members, but if we were only a little bit closer to fishermen, we would see that my examples for the fishing industry are real. Earlier, the Hon. Member mentioned healthy working conditions. I find it difficult to include this in legislation.


Mr. Robert Bockstael (St. Boniface):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-557, an Act to amend the Canada Labour Code. This is a Private Member's Bill put forth by the Hon. Member for Kootenay West (Mr. Kristiansen), and it had its first reading on May 2, 1980. This Bill would not, I am convinced, provide any additional protection for workers other than that which already exists under Parts III, IV and V of the Canada Labour Code and the Criminal Code of Canada.
The underlying principle of the existing provisions of the Canada Labour Code is that "Termination of employment should not take place unless there is a valid reason for such termination connected with the capacity or conduct of the worker or based on the operational requirements of the undertaking, establishment or service." The amendments made in 1978 to the Canada Labour Code which effectively protect workers from unjust dismissals, were a result of a struggle and

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reaction against the authoritarianism of employers of a past age.
It is interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that these amendments afford aggrieved workers safeguards against dismissal which fall in line with procedures for enabling workers to contest arbitrary dismissal, either by law or in voluntary collective agreements which exist in Belgium, France, The Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Canada, together with other western industrialized nations, recognizes that the concept of giving workers a greater sense of security is an important step to improving industrial relations. Dismissal is no longer considered solely a matter for decision by the employer. I believe it is true to say, Mr. Speaker, that most people in industry today recognize that workers need to have proper safeguards against unjust dismissal. Great strides have been made in recent years in strengthening workers' rights and status in their employment. Employers and the labour movement alike realize that fair and sensible procedures, clearly established and understood by workers and management at all levels, can do much to improve industrial relations by preventing grievances and disputes over dismissals. The provisions existing in the Canada Labour Code allow workers who feel they have been unjustly dismissed to have ample recourse to contest the action.
The Bill presently before this House, Mr. Speaker, I would respectfully suggest, does not add in any way additional protection for workers who have been unjustly dismissed. Neither does the proposed amendment promote an increased sense of security for employees. 1 would direct your attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that worker discipline may take many forms. However, it generally falls into three categories. There are warnings, suspensions and dismissals. Although Part III of the Canada Labour Code is concerned only with dismissals, it should be recognized that they may be preceded by some form of progressive disciplinary action, which includes at least two written warnings, followed by suspension, which in turn is followed by dismissal. The degree of progressive discipline usually relates to the severity of the misconduct by the employee, that is, outright dismissal may occur if the misconduct is extremely serious.
In any disciplinary situation there may be mitigating factors. When an employer decides to dismiss an employee he should thoroughly investigate the matter to ensure that all mitigating factors have been carefully considered. This is not
only good business practice, it is simply common sense. Arbitration decisions have resulted in a list of factors which ought to be taken into consideration when faced with this issue.
Further, I believe that it is important that employees be made fully aware of the standards of conduct to which they are expected to adhere. The rules should be readily available, and the employer should take all possible steps to make sure employees know and understand them. It is the employer's burden to prove that dismissal was warranted. However, it is important to remember that both management and employees have specific responsibilities. Based on past performance, it is reasonable to assume that adjudicators dealing with appeals against dismissal will objectively judge each case on its own merits and decide whether the employer had just cause to dismiss the employee.
In light of the forgoing, Mr. Speaker, I would respectfully suggest that provisions now existing in the Canada Labour Code are designed to give employees ample recourse to redress a dismissal they judge to be wrongful, and further, that Bill C-557 should not succeed.


Jean-Guy Dubois: Mr. Speaker, they agree that I be given the floor. My colleague from Manicoua-gan (Mr. Maltais) was talking about fisheries and mines. My colleague from Richmond (Mr. Tardif) could also tell me all about mines.
Mr. Speaker, as to the situation addressed in Bill C-557, I think that if we consider clause 1 of the Bill and refer to Part IV, Industrial Relations, of the Canada Labour Code, we realize that the the Labour Code already provides for part of what the Hon. Member wants to do through this Bill. I shall not quote again the clause of the Bill, but I could read the section of the Canada Labour Code. As we can see, the Hon. Member states in his provision that one must refuse to perform an act that one has reasonable cause to believe is prohibited by law. Such a provision obviously covers a very wide range of situations and could cause problems. The fact is that if we consider the Labour Code-I see that I have the floor but the Sergeant-at-Arms will probably make me cut my remarks short-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Corbin):: Order, please. It being six o'clock p.m., the House stands adjourned until eleven o'clock tomorrow morning, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 2(1).
At 6 p.m., the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Thursday, April 14, 1983