1984-01-30

GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Mr. Deans:: Mr. Speaker, unfortunately the Hon. Member for Oshawa (Mr. Broadbent) is not able to be here this morning. I request that the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell) be allowed to move the motion in his name.


Mr. Pinard:: Agreed.


Mr. Nielsen:: We do not believe that any such request is necessary. The Hon. Member can rise and move the motion in the absence of the Hon. Member for Oshawa. While we do not refuse consent, for the record we do not consent because we do not think it is necessary.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair would like to proceed this way today but has made a note of the remarks of the Hon. Member for Yukon and would prefer to discuss the matter privately with the House Leaders to see if another arrangement could be arrived at for future occasions.


Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East) moved:: That this House endorse a program to be incorporated into the forthcoming budget that will:
1.	provide for employee consultation in the introduction of technological change;
2.	provide flexible work arrangements to minimize job losses;
3.	ease the impact on the employees affected by technological change by having the corporate sector pay a fairer-share of the costs through longer prenotification periods and improved severance pay;
4.	expand the necessary retraining programs; and
5.	encourage technological changes that promote new products, industries and jobs.
[DOT]	(1110)
She said: I welcome the opportunity to move the Opposition motion which you have just read, Mr. Speaker. I also welcome the opportunity to be the first speaker for the NDP on the very important subject of technological change in Canada. The impact of the micro-electronic revolution already is upon us. The future holds many exciting challenges. It also creates many fears for Canadians who face job displacement and
unemployment unless major government planning is undertaken now in co-operation with all sectors of our economy to make high technology work for people and for our society as a whole.
Recently our Leader introduced a paper called "NDP Program for a Fair Recovery" which proposes a number of initiatives which are essential if we are to make the high technology revolution work for people as well as to increase Canadian productivity in world markets.
Before dealing with this proposal, 1 want to review the human side of technological change. The examples I give are not new but are repeated from studies and case situations which have been presented recently to an NDP task force on technological change which is currently touring in my Province of British Columbia. Let us take shopping centres for example. The next time you go to a shopping centre, Mr. Speaker, look at the automated cash registers which soon will replace most clerks, warehouse workers and office services in the local supermarket. Customers soon will put their goods over an electronic plate which returns change and bills. Security staff will replace clerks, accountants and most workers who are now employed. Of course, they will join the ranks of the hidden unemployed.
We have heard a lot about offices of the future which will displace secretaries, paperwork and even middle management personnel. Our new toy here on the Hill, word processors, will soon be obsolete. Each manager will control his or her own desk computer. The British Columbia task force was told that 86 telephone operators are due for layoff in the Terrace region because of automation. This has already taken place in several other nearby areas. A pulp mill near Prince George which is being automated will be run by only 12 technicians with a dramatic layoff of workers. In a report called "The Future of Micro Electronics" Barrow and Curner stated that the following workers will be displaced by the micro-electronic revolution: postal workers, typists, retail clerks, stock clerks, cashiers, telephone operators, draft persons and accountants. Robots will replace warehouse workers. Data preparation staff and computer operators soon will be obsolete, as will junior and middle managers. Electric plates will replace library assistants. Proofreaders, compositors, meter readers and telephone repair people will be redundant.
Researcher Jane Stintson of the Canadian Union of Public Employees stated that within 25 years 50 per cent of today's jobs will no longer exist. The President of General Motors estimates that 90 per cent of that corporation's new equipment will be computer controlled by 1988. By 1985, female unemployment could reach as high as 26 per cent overall. By 1990 it is estimated that nearly one million more women will be unemployed due to advances in clerical areas of work. British

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sources predict that a reduction of one-third of all clerical jobs is imminent. Even the Liberal Government forecasts, in a Cabinet document called "The Rocky Road to 1990", grim results. This document which was put out in July, 1983 forecasts accelerated job losses in traditional job sectors, such as the automobile industry and farm machinery. As new technology is generated the report stresses the need for a highly skilled and flexible labour force. Of course, we know that most of our skilled labourers are traditionally imported. It states that many jobs lost in the recession will never be recovered. Overall up to half the jobs in manufacturing will be lost, and up to one quarter of the jobs in business and financial services. This is the federal Government's report, Mr. Speaker.
The report concludes that at least two million jobs must be added over the next eight years to keep unemployment at reasonable levels-and they call reasonable around 10 per cent, which we do not accept. To accommodate a growing labour force and increasing numbers of young people, we estimate that twice this many new jobs should be created.
For those who remain employed in high-tech industries there are fears as to who will direct, plan and control their lives and who will reap the profits. Technology is not neutral. It is often characterized by fast, short-term gains, central control systems, lack of confidentiality and personal rights. There is usually very little planning for people. The magic word productivity is the goal. However, we must ask productivity for whom? This analysis does not mean that the NDP is adopting a Luddite approach. We do not intend to smash the machines that threaten people. Change is here, and we all know that much more change is imminent. Much of it is exciting for those who are included and involved in the process. We welcome technological advances provided the goal of those advances is to promote the welfare of our society as a whole and that productivity gains are shared by all Canadians.
We do not want to develop a high-tech elite who are the new aristocracy of Canada while millions of our citizens remain unemployed. Those on unemployment insurance and welfare who have little consumer money for consumer goods will cause small businesses to fail through lack of customers.
For several years Heather Menzies and other researchers have warned that traditional women's jobs will be the First to go. The examples of redundant jobs, which I summarized earlier, primarily are jobs in the service and clerical sector where women are concentrated. As men and industry are displaced by robots, they will also be competing for fewer and fewer jobs. Yet studies show that women who in increasing numbers are the sole supporters of their families will remain in the labour force. We are not going to disappear, as we did after the Second World War.
I would like to quote from the magazine called "The Facts" put out by the Canadian Union of Public Employees. It states:
The lack of growth and job loss will have a disproportionate effect on women in Canada. Women are expected to bear the brunt of the micro-electronic revolution because their employment is concentrated in the service sector.
Almost 80 per cent of working women are concentrated in only five of 22 major occupational classifications: clerical, service, sales, medicine and health and teaching. What is more, the participation of women in the labour force is expected to continue to increase as it did through the 1970s.
A study prepared for the Department of Finance in 1980 suggested a 40 per cent increase in the female labour force by 1990, an additional 1.8 million women will be looking for work and have the right to work. Meanwhile the service sector in which traditionally women have been finding jobs is contracting.
We know many women are being replaced and forced into part-time jobs as a result both of the recession and the technological revolution. Part-time workers are not unionized, receive low rates of pay and have no benefits. I have argued repeatedly in this House that government action must be undertaken immediately to provide pro-rated benefits, better unemployment insurance coverage for part-time workers, and the rights of these workers, 70 per cent of whom are women, to organize.
The Conservative Leader sees technology as a boon to women and says that the microchip opens up a brand-new opportunity for millions of women. He has said: "Thanks to the chip, women as a group will have the opportunity to break out of low-paying work ghettos". It is time he got his head out of the boardroom and learned about real life where women are the main victims of technological change.
Another concern of women is the trend toward high-tech cottage industries where once again they will be isolated in the home with no union protection or rights. An executive said recently that this would solve daycare problems. Some solution! How would you like to work in the home Mr. Speaker, watching the kids, cooking supper, cleaning house and running a home computer for a firm which cares little whether you are sick or well or whether you need an adequate pay cheque to feed your family? Canadian women must not tolerate this kind of exploitation once again. I am glad women's groups across the country are having workshops and conferences and demanding that this not happen. This is why unionization is so important in Canada.
There are concerns that Canada will follow the California model to prevent unionization of workers in high-tech industries. The Dynatek venture in British Columbia which receives federal fundings should be developed as a model for both industrial productivity and fairness to workers. This means there must be co-operative planning involving labour, management and government and the basic right to collective bargaining must be respected.
In the NDP report entitled "Program for a Fair Recovery: The Challenge of Technological Change", we point out that the economic recovery has not meant a recovery of jobs for many laid-off workers who are displaced permanently by new technologies. Many high-skilled workers are redundant and lucky if they can find a low-paying service sector or part-time job. If we do not retain workers and redistribute the gains of automation, rising destitution and poverty will become a permanent result of economic recovery and so-called "increased productivity"-productivity for the few. The workers laid off
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permanently from offices or pulp mills have little about which to rejoice unless some changes are made.
Our proposal is to embark upon a planning process in each sector of the economy which will find ways to manage the introduction of new technologies so that workers are protected, the gains of automation are shared and the needs of people are a top priority.
This means that the federal Government must set the example through changes to the Canada Labour Code. We cannot afford to throw away valuable human resources and the talents of the people represented in the 1.5 million unemployed in favour of corporate profits and high technology which benefits only a few. We must introduce ways of alleviating the impact of high-tech change on workers. We must also develop alternate areas of meaningful and useful work to use the talents of our people, since there will never be enough jobs for everyone in the high-tech field.
Our Leader has proposed several initiatives which will help to alleviate the impact upon workers and create an additional and new area of high-tech jobs. Very briefly, they are as follows. First, employers must provide for employee consultation in the introduction of technological change. In federal jurisdictions, this right to consultation should be built into the Canada Labour Code with a review process by an independent board when major changes are proposed.
Second, we should encourage flexible work arrangements to minimize job losses and maintain adequate incomes. For example, shorter hours of work, more flexible retirement options, flexible work arrangements for shared parenting, sabbatical and educational leave and longer holidays. In many countries in Europe, five weeks is now the average.
Third, the corporate sector must pay a fair share of the costs of technological change through longer pre-notification periods and improved severance pay. We believe that six months to one year of notice should be required under the Canada Labour Code when there will be a major technological change and displacement of workers. As I said earlier, we favour prorated benefits for part-time workers.
Canada must establish a deliberate strategy to develop micro-technology in ways that will create new jobs. We propose that 2 per cent of the GNP go to research and development to bring us into line with other countries. Much of this should be targeted to the development of high-tech in new products and new industries, thus creating new jobs.
A micro-electronic investment fund should be established to act as an industrial development tool for private, public and co-operative ventures. It should provide aid to small businesses which are willing to go into economically disadvantaged areas.
The domestic market for Canadian products should be exploited. When I visited workers' co-ops in Mondragon, Spain, I was interested to see that the co-ops were building classroom computers to be shipped to Canada. We should be doing this at home. Most important, we must have a strong
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affirmative action program and policy which is more essential than ever to ensure that women have equal access to all jobs that are created.
I would like to make an additional point which 1 call alternate areas of work in human services and communities. I would add a further area of job development which I believe is essential to compensate for the dehumanizing effects of the high-tech world as well as to meet essential human needs. There are many alternate areas of work. As we find with our Canada Works proposals, there are all kinds of ideas for jobs that are needed in communities. Jobs in child care and with the elderly, to name just two. These should be expanded with government assistance, not cut back as at present.
The Canadian Council on Social Development says that many more workers are needed in non-profit organizations. Why put people on welfare and unemployment insurance when they are needed to help each other? The Vanier Institute has studied work options in the informal economy which are very interesting. Workers' co-operatives should be expanded in Canada as a means of creating new and interesting jobs.
It is essential that Canada not sacrifice the rights and livelihood of its workers as we embrace a new age. We must protect our present workers while opening up new opportunities for the unemployed. Our goal must be full employment which provides meaningful work for all potential workers in Canada. Young people must have a future. Women must have equal opportunities. We believe it is possible to achieve this goal in Canada.


Mr. Blenkarn:: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Hon. Member. She indicated that perhaps the Hon. Member for Central Nova (Mr. Mulroney) was wrong, that perhaps because of the improvement of the chip women would be out of work and would be hurt. As she pointed out, the Hon. Member for Central Nova indicated that this is a revolution that will help women, one that will give them more meaningful and highly paid jobs.
Has that not been the experience with every other technological change? The Hon. Member spoke of Spain. When I was in Portugal, I saw rows of women with hoes working the land. It was almost a slave-gang type mentality. Across the street from my farm, a woman just jumps on a large tractor and plows acres and acres in a day. Is that not the experience with every form of technological change that we have had? People have better paying jobs. Jobs are easier. The drudgery has been taken away. They no longer pound away at a manual typewriter in offices; they went to the electric typewriter and now the computer. Does that not produce better wages and a better standard of living? Surely we cannot believe that our standard of living will stay frozen in stone and that jobs and opportunities will not expand as they have in the past.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I believe the facts would not bear out the wishful thinking of the Hon. Member. One would hope that women will have an equal opportunity to be in the

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interesting jobs in the high-tech field. However, experience to date has shown, even in our Public Service, that women do not have equal opportunity for advancement. While I believe research shows that in the initial stages of change there is sometimes an increase in jobs as new systems are being brought in, there is also a de-skilling element which occurs. There is a high percentage of women in clerical and office kinds of jobs where this happens and their jobs become more routine. 1 would hope that the woman on the tractor mentioned by the Hon. Member would be paid an adequate wage.
Of course, we want women to have equal opportunities in the field of high technology, but the facts are that there will not be enough jobs to go around. The fact is that women traditionally have not had equal opportunities for the good jobs. They also are not adequately paid for what they do. I would urge the Hon. Member to look at this element realistically, and at the studies which are readily available in this field showing the very sad impact of technology on women.


Mr. Jarvis:: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell). It is difficult for me to understand the motion of the New Democratic Party in part, at least. The Hon. Member urges the Government to incorporate five different programs into the Budget, the first of which is to provide for employee consultation with regard to technological change. The second proposed budgetary measure is to provide flexible work arrangements to minimize job losses. The third proposed budgetary measure is to ease the impact on the employees affected by technological change by having the corporate sector pay a fairer share of the costs through longer pre-notification periods and improved severance pay.
It is very hard for me to understand this motion coming from the New Democratic Party. I agree that the primary responsibility is the negotiations between employer and employee resulting in a mutually satisfactory collective agreement. The Hon. Member is urging upon the House, and upon the Government, that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) in some form or other should address those three problems in his Budget. I simply ask the Hon. Member, whose Party shares the concern of all Hon. Members, where we are in effect, for example, in back-to-work legislation, writing a contract on the floor of the House which I believe all of us deplore doing. The Hon. Member is now urging, in effect, that compulsory measures be put into a Budget. I do not know how you can do that. I can understand Labour Code amendments and, I might say, I agree with the need for clarification of the definition of "technological change". However, what the Hon. Member is asking is to relieve the employer and employee of the basic responsibility to arrive at a mutually satisfactory collective agreement which, in my view, is certainly diametrically opposed to where I believe the primary responsibility should lie. It is not the responsibility of the Government to interfere with the collective process, but to clearly place the responsibility on the two parties who have always had that historic responsibility and who, indeed, should continue to have it with less government compulsory legislation, not more.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member raises an important point as far as collective bargaining is concerned which, of course, is the role of the employers and employees. However, in this case the Government is the employer. We are talking about jobs in the federal jurisdiction and changes to the Labour Code which would create precedents in this whole area and establish a model which companies can follow. There are other examples of where we have had government intervention in this whole field.
1 have mentioned the need for increased research and development funds. We also feel that in the planning process for each sector government, labour and industry must be involved in planning committees. There must also be appeal committees related to some of the working conditions about which we are concerned.
I mentioned the federal responsibility for establishing unemployment insurance coverage for part-time workers. There are many ways that the federal Government can set the stage to establish these principles and facilitate a progressive human kind of development in the whole field of the micro-electronic revolution.


William Herbert Jarvis: Mr. Speaker, just as long as 1 clearly understand the position of the New Democratic Party, is it that Party's position, as enunciated in this motion, that government legislation will provide for a compulsory consultative process with regard to the introduction of technological change and a compulsory flexible work arrangement to minimize job losses? How you do that in the Budget, I have no idea. I do not feel it is possible. But is it the New Democratic Party's position that the Government should legislate compulsory legislation in those two areas rather than let the employer and employee within the federal jurisdiction resolve that by collective bargaining?


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, I thought I had already clarified that point. We are talking about the federal jurisdiction and Public Service area of employee-employer relationships. We are also talking about national standards which fall within the jurisdiction of the federal Government to establish. I have already mentioned those. We could talk about minimum wages as well. I mentioned the whole question of unemployment insurance regulations. However, 1 am certainly repeating what we said in the motion.


Mr. Greenaway:: Mr. Speaker, I was wondering if the Hon. Member could fill me in a little on her idea that we should be advocating and moving toward a five-week paid holiday. Has the Hon. Member undertaken any studies or has she seen any studies on that? How can we afford to do that in this country when we are looking at such tough competition with other countries in the world? I personally do not believe that small business can stand that kind of expense. In the business I ran 1 certainly would have had a tough time trying to afford five-weeks' paid holiday for my staff.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, here again I feel we have to look at what other countries are doing. In Australia, for
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example, I have nursing friends who have sabbatical leave, I believe every two or three years, which in that field makes great sense. We are talking about a goal here. It has been achieved in some countries. Having been married to a small business person, I know that there are difficulties in that area. However, at the same time the only alternative for many workers is to be on unemployment insurance to which we are contributing as well. Therefore, l believe what we are talking about is a more sensible kind of planning and distribution of work, including sabbaticals, retraining programs and earlier, more flexible pensions.
I would like to mention that our own federal Armed Forces in Canada receive pensions after 25 years of work. Why should this not be the goal we are aiming at for all Canadians? Make it flexible so that people can use their potential. As they become older and their families are reared, they can do some exciting things with their lives and still have an adequate income. We are going to pay for it one way or another. We are paying for it in unemployment insurance and in the loss of human resources. We want to be productive and positive.


Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, in commenting on that last response of the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell), I just want to say that it is a pity she was not a member of the parliamentary task force on pension reform so that she could have learned some of the realities of life. If she believes that everyone in the country can suddenly begin to receive a public pension after 25 years of work, she has at least the responsibility to answer where the money would come from to fund such a program.
This debate comes at an opportune time, Mr. Speaker. In a few short weeks the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) will bring down his Budget and with it we hope he will unveil the economic strategy for our immediate future. Be that the future of the coming months or the coming decade, high technology is going to play an increasingly important role. It is very timely, therefore, that the Government address this issue-timely and long overdue. Indeed, this whole debate is long overdue. It is well past time that the Government recognize and respond to an issue which is not simply important to the well-being of our country, but absolutely vital to the future of the country.
I deplore the fact that we always have to wait for Opposition Days for this issue to be raised. The Hon. Member for Vancouver East has raised it on behalf of the New Democratic Party today. Members on this side of the House have raised it time and time again over the last number of years but that is the only time it is raised. That has been the response of the Government to the whole issue of technological change from the beginning. Let someone else do something about it has been its response. Let someone else forge the way ahead; let someone else make the commitment of brains, money and national will; then the Government will come along after all is done.
That might be an adequate response to other issues and problems but with high technology it can only promise failure.
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In the high-tech era, to be second place is to be no place. To be "Johnny come lately" is to be "Johnny come never". Report after report and expert after expert have warned us that if we do not become a nation committed to technological innovation and leadership now, we will be left behind forever in the technological race. That is not a Doomsday saying; that is just plain common sense.
If our scientists and engineers cannot find work in this country because we are not prepared to invest in our own high-tech priorities and industries, they will quickly go where the work is. If we do not have our own industries creating competitive hardware and software, we will become dependent upon systems and supplies created and built elsewhere which may not be compatible with the Canadian experience. The branch plant mentality will be even further enforced. We will see more research and development being performed elsewhere and with it more and more jobs lost that could have been ours. This is not speculation, it is fact. We have known of the problems and challenges of high technology long enough.
A report from the Science Council of Canada has the following to say:
The development of a national policy with appropriate industrial strategies, for the production of computer hardware and software, the training and certification of men and women capable of working with the new technology, and the provision of adequate standards and safeguards for insuring that this industry serves our national interests.
That was not written or produced by the Science Council of Canada last year, nor the year before, nor the year before that; that was written, published and produced by the Science Council of Canada in 1973, over a decade ago. Yet today we still have no sign of a national policy. Our inadequacy and our unpreparedness confront us on every side. In fact, the Government compounds the failure to do anything about this issue.
Last Friday in the House we debated Bill C-12 whereby the Government is going to cut out $380 million of funding that otherwise would have gone to post-secondary education. That at a time when enrolment in universities and community colleges is escalating by 5 per cent annually; that at a time when more and more students are looking for the very training that is needed in high technology in order to be able to meet the demands of the Canada of the future; that at a time when our whole future is being imperilled by a niggardly Government that cuts back in the one area it should be supporting- training and education in high technology fields and training and education in computer technology, engineering, science and arts faculties.
The Government is trying to have it both ways, Mr. Speaker. It says that we really have to move into the future, and at the same time it is hamstringing those who would do something about it. The Canadian Association of University Teachers perhaps best summed it up in its presentation to the Macdonald Royal Commission in these words:
As we move into the 21st century, how we deal with our universities, their faculties and their students, will in large measure determine Canada's position in the next century.

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That is what this debate is all about today-where we will be in the next century in the wake of the technological revolution. What happens at the outset? The Government reduces its commitment to training, to post-secondary education, to building the youth of this country to be able to tackle the tremendous problems that lie ahead. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Government's parsimonious approach to research and development. Some of my colleagues will deal with this matter today but I want to mention briefly the comparison of Canada with other countries in the field of research and development, the areas where we should be in the forefront but are failing so obviously.
For all of our world-beating abilities in certain fields, in the area of communications, for example, we still have a great trade deficit in technology and information systems of over SI billion in 1980. That is estimated to be a trade deficit of $5 billion by 1985. France, with less of our pioneering investment in this area, has had a national goal to turn its 1981 deficit of $330 million into a surplus of $6.7 billion by 1990. To do that, the President of France has made the commitment to raise R and D expenditure by direct and indirect government support to 2.5 per cent of the French GNP by 1985. In Canada our target is 1.5 per cent, a full percentage point behind France.
In the last Budget of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) direct R and D support of $450 million per annum was increased by $185 million, to total $635 million in the present fiscal year. The Science Council of Canada reports that the Swedish Government, in contrast to our $635 million expenditure, spent $1.2 billion directly on R and D in 1979-80. Fours years ago it was far ahead of us. The Netherlands spends only marginally less than we do with a much smaller Gross National Product. While Japan, France and others have initiated a whole range of public awareness programs to mobilize their societies to accept and meet the challenges of high technology, in Canada we have earmarked the magnificent sum of $1.5 million for public education in this tremendous field. Without a commitment to research and investment at least equal to our direct competitors, we will never develop or maintain our own technological industries.
There has been a great deal of comment about the need to bring about greater public awareness of what is happening in the field of high technology, to try to educate public attitudes to the changes taking place. I attended a conference on this subject not long ago at Harvard University and I was struck by a statement that a very learned professor made at that conference. He said that high technology would have an impact on changes to society greater than anything that has happened since the mammals came out of the sea and stood upright. That was his analysis of how tremendous the change in our society is going to be. To adapt public attitudes to that change is going to take leadership at the very highest levels, leadership which so far has been conspicuous by its absence in this country.
Time and again the federal Government's own committees and councils, reports and studies, have been specific in their proposals for someone or some authority to pull all the strings together. Governments, industry, labour, education all have to be pulled together. The social impact subcommittee of the Canadian Videotext Committee calls for a national commission charged to make recommendations on major policy issues. The Labour Minister's advisory council calls for a Cabinet committee to initiate and co-ordinate technological policy. The Science Council wants a First Minister's advisory committee. The micro-electronics task force wants a centre for technology, work and human priorities, which will report directly to Parliament annually. Our counterparts in Europe and Japan have already gone through this process and we still lag so far behind.
Sir, the road ahead of us is no easy one. It is not paved with yellow brick, nor is our destination truly known. But it is the only road forward and our competitors are already firmly launched on it. As one Dutch politician said of the same circumstances facing his country, it is like a gold fever. "Those who are not moving fast enough will miss the boat. Those who fail to take the lead are forever left behind. Those who fail to join the race are forever handicapped". That, Sir, is the position in which Canada seems to be at this time.
I now want to come to an area of particular importance to me, that of high technology and its impact upon women- women in the labour force and in the home. There have been many, many studies done, Sir, which have clearly indicated the position of women. It is indicated particularly that it will be critical for women if this issue is not faced clearly and faced now. There can be no doubt that women will bear the brunt of job displacement. That has been said on many occasions. The change in the structure of work will have a profound effect on women. The dangers of job ghettos and the entrenchment of women in low paid, low skill employment is very real. Clearly the social consequences for women are tremendous if they do not get an equal opportunity at training for the jobs of tomorrow.
The Government's response to date is clearly inadequate. It does not even recognize that women have a particular problem with technological change, as was evidenced in the speech given by the Minister responsible for the status of women. Just last week, on January 26, she spent one minute of her speech in the Throne Speech debate dealing with this issue, and then ended up by patting herself on the back and saying: "We established a task force on micro-technology through Labour Canada". Well, Sir, we have that task force report "In The Chips: Opportunities, People And Partnership", but not a thing has been done about it for two and a half years.
Already, Mr. Speaker, we face the prospect of over one million unemployed for the balance of this decade. There will be a further million added to the job loss we presently see in our society. These are jobs to be lost as a result of technological change, and most of them, it has been predicted, will be those traditionally performed by women. High technology is in progress around the world and is not going to grind to a halt.
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The Hon. Member for Vancouver East mentioned the Luddites. What I gathered from her speech is that she is prepared to see the country go that way again. Certainly she was not prepared to face up to the problem of moving forward, that there is no status quo and we cannot stand still. That approach did not work in the 19th century and it will not work in this century. Ironically, as much as electronics threatens the jobs of women, as much as many women are unprepared for the changes ahead, nevertheless 1 truly believe that, because of high technology, women may be able to make the breakthrough so long denied them to arrive at real economic parity with males in the work force. I truly believe that. Jobs and careers are going to be created for which no one in our society is presently trained to perform.
This summer, Sir, I had the opportunity to spend two intensive weeks in the Bell Research Laboratories. I saw the breakthroughs which can be made if people are willing to undergo the kind of training that should be made available. The one great benefit of high technology is its complete indifference to bias of any kind, be it colour, race, creed or sex. The majority of us are equal at the beginning of a new era. Women have just as much ability to train and compete in the world of high technology as men. The most important prerequisite, the most important even beyond a scientific background, Sir, is the capacity for clear and logical thinking and the ability to articulate those thoughts with precision. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that in those areas women need have no fear of holding their own with men.
There is no question in my mind and there should be none in the minds of anyone else that women can take command of the software systems which will account for four-fifths of the jobs which will become available through the technological revolution. They can do that as well as men.
1 will close on this note, Sir. The potential exists for women to participate as full and equal partners in the jobs and skills of the Canadian economy, but it is no foregone conclusion. Women still face stereotyping and the barriers of traditional thought. Our schools and educational system do that. Governments, unions and employers still fail to recognize the urgent need to establish comprehensive re-education and retraining programs to give displaced workers, most of whom will be women, the opportunity to compete in these new fields.
That is where this debate should be leading. We cannot stand back and say that others will bring this debate forward and create the structures that are needed. There has to be movement by industry and labour unions, which are locked into the past, as well as by the educational system. The leadership has to be provided by government. To date that has not been forthcoming. I would hope that as we move into the Budget debate in the weeks ahead we will see far more effort on the part of the Government to tackle this major revolution than we have seen to date.


Mr. Riis:: Mr. Speaker, 1 have two or three questions I would like to put to the Hon. Member. There were some
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contradictions in her statements. I would like to point out two or three conflicts that I detected and then ask her to clarify them.
There was a very clear demonstration in the majority of her speech that the motion before us asking the Government to take action was a misplaced initiative; rather, the private sector must lead the way and we must discontinue manipulating the movement of technological change in the best interest of people. In the final moments of her speech, on the other hand, she seemed to be saying that the Government must show the leadership, provide the initiative and be the catalyst for this kind of changing world to ensure that the best interests of all Canadians are met with new technology.
She stated that women had the same opportunity as men to prepare for the technologically changing world. She then went on to say that because of the stereotyping which goes on employers, governments, trade unions and the educational institutions of Canada do not treat women equally. If they all do not treat women equally because of the stereotyping that is in place, how does this equal opportunity exist for women to retrain?
The Hon. Member went on to say that every one is at an equal point now to prepare for this changing technological world, that there are no biases based on sex, colour or religion. Presumably that would also include income.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Obviously you were not listening.


Nelson Andrew Riis: I was attempting to listen. I may have misinterpreted some of the remarks the Hon. Member made. We have one and one-half million people unemployed and many more Canadians working on a part-time basis, causing family incomes to be extremely limited. At the same time, university tuition fees are increasing to the point where the minimum cost to a family to send a youngster to a university such as the University of British Columbia would be $5,000. At the same time enrolments are being limited. In view of this, how can the Hon. Member say that equal opportunity exists for many youngsters in Canadian families?
Can she explain the reasons for those three apparent contradictions?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have always found that before Members of the New Democratic Party approach any question they have their minds made up as to the answer or the discussion which will take place. No matter what happens or what is said, they interpret it to their own way of thinking.
I do not have the latitude, Sir, and you will not allow me that, to go back and repeat my speech so that the Hon. Member could listen somewhat more carefully than he obviously did the first time. If I may, I would commend to him that he read what I had to say. It may be somewhat educational. He may understand that I dealt with the question of research and development and the Canadian contribution to that. Obviously I was speaking of government when I did that. I mentioned it on a number of occasions. He was not listening. I mentioned a number of other things, such as the commitment

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to public education. That was part of the whole recommendation of the task force on micro-electronics. That, too, was incorporated in what government would do.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Why don't you answer my question?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: I said at the end that this whole thing had to be drawn together and the only group capable of doing it was government. He mentioned the fact that 1 said there were no biases. If he will read what I had to say, he will see that I said the microchip has no bias.


Nelson Andrew Riis: It is called technology. That is the technological change.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Perhaps the Hon. Member would benefit by going, as I did, into one of the major research labs to try to find out what this is all about.


Nelson Andrew Riis: It didn't seem to do you much good, Flora.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order. I remind the Hon. Member that he can ask additional questions or comment, but he should not be interrupting while the Hon. Member is speaking.


Mr. Ellis:: It is just the NDP, Mr. Speaker. They are always rude. You have to expect it.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: I said the great benefit is that the microchip itself does not stop during training to question whether you are a man or a woman, coloured or white, Roman Catholic or Sikh. It does not question those things. The chip eliminates all those prejudices and biases. If the people in control of the program do not recognize that that possibility is there to eliminate prejudice and bias, that will be a condemnation of the people, not of the technology.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Precisely the point.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: I am willing to bet that, given the opportunity, women can prove that in technology, where there are no biases, they have just as much capability of performing as do men. The NDP obviously have a different attitude toward what women can do.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, we had some very interesting general statements from the Hon. Member. I certainly would agree with the statements made by my colleague regarding clarification of what appeared to be conflicting statements. The Hon. Member also presented a position which was in direct contrast to the questions directed to me by her colleagues previously. I would appreciate if the Hon. Member would reread my remarks as well on the question of Luddites. The NDP has a very positive position with very specific proposals for action which would deal with this on behalf of women as well as men in Canada.
The Hon. Member has said that women can achieve equality in high-tech jobs. No one would disagree with the wishful thinking there. She has also stated that the microchip has no
value system; it is neutral. We certainly agree with that. However, there are people who control the microchip, people in charge of planning, and employers who hire people.
Would the Hon. Member tell the women of Canada what her Party would propose to guarantee to Canadian women that they will have equal opportunities in the work place, particularly in the field of micro-technology? Does she agree, for example-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: I am sorry, 1 must cut the Hon. Member short. This is only a 10-minute question and answer period. Both questions and responses have been very long. A short response from the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: I am sure the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Mrs. Mitchell) will remember that not very long ago she and I were on a platform together at a conference in Banff. I think she probably listened quite clearly at that time as I spelled out what the Conservative Party would do in this regard.
But clearly, with everything we have said, our critic for employment and immigration, myself and others in this Party have stressed the need for increased training and educational opportunities as far as the federal Government is concerned. Beyond that-and I have raised this question in the House time and again-we feel that government must take the lead in bringing together the other sectors of the economy to make sure that we do not treat this in the almost limited way it has been treated so far. When we talk about a revolution we must realize its magnitude, not simply talk about insignificant training projects such as are going on at the present time. That will never answer the question and we have said that on many occasions.


Mr. Jean-Guy Dubois (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, the authors of the motion being debated today belong to a Party that just two weeks ago accused itself of failing to evolve since the fifties. Their own Party was telling them their entire policy was still back in the fifties. They could therefore be expected to make a few blunders on the issue of technological change and ignore the progress made over the past years and the programs that have been or are being implemented to adjust our Canadian economy to the sweeping changes that modern science demands of industrial nations that want to stay ahead.
The motion introduced by the New Democratic Party refers to consultation with employees affected by technological change. Mr. Speaker, last weekend the Government of Canada officially announced it was establishing a Canadian Productivity Centre on which Ottawa will be spending $27 million. The Centre will be administered by representatives of labour and industry, enabling both groups to consult and co-ordinate their activities with a view to helping Canadian industry adjust
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effectively to the technological changes that will continue to transform our businesses. However, like the document their Party published this weekend, today's motion is a dismal failure, and its authors should certainly not expect it to have any impact at all.
Mr. Speaker, I intend to focus most of my comments today on the training and adjustment of workers in new occupations, since that is one of the main points of the New Democratic Party's motion, and I intend to demonstrate that this new occupational training program, including more specifically the Skills Growth Fund and the Canadian Occupational Projections System, as well as actual training courses, provides Canadians with the vehicle they need to arrive at their destination, that is, the jobs of tomorrow.
The theme of my speech, or my message, if you prefer, Mr. Speaker, which is aimed at all Canadians but especially to employers and workers, is as follows: It is time to get on board. Many programs and services already exist, and whereas it was the Government's role to put them in place, it is now up to employers and workers to make the most of these opportunities. I must admit, Mr. Speaker, that the slogan I am using is not entirely original and was inspired by an expert who obviously shares my views, Mr. Pierre J. Janniot, Vice-President of Air Canada, who wrote an article for the September issue of the "Revue internationale de gestion" under the heading: Business and the microelectronic revolution-it's time to get on board. The author points out that the field of microelectronics is developing extremely fast at the present time, thus obliging both individuals and businesses to adjust to new living and working conditions. He adds that increased access to computer applications will bring about even greater changes in the job environment which will force governments, employers and unions to co-operate in order to survive.
Mr. Speaker, the word "survive" is certainly no exaggeration, and in any case, we cannot afford to settle for the status quo which would bring about our economic decline and lead to collective poverty, so that we must opt for an energetic commitment to new formulas that will continue to transform the world at an increasingly rapid pace, and only then will we be able to hold our own and even lead the way, because we must not forget that, in many of these disciplines, Canada is already one of the leading industrialized countries and is exporting both know-how and products.
In 1984-85, the Canadian Government will be spending $1.68 billion on training programs for more than 275,000 Canadians. About half will be young people and 25 per cent will be women for whom special benefits have been planned as well. This was made possible by legislation passed here in the House two years ago. Since then, with the co-operation of the provinces, the private sector, unions and educational institutions, a new training program for workers has been set up. Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, Quebec, my home province, will be receiving $275.9 million under the program this year.
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Mr. Speaker, I started my speech saying that a significant element of this new training program was the Skills Growth Fund, a major part of which will be used to purchase equipment for highly skilled training in the field of micro-electronics, robotics and other technological innovations. We have here a unique situation created by the Government of Canada, with co-operating groups, so that students at community colleges and in high schools can meet the demand of employers for training in new technologies. We must create new programs to ensure that our educational institutions have the necessary resources, and that is what the Government of Canada is doing through the Skills Growth Fund. I shall give a few examples of projects that have been announced in the past, mainly in the Province of Quebec, but there have been programs throughout Canada.
Only a few weeks ago, my colleague from Kamouraska-Riviere-du-Loup (Mr. Gendron) announced a grant of $1,219 million for the CEGEP in La Pocatiere, to be used to provide an option in training in automation and robotics. There was also a grant of $10,558,414 for the Institut d'Ordinique at the Lionel-Groulx CEGEP in Ste-Therese, and $2,823,385 for the Levis-Lauzon CEGEP, as my colleague from Levis announced not long ago.
Since the fund was set up in December 1982, Quebec alone has received nearly $40 million to modernize its institutions for specialized education, and the same is happening across Canada.
The Government of Canada is already responding to a need by going ahead with our educational institutions in the high technology field. We hope that through these programs we shall be able to meet the needs of employers, who are anxious to hire trained people and be able to meet future requirements for new technology, robotics and that sort of thing.
Mr. Speaker, I shall comment very briefly on the Canadian Occupational Projections System, another important element of our new national training program for workers. The system makes it possible to collect, compile and disseminate information on future supply and demand with respect to workers, according to occupation. The system cannot be truly effective unless it is implemented with the co-operation of the provinces, management and unions, with the objective of achieving better long-term planning of this country's human resources. The system will provide medium to long-term data, that is, for periods of from three to ten years, on future worker supply and demand, by province. Forecasts concerning the likelihood of imbalance in the ranks of professionals will be examined and revised during annual conferences on the future outlook for professionals. That is why I say again to employers and employees alike who have heard about the new programs of the Canadian Government but have not deemed advisable to take measures which might benefit them that it is time to get on board. Far be it from me to claim that there has been an

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almost immediate rush of applicants for programs which would be of great benefit to all Canadians, especially our many unemployed workers. Still, 1 am convinced that a great many Canadians stand to gain experience and improve their situation. We will continue to refine our formulas and adapt them to the worldwide technological revolution but, I repeat, all interested persons ought to get on board. We must also keep in mind the economic situation in the world and, just to show how unpredictable it can be, Mr. Speaker, I would simply recall the extent to which the impact of the oil markets on the Canadian economy took the experts by surprise in recent years. It has often been said that progress does not stand still, but even trying to slow it down can turn out to be a very costly proposition in the long run.
State-of-the-art technology in office equipment, robots and new activities will create upheavals and eliminate jobs, true enough, but at the same time they will create new needs and new jobs about which it is now impossible to predict whether they will be more numerous and more financially rewarding than those they will have eliminated. Where would we be today if in the past we had rejected electricity, cars, aircraft, telephones, chemistry, television and so on? More recently, the market was invaded by digital watches, TV sets, videorecorders, medical equipment, just to name a few. Think for a moment about space research programs and their fallout in Canada in the fields of telecommunications, new materials and transportation where many Canadians developed new skills. Given such fields of endeavour where people can be trained to acquire even more highly specialized skills, we will be able to open new vistas for young Canadians and retrain others who unfortunately lost their jobs. On the other hand, industrialization did create some problems, such as the accelerated depletion of nonrenewable natural resources, environmental hazards, drastic changes in our way of life and the risks inherent in modern weaponry.
More recently, the slowdown in our economic growth and the deteriorating unemployment situation have coincided with a certain public reluctance to accept any technology. In short, major scientific and technological developments have radically transformed our way of life and all these transformations are occuring at an increasingly faster pace.
On the other hand, the developments in information technology, when coupled with the advent of newer generations of computers, video recorders and telecommunications equipment, are likely to transform the field of education, as evidenced by the feverish changes now taking place in our training and educational institutions, including in Quebec.
Robotics, whose development could, according to some, make the situation even worse, while others hold the opposite view, could, on the other hand, release workers from dangerous or repetitive tasks in addition to increasing industrial performance. The same technology may be used to alleviate the
problems of the handicaped thanks to new types of prostheses and other innovative techniques. Should we forbid the use of robots in the automobile industry, for instance, when Japan is already far ahead of us? To ask the question is of course to provide the unavoidable answer, and those who would want our workers to find shelter in traditional sectors under the pretense that these require the hiring of more people, would condemn our work force to a type of production soon to become outdated and unprofitable while better products manufactured by competing industrial nations or even Third World nations would lead us to bankruptcy and oblivion.
What should we really be doing? I repeat that we must lunge forward and jump on the technological bandwagon. We must also promote research and encourage industry into taking the greatest possible advantage of this research so that we can be in the forefront of any future development which will enable us to maintain one of the highest standards of living in the world.
If we look back at the major industrialization eras, generally, we must recognize that the innovations which they brought about have been among the major reasons for economic and social progress and had a positive influence on the overall employment situation.
Needless to say, Mr. Speaker, more than half of the people who enrol in the training program subsidized by Employment and Immigration Canada are under 25 years old. The main user target are of course our young people. These programs can also help those who need retraining, especially those over 40 years of age who have often had the same job all their lives and suddenly find themselves in a very difficult situation since, because of their age and the hostile economic environment, they have never known what it is to have to look for a job time and again.
Since my allotted time allows me to do so, I would like to deal again with the new national training program and say that it provides for special mechanisms, such as larger and extended wage refunds for women, native people, the handicapped, the dropouts or the less persevering, if you prefer. The Government has tried to develop a flexible mechanism which would be accessible to as many workers as possible, and to do so in a more practical way than in the past when experience has shown that people have been trained for jobs which had ceased to exist or for which the demand was constantly decreasing.
I also want to remind the House that education and training must prepare people mentally for technological changes. Among other things, we should deal with the effects of worker displacement, the work reorganization and the protection of the most disadvantaged groups in our society, such as women and older workers.
Analyses have shown, among other things, that we have to consider the reaction of both labour and the general public to
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the new technologies and, in that respect, it can indeed be ambivalent. One can easily imagine people being quite reluctant to welcome new technologies in industry, and yet wanting to be first to own microwave ovens, electronic calculators, videorecorders and personal computers. It has also been noted that the impact of new technologies has been stronger in certain trades which originally gave impetus to industrialization and were in the vanguard of dynamic eras, but which are now falling by the wayside.
What can be done? Knowledgeable people claim that it is up to the industrial sector first to pick up the challenge and make the necessary restructurations, while taking market forces and social factors into account. But there is another major consideration is a system such as ours: the private sector has to identify the most promising applications of the new technologies and adapt them to the needs of the market place, whereas Governments must support private enterprise, including in high-risk and long-term development research sectors.
Indeed, it was with all those factors in mind that last year Employment and Immigration Canada published a document entitled "Perspective on Employment: A Labour Market Policy Framework for the 1980's" where the labour market policies are defined as follows: to ensure relevant training to create the skills necessary for growth; to ensure access of all Canadians to jobs; to assist those individuals displaced by industrial and technological change; to create employment opportunities, especially in communities with a declining or non-existent economic base; and to facilitate co-operation between business, labour, and government to achieve high levels of employment.
It is on these principles of skill creation, access to jobs, adjustment assistance, local employment development and collective responsibility for change that Canadian labour market policy must be based, as I have just said. With respect to that situation, Mr. Speaker, I think that the various programs sponsored by Employment and Immigration Canada will make it possible for us to meet the requirements of employees and employers alike in the field of new technology. We also have the means to improve our skills, and it is just a matter of Canadians taking part and participating in those programs.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: A ten-minute period is allowed for questions and answers or comments. Debate. [English]
For debate, the Hon. Member for Richmond-South Delta (Mr. Siddon).


Mr. Siddon:: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Hon. Member who just resumed his seat a question, if I may. Does the Hon. Member feel that the Government-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order, please. I recognized the Hon. Member for debate.
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Thomas Edward Siddon: Fine, Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to resume the debate in accordance with your request.
The New Democratic Party has put forward today a most interesting recommendation that certain initiatives be taken by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) and incorporated into his forthcoming Budget. These proposed initiatives fall into five general areas. I will not repeat the details; that is for the proposers of the motion to do. However, I would like to begin by suggesting focussing on the concern of the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell) when she presented the motion that she not be perceived as a Luddite and that her Party not be seen as anti-technology. Yet from listening to her speech and the questions asked of her subsequently and the comments of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis), there is a tendency for the NDP to create a negative emotion in society; the same fear of technology which led to the Luddites wrecking cotton machines and other inventions of the industrial revolution. This pervades their approach to the new era of exploding technology, as was so aptly described by the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald).
This is also reflected in the order in which the five recommendations are given in the proposed motion. I, for one, would have preferred to see the fifth point as essentially the headline to this motion. The fifth point recommends that the Government incorporate measures in the Budget to "encourage technological changes that promote new products, industries and jobs". My statement that the priorities should be altered somewhat is not to diminish the importance and validity of the other four recommendations. But if we do not get our priorities straight, we will miss a tremendous opportunity which Canada must grasp if we are to keep pace with the rapid equalization through technology that is ongoing around the world.
Technology and what is happening in this decade is an example of the role of technology as a great equalizer. Technology through history has improved the standard of living of all. It has also allowed backward societies to emerge and develop new strengths, even societies which were previously very poor in the area of natural resources. No better example could be seen than those societies which came through the tragedies of war and emerged in the 1980s to be among the strongest nations of the world. I am speaking specifically of Japan and West Germany.
We must recognize that technology is a great equalizer. In that frame of mind we have to find ways to maintain our traditional momentum in these areas. The time is fast disappearing when we can sit back casually on our laurels and expect our natural resources to buy all the good things we have come to take for granted in society.
Among the nations of the world, Canada probably possesses one of the best educated pools of talent on the face of the earth. Yet our young people, in particular, are now facing unemployment in massive and unprecedented numbers. They should indeed be the instruments of transforming intellectual

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know-how into opportunities which will ensure continuing economic prosperity for all Canadians.
1 do not diminish the importance of the other four elements of the NDP motion, but in the case of all five elements there is a lack of specificity, to use a complicated word. There is nothing by way of proposals which the Minister of Finance could incorporate in his Budget within two weeks' time. This belies a problem within the New Democratic Party. It was indicated by the ambivalence of the Hon. Member for Vancouver East when she could not decide whether or not she really was a Luddite and whether or not we Canadians should hold back, on technology as if we have any choice. We have no choice as Canadians. We have to recognize that technology and a much enhanced national commitment to research and development are our only hope if we are intent on putting those 1.5 million-plus Canadians back to work; on creating meaningful and challenging futures for our young, well-educated university and high school graduates in the years ahead.
I was disappointed that there was no reference in the motion to a commitment by the NDP to research and development. I understand the Hon. Member for Vancouver East referred to this subject. However, in terms of a recognition that the Government opposite has a disastrous record of support for research and development, particularly through the seventies, I am astonished that the NDP did not have more to say than that it would increase Canada's level of spending to 2.0 per cent of our Gross National Product.
I would like to spend more time dealing with the fifth point, but first let me point out that, in looking at all five of the NDP recommendations, it is interesting to note the close relationship or near identity of words and phrases to various pronouncements which have been made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney). I would like to begin by referring to an extract from the book of the Hon. Member for Central Nova entitled Where 1 Stand. This relates to the fifth recommendation to "encourage technological changes that promote new products, industries and jobs". The Leader of the Opposition said:
There will be no solid economic recovery on which a soundly conceived national industrial strategy can be based until such time as we accept the proposition that the production of quality goods and services at internationally competitive prices is Canada's unquestioned principal challenge. Management, labour and government must unite to meet this overriding national concern.
This was published over a year ago and in fact appeared in many of my Leader's speeches over the past three years.
Referring to the first proposal in the NDP motion which relates to "employee consultation in the introduction of technological change", I would also like to refer to my Leader's book wherein he stated:
Our objective is nothing less than the total elimination of the adversary relationship in the labour-management process.
In referring to the time when he was President of the Iron Ore Company. He continued:
We discovered that in the 1980s no one works for you any more. He either works with you or he does not work at all. We discovered that equipment does not make any money. The people who operate equipment do.
Then he went on to state:
We did, however, resolve to make every honourable human effort with our union leaders and our thousands of employees in an attempt to introduce a new degree of civility, of understanding, of genuine fraternity into our relations, which we believed would ultimately benefit all associated with the company.
There are many quotations of that sort which have been made by the Leader of the Opposition and others in this Party. Indeed, the nature of the appeal contained in the first recommendation of the NDP is that we improve consultation between labour and the private sector, with government playing a part in it.
Over two years ago the Hon. Member for Central Nova called for the establishment of a national tripartite commission on productivity to improve this dialogue. It was very interesting that the Government finally woke up to realizing the importance of such an institution a year ago. The Minister of Finance began the first steps of creating such an institution, with the undertakings in his Budget. They have now evolved into a joint undertaking between the CLC and other labour unions, together with the private sector, through the National Council on Business Issues. Interestingly enough, these two groups together have recommended that the federal Government should keep its nose out of this institution because it would merely complicate very sensitive and important discussions which must occur.
In connection with items two and three, dealing with flexible work arrangements to minimize job losses and easing the impact on employees due to technological shake-up and company shutdowns, I refer Hon. Members to correspondence that was presented first to Members of this House after a detailed dialogue with the employees of the Iron Ore Company. This was in November, 1982 when it became necessary, because of the serious international situation with regard to mineral sales, to close down an old and rapidly depleting resource, an iron ore mine at Schefferville, Quebec.
I will not go through the details, but for those who might be interested this initiative taken by the Iron Ore Company under the leadership of the now Leader of the Opposition represented the first and most generous settlement that Canadian industry had extended to its employees in memorable history. For example, employees who had worked throughout the preceding year would receive two weeks wages per year of service. This was the most generous severance allowance ever granted to employees of a Canadian corporation. All employees were urged to continue living in company-owned housing until the conclusion of the school year a year and a half hence. Assistance was extended in many categories by way of free long distance telephone and communication services, assistance in preparing curriculum vitaes and resumes, assistance in the search for alternate employment, secretarial service and the organization of early retirement courses for the older eligible employees.
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This initiative was a model of the type of specific steps that industry must take in easing the pain of technological displacement and economic calamity that results when industries must close. 1 commend these points to the House because they again show that, rather than offering hollow, sort of general or platitudinous statements as the NDP have in this motion, this Party and its Leader have demonstrated by action that we are sensitive to these serious problems and have specific types of initiatives in mind to minimize this type of unhappy consequence for workers in Canadian industry.
With respect to item four which deals with retraining programs, I again quote from the book Where I stand'.
Third, we need a major national program to train and retrain the richest resources of all-our people-so that all Canadians may share in our development by working and by paying our own way.
It is obvious that this Party has a commitment to reorienting those people presently facing the pain and hardship of idleness or the anxiety of not knowing how much longer their job will
last.
The elements of the NDP proposals are commendable. They certainly belie the Government's lack of recognition of an inescapable fact, that technology is here to stay and that if Canadians sit back and casually watch the rest of the world rapidly develop in terms of new transportation concepts, new communications devices, new innovations with regard to medical technology, micro-electronics, energy and biotechnology, if we sit back and watch the Japanese, West Germans, Americans and others commit almost 2.5 per cent of their Gross National Product to encourage research and development, then we are lost as a nation. 1 refer again to the statement by the Hon. Member for Central Nova. It relates to what I claim to be the most important recommendation of the NDP motion, recommendation No. 5. I quote:
The starting line for me is the technological dimension. We must make a firm commitment to double the public and private funds allocated to research and development before 1985. Research and development, and the resulting innovations, are the lifeblood of a successful economy and country.
It is important to recognize that between 1970, when the Government began to pretend to give new recognition to the importance of research and development, and 1982, in those intervening 12 years under one Prime Minister, Canada's commitment to research and development dropped from about 1.3 per cent of our Gross National Product to only .9 per cent. It it obvious when we look at the estimates and the record of this Liberal Government's disregard for the importance of technology that it has made massive cuts. When the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) return from a meeting with his friend Willy Brandt in the summer of 1978 after having discovered restraint, he immediately cut the budgets of the forest products research laboratories, fisheries research laboratories and a number of other important federal laboratories that had been part of our traditional strength in the area of research and development.
We have to recognize that we are very much dependent on what is happening in the rest of the world. In fact, in the past five years Canada's share of export world trade has dropped from 5 per cent to 3.5 per cent. The principal reason is that we
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are isolating ourselves from the realities of the world and, therefore, contributing to technological deterioration. That decline in our share of world markets from 5 per cent to 3.5 per cent cost Canadians 800,000 jobs in that area alone. When we realize that 30 per cent of our Gross National Product is extracted from exports and most of those are sold in the form of a few bulk commodities, such as grain, coal, timber or minerals, and these are displaced by massive amounts of higher value-added imports coming from more progressive industrialized nations, we see the depth of our dilemma.
The questions I put to the NDP and to the House, particularly the Government, are in the following categories. Are we going to face up to realizing that Canada cannot just be talking about 1.5 per cent of GNP or 2 per cent, as the NDP have proposed? We must double our commitment to research and development. Are they not aware that a doubling of our commitment from the present $5 billion to about $10 billion would create, on the basis of irrefutable evidence, if properly managed, over one million new jobs within a five-year period?
Why is this Government not aware of these facts which have been presented so forcefully and clearly by Dr. Larkin Kerwin, President of the National Research Council? He is not alone. Mr. Walter Light of Northern Telecom and many other Canadian industrial leaders have made the case for a much expanded national commitment to research and development as our only hope of being able to pay for the kinds of initiatives that the NDP are advocating in their points Nos. 1 to 4. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. We cannot have work sharing and more child care facilities in industry until we become more productive as a nation. Since our productivity record has been as miserable as it has been since 1970, we must begin to generate wealth before we continue to spend it on various types of interventionist programs.
The first question, Mr. Speaker, and I will summarize this quickly, is: Does the Government and the New Democratic Party favour more intervention or less? Perhaps there will be some response to these questions in the subsequent debate. Do they encourage or want to suppress the evolving technologies? Are we prepared to follow and try to excel, even more than the Pacific Rim nations of the Far East, in the area of supporting and encouraging research and development? Do we favour more or less federal Government spending to achieve these goals? Do we favour more protectionism or less? Are we going to hide from the realities of the international world market? Or are we going to get out there and develop and market new products which we can sell around the world? Do we favour more private sector investment? Does the New Democratic Party want to see the private sector play a bigger role in the development of technology and research and development to enhance the value of our natural resources, so we are not just selling our raw coal but are selling our chemicals and derivatives to other nations?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order, please. I am sorry to advise the Hon. Member that his time has expired.

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There is now a 10-minute period for questions, responses or comments.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with great interest to the questions of the Hon. Member. 1 cannot help but make one observation regarding the role of Conservative provincial governments across this country. I can think of one exception to what I am about to say. The Conservative provincial governments' leadership role in encouraging both the public and private sector to increase their commitment to research and development is very distressing. In the apparent rallying around of the concept of restraint, additional government spending to encourage the private sector, as well as the public sector, to expand their R and D facilities and possibilities has been extremely minimal, if at all.
My very specific question to the Hon. Member is, would he advocate additional government spending to encourage the private sector, as well as the public sector, to carry out more research and development? Would he be prepared to give tax breaks to corporations and, therefore, receive less tax income, at least in the short term, to result in that same type of encouragement?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the questions of the Hon. Member for Kamloops-Shuswap (Mr. Riis) because they bring me to a final question I would like to ask. That is, does the Government and the New Democratic Party favour more profit or less for people who would be prepared to invest in research and development?
As to whether we would give more money by way of tax incentives or whatever, yes, indeed, most certainly and definitely. In fact, compared to other nations around the world, the share of research and development which is funded by the private sector in Canada is pitifully low. The solution will not merely come about by more generous tax incentives or fifty-fifty shared grants, or the provision of front-end capital so that small groups of entrepreneurs can develop a product and penetrate the world market. That is part of the solution, but the solution has to do as well with some major structural changes which must be taken by the Government in terms of the centralization of information and in terms of amendments to our patent law. There are a whole host of initiatives.
The short answer, however, Mr. Speaker, is yes, indeed, a Conservative Government would make research and development, as we did in 1979, I might add, a much higher priority than either of the other Parties in this House have ever done. That is revealed in our commitment to reaching 2.5 per cent of GNP within a five-year period, in clear contrast to undertakings either by the Government or by the New Democratic Party.
Finally, I would like to conclude by referring to the comment of the Hon. Member about the provincial obligation to support research and development. If one plots the provincial per capita income on one scale of a graph against the percentage of the provincial gross economic product which is being spent on research and development, one will find a strong correlation between provincial per capita income and the
commitment to research and development. This makes the case that the strongest tool of regional economic development we could use would be to make a much stronger commitment to research and development within the provincial and regional context.
The provincial governments, I must say with sorrow, have been largely negligent in making a commitment and sometimes their commitment is far short of their ability to invest in research and development. I would single out my own province, the Province of British Columbia, the Province of Alberta, with its strong resource base, and the Province of Saskatchewan. These are the only regions which do not plot on this straight line relationship. If they were to take more of their resource wealth, as Alberta, in particular, is doing, and reinvest it in research and technology oriented to the Pacific Rim and world market opportunities, we would be a much stronger nation.
The strongest province in terms of commitment to R and D, Mr. Speaker, is the Province of Ontario through a variety of programs which it has initiated. That shows up in the per capita income of that province. Therefore yes, indeed, the provincial governments need to do more and we as a federal Government must realize that research and development is the strongest equalizing force we can put in place in this country, in contrast to our traditional approach of dropping money wherever there happen to be some Liberal Members sitting.


Mr. Murphy:: Mr. Speaker, my question obviously is also based on the comments of the Hon. Member who just spoke on behalf of the Conservative Party. He referred many times to his Leader, the Hon. Member for Central Nova (Mr. Mul-roney), with respect to the book he wrote and his history as a leader in industry. When we talk about tax money for R and D, one of the proposals which our Party has made quite often is that there should be specific contracts with corporations. Otherwise, we would get into the type of situation where companies take the tax depreciation, the tax write-offs, but do not provide jobs. I use the example of the Iron Ore Company of Canada, which benefited for many years from tax loopholes and tax depreciations.


An Hon. Member:: Tell us about that.


Rodney Edward Murphy: I am happy that one of the Conservative Members wants to hear what is going on. I am certainly glad to tell him. For many years the Iron Ore Company of Canada, which is owned by seven American masters, benefited from the tax depreciation to the extent that from 1980 to 1982 those owners received $225 million in dividends, which is $50 million more than the corporation made. People in Schefferville and in Labrador City lost their jobs. What good did those tax writeoffs do? What good did they do the workers in those communities?
I would like to know if the Conservative Party, if it is ever elected, would give more write-offs to Iron Ore, to the American masters of the dog which they employ? Or will it make
January 30, 1984

sure that there are specific contracts for R and D in order to protect Canadian jobs?


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, 1 believe the Hon. Member for Churchill (Mr. Murphy) is confusing the general question of the income tax system and the benefits which it provides to encourage investment in Canada and, in turn, the creation of jobs, with the necessity for more Canadian companies to make a larger commitment to research and develpment. If he is talking about the former-and I know the Leader of the Official Opposition can defend himself much more eloquently than I-I would like to submit that the Iron Ore Company in terms of return on investment probably did not enjoy a greater rate of return than most of the other industries in Canada during that period. If the Hon. Member is alleging that R and D dollars were somehow siphoned off, then I would like to see the evidence of that.
I would say, however, that the United States has traditionally relied on research contracts and I have been the beneficiary of such contracts myself. These contracts were closely monitored and in accordance with clearly defined national goals as to areas of technological opportunity. This Government has not made use of that tool very effectively, has not injected professional judgment in establishing research priorities, nor has it followed up the return on that investment. Instead it throws money at the Maislins, and at every failing industry in order to bail them out or to build some kind of new unnecessary plant in the riding of the former Minister of Fisheries; but it does not monitor the return on such expenditures.


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


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. Gaston Gourde (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians just had a narrow escape. The Leader of the Opposition has cancelled his trip abroad, claiming that he would rather be in the House for the Budget Speech on February 15. However, Canadians know perfectly well that all this is just a manoeuvre
by the Member for Central Nova (Mr. Mulroney), to find an honourable way out of the serious problem his advisers have been facing for several weeks, namely the prospect of having him travel all over Europe.
They have the Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) to tell him when to sit down and when to stand, when to speak and when to be silent, or the advice of that jack-of-all-trades, the Member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle). That is not quite good enough, however, the Leader of the Opposition still thinks, for instance, that the Iron Curtain was manufactured by the Iron Ore Company.
The weekend, however, brought some fresh ideas for the Progressive Conservative Party. The new expert on international affairs and former Leader, the Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark), suggested the Party Leadership be modelled on the two-goaltender system used in the National Hockey League. If the present Leader were to be unwell, temporarily or for some time, the former Leader could take over. An excellent idea, and I am sure the Conservatives would not hesitate to send the Member for Yellowhead (Mr. Clark) on that hazardous trip since he acquired considerable experience in international politics when he led the country in 1979.



NATIONAL FILM BOARD


Mr. Gus Mitges (Grey-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, the National Film Board should be publicly condemned and taken to task for trying to destroy the memory, reputation, and achievements of Canada's number one air ace of World War I, William Avery (Billy) Bishop, V.C. The National Film Board's portrayal in its film "The Kid who Couldn't Miss" is nothing but infamous, libelous trash which goes to great length to defame our national hero on so-called evidence and interviews given by individuals some 65 years after the fact.
William Avery Bishop, a native of Owen Sound, Ontario, won the highest possible honor, the Victoria Cross, by downing 72 enemy aircraft in World War I. His feats of bravery, valor and distinction were witnessed and verified by Allied ground troops only a few miles from the dog fights. To have the National Film Board now say it is not so, that it is not true, is a case of blasphemy and slander that must not go unheeded.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I call upon the Government, on behalf of the people of Canada, to censure the National Film Board publicly and, in particular, the producer-director of this film, Paul Cowan, who is directly responsible for this outrage.

January 30, 1984



S O. 21 FISHERIES REGULATIONS GOVERNING LOBSTER FISHING LICENCES IN NEWFOUNDLAND

Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, restricted fishing licences that have lapsed, or for some reason are not being utilized, should be re-allocated to fishermen who desperately need them.
Over the past several years the number of restricted fishing licences, especially lobster, has steadily declined in Newfoundland. This has happened mainly because the persons who held the licences had died or had voluntarily left the fishery. In some areas of the province, on certain sections of the coastline, very few licences are held today because fishermen who held the licences have not had them renewed.
The tragedy of the situation, Mr. Speaker, is that we have in some of these communities fishermen, including full-time fishermen, who desperately need these restricted licences to make a decent living, but cannot get them. Quite frankly, the present regulations concerning transfers are stupid in that a fisherman must have fished with someone who held a licence for two years before that other person can transfer a licence to him. This is rather unfair to an individual who does not have another fisherman in the community who wishes to give up his licence. In fact, Mr. Speaker, it is a case of outright discrimination because of circumstance.
The Department of Fisheries should review this entire situation immediately and begin a process of reassigning restricted licences that have lapsed on the basis of applications which could be made by fishermen who so desperately need them to keep body and soul together.



UNITED STATES ACTION TO LIMIT IMPORTATION OF COPPER

Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, in the face of a rising tide of protectionism in the United States, the Government of Canada has remained largely silent. The latest threat to traditional Canadian exports to the U.S.A. lies with the filing of a petition by U.S. copper producers with the International Trade Commission to limit global copper imports to about 350,000 tonnes, compared to the present 550,000 tonnes. While this move is primarily directed against dumping by Chile and other countries which operate outside of normal market principles, Canada could well be included in the net.
Canadian copper producers have borne the brunt of restricted world-wide market demand and, unlike producers in many other countries, have received no government assistance to keep in operation. It is therefore imperative that the Government of Canada make forceful representation to the United States that it would view any restriction on Canadian copper imports into that country as an unnecessary and unfriendly gesture that would invite swift countermeasures, which we are anxious to avoid.



CANADA POST CORPORATION


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Mr. Speaker, each year postal workers of Chinese origin have been allowed to use a day of vacation time, or time off without pay, in order to join in the celebrations of the Chinese New Year. This year's celebration will fall on February 2. However, the management of the south central processing plant in Toronto has decided not to observe that practice this year.
In past years Canada Post followed a policy which recognized that many of its employees were of different cultural backgrounds and different religious beliefs. This policy accommodated the needs of its work force by allowing employees to take time from work to observe the eastern Orthodox Christmas and other occasions-Passover, for example. This civilized practice is to be commended, and it is one that has been adopted by many employers in the private sector.
Canada Post is owned by the Canadian public and we want to be assured that it is being managed in the interests of all Canadians. A Crown corporation, such as Canada Post is, should be expected to follow practices that treat all of its employees in a just and equitable manner. The management of the south central plant should be told in no uncertain terms that the decision it has made is not acceptable, and be ordered to rescind it. I therefore call on the Minister responsible for Canada Post to use his office to contact the President of Canada Post, Mr. Michael Warren, and convey this view to him.



HUMAN RIGHTS


Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, Professor Jose Luis Mass-era is a Uruguayan mathematician with an international reputation, a leading authority in his field. He was elected as a Senator to his country's Parliament, and was later arrested during the wave of repression that followed the 1975 military coup in Uruguay. His release has been advocated by the Canadian Mathematics Society and the Canadian Association of University Teachers.
Brutally tortured after his arrest, he then suffered multiple fractures. His adoption by Amnesty International and international protests saved his life. He was operated on and survived, with a deformed leg.
The case of Professor Massera was raised with Uruguayan authorities by Members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence when we visited Uruguay in 1982. Professor Massera is today still in jail without trial. His age is now approaching 70 years.
January 30, 1984

Torture and long periods of confinement have damaged his health, and he is suffering from advanced heart disease.
I would like to express my extreme disquiet at the treatment Professor Massera has been receiving for so many years in the detention centres run by the Uruguayan military authorities. In addition, I would like to recommend that the Canadian Government and other interested organizations continue to send a vigorous protest-


Mr. Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member, but his time has expired.
their program funding in order to provide funding to organizations assisting in the fight against sexual abuse of children.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, I request that the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Bussieres) and the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) act vigorously to bar the importation and distribution in Canada of periodicals which actively support incest and the sexual abuse of children. This matter has been called to the attention of those Ministers, and as of today action is still pending.

*
* *



INDUSTRY


Mr. W. C. Scott (Victoria-Haliburton):: Mr. Speaker, on Saturday an article appeared in The Toronto Star quoting the chairman of the Association of Major Power Consumers in Ontario. He stated, quite correctly, that large energy users are being taxed to death by hidden taxes and that this is robbing them of the chance to compete. In particular this affects the petrochemical industry in Canada.
Most other countries recognize that industries such as this, which use a significant portion of our natural gas and oil as feedstock for their products, should be exempt from the type of taxes designed to reduce resources depletion. These industries must be recognized as value creating rather than energy destroying operations. It is about time the Government recognized it must do something to allow these Canadian industries to remain competitive.



CRIMINAL CODE


Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Mr. Speaker, today I would like to call the attention of the House to an issue which is one of the most important social issues in Canada, involving the protection of children. This House and this Parliament must take immediate, specific, and effective action to prevent the sexual abuse of children. I have discussed this matter with the Minister of National Health and Welfare. (Miss Begin), and I have written to a number of Members of Parliament and they agree action must be taken now.
1 request, Mr. Speaker, that this House direct the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs to inquire into the problem of sexual abuse of children and report to the House with recommendations on prevention, detection, and action to protect children from sexual abuse.
1 further request that this House direct the Minister of National Health and Welfare and the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts) to change the criteria of



TOURISM


Mr. Ronald Stewart (Simcoe South):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of State for Small Businesses and Tourism (Mr. Smith) must be aware of the importance of that industry and know that tourism, although in the hands of small business, is big business in our country. In 1981 it earned $16.6 billion in receipts, over 5 per cent of Canada's Gross National Product, $7.7 billion in government revenues, $3.8 billion in foreign exchange, and $2.6 billion in induced investment. He is no doubt aware that tourism is Canada's fifth largest earner of foreign exchange, recession resilient, engages over 100,000 businesses, mostly small and primarily Canadian, and is a large employer by employing one in ten Canadians directly or indirectly, creating 2.2 million jobs.
I have in my hand, Mr. Speaker, a news release from the Canadian Automobile Association to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) in which they state that the high cost of gasoline has been a major culprit in deterring foreign travellers from auto touring in Canada. About 85 per cent of all tourism in Canada is by automobile, and the tourism industry creates some $29 billion in jobs and income. It goes on to say that motorists pay over $1 billion annually in excess of the funds required to finance the NEP, another Liberal rip-off. It says we must eliminate the excise tax applied to gasoline, withdraw the Canadian ownership special charge, and charge a fixed rate for federal sales tax on automobile fuels as was the case prior to 1981. Mr. Speaker, I say "Amen", and 1 plead with the Minister to go to the Minister of Finance and point out the truth.



CANADIAN HERITAGE


Mr. Gordon Taylor (Bow River):: Mr. Speaker, Canada is made up of many people. We have the two founding nations, Britain and France, with Britain being made up of the English, Scots, Irish, and Welsh. But Canada is more than just two founding nations. We have people from almost every part of the world who came here to make a contribution. Many came with only the shirts on their backs, but they came here with a

January 30, 1984
Ora! Questions
desire to work and build a country of which they and their children could be proud. We have them here from Italy, Germany, Ukraine, the Netherlands, Sweden, China; in fact we could say every country in the world. They brought with them their trades, their cultures, religions, songs, dances and their hymns. All those things put together are what makes Canada great today.
I like to think of Canada not as one or two founding nations but as a mass of nations whose cultures have been woven into a tremendous mosaic. Canadian culture is composed of the culture of almost every country in the world. Canadian songs, hymns, and Canadian literature come from all parts of the world. Such a mosaic for Canada, Mr. Speaker, can make Canada one of the greatest nations of the world.
Some Hon. Members; Hear, hear!



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD

[Stage Direction]
[ English j

Hon. Sinclair Stevens (York-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister. He undoubtedly noted over the weekend the public musings of his Prime Minister, particularly those during an exchange with Mr. Raymond Barre in Davos, Switzerland, in which the Prime Minister appeared to be questioning NATO strategy and policy, in fact raising serious implications with respect to Canada's position in NATO councils themselves.
Would the Acting Prime Minister indicate whether his Prime Minister was giving public expression to views held in NATO councils by the Canadian Government, or was this indeed some type of new government policy?


Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Acting Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, most world leaders go around these days saying that a nuclear war would be so disastrous that no side could expect to win. At the same time, our Prime Minister, trying hard to foster the need for political energy in the discussion of that issue, is presenting a number of specifics, for example about parity in conventional arms in central Europe, reduction of nuclear weapons, non-proliferation treaty strengthening, and that sort of thing. So one might not be surprised that in taking part in a symposium or seminar in DAVOS, Switzerland, he would not hesitate to tackle some of the greatest difficulties of the peace objective, particularly the intricacies of even our NATO policies. That is what he has done. He has raised questions which are in the minds of specialists and non-specialists in the world today, and that of course implies no relaxation, no change in our NATO policies whatsoever.


EFFECT OF PRIME MINISTER'S REMARKS
Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the Prime Minister's off-the-cuff remarks, if you like, have had an impact on NATO's credibility itself, such an impact that at the moment of their being stated the former Prime Minister of France attempted to correct the impression being left, would the Acting Prime Minister indicate what steps his Government plans to take to reassure the world publicly of our commitment to NATO and our allies, and that we are full partners in and completely supportive of the policies of NATO itself?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I do not think this is needed, really. The Prime Minister, all through his recent discussions with foreign leaders, has repeatedly said that Canada stood with NATO. He has presented himself as a NATO man. So I do not think reassurance is needed. There is indeed a debate than can take place-my hon. friend can agree or disagree-about the opportunity of those very discussions on what I call these intricacies, these debatable points in NATO policies. In Davos the Prime Minister said that democracies can take that kind of debate.
1 am rather surprised at the chastising tone of the Hon. Member in the Opposition, the critic on foreign affairs. In a speech on December 4 his own Leader said: "I would call on the Secretary of State for External Affairs to go further in a non first strike policy by urging consideration of that policy at the upcoming NATO Foreign Ministers' meeting." Everybody thinks he meant non first use. His own Leader appeared to be suggesting that there should be a debate of these NATO policies, and that is what the Prime Minister did in Davos.


REACTION OF NATO ALLIES
Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, my final supplementary question is also for the Acting Prime Minister. He appears to be failing to recognize that, as a head of state, the Prime Minister is speaking for a country that is an ally within the NATO alliance. How can we expect our allies to trust Canada, and the Government of Canada as such an ally, when the Prime Minister publicly questions NATO and NATO's deterrent position in Europe itself? Mr. Speaker, the Government has left a serious cloud over the question of NATO's credibility as a result of the irresponsible musings of the Prime Minister in Switzerland.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I have already indicated that this is a debatable subject. My hon. friend seems to be saying that these subjects are so serious that they should not be debated in front of children. That is not the case. They are being openly debated now by specialists and non specialists. The willingness of the United States to live up to its commitment respecting use of nuclear arms in Europe, and the philosophy of the flexible response, are being questioned now. Our allies have a sufficiently high
January 30, 1984

opinion of us not to think that we are changing our policy on NATO, after the Prime Minister has repeatedly said that this was not the case, just because in Davos the Prime Minister indulged in a discussion in front of a very sophisticated audience which was asking him questions on some of the great issues of our time.


DISCUSSIONS IN DAVOS
Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, on the basis of what the Prime Minister said in Davos, how can we come to any other conclusion than that questions are being asked concerning our membership in and support of the policies of NATO? In Switzerland the Prime Minister engaged in a public altercation with an American State Department official, discredited NATO policy, and provided a platform for satellite leaders to denounce the West. Can the Acting Prime Minister explain how that has helped the prospect of world peace?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend seems to be saying that indulging in discussions and occasionally disagreeing with friendly states is bad. Members here are asking every day whether the Canadian Government is making sufficiently strong representation to the United States, for example, on a number of protectionist measures which they are now taking. Having a discussion with a friend is not considered to be unfriendly. As a matter of fact it can be considered to be very friendly because you trust that he will understand the case which you are making.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, that kind of discussion goes on every day of the week, every week of the month, and every month of the year, but it goes on in private rather than in public with the head of state of one of our allies.


EFFECT ON PEACE INITIATIVE
Erik Nielsen: My supplementary question is for the Acting Prime Minister. When the Prime Minister embarked on his peace initiative, his stated intention was to decrease tensions and increase dialogue between East and West. In his remarks in Switzerland last weekend the Prime Minister was highly critical in public of NATO policies. Would the Acting Prime Minister not agree that these indiscreet musings of Canada's Prime Minister have damaged the credibility of his initiative, decreased dialogue, and increased tensions among the NATO nations alone?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, the repetition of the question might be helpful to the Hon. Member in anchoring his pre-occupation in the minds of auditors at this point. However, it does not change the truth of the matter which is that there is a good debate to be had as to the usefulness of bringing these matters up in public. There is a debate on that. Obviously the Prime Minister thought that present circumstances commended that he should talk about these things in public. My hon. friend will agree that he has
Oral Questions
simply elevated to the public political level discussions that are taking place in public by a number of specialists and non specialists. My hon. friend can ask the same question again, and I will answer in the same way again. Indeed there is a discussion on that, but the Prime Minister has said in Davos that the democratic system could take that kind of discussion.


INDUSTRY
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. On Friday the Minister of Finance said the following in the House: "As a country we have to work together quite closely- governments, labour, and management-" This is a sentiment that my Party strongly endorses. My question to the Minister concerns the millions of dollars in grants that the federal Government is currently making available to modernize firms in many sectors of the Canadian economy. Is the Government practising this principle of co-operation that the Minister of Finance was talking about on Friday? As a specific example, Domtar is receiving money from the federal Government to modernize its plants in the Minister's riding of Cornwall, and for modernization at Windsor Mills in Quebec. Has the Government taken steps to ensure that the workers who will be affected by these changes have some say in what happens to them?


Hon. Ed Lumley (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: Mr. Speaker, I must correct the Hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party. There has been no decision taken with respect to providing funds to Domtar for either the Cornwall Mill or the Windsor Mill. I learned about it at the same time as the Hon. Member did when I read about it in the paper.


TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE-PARTICIPATION OF WORKERS IN DECISIONS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, if the decision has not yet been taken, will the Minister assure the House that workers affected by changes in any firm, in any sector of the Canadian economy, will have the right to participate in any decisions concerning timing and other aspects of the introduction of technological change when federal money is being spent?


Edward C. Lumley: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member refers back to the Throne Speech he will see that the Government of Canada indicated it will be announcing the formation of a policy board made up of labour and business people, co-chaired by the Vice-President of the Canadian Labour Congress, Mrs. Carr, and Mr. Paul Martin from Canada Steamship Lines. That will be a policy advisors board. I have had discussions with some senior labour people from across the country on whether they

January 30, 1984
Presence in Gallery
actually want to be involved in the direct assessment of some of the applications. To this point in time it has been the unanimous position of the labour people I have approached that they do not want to be involved in the direct assessment of applications because of confidential information coming from the companies.


DISPLACEMENT OF WORKERS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Minister was not deliberately trying to misinform the House. The Board that was announced last week was an advisory board. What 1 am talking about here is the rights of workers in a given firm, who are going to be affected by technological change, to have some say in terms of the effects of that change in their places of work.
1 ask this of the Minister, or the Minister of Finance- whoever wants to answer. Less than a year ago the Government, in a publication called "The Rocky Road to 1990", was warned by one of the Minister's colleagues that by 1990 literally hundreds of thousands of workers will be displaced by technological change. Will he now assure the House that he will act to protect the rights of workers so affected, and where it is necessary bring legislation before Parliament to ensure that we will have technological change that benefits the workers and not simply increases the profits of the corporations?


Edward C. Lumley: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the Hon. Leader of the New Democratic Party is saying. I ask him to look back at my answer to his second question. I acknowledged the formation of the advisory board, but with respect to labour having a direct say in assessing the applications, I have discussed this with some of the senior labour people across the country.
The reason we initiated the task force in the automotive, aerospace, petrochemical, and forestry industries was to ensure that senior labour people across the country, representing the rank and file in the various unions in the country, will have a say in some of the changes we are making and with respect to some of the programs we are putting forth to ensure that Canadian industry is competitive. I am sure the Hon. Member will acknowledge the fact that the only way we can guarantee jobs right across the country is to make sure that Canadian industries in all parts of the country are internationally competitive.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF AUSTRALIAN MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT
Mr. Speaker:: 1 have the honour of drawing the attention of the House to the distinguished presence in our gallery of two
Members of Parliament from Australia, Mr. Rodney Cavalier and Mr. Timothy Moore.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF THE MINISTER OF HEALTH FOR THE PROVINCE OF NOVA SCOTIA
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour of drawing the attention of the House to the distinguished presence in our gallery of the Minister of Health from the Province of Nova Scotia, the Honourable Gerald Sheehy.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF THE INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT OF THEJAYCEES
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour of drawing the attention of the House to the distinguished presence in our gallery of the International President of the JAYCEEs, Mr. Joseph Murphy.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


NATIONAL REVENUE
Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Acting Prime Minister. He will know that over the course of the last few weeks I have asked a number of questions of the Minister of National Revenue requesting that the training film entitled "The Investigative Approach to Auditing" be shown to interested Members of Parliament and to the Press on Parliament Hill. The Minister has responded, and said that he is prepared to show the film only to Members of Parliament, in camera, to the exclusion of the Press. This is a preposterous situation and quite contrary to the spirit of freedom of information.
Will the Acting Prime Minister not now direct his Minister of Revenue to have this public airing to see what kind of film is being used to train auditors? What does he have to hide, and what does the Government have to hide? Will he not now act?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I hesitate to put my finger between the bark and the tree. I am too cautious a man for that sort of thing. There might be some circumstances of which I am not aware. I can only promise my hon. friend that I will have a friendly chat with the Minister of National Revenue and see what I can do.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: The only reason there can be is that the Government wants to have this whole matter retained in secrecy.
January 30, 1984


REQUEST THAT PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE EXAMINE DEPARTMENT'S PRACTICES
Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Acting Prime Minister if the Government has given consideration to the suggestion made by the Right Hon. Member for Yellowhead last week, and whether it is now not ready to authorize a standing committee of the House to look at the relationship between Revenue Canada and the taxpayers of Canada? Even a select or special committee would be quite satisfactory. We would have guidelines with respect to this committee which would provide that any person coming forward would have immunity with respect to evidence given and would not be subject to harassment by the Department.
Would the Acting Prime Minister now stand up and say that he is prepared to authorize that kind of committee, which would be able to travel in Canada, in the interest of resolving this matter with Revenue Canada?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, again, I would not dare intervene in the decisions of the committees. These are the kinds of decisions that committees make themselves.
As everyone knows, there will be an inquiry into these matters. I would have thought that, with the authority and the prestige that committees have in this House, a modus vivendi would be invented between the Minister of National Revenue and the committee. 1 would have thought that the committee would find a way to invite the Minister of National Revenue to see it at irregular or regular intervals, depending on the progress of the inquiry. I am sure the Minister of National Revenue, being a very democratic man, will find accommodation with the committee on these matters.


PRIVACY
Hon. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to direct my question to the Acting Prime Minister. Since last Tuesday, and again on Friday of last week, I have been concerned about the manner in which the Minister of Finance, in answering a question from the Leader of the Opposition, indicated that he had private letters from the Leader of the Opposition in his former role as president of a private company, and that those letters could be detrimental to the public career of the Leader of the Opposition. Does the Government have an ongoing policy, as could be indicated from the reply from the Minister of Finance, whereby it has public servants or others scouring the files of Government looking for letters, correspondence or papers, which could be used at the appropriate political moment against that individual?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I can only speak with the common sense at my command in this matter, which is sometimes very useful, I can say to the
Oral Questions
Member for Kingston and the Islands. Its usefulness is that obviously this is not a policy of the Government.
My understanding of the events that occurred a week ago is that there was an exchange between the Leader of the Opposition and the Minister of Finance, at which point the Leader of the Opposition challenged the Minister of Finance to bring these documents-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Nowlan:: No.


Jean-Luc Pepin: That was my interpretation. Consequently the Minister of Finance simply answered a request of the Leader of the Opposition.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: I wish the Acting Prime Minister would use common sense in this issue.


CONFIDENTIALITY OF INDIVIDUALS' CORRESPONDENCE WITH GOVERNMENT
Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, there have been earlier occasions when members have been raising letters in public and saying "I have a list of names". That is intimidation, and that is what the Minister of Finance did. That legacy is in the parliamentary system, and that Minister is answerable for it, and the Acting Prime Minister is answerable before it.
I ask the Acting Prime Minister, speaking on behalf of the Government, what guidelines are there for Ministers that correspondence that individuals have sent to Government will be held in the confidence in which those writers wanted it to be held, or is there now a policy in Government that anything goes for the survival of the Liberal Party and the Liberal Government, and that whatever is needed, no matter how dirty or corrupt, you are going to use it?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, using common sense again, there must be a debate here between the secrecy of correspondence of businessmen or anyone else and the Government on certain matters, and second, the freedom of information which is a prominent preoccupation of the House.
I am sorry; I wish I knew all about the intricacies and legal answers, but I do not have them. Might I suggest that I will bring this question to the attention of the Prime Minister who might answer it upon a further request from the Member?


IMMIGRATION
Ms. Lynn McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. It concerns the proposal to replace skilled court reporters in immigration offices in Toronto and Mississauga
862

January 30, 1984
Oral Questions
with recording devices, from which transcripts would be later typed by less skilled and less well paid court reporters. In short, the question is one of the deskilling of women's jobs contrary to the guidelines on technological change of the Minister's own Department.
Would the Minister agree that this shows that the guidelines are inadequate, and that instead legislation is needed, such as has been proposed by the Leader of the NDP on Friday in "Technological Change for a Fair Recovery?"


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: No, Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with the conclusion of the Hon. Member, but 1 agree that she has raised an important question. I will reflect on her representations and look into it for her.


QUALITY OF TRANSCRIPTS PRODUCED FROM TAPE RECORDINGS
Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. The question concerns employment aspects, the deskilling of women's jobs. It also takes into account the question of justice. The decisions to be made involve the lives of people, refugees and immigrants. The quality of the product produced by this new system being proposed, which has been introduced elsewhere in Canada, is deteriorating. This has been shown where the system has been used before. Could we have a firm undertaking that both these principles would be considered, the quality of the product and crucial decisions and the commitment to real technological change, that will improve the quality of working conditions as is promised in the guidelines?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, I do understand the substance of the Hon. Member's question. I do agree it is a serious question, and I will look into both aspects she has raised.


INDUSTRY
Hon. Bud Cullen (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion. Approximately a week ago I asked the Minister whether he knew when the petrochemical task force report would be presented. I understand it is now imminent. Does the Minister have more precise dates? Does he anticipate the report will be made public? Will he be meeting with the authors of that particular report following its presentation?


Edward C. Lumley: Yes, Mr. Speaker. On Friday, the co-chairman of the task force on petrochemicals indicated that the task force would like to make its report public on the morning of
February 6. A press conference will be held. I understand the task force will be contacting the chairmen of the three caucuses with respect to briefings to the various caucuses at a time suitable to them.


PRIVACY
Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is supplementary to that asked by the Hon. Member for Provencher and it is addressed to the Acting Prime Minister. The Acting Prime Minister talked about freedom of information. He misses the point. What we are concerned with is another statute of this Parliament, the Privacy Act, and the shameful abuse of the privileges of this House. That is what is at issue here. What, in the opinion of the Government, is acceptable in a free and democratic society? What is morally acceptable? Is it morally acceptable for the Minister of Finance to search the files of a Member of this House, who may be in opposition to the Government, or of any citizen, and stand in his place in this House and then misrepresent shamefully what is contained in those files?


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, a moment ago when I answered the way I did, some Members on the other side seemed to be annoyed by what I was saying. You will find on page 694 of Hansard:


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Leader of the Opposition says that I distorted the truth. If that is his argument, will he let me release the letter-


Erik Nielsen: "The letter."


Jean-Luc Pepin: -he sent to my officials at that time on this particular subject?


Erik Nielsen: It, singular. "It."


Jean-Luc Pepin: And we find:


Mr. Mulroney:: Release it any time.


Erik Nielsen: Table it.


Erik Nielsen: Singular. "The letter."


Jean-Luc Pepin: There was a challenge there.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Jean-Luc Pepin: That is obviously an exception in answer to a challenge from some of the Members who love to issue them and get what they ask for.


Erik Nielsen: The challenge was there?


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for St. John's East.
January 30, 1984


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, McCarthy is alive and well in this House-


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: -because the Leader of the Opposition challenged the Minister of Finance after the accusation had been made.


Erik Nielsen: Exactly.


James Aloysius McGrath: And the accusation made by the Minister of Finance was that the Leader of the Opposition had somehow benefited financially from his representations to the Minister of Finance.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: That is what we are talking about here. I say to the Minister of Finance that is not only McCarthy-like, it is sleazy. In any other civilized Parliament, the Minister of Finance would have to resign.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


GOVERNMENT POLICY-RELEASE OF CORRESPONDENCE WRITTEN BY LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, let me ask another question of the Acting Prime Minister. Not only the Members of this House, but every citizen of this country has a right to know, even from this Government with its limited mandate, if they can expect to have the privacy of their files respected and if they can expect not to have Ministers of the Government search those files and stand in their place in this House, in a clear abuse of the privileges of this House, and then misrepresent the citizens in a McCarthy-like way.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, I think that what I said makes it absolutely clear to anybody who wanted to listen that what happened in the particular case to which we are referring was really exceptional. It was very special circumstances, which was the challenge issued to the Minister of Finance who received that document, obviously.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: No way. You can do better than that.


Jean-Luc Pepin: Obviously, what I have said implied, on my part anyway, that this is not something that should be repeated.
With respect to the borderlines between freedom of information, the Secrecy Act-


James Aloysius McGrath: And the Privacy Act.


Jean-Luc Pepin: -the Privacy Act, and every other Act, 1 beg to defer to the Minister of Justice, for example, who would answer, if the Hon. Member for Provencher wants to repeat
Oral Questions
his question-I will give him notice of it and he will decipher the relationship between all these acts.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: A short supplementary.


REQUEST FOR APOLOGY FROM MINISTER OF FINANCE
James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Acting Prime Minister, who is a very decent and honourable man, if we can expect from the Minister of Finance, if not his resignation, then at least an apology to the Leader of the Opposition and the people of this country?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Apologize.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, in the heat of an exchange in the House last week with the Leader of the Opposition, 1 responded on the basis of an impression I had from representations which the hon. gentleman had made to my Deputy Minister in a meeting on January 25, 1983, concerning the retirement allowances of senior officials, senior personnel-


Erik Nielsen: Superieur.


Marc Lalonde: -I believed that these representations had been made in writing. After verification of the departmental files, it became obvious that no such written representations had been submitted at that time.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Erik Nielsen: A well prepared statement.


Marc Lalonde: The Leader of the Opposition, in his capacity as the president of Iron Ore, had made such written representations earlier to my predecessor and to his Deputy Minister, and these documents were tabled in this House last Friday.
The impression I had last week was obviously incorrect. I wish to express to the House, and to the Leader of the Opposition, my regrets at the repercussion of my remarks for the Leader of the Opposition-


Erik Nielsen: And on yourself.


Marc Lalonde: -and as the Opposition House Leader says, obviously for myself, too. But I express my regrets, and I apologize.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


REFERENCE TO CONVERSATION BETWEEN CITIZEN AND DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE OFFICIAL
Hon. Allan Lawrence (Durham-Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Finance. Just so that we can clarify the issue here with respect

January 30, 1984
Oral Questions
to what I think the Minister is attempting to apologize for, are we now to believe that the Minister is releasing information with respect to a conversation that took place between a Member of this House, a citizen of this country, regarding tax problems, or the lack of tax problems, that took place between that citizen and an official of his Department, and that in the course of this so-called apology respecting the release of a letter that should not have been released, the Minister is now talking about a conversation between officials of his Department and that individual? Is my assumption correct? If so, that is a far worse breach of etiquette.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, obviously I have been referring to a representation made to my Department in the course of pre-budget consultations. We have hundreds of such representations. These representations sometimes are indicated or presented as private and confidential. They may imply company or corporate information, for instance, that would hurt a particular company if it were of a competitive nature, and all that. But very often those representations are of a general nature. I have always taken the point of view that those representations of a general nature were not subject to the provisions of privacy but they could be referred to, and this is what I did in the House the other day. I have nothing to add to that, Mr. Speaker.


THE ECONOMY
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I also have a question for the Minister of Finance. It relates to the question of employment and the unfairness of the recovery that is supposedly taking place. Does the Minister agree that any citizen of Canada who has received this many negative replies to job applications, and who is about to run out of employment insurance benefits, is entitled to expect the Government to understand his plight? Does he not agree that it would be a tragedy if this man, or any other person in a similar circumstance, were to lose everything for which they have worked simply because they have no job, no prospect of a job, no unemployment insurance, and insufficient income to maintain their families and their homes?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has returned to a theme which he developed in questions last week in the House. I am sure all of us in the House-and certainly all of us on this side-would agree that that situation is a traumatic and difficult one, one which elicits tremendous sympathy and concern on the part of Members of Parliament.


An Hon. Member:: Well, do something about it.


John (Moody) Roberts: One of the hon. gentleman's colleagues says, "Well, do something about it." What the hon. gentleman has suggested so far to do about it is to change the limitations under the Unemployment Insurance Commission to extend the benefits so far as necessary and, in effect, ad infinitum. That is one possible approach to the whole question of how unemployment insurance should be applied. However, it is not the approach which is represented in the Act. The Act emphasizes the insurance principle in attaching benefits over a limited period of time for specific purposes.
If we were to follow the course of action suggested by the Hon. Member, it would require not only amendments to the legislation, but it would also require, I suggest to him, an increase in fees both to employers and employees who are contributing to the fund. I wonder very much whether he has the support of his labour colleagues and union friends in suggesting that those kinds of increases should take place.


Ian Deans: The Minister put his finger on the problem. The problem, of course, is paying for it. There are numerous ways with a reallocation of resources that the Government could redirect funds presently going into other less worthy projects, to people in need.


Mr. Blaikie:: Like the nuclear industry.


GOVERNMENT'S APPROACH TO CREATION OF JOBS
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, it makes no sense to be apologetic. Surely it makes no sense to feel sadness about it. The only thing that will matter is when the Government brings forward a program which will extend benefits in order that this man, and the tens of thousands like him, will not be forced to lose everything for which they have worked during the balance of the economic downturn.
Will the Government pay heed to this request and bring forward programs which will guarantee that people who have worked all their lives will be able to maintain themselves and their families until such time as the economic recovery we are told is in place begins to have some beneficial effect upon them?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, we have shown that the economic development which is in place is having a beneficial effect on jobs.


Ian Deans: Not on these people.


John (Moody) Roberts: It has created something like 400,000 jobs over the past year. The hon. gentleman-and I understand it is the approach of his policy-does not believe in the approach we are taking to job creation. Our approach to job creation is one which relies upon economic recovery and activities by the Government to provide a context within which the private sector will act as a motor force in the creation of jobs, and in that we have been successful. It also involves a more focused approach through employment and insurance programs to areas of special difficulty in the economy. A primary objective
January 30,1984

in that context is employment for young people in the economy. That was the purpose of the changes which we announced during the Speech from the Throne, and 1 make no apology for that emphasis in our policies.


AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and it relates to the automotive industry. The combination of import quotas and the upturn in the economy have led to a sharp improvement in industry profits and sales during the past few months. Is the Government considering any initiative to signal to both management and the unions that their performance in pricing decisions and at the bargaining table later this year will be taken into account when the whole question of import quotas comes up for review again?


Edward C. Lumley: Mr. Speaker, since the responsibility for negotiation of quotas, and discussions about quotas, rests with the Minister for International Trade, I hope the Hon. Member will await his return from Davos and pose his question at that time.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: The Minister realizes that he is responsible for industry and for its competitive position. That is why I put the question to him.


COMPETITIVE POSITION OF CANADIAN INDUSTRY
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister considering any joint action with the United States administration to meet with both labour and management representatives of the automotive industry, to underline the concern of many that import quotas in the strong automobile market today are leading to higher prices to consumers, and that resultant high industry profits may lead to an excessive wage settlement later this year and further undermine the competitive position of the industry, a position which is his concern and his responsibility?


Edward C. Lumley: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member phrases his question that way, I can answer it. He specifically asked about quotas in his first question, unless I misunderstood him. If so, I apologize.
With respect to discussions with the United States, no discussion of that nature is contemplated. With respect to discussions about putting the onus on the industry-both management and labour-to be competitive, he is about three years behind time. That has been the whole thrust of our discussion with Canadian and United States companies in the automotive industry.
Oral Questions
The fact of the matter is that that is one of the reasons we have had a resurgence in sales of North American cars, and a recall of 25,000 people in Canada alone-the saving of the Chrysler Corporation. Management and labour in Canadian operations are more productive than they are in the United States on a plant by plant basis. I think they have done that job, and I would be happy to send some information to the Hon. Member that would defend the industry's position in this regard.


PRIVACY
Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. He will know that he has made an allegation about the Leader of the Opposition and that, when there was a search for evidence, the evidence could not be found. In light of that, would he tell us how any private citizen or Member of Parliament defends himself or herself if such allegations are to be made purely based upon the speculation of a conversation?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I have indicated that on January 25, 1983, there was a meeting between the president of Iron Ore and the Deputy Minister of Finance at which the issue of retirement allowances for senior personnel was discussed and raised.


AUTH ENTICITY OF CONVERSATION
Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister of Finance was unable to establish evidence or produce that evidence through letters which he claimed he had, how do we trust that he does not simply fabricate information about citizens or Members of Parliament? How do we know that when he says a conversation took place that we can reliably trust that the Minister is saying what he says, when he cannot produce the evidence?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, 1 have to tell my hon. friend that this is the information which was provided to me by my Deputy Minister.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: How can you speak about it publicly?


Marc Lalonde: If he does not want me to believe my Deputy Minister, that is fine; that is all I can say.
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January 30, 1984


REQUEST THAT TAX CREDIT BE INTRODUCED FOR USED FARM MACHINERY
Mr. Stan Schellenberger (Wetaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Because of falling farm incomes and inordinately high prices of new equipment, many young farmers and starting farmers have great difficulty replacing their worn out farm machinery. Has the Minister of Finance looked into the benefits of a tax credit for used machinery similar to that which is in place for new machinery? Is he aware of the job benefits which would result both to the farm manufacturing sector and to the manufacturing area?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, 1 will have to take this question as a representation in the preparation of the next Budget.


FARM FUEL TAXES
Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Mr. Speaker, because of the rising cost of farm inputs and commodity prices for farmers not rising at the same rate, would the Minister look at the high take of the federal Government as far as farm fuel taxes are concerned? Would he give that the same consideration as a reduction to assist starting farmers in agricultural food production across the country?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I will give the same answer to this question as to the previous one.


CANADA POST CORPORATION
Mr. Laverne Lewycky (Dauphin-Swan River):: Mr. Speaker, my question follows on the one raised by the Hon. Member for Beaches regarding the Chinese New Year. Will the Minister responsible for Canada Post look into this matter immediately so that Chinese workers will have February 2 off for this important celebration in the Chinese community?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I have taken note of the question and will refer the case to the postal authorities.


APPLICATION OF GOVERNMENT'S MULTICULTURAL POLICIES IN CROWN CORPORATIONS
Laverne Lewycky: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of State for Multiculturalism. Would he be prepared to undertake briefings in multiculturalism in our major Crown corporations
to ensure more sensitivity and that this type of event does not occur in the future?


Hon. D. M. Collenette (Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Mr. Speaker, I believe most of our Crown corporations are fully aware of the multicultural policies of the Government, but if there can be any improvement I am certainly willing to assist in that regard.


PRIVACY
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Acting Prime Minister. In light of the response by the Minister of Finance today, will the Acting Prime Minister tell me and the people of this country what guarantee any individual citizen now has that a private conversation that he or she conducts with departmental officials or Ministers of the Crown will not be discussed publicly on the floor of the House of Commons?


Jean-Luc Pepin: Mr. Speaker, my impression, subject to correction, is that the case mentioned by the Minister of Finance was the same as the one mentioned by the Leader of the Opposition. That is the impression I have.


POINT OF ORDER
Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order flowing from the Question Period today respecting the exchange that my colleagues and 1 had with the Acting Prime Minister (Mr. Pepin) and those relating to comments made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) Tuesday and Friday last and today.	'
1 want to give to you, Mr. Speaker, a very tightly argued debate. Before I do that, I want to say to you as an introduction to the point I want to make that a number of us, as individual Members of Parliament, when the exchange took place last Tuesday, had some very serious questions that we asked ourselves and that we discussed with each other in terms of what is proper within this House, what is acceptable and what is not.
I was disturbed all last week about that question. I was surprised as well that on the weekend constituents raised the same question with me, not in a partisan sense but in the context raised by the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald); that is, what is privileged when a citizen writes to his or her government or has a conversation
January 30,1984

with a member of the Crown or, for that matter, a Member of Parliament?
What we had tabled today in the House of Commons was that not only letters but also conversations held in private could now be subject to exposure, debate and interpretation on the floor of this House. All of us have been in enough private conversations and meetings to know that misrepresentation of what is said or interpretation of what is said can very easily follow. It is in that context that I rise today to make the following points.
There is a question in my mind as to the procedural acceptability of the tabling of such papers by Ministers. Specifically, I believe that in order to table such papers the Minister would have required the unanimous consent of the House. I intend to make that case. There can be no doubt that Private Members of this House have no authority to lay papers on the Table, outside of a very few specific documents such as motion, Bills and petitions. That is a restriction for all of us. Therefore, had a Private Member attempted to do what the Minister of Finance did, he would have been ruled out of order by the Chair.
Admittedly, the practices of the House provide greater opportunity for Ministers to table various documents and we are aware of those. Standing Order 46 in particular lays out certain requirements placed on Ministers to table documents. Standing Order 46(1) provides that any papers required to be tabled in the House pursuant to any Act, resolution or Standing Order may be deposited with the Clerk on any sitting day. Standing Order 46(2) permits any Minister or Parliamentary Secretary acting on behalf of a Minister to table a report or other paper dealing with a matter coming within the administrative responsibilities of the Government. A further practice which may "require" and not "permit" a Minister to table a document is the rule that documents cited in debate or during Question Period by a Minister must be tabled if so requested by other Members, except in cases when the release of such documents would be contrary in some manner to the national interest.
It would seem that the mere mention of correspondence by a Minister during the course of Question Period would be sufficient to permit any Member of the House, including a member of the Government Party, to rise in his or her place and request that such correspondence be tabled. Indeed, if that correspondence dealt in any way, shape or form with matters falling within the Minister's administrative competence, the Standing Orders would seem, at first blush, to permit the Minister to rise in the House and lay the papers on the Table or to file them with the Clerk of the House during the sitting day, and thereafter that correspondence would become a public document. We understand that. It would be kept on file in the Journals Branch as a sessional paper. All of this could be done at the Minister's initiative without a request from another Member.
However, reason suggests that there must be some practical limit to the authority of the Ministry to scour Government files and make their contents public. Otherwise, it would be
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
altogether too easy for a government so inclined to carry out a vindictive and arbitrary campaign against individual citizens, political opponents, newspaper columnists, what have you- indeed against anyone who might dissent from the views of the Government.
Because the actions and words of Members in the House are largely immune from legal constraints or consequences, the individual would have no recourse if taxation records, health records, personal correspondence with government agencies and departments or any other information were to be made public through tabling in this House.
Would free thought and independent action long survive in a country where authoritarian practices were condoned and encouraged by the rules of that nation's legislative bodies? The answer obviously is no. It is for that reason that the rules of the House of Commons do not provide for the tabling of private papers and documents, and it is for that reason that the House of Commons has passed information laws and has provided for a Privacy Commissioner.
Looking back to the rulings of your predecessors, Mr. Speaker, one discovers that private correspondence, for example, was deemed to be outside of the class of documents permitted to be tabled pursuant to the Standing Orders. In support of this contention, I would draw to your attention a ruling of Mr. Speaker Lamoureux, found at page 9135 of Hansard for January 8, 1974 where the following is found. To put it in context, the late Right Hon. Member for Prince Albert had been asking for certain information relating to the RCMP. The then Solicitor General, the Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine East (Mr. Allmand), was willing that day to put the papers on the Table, including correspondence that the Right Hon. Member had written as a Private Member of this House to the Solicitor General. Your predecessor said, and I quote from the page I cited:


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair has some procedural reservations about what is proposed by the Solicitor General. The point made by the right hon. gentleman certainly deserves serious consideration. I wonder whether it is competent on a minister, under the Standing Order, to propose to table copies of a letter addressed to another member. I would think that a minister is always justified under the Standing Order in tabling what the Standing Order identifies as a document or paper, but I would doubt whether that would extend to an exchange of correspondence between a minister and a member. I would think that that part of the proposed tabling by the minister might be held in abeyance.
Cleary, the tabling of correspondence between a Member and a Minister was deemed to be irregular with respect to the rules of this House in 1974.
On June 1, 1978 Hansard recorded another interesting exchange which sheds further light on the practices of the House with respect to the tabling of correspondence. At that time the then Minister of Justice referred to a letter sent to him by a Member then sitting on this side of the House. The Speaker's comments found on page 5955 of Hansard on that date are enlightening, and I quote:


Mr. Speaker:: The Minister of Justice (Mr. Basford) made reference to the letter and, I think, quoted from it. At least I hope he did. The House is obviously generally interested in having the letter tabled, either under our practice

January 30, 1984
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
whereby a minister of the Crown participating in discussion, who quotes from a document, is asked by the House or compelled by the House to table it or, in any case, upon the unanimous consent of the House which, 1 assume, is now forthcoming.
I mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker, that I would make the case about the unanimous consent portion of the tabling of private correspondence. The Speaker continues, and I quote:
I take it that the minister has the consent of the House at this time-just to keep it perfectly clear that we are proceeding with consent-to table the letter referred to, and the enclosure. It can be done in that way, and the matter then becomes at least a part of our proceedings.
You will note that Mr. Speaker Jerome was careful to underline the fact that the letter in question was being tabled by unanimous consent. That was the issue there. Why was Mr. Speaker Jerome so careful to point out that this was the case? The answer lies in the fact that had the letter not been tabled by unanimous consent but merely through the initiative of the Minister, an ominous precedent would have been set. It is that ominous precedent, Mr. Speaker, that we are debating today.
When I said earlier that the tabling of personal correspondence or private information was not envisaged by the rules, I was drawing from the long-standing practices of the House and observations such as those made in Citation 357 of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition, which outlines the restrictions on written questions. Citation 357(1) notes in part that written or oral questions must not:
(h)	contain inferences;
(i)	contain imputations;
(n) reflect on or relate to character or conduct of persons other than in a public capacity;
(q) contain or imply charges of a personal character;
(dd) deal with matters not officially connected with Government or Parliament, or which are of a private nature.
(ee) relate to communications alleged to have passed between a Member and a Minister.
The Minister today raised the matter of a conversation.
(mm) reflect on the character or the conduct of the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, members of either House of Parliament and Judges of High Courts.
The text notes that these matters can be dealt with only on a substantive motion.
(nn) relate to matters which passed outside the walls of the House and do not relate to any Bill or motion before the House.
Citation 357(2) notes that restrictions outlined above apply more strictly to written questions than to oral questions. It is interesting to note this distinction between oral questions which receive brief oral answers and written questions which entail usually written and more detailed answers than those provided through returns tabled in this House. Most of these same restrictions which apply to written questions under the heading of "Production of Papers" are outlined in Beauchesne. However, the most telling restriction which applies to orders for the production of papers is that, according to Citation 388 of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition, and I quote:
There is a general rule that papers should be ordered only on subjects which are of a public or official character.
It is importnat to note, Mr. Speaker, the words "public or official character". Citation 390 of Beauchesne casts further
light on the practices of the House with respect to the nature of documents which may be sought by motions for the production of papers. It reads in part as follows, and I will just read part of it, Mr. Speaker:
In 1973, the Government of the Day tabled in the House of Commons its view on the general principles governing Notices of Motions for Production of Papers-principles, although not formally approved by the House, but which have been followed since:
(1) To enable Members of Parliament to secure factual information about the operations of Government to carry out their parliamentary duties and to make public as much factual information as possible, consistent with effective administration-
And the restrictions are:
-the protection of the security of the state, rights to privacy and other such matters, government papers, documents and consultant reports should be produced on Notice of Motion for the Production of Papers unless falling within the categories outlined below, in which case an exemption is to be claimed from production.
The exemptions then follow, Mr. Speaker. It can be demonstrated, therefore, Mr. Speaker, that there are many restrictions which apply to the type of information which Members of this House can request from the Government. It does not take any great depth of understanding to realize that these restrictions have been put in place because of the vast amount of information which is held by the federal Government, the release of which information would pose a serious threat in some cases to the security of the nation and the protection of the national interest, but which in most cases would pose a far greater threat to individual freedom and the right of privacy. That, Mr. Speaker, is what was violated last week.
Yet, Mr. Speaker, if last Thursday is any measure, all of these restrictions may be set aside if a Minister, for political reasons, determines that he or she wishes to refer to that information in the House and subsequently tables that information, thus bringing it into the public domain. We have even a further extension of that today by reference to a private conversation.
I challenge the right of the Minister of Finance or any other Minister to ignore the rules which apply to Members of this House not occupying the Treasury benches and to violate the rights of Canadian citizens by hiding behind the privileges of this House. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney), in writing to the Minister of Finance in his capacity as President of the Iron Ore Company of Canada on behalf of the company's employees, was engaged in a legitimate and, indeed, laudable activity, but he was not writing in the expectation that any such correspondence might later be produced by a government which would resort to any device in its desperate attempt to cling to power.
How many Canadians would commit their thoughts to paper and communicate with the Government if they thought that at some future date the Government might attempt to use such communications against them? Just this morning, Mr. Speaker, I recieved a call from a businessman who has informed his employees not to put anything in writing when they are writing to this Government unless they want the information to become public. The disquiet which this kind of practice creates in the minds of Canadians goes well beyond this House. Would
January 30, 1984

Canadians volunteer information by filling out income tax forms and providing census data-which they must under law-file with Canada Manpower or engage in any of the myriad interactions with government agencies which take place on a daily basis? I think not. I gave you evidence this morning of why not.
Ministers must limit themselves to the terms and conditions of Citation 379 of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition when tabling documents in the House, and I feel it is important for this point of order that the record shows what those restrictions are. Citation 379(1) entitled "Production of Papers" reads:
(1)	Papers are laid before the House in pursuance of:
(a)	provisions of an Act of Parliament;
(b)	an Order of the House;
(c)	an Address to the Crown; or
(d)	Standing Orders of the House.
(2)	Papers may be laid before the House voluntarily under S.O. 41(2).
Otherwise, Mr. Speaker, let them step outside this House. Let the Minister of Finance and others step outside this House if they want to make government information public. Let them stop hiding behind the privileges of this House and take the full legal consequences of their actions if they want to violate the rights and freedoms of Canadians. I believe that the practices of this House require the Minister to seek the unanimous consent of the House if he wants to table the correspondence which passed between his Department and the Leader of the Opposition. He did not do so. Nowhere in the records of this House is such consent recorded, nor is any order for the production of the papers contained in the Votes and Proceedings. The only official record of the correspondence is found in Friday's Votes and Proceedings where they are noted as having been tabled by the Minister and as having become Sessional Paper 322-7/2.
As I said to you in my introductory remarks, Mr. Speaker, this whole issue bothers me deeply. Today I had another conversation with one of a group of people representing a registered charity who are working on a specific piece of legislation that has had first reading in the House. I had a phone call from a gentleman who asked me what he was to make of the bulletin received at the end of last week from Revenue Canada which inferred that lobbying on controversial legislation could jeopardize their status as a registered charity.
Where does this end, Mr. Speaker? That is a serious question that the House has to address. Should we simply write it off as politics and say that this happens in politics, or that politics is dirty? I do not subscribe to that theory, nor will 1 ever. If we allow ourselves to be dragged down to those levels, then what happens to the institution of parliamentary democracy? What happens to the cynicism in the country toward the institution of Parliament?
In closing, Mr. Speaker, the strength of our institutions is the unspoken contract between the individual and the body politic. As Denis Diderot said:
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it. In the practice of morality as in other activities, it takes exercise to build strength.
It was Horace Mann who said:
He who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind do of colours.
What we are dealing with today is at the very heart of the parliamentary process. The Minister of Finance violated the practices of this House last Tuesday. I ask that you consider the matter and take whatever steps are necessary to make sure that this incident does not become a precedent for further violations by the Government.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, 1 have listened with great care and attention to what the Hon. Member for Provencher (Mr. Epp) has just said. Frankly, I find very little to argue with in it. I think his point was well put and well documented on the principle of it and also on the practice of it.
I think it is important to make some distinctions, however. For instance, he referred to Revenue Canada documents in that regard. I am sure my hon. friend knows that the law is quite categorical and specific in terms of Revenue Canada. Sanctions are imposed by law on officials and everybody concerning the confidentiality of income tax reports and the relationship between individual citizens and the Department of National Revenue. In bringing this particular aspect of the matter into debate I would say that the Hon. Member was going overboard. The law of Revenue Canada is quite specific and categorical in this regard.
There then arises the general issue of communications between citizens and the Government. Obviously there is room for more argument. The Hon. Member raises an important point. As he knows, I have opened up considerably the whole process of budget-making in terms of consultation-


Erik Nielsen: Two hundred million dollars worth.


Marc Lalonde: -some say even too much-receiving briefs, and hearing individuals and groups. In that process there are frequent exchanges between groups, and in consulting particular groups one is unavoidably able to find out what they think. This is a process of evolving something that will eventually be the Budget. It is not yet Government policy or a decision. If you want broad consultation it is unavoidable that you cannot treat it as you do an income tax report because it is a different issue. Hundreds of people come in with hundreds of ideas about what the Government should or should not do, including some from the floor of this House.
If we want to examine the situation in the context of budgetary consultations generally, I can understand individuals who would say: "This is important in terms of the privileged information of my corporation; this is confidential information that, if released, could hurt my competitive situation". One can imagine a number of instances like that.
But I would say that in 99.9 per cent of the cases, the representations we receive are general representations by

January 30, 1984
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
groups or individuals saying that there is a problem and they would like to see it addressed. My hon. friend should see it in that context.
The second point in his argument that I would like to deal with is the issue of the tabling of documents. The Hon. Member will recall that in the House on Tuesday last, as reported at page 694 of Hansard, I asked the Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) if I could release the letter in question and he replied "Release it at any time". Subsequently on Wednesday, at noon, I had a conversation with the Hon. Leader of the Opposition who asked me to transmit to him the document that would be tabled before I tabled it in the House.
On Friday, during Question Period, as soon as I got the documents, I made sure they were delivered by hand to the office of the Leader of the Opposition. Subsequently the Leader of the Opposition walked into the House close to the time of tabling the documents. He was sitting in his seat when I rose to table the documents that I did table. So there was consultation with the Leader of the Opposition and there was also agreement from him at the beginning, in the House on Tuesday, January 24.
1 think the points that the Hon. Member has raised are well taken in principle, that I do not think that we should proceed to tabling those documents without agreement or consent of the individual. When I stood up in the House, Mr. Speaker, you will remember that the Leader of the Opposition and the House Leader for the Conservative Party were in their seats and they did not raise any particular objection.


Allan Frederick Lawrence: Mr. Speaker, I did not come today prepared to argue the case before Your Honour about the release of documentation because there are others who are equally concerned and who have an opportunity to do more preparation on that matter. I hope you will be able to hear some of this argumentation today, even though in all fairness Your Honour might not be in a position to render a decision today. I am sure you will take it under advisement, however.
There is one point that I would draw to your attention which I think will be elucidated later by my colleagues, and that is the whole question of the Privacy Act, the position of the Privacy Commissioner in the House and the fact that the Privacy Commissioner does not report to the House through a Minister but reports to the House through the Speaker. We are not only dealing with a matter that may affect the privileges of Members and a question of very deep order as far as the House is concerned, but also, I suggest, with the unique position of the Chair in being the liaison and reporting body to the House for that particular Act. Unfortunately the Act does not appear to be able to impose any penalties or remedies when there is an obvious breach of it, as I suggest there has been in respect of the Minister's action regarding the documentation referred to. The Speaker of the House obviously has a very special duty to make sure that the provisions of the Act-and I draw attention to Section 4-are rigorously enforced and applied.
I want to bring one further thing to your attention which happened in the House today and which deeply concerns me. I think we are dealing perhaps not with a government but certainly with a Minister who has had the very obvious intention of "getting" another Member of the House. 1 put the word "getting" in quotation marks. I think there is a very obvious attempt here to try to blacken the reputation of a particular Member of the House. The way this scenario has unfolded, Sir, is that the Minister must have severely grilled the people in his Department to attempt to find information which would otherwise be held in very strict confidence as representations to government at one time or another. Last Tuesday the Minister blurted out the information he thought he had. Last Friday, or perhaps before, he realized he was completely wrong, and that is why we have had a half-hearted and rather mealy-mouthed apology today.
This is a matter which affects not only the privileges of the Leader of the Opposition, who is not here today to defend himself, but one affecting the privileges of every Member of the House. In the absence of the documentation he obviously thought he had, the Minister has referred to what may be even more privileged, a conversation, not between the Minister and the person who is now a Member of this House, but one between a civil servant and a person who is now a Member of the House. In so far as the integrity of information and representation is concerned, indeed the integrity of this and other Governments' efforts to encourage people to make representations concerning policy and legislation, the Minister has attacked that concept as well as the privileges of the Members of the House by referring to this conversation. If we were in a court of law, this would be struck out because as far as the Minister is concerned it is hearsay evidence only. He can always choose to weasel out by laying the blame on a misinterpretation of either what the civil servant said to him or what the civil servant understood the representations to be.
I think, Mr. Speaker, that today we have had an extremely gross representation in the House by a Minister who should obviously know better. But he does not, Sir, and I suggest to you that at the very least this matter has to be put in the hands of a committee of the House where not only the Minister can be questioned under oath, but also others who may have been involved. Obviously, this matter should not be swept under the rug. It should not be left in the position where we have a Minister breaking every rule of decency which some of us have been led to believe is paramount as far as the deliberations of the House are concerned.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I want to raise three matters which I think are germane to the issue before you. At the outset I want to say that, as I see it, there are three questions before us, one of which may well require the Speaker to make a ruling. The other two are certainly important but they are perhaps a little more political than the actual question which must be addressed.
January 30, 1984

I worry about the tone which has developed over the past few months and which has been somewhat exacerbated by the situation which arose on Tuesday last. Let me just to put this into perspective. You will recall the exchange between the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) and Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) in which the Minister made reference to things written to his Department by the Leader of the Opposition in his private capacity as President of the Iron Ore Company. Because the Minister of Finance made reference to this correspondence, I rose and asked, in the interests of fairness and full disclosure of the documents cited by the Minister, whether or not it would be appropriate to ask that it be tabled. You quite rightly ruled, Sir, that it was not a point of order. The Minister of Finance then rose and indicated that the Leader of the Official Opposition had given his approval to the tabling of the documents, and some time later the documents were tabled. As I see it, the three questions are these: Are Members entitled to have access to documents which have been cited or quoted by a Minister of the Crown in response to a question or in the course of debate? I think that may well be the question you must answer, Sir. Second, should the Minister of Finance or any other Minister use such so-called private documents-and I will return to that in a moment-for the purpose of either reinforcing his own argument or for scoring political points during debate or in Question Period? Third, does a person who has written a letter in a private capacity to a ministry or Minister of the Crown lose the right of confidentiality-if that right exists-when he or she becomes elected to the House of Commons or to any other publicly elected body?
To deal, first of all, with whether the right to expect confidentiality exists, I think Beauchesen deals with that quite nicely. Beauchesne's says, on page 116, Citation No. 327(7):
When a letter, even though it may have been written originally as a private letter, becomes part of a record of a department, it becomes a public document, and if quoted by a Minister in debate, must be tabled on request.
It was because of that particular citation that I rose last Tuesday and asked that the letter, which had been in my judgement cited or quoted in debate, and it had certainly been paraphrased in debate, should now be tabled for all Members to view. I believe therefore that anyone who writes to a Department should be made aware of the existence of this citation. If a letter to the Government by a private citizen becomes part of the record of the Department and is subsequently referred to in debate or in answer to a question, quoted from or used to influence the outcome of the debate, it must be tabled if a request is made for tabling.
I hope that this at least lays to rest the matter of whether it was appropriate to table the documents. I suggest that it was appropriate to table the documents. The question really is whether it was appropriate for the Minister to have made reference to the documents. That is the question we have before us. I would be very concerned if it were interpreted by anyone that we were attempting to leave the impression that letters written by public figures are somehow immune from tabling in the event that a Minister in any political Party at
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
any time should choose, perhaps inadvisably or improperly, to make reference to or to quote from those letters in the House of Commons. The impression can be left with the citizenry that their correspondence with the Government on public matters which becomes part of the record of the Department has an absolute guarantee of non-disclosure. That has never been the case and is not the case now.
It may well be that it should become the case. It may well be that we should consider that letters written by private individuals to their Government should not be subject to the possibility of ministerial abuse or inadvertence, but should be considered private and not subject to tabling in the House of Commons. Likewise, they should then not be available to be quoted, referred to or cited.
If the suggestion is that this matter be referred to a committee for review, we would have to consider whether there was a breach of the etiquette of the House of Commons, the Standing Orders and the accepted practices. On the other hand, we must look at the degree of confidentiality that a citizen should expect to have in the event that he or she should wish to correspond with his or her Government. It may well be that no Minister of the Crown should be permitted to cite, quote from or refer to documents, letters or other forms of correspondence sent to the Department without the express permission of the person who sent the document. That should be what we are aiming for in an effort to protect the public.
The other two questions are political. The Minister should not have quoted. When he did, I sent him a note and asked whether the document was available for tabling. I wanted to be sure there was in fact a document before I asked that it should be tabled. I suspect that with the benefit of hindsight, this Minister would rather he had not made reference to the existence of such a letter. There is a lesson to be learned for all Ministers. There is a code of ethics that requires that no reference be made at all to documents such as this no matter what the heat of the moment, the political point that can be made or the political advantage that can be gained. The ultimate consequence of that would undoubtedly be that the document itself should be tabled.
The second political question before us is whether a person, by virtue of getting elected to the House of Commons, automatically waives the right to expect confidentiality of documents and letters sent to any Department of Government prior to getting elected. It would be an unfortunate interpretation that a letter written by someone in a private capacity becomes a public document by virtue of the fact that he was elected.
Looking at it overall, by virtue of having made reference to the document, and leaving the impression that contained within that document there are certain views which could influence both the public's and the Member's understanding of the exchange, it was appropriate to request that the document be tabled. However, having said that, it is appropriate that the Minister apologize, as he has, for having used documents which in actual fact ought not to have been used. At the root of it all we have to decide in the House of Commons that the

January 30, 1984
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
degree of confidentiality that every citizen should have the right to expect will exist in any correspondence between himself or herself and his elected representative and, in particular, between him and his Government. We have to make it clear that a situation can never again arise when a Minister will rise-


Marc Lalonde: Or the Opposition.


Ian Deans: Or the Opposition.


Marc Lalonde: They use such documents quite often.


Ian Deans: Let us not get into that. An occasion should never again arise when a Minister, in an effort to shore up an argument for political purposes, makes reference to a document written by a private individual to that Minister's Department. Mr. Speaker, if you were to decide that, on the face of it, there was a breach of House etiquette and maybe even a breach of House rules, I will, of course, abide by your decision happily and willingly. If you were to make the decision that a broader matter be referred to the committee for determination as to how citizens can be guaranteed that their documents, letters and correspondence are given the kind of confidentiality that they would expect to be given, we might begin by taking another look at Beauchesne's Citation 327.7 to see whether we ought to write in that no Minister of the Crown may in fact make reference-


Marc Lalonde: Or Members.


Ian Deans: -fair enough, that no Member of Parliament, Minister of otherwise, may make reference to any letter sent to him by a citizen other than with that citizen's prior permission.


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


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, regarding the point of order raised by the Member or Provencher (Mr. Epp) the question at issue is, basically: Was the tabling of correspondence by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) irregular, that is, was it against the Standing Orders of the House or Parliamentary practice? If the Chair concludes that there was no infringement of the Standing Orders or of Parliamentary practice on that occasion, there can be no doubt that the point of order raised by the Member from Provencher (Mr. Epp) is not valid.
We must therefore ask ourselves, first of all, whether the tabling of these letters is against Parliamentary practice or the Standing Orders of the House. I would immediately draw the attention of the Chair to the fact that the examples given by the Member for Provencher (Mr. Epp) do not apply in the circumstances, since in the situations mentioned by the Hon. Member, it was either a case of legislation specifically prohibiting a person from making certain documents public, which is not the case here-there is no legislation that prevents the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) from publicizing the correspondence in question-or of the Minister of Finance, if he did not break the law, infringing the Standing Orders. However, none of the Standing Orders of the House prohibits the tabling of these documents.
In addition to the examples where legislation prevented a Minister from tabling documents, the Hon. Member for Provencher also quoted citations on the subject of correspondence between a Member and a Minister, which do not apply here either, because the correspondence with which we are concerned was exchanged between a Minister and a person who at the time of the exchange was not a Member of the House. 1 would therefore like to make it quite clear to the Chair that all the precedents and references brought to bear by the Hon. Member from Provencher do not apply here, because the Minister has not broken the law and, furthermore, we are not concerned here with correspondence between a Member and a Minister.
Secondly, considering the fact that there was no infringement of Parliamentary practices, since none of the precedents quoted could be said to apply specifically here, the question arises whether the Minister infringed one of the Standing Orders. Previous speakers were unable to refer the House to any specific Standing Order that would prevent the Minister of Finance from tabling such a document. The Hon. Member from Provencher referred to Standing Order 46(2) but this happens to be the Standing Order I intend to use to support my argument that the Minister had the right to table the document, and we must therefore consider S.O. 46(2) in its proper context.
However, before considering the Standing Order under which the Minister had the right to table correspondence, as well as other facts to which I intend to draw the attention of the Chair, may I say, with respect, that it is not up to the Chair to decide whether a Member has or has not broken the law. You are the servant of the House, and it is your duty to maintain order and see to it that the Standing Orders are enforced. There is certainly no doubt, and I say this with respect, that those are your responsibilities. Although I said earlier that the Minister had not broken any laws, I do not think it is up to the Speaker of the House to decide whether a Member has or has not broken the law. I do not think it is up to the Chair to give a legal opinion or to sentence members under the laws of this country, and perhaps 1 may refer you to Beauchesne's Fifth Edition, Citation 240, page 80, which provides, and I quote:
The Speaker will not give a decision upon a constitutional question nor decide a question of law, though the same may be raised on a point of order or privilege.
That being said, how do we balance the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act? Where do we draw the line between what is to be made public because of the individual's right to access to information and what is to be kept private
January 30, 1984

under the Privacy Act? I think these are nuances that the Courts, not the Speaker of the House, must define and analyze.
Now, let us consider the Standing Orders. Did the Minister table these documents, this correspondence, in a regular manner? I believe I already said briefly that in making his case, the Hon. Member for Provencher did not refer to a single precedent that would be applicable or to any Standing Order that prohibited the Minister from acting as he did. On the other hand, we contend that under Standing Order 46(2) the Minister had the right to table the documents as he did. We must consider that the first paragraph of S.O. 46 states the principle that a Minister may deposit any papers to be laid before the House in accordance with an Act or Order, and may do so without notice and without seeking the consent of the House. That is the general rule. In addition to the provisions in paragraph (1), paragraph (2) states that there are other circumstances in which a Minister may also deposit papers without notice and without seeking the consent of the House. And those circumstances are described in section (2). Basically, these documents deal with a matter that falls within the administrative responsibilities of the Government. If the correspondence deals with such a matter, then the provisions of Standing Order 46(2) apply and the Minister is fully justified in tabling those documents without notice and without consent. In the factual explanations given by the Minister, and this is even more obvious than before now that the correspondence has been tabled and made public, it is clear that these were representations made to a Minister of Finance with respect to a forthcoming budget and related to his administrative responsibility to introduce tax or financial legislation in due course.
So much so, Mr. Speaker, that the key letter dated January 24 which was tabled specifically refers to a brief presented to Members of Parliament, and the letter does nothing more than comment on that brief. That is why I wonder what Members of the Opposition are complaining about concerning the contents of the letter. I am not talking about all the circumstances, but we are debating a point or order. The question is whether or not the Standing Orders have been breached. I wonder what Hon. Members opposite are complaining about when the Minister makes public representations contained in a letter addressed to him as Minister of Finance by the president of a multinational company. It is indicated in the letter that the representations were related to a brief, and I quote: "Our position was explained in a 29-page brief presented to Members of Parliament concerning the impact of the federal budget of November 12, 1981 on people working in Northern Canada. That brief was addressed to the Hon. Allan J. MacEachen along with my letter dated January 28, 1982."
In the rest of the three-page letter, nowhere is there any mention of the letter being confidential, quite the contrary since the representations are an explanation of that earlier brief submitted after a Canadian Government budget was
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
brought down by the predecessor of the current Minister of Finance. The sole or practically sole purpose of that letter was to explain the brief presented to Hon. Members.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, it is quite obvious that this correspondence was not confidential, that it amounted to representations made to a Minister of Finance and aimed at influencing him in the preparation of a budget. It was correspondence referring to an earlier brief presented to all Hon. Members concerning the matter described in it and, therefore, such correspondence can indeed be described, as provided in Standing Order 46(2), as a paper dealing with a matter pertaining to the administrative responsibilities of the Government. And this, in my opinion, should be enough to settle the issue. Under Standing Order 46(2), the correspondence now being discussed could be tabled.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, my argument is supported by the citation mentioned by the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans), namely Citation 327(7) of Beauchesne's. I believe that this explanation complement the provisions of Standing Order 46(2), since it says the following:
When a letter, even though it may have been written originally as a private letter, becomes part of a record of a department, it becomes a public document, and if quoted by a Minister in debate, must be tabled on request.
Even if we were to admit that the correspondence was of a personal nature, which is not the case, Standing Order 46(2) would still apply and the Minister was legally authorized by our rules and practice to table the correspondence.
Now my third point, Mr. Speaker. After having said, first, that no rules or precedents were ever quoted to support the point of order, and second, that on the contrary, both our practices and rules and the correspondence itself, since the facts must be taken into account, justified the action taken by the Minister in tabling these papers without giving notice and without asking for consent I must add that even though this consent was not required, it was obviously implicit. Whenever a Member rises on a point of order, the Chair must have the opportunity to prescribe a remedy and the rules clearly state that points of order must be raised when a remedy can be provided, but, in any case, consent was implicit. Indeed, in his explanations which the Chair must take into account before ruling on the matter raised by the Hon. Member for Provencher, the Minister gave his version of the facts, and if you read Hansard, Mr. Speaker, you will see that, during the Oral Question Period, as the Acting Prime Minister mentioned and as noted in Hansard, the Leader of the Opposition and his House Leader, the Hon. Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen), challenged the Minister of Finance to table this correspondence. This is a first point which must be taken into account. They were the ones who asked for the correspondence to be tabled. They were the ones who challenged the Minister to

January 30, 1984
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
table the correspondence, as shown in the official record to which you referred today.
Of course, Members opposite will say that they would not have made this challenge if the Minister of Finance had not referred to the correspondence. However, that is not the point at issue. The point is that, if Hon. Members want to speak about honour, the Minister of Finance had the courtesy to apologize and this should satisfy them. However, in spite of this apology, they deemed it appropriate to raise a legal issue under a point of order.
I am therefore basing my argument on the rules and on the legal issues, and what 1 am saying is that the Members opposite were the ones who challenged the Minister of Finance by asking him to table the correspondence.
Second, the Minister of Finance mentioned these facts: he met with the Leader of the Opposition before tabling the documents; at his request, the Minister showed him the correspondence and waited for him to be at his place before tabling the correspondence, to which he did not object. This is another fact which tends to show that even if consent had been required, this consent was implicit since the Minister was challenged by the Opposition, gave notice to the Leader of the Opposition, showed him the correspondence beforehand and waited for him to be in the House before tabling this correspondence, which he did also at the request of the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans).
Now, what remedy can there be? Even if we presume that the point of order raised by the Hon. Member for Provencher could be genuine, what more could be asked for? The Minister has replied unequivocally to a question. He said that he realized with regret that the letter did not reflect what he had been told and he apologized something which of course he did not have to do to properly settle the matter, but which in my view was a very proper and parliamentary thing to do. I feel, therefore, that the opposition has not made its point and that it has no argument to support its claim that the Minister had no right to table these documents. Personally, I feel that the references I have made to our Standing Order and procedures fully establish that the Minister had the right to table without notice and without consent these documents because of their very nature, and thirdly that the consent, under these circumstances, was implied because it was the Leader of the Opposition and his House leader who had challenged the Minister into tabling these letters, and because these letters had been shown to the interested party who was present and did not object to the tabling of these letters by the Minister.
In closing, I should like to remind Hon. Members who are shocked easily that as far as letters are concerned, the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) has raised the interesting issue whether we should have more definite regulations. I suggest that if ever a reference is made to a committee of the House, either during this or any other Parliament, the said committee can to address the issue; for those who are
interested in these issues, I should like to emphasize that it was the Leader of the Opposition, together with his House leader, who first made reference to a letter written by Mr. Mulroney, Leader of the Opposition, to our Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, and who were the first to call the attention of the House to this correspondence between the Leader of the Opposition and a Minister of the Crown and who were happy to put it on the record. They should not be so easily shocked, for they started the whole thing and never apologized for it.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair has heard four statements. It will certainly not render a decision today. I invite subsequent Hon. Members to be as brief as possible.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I shall try to be brief. But I would submit for Your Honour that this is probably the most important point of order that will come before you. 1 know Your Honour is looking at it in that light by the attentive way you are listening to the arguments presented during the course of this debate.
We have heard two new elements come into this matter this afternoon. We were not being ungracious in not accepting what appeared to be the very gracious apology of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde). He did stand on the floor of the House today and apologized.


Erik Nielsen: Hear, hear!


James Aloysius McGrath: But in the same breath he then compounded the initial act by referring to a conversation that is purported to have taken place on January 25, 1983 between the Deputy Minister of Finance and the then President of the Iron Ore Company of Canada-


Erik Nielsen: Shame!


James Aloysius McGrath: -presumably, to support a charge that he made on the floor of the House of Commons based on evidence that he could not produce to the House subsequently when he produced the correspondence. It is a very serious charge. The charge states that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) as President of the Iron Ore Company of Canada was making representations for the rich and a deal which would have benefited him rather than the unemployed. That, Sir, is a serious charge.


Erik Nielsen: On what page is that found?


James Aloysius McGrath: That is found at page 693 of Hansard. I intend to submit that that charge, notwithstanding the intervention of the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard), is a breach of Standing Order 39 of this House. I did not hear the President of the Privy Council once during his tabling of documents. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that you have to look at parliamentary privilege and the immunity that Members of the House enjoy in the context of the provisions of the
January 30, 1984

Privacy Act, which is a statute of this House, and Members of the House are not above the law.
One of the most important aspects of the issue which confronts us in this case is the fact that the Minister of Finance was permitted to level an accusation against another Member of the House without being prepared to move a substantive motion. It is a well established principle of this place, and you, yourself, Mr. Speaker, have ruled so as recently as last Tuesday, that Members should not be subjected to unfounded attacks on their honour. In your ruling of last Tuesday, you found that the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty) did not have a question of privilege with respect to the actions of the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Bussieres). The question of whether or not the Minister should take responsibility for correcting the records of the House to remove his contradictory statements was not properly before the House. That was your ruling. It was your view that the conduct of the Minister could only be questioned if an accusation were to be levelled against the Minister in a substantive motion moved by another Member.
I could go on to quote a ruling by Mr. Speaker Michener given on June 19, 1959 which you, Sir, cited on January 24, 1984, as found at page 702 of Hansard.
It would appear to me that last Tuesday the rules and practices of the House provided protection for the Minister of National Revenue from having his honour challenged and from having a committee of the House look into matters concerning statements made in the House with respect to the Minister's responsibility for the direction and administration of his Department.
At the same time, Mr. Speaker, the rules and practices of the House provided no protection for the Leader of the Opposition, the Member for Central Nova, or any Member not sitting on the Treasury benches for having his or her honour as a Member of this place but, more important, as a private citizen, being questioned by a Minister without the Minister even thinking of moving a substantive motion. That, Sir, was a grievous breach of order, and one on which, I respectfully submit, Your Honour will have to rule. For the House to work in an orderly way, as it was meant to do, the rules must be fair, they must seem to be fair and they must apply equally and evenly to all Members regardless of where those Members sit.
There can be no doubt in your mind as to the extent to which the Minister questioned the honour of the Leader of the Opposition. I would draw Your Honour's attention to the words found in Hansard at page 693, which I have already quoted.
1 will now conclude. I could give you citations from Hansard and Beauchesne but, Sir, I think there is a greater issue here. I could refer Your Honour to Citation 145 and Citation 150 of Beauchesne's, but I think there is a greater issue here. The issue is this: Do the people of the country have the right to expect that they can deal with their elected Government in a private and confidential way? Now we have something new brought in by the President of the Privy Council. He sent out a signal today that any correspondence which is not marked
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
private and confidential can be released notwithstanding the provisions of the Privacy Act. He said that. That is something I hope Your Honour will look at and look at very carefully.
My submission, Sir, is that you look at this question seriously and that you look at the provisions of the Privacy Act in the context of Standing Order 39, in the context of the privileges and immunities we enjoy in this House, and in the context of the statutes we have passed in the House to which we are all bound, statutes which are designed to protect the privacy of the citizens of this land in this age of computers and data banks.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, so that there can be some time remaining to discuss the business intended for today, namely the allotted day, I assure you that that will be the last intervention from members of the Official Opposition. That is unfortunately the case.
There are three other points which are related but could be described as separate that flow from this whole series of events. One relates to the completeness of the record itself that was going to be raised with the Chair today. A second relates to the accuracy of the documents in possession of the House, which we intended to raise today, and the third has to deal with the alteration of Hansard itself which does not jibe with the videotape of our proceedings. That has been altered, and I do not want to leave any innuendoes hanging from that. But we are going to raise those points today. Time is simply too short.
I cannot emphasize enough our pleasure at the apology the Minister has made. As the Government House Leader said, that indeed is the parliamentary thing to do. Had he stopped there, it would have improved matters, but he did go on to refer to private conversations. If we addressed all those matters today, it would take up the entire remainder of the day. I do not think the House is disposed to do that. We will have other opportunities at other times, I am sure, to raise these remaining points with the Chair so that the kind of precedent which was set last week will never again occur. Members on all sides of the house would regret if we got into a situation as a result of what happened last week where none of us could feel secure as Members in communicating with the Government but, even more important, the individual citizen of this country now has some doubts-must have-as to the inviolability of his or her communications with the Government. That is a situation which cannot be allowed.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair has a certain difficulty at this point. If there is additional material to be set out-perhaps something more of an indication of what is involved, the reference to Hansard, for example-the Chair would prefer to have Hon. Members follow the example of the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) who intervened briefly and succinctly. If other Hon. Members have something which should be added to the record, perhaps it should be done.

January 30, 1984
Point of Order-Mr. Epp


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, 1 assure you, but I want to deal with the matter raised by my House Leader, the Hon. Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen), with respect to the completeness of the record.


Mr. Evans:: That is a different point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: If the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Privy Council (Mr. Evans) has a point of order- we are hearing a discussion on a point of order; presumably every Member is speaking to a point of order-the Chair will immediately recognize the Parliamentary Secretary after the intervention of the Hon. Member for Saskatoon West (Mr. Hnatyshyn).


John Leslie Evans: On a point of order-


Mr. Speaker:: We are on a point of order, and it is difficult-


John Leslie Evans: Nobody has the floor.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Because you interrupted, that is why.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair has recognized the Hon. Member for Saskatoon West and will subsequently recognize the Parliamentary Secretary.


John Leslie Evans: Is it the same point of order?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Yes.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I want to carry on with respect to the matter that has been raised by my colleagues who have made the point, I think validly, that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) has exceeded his authority as a Member of Parliament and as a member of the Treasury benches by tabling corrrespondence between his Department and officials of his Department and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) when he was a private citizen. The Minister, though, took it upon himself to try to deflect a question with respect to the Minister's upcoming Budget by using this tactic of making reference to private correspondence which took place, as I mentioned, and making some very serious allegations with respect to the Leader of the Opposition that he spoke only on behalf of wealthy Canadians and for his own personal benefit at the expense of the poor.
Having flouted the rules of the House by referring to private correspondence, the Minister decided to go one step further by tabling that correspondence in the House. As it turns out, the Minister's officials were unable to find the document in question, so that this smoking gun to which the Minister so gleefully referred in his outburt of last week-that is all I can categorize it as, an outburst-came up empty. He came in with a variety of correspondence which dealt with such innocent matters as a plea to halt policy changes which had the effect of undermining retirement allowances for private sector employees.
My colleagues have also touched upon the fact that an accusation once made does not easily fade. What concerns me
in this process is that although the Minister was able to stand in his place and lay documents of a private nature on the table of the House of Commons, thus laying a charge and defining the issue by selecting the documents that were to be tabled in the House, the Leader of the Opposition has no device or method under our rules, except by order of Your Honour and by precedent which is not available to him, to respond. I think this is of some importance for this reason: A case can be swayed as easily by information that is left hidden as by that which is uncovered. For example, what is to prevent the Solicitor General (Mr. Kaplan) from revealing, disclosing or tabling selective documents which tend to impugn the integrity of a Member of the House of Commons or indeed of any citizen of the country which has been received by him or by the security service of the country? That is not a situation where there is any obligation to provide information to that particular Minister. The Minister defends himself by making reference to the fact that providing income tax information is obligatory by law to the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Bussieres). There are constraints with respect to the tabling of documents on that Minister.
Throughout the exchange which took place last week, the Minister was referring in every instance to a single, solitary document, a letter to which he apparently referred as being received that would tend to be proof of the allegation he was making against the personal integrity of the Leader of the Opposition.
At page 693 of Hansard for January 24, the Minister is recorded as saying that the intervention made by the Leader of the Opposition would have greater validity and credibility if, and I quote, "the Hon. Member had made representations other than the one I obtained from him when he was in private business ...". At page 694 the Minister is recorded as having said the following:
Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Leader of the Opposition says that I distorted the truth. If that is his argument, will he let me release the letter he sent to my officials at that time on this particular subject?
Finally, the House Leader for the New Democratic Party supported, for what reason I know not, the Minister of Finances asking that these private documents be tabled on the floor of the House of Commons.


Erik Nielsen: Document, singular.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: In fact he asked that they be tabled, which I find rather peculiar for a Party which supposedly stands for the integrity of individual citizens as opposed to the state. In response to the request of the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans), that documents submitted to the Minister of Finance by the Leader of the Opposition be tabled, the Minister is on record at page 700 of Hansard as having said:
-the letter was not sent to me but to my officials. It was sent to the Department and I have had an indication from the Leader of the Opposition that he is agreeable to the release of the letter. I will be very happy to table it as soon as possible.
January 30, 1984

In each instance the Minister of Finance has referred to a single letter, "the" letter or "the" representation. Furthermore, the Minister underlines the fact the letter was sent not to the Minister, but to his officials. Indeed, he corrected the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain who asked that the documents sent to the Minister be tabled by saying, "Mr. Speaker, the letter was not sent to me but to my officials".
Wednesday, January 25 arrived, and the Minister did not table the letter. The explanation was that the letter required translation. Another day passed, and there was still no action on the part of the Minister. Finally, on Friday last the Minister tabled not only one letter, the one he had been referring to all week, but rather a telex to the Deputy Minister, a letter to the Deputy Minister of Finance, a telex to the previous Minister of Finance, a letter to the previous Minister of Finance, a telex from the Deputy Minister, a letter to the Minister of Finance and a note on a covering page to the effect that an oral representation concerning retirement allowances had been made to the Department.
Again today the Minister has made reference to the fact that he has heard-which is the worst and sheerest kind of hearsay evidence and which would never be allowed in any court of this country-that he had been informed by certain people that there had been conversations of an oral nature that took place within the Department.
All this correspondence took place between January 19, 1982 and January 25, 1983. None of the correspondence supports the contention that has been made and the allegation that attempted to impugn the integrity of an officer of the House, the Leader of the Opposition, and has not been able to be sustained by the Minister. He has in fact apologized, which gives credence to the points of order being raised today.
The Minister stood in his place and said: "I have made a gross error. I admit that I was without any justification whatsoever with respect to the allegation that I had made. 1 admit that I wrongly tabled these documents". That leads us to the question of the propriety under those circumstances of the very legitimate points of order that my colleagues have raised.
1 join with them in saying that when a Minister of the Crown says that he did a wrongful act, we should look at the rules which govern those kinds of tabling of documents and whether there should be a ruling from you, Mr. Speaker, as to the propriety in terms of the Minister's activities, which will serve as a precedent for anyone who attempts to use this type of device to impugn the integrity of an Hon. Member.
Another twist to this matter is this: One has to look at this in the context of how we are able to define and determine whether there has been a selective representation of correspondence to suit the Government of the day. In this case I can prove by a reading of the record that there are items and letters that were not disclosed. This is what makes it difficult for us to sustain and support any practice in the House which allows a Minister of the Crown, and only a Minister of the
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
Crown, under our existing rules to table documents of this nature. It is not available for me as a member of the Opposition or even for any backbencher on the Government side. A member of the Treasury benches is the only person who can do that.
A specific example of what 1 am talking about is a letter by my Leader when he was President of the Iron Ore Company, dated April 30, 1982 addressed to the Deputy Minister of Finance. In the second paragraph my Leader said:
As I explained to the Minister in my letter of November 30 last, these employees have spent their working careers in remote mining communities at considerable personal secrifice, and in consideration, the company was prepared to supplement their pensions by means of retiring allowances.
I quote that because there was a reference to a letter of November 30 last. This letter dealt ostensibly with precisely the same representations that had been made and was excluded for whatever reason. 1 am the last one to suggest that it would be the intention of the Government to keep off the public record a letter which goes to the heart of a man who is concerned about the average working citizen of Canada. I would be the last to suggest that is the case, but what other conclusion can one draw when we see a very legitimate representation made on behalf of working people in Canada in northern areas mysteriously excluded from the letters that were in fact tabled by the Minister?
What is curious about this whole process of the letters that were put in and tabled by the Minister is that that seems to have been the very best effort he can make to substantiate an unfounded allegation. This is unfortunate. I stand here more out of sorrow than out of anger. It is my institution, the House of Commons. The Canadian people expect more from their politicians. This was reflected, as Members well know, in a recent poll regarding the parliamentary institution. People expressed concern with regard to the activities of certain of us in the House.
As my colleague for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) pointed out, this is probably one of the most important points of order that one can raise in terms of the integrity of the House of Commons and our function as Members of Parliament, to stand and be able to question an all-powerful executive who have considerable devices available to them in terms of executive power and disclosure of information and to wreak havoc in the lives of Canadians if they are so inclined.
It is important as we approach the mandatory time for a federal election to be concerned about the integrity of the institution and the integrity of Ministers of the Crown in bringing in, for whatever purpose, political or otherwise, a selected version of the truth.
I make this representation in support of the contention that you, as the first Commoner and custodian of our rights as Speaker of the House of Commons, must look at this matter in terms of rulings within your power, which I suggest they are with the precedents quoted by my colleagues, in order to give guidance to all Members of the House of Commons, whether they be on the Government side or the Opposition side, to

January 30, 1984
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
make sure that the fundamental principles of the House of Commons are not abused.


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. I have listened carefully to the submissions that have been made. 1 want to touch on certain aspects such as the written correspondence questioned. When the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) put forward his submission, he made it quite clear that there was an obligation to table. If that was one of the questions which was before you, which it is, then it is quite clear in Beauchesne's that that obligation was on the Minister, and the Minister complied with that obligation properly.
The question has been raised as to whether written correspondence should or should not be referred to in the House, whether Members in the House should bring forward into the House written correspondence from constituents or from others who might write to them in their capacity as Minister or as Member of Parliament, asking them to make representations on their behalf. The question is whether this written correspondence should or should not be before the House without the consent of those who have written the letters. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to reflect because I believe that in principle there is very little difference between what happened last week, to which we are referring today, and examples which happen virtually weekly if not daily in the House of Commons when Hon. Members of the Opposition bring forward letters from constituents which speak about policy and personal problems, using those letters to impugn the character and abilities of Ministers on this side of the House.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: We do not use the Ministers' letters.


John Leslie Evans: I refer specifically, Mr. Speaker, to letters which were written to the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty), which have been read in part in the House to support allegations that the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Bussieres) is not doing his job. The point is not that he is a Minister and we are something different. The point in this point of order which was raised today with regard to letters tabled in the House is that letters to Members of Parliament are somehow privileged communication which should not be used in the House of Commons without-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: No, no.


John Leslie Evans: -without the permission of the individual who wrote the letters. That was the point which was raised and, I feel, legitimately, by the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) and the Hon. Member for Northumberland (Mr. Hees). They raised those points to say that those were privileged communication. They should not be raised ans made public without the express authority of the writer. Yet it happens daily, Mr. Speaker. It has happened on the question of metric, on the question of Revenue Canada, and on numerous subjects. The Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands
(Miss MacDonald) made public an oral conversation which she had had with a constituent about a question last week-


Flora Isabel MacDonald: And I always check first.


John Leslie Evans: -and the Speaker called her to order saying that that was a specific case and she should perhaps not be raising such a specific issue on the floor of the House.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Come on, you are missing the point.


Arthur Jacob (Jake) Epp: That means we could never raise any points.


John Leslie Evans: I believe, Mr. Speaker, the question you must rule on is whether Members of Parliament, Ministers or otherwise, are free to make correspondence addressed to them public in the course of debate. That is the question which was raised by the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain. I believe it goes much deeper that that. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that the question of representations made by individuals to influence public policy is a different form of correspondence from letters which contain issues which constituents wish us to raise with, for instance, Revenue Canada or National Health and Welfare with respect to proper servicing by the Public Service.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to examine in the context of your ruling the question of whether there is a difference between correspondence which is communication to show concern or to raise issues of service by the Government, and correspondence the sole purpose of which is to influence the content and direction of public policy. I suggest that a case can be made that there is a difference when a private citizen corresponds with the sole purpose and intention of influencing the direction of public policy. I would like you, Mr. Speaker, to consider whether or not the privacy which some Members would associate with that type of correspondence might not be somewhat less because it is a representation to influence public policy. And what are the rights of an individual who attempts to influence public policy in written correspondence? In other countries they have dealt with that issue on representations and perhaps-


James Aloysius McGrath: That is not relevant.


John Leslie Evans: -that should be considered as well. I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that if you were to find or consider that this was a legitimate point of order, and that in fact it was improper in some way for the Minister to have referred to that correspondence, it would seem to me that that ruling would have to go across the board, that any correspondence to a Member of Parliament which is not accompanied with an authorization of the individual to make that correspondence public, will be automatically ruled out of order in this Chamber as a matter of debate. Because, Mr. Speaker, there is no difference between a private citizen making a representation to the Minister and a private citizen making a representation to me, to the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands or to others.
*

January 30, 1984

We have seen over the weeks and months that some of that correspondence has been brought into the House to be used for political purposes, to impugn the character and abilities of Ministers on this side, and never a question has been raised as to whether that was proper. If a question can be raised in this case that in fact this is improper, then I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that in every one of those previous cases-


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Oh, come on.


John Leslie Evans: -where a letter, private, privileged correspondence between a Member of Parliament and a constituent-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: You missed the point.


John Leslie Evans: -was brought before the House for political purposes, that letter also has to be considered a violation of the rules of the House.


William Herbert Jarvis: Mr. Speaker, in terms of the broader issue, as my servant and the guardian of my rights, I would say, without attempting in any way to indicate to you what all of your responsibilities are, that there are responsibilities, I would dare suggest, to us and to those who might succeed us. If I, as a lawyer, a head of a company, the president of a charitable organization or special interest group, took it upon myself in my representative capacity to correspond in private life with a Minister of the Crown and subsequently decided to seek office in this Chamber, on the basis of the intervention of the Parliamentary Secretary and on the basis of what the Minister has done, I would have to ask myself what were the contents of the letters which I wrote to the Minister before I succeeded to office in this Chamber. That is the basic issue. The second question that I would have to ask is to what degree I could be subjected to illegitimate intimidation by the threat of making that correspondence public. As a Member of Parliament I would be in an impossible Catch 22 situation. In reply to a question of the Minister, "Can I make this public?", I would have to say either no and be intimidated by the accusation of engaging in a coverup or hiding something; or, say yes and let the documents be made public, even though I wrote them in a totally different capacity years ago. That, therefore, is the broad issue.
1 am not sure that the Minister's accurate interpretation of the correspondence or gross distortion in the interpretation is pertinent, although I welcome the apology which was made today. The issue is whether a Minister may, by requesting the right to table documents, have the concurrent right of putting a Member of Parliament in such an intimidated position that there is no possibility of his coming out even by saying yes or no to the request to table. That is the issue and it is a deeply disturbing one. 1 would not relish the challenge you have, Mr. Speaker, in dealing with it.
I wish to deal with a much narrower issue with respect to the same set of facts, and I believe it cannot be severed from the main point of order. It deals with the accuracy of documents in possession of the House, those documents which form Sessional Paper No. 322-7/2. In your ruling, Mr. Speaker,
Point of Order-Mr. Epp
delivered last Tuesday with respect to the question of privilege raised by my colleague, the Hon. Member for Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Beatty), concerning the obligation of Members to correct contradictory or misleading information which forms part of the record of the House, you noted that Citation 19(1) of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition states:
A dispute arising between two Members, as to allegations of facts, does not fulfill the conditions of parliamentary privilege.
I have concerns about the reach of Citation 19(1), Mr. Speaker. For example, when a Member deliberately takes another's words out of context or so distorts them as to cause them to lose their original meaning, 1 do not understand how the defender could be permitted to hide behind the provisions of Citation 19(1). Indeed, it seems evident to me that Citation 319(3) of the same edition of Beauchesne would overcome the provisions of 19(1) in certain circumstances. Citation 319(3) reads as follows:
In the House of Commons a Member will not be permitted by the Speaker to indulge in any reflections on the House itself as a political institution; or to impute to any Member or Members unworthy motives for their actions in a particular case; or to use any profane or indecent language; or to question the acknowledged and undoubted powers of the House in a matter of privilege; or to reflect upon, argue against or in any manner call in question the past acts and proceedings of the House, or to speak in abusive and disrespectful terms of an Act of Parliament.
However, in the present instance, Mr. Speaker, we are not dealing with a dispute as to facts between two Members, nor are we dealing directly with an imputation as to the motives of a Member or the meaning of the words chosen by a Member of the House. Instead, we are dealing with a case in which a Minister of the Crown has tabled some documents, among which are numbered letters written to the Minister, his predecessor, and an official in his Department. I have heard no objection as to the authenticity of those documents by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) or by any other Member in this Flouse, nor did the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) comment on the substance of those documents when tabling them in the House.
What is of concern and what is the nature of my intervention, is the accuracy of the French translation of the documents which were tabled by the Minister of Finance. As you have already heard, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance clearly referred to a single letter when he made his allegations in the House last Tuesday. That letter was said to have been sent not to the Minister but to officials in his Department. What is most interesting about the package of documents that was tabled by the Minister is the fact that only one of the documents took the form of a letter sent by the Leader of the Opposition to an official. That letter is dated April 13, 1982, and was addressed to Mr. Ian Stewart.
As you will recall, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance alleged that the letter sent to his officials contained a representation calling for an advantage to be given to the rich. Nowhere in the English text of the letter can such a request be found. The Leader of the Opposition, writing, as he was then, in his capacity as President of the Iron Ore Company of

I will leave to others the determination of how this rather unusual mistake could have been made in the translation of the letter. What is at issue today is whether or not a document, which purports to be an accurate translation of a letter tabled in the House by a Minister and which was written by another Member of the House, can be allowed to remain on record as a sessional paper when it contains such an obvious error.
Although it is clearly beyond the reach of Members to question the truthfulness of documents tabled by the Minister of Finance or by any other Member of the House, it seems to me that we are confronted with a peculiar problem in this instance because the documents tabled by the Minister originated with the Leader of the Opposition. Which Member, within the confines of the rules of the House, should determine the meaning of the sentiments expressed in writing by the Leader of the Opposition to an individual who is not a Member of the House?
Once again, Mr. Speaker, I believe that the House is faced with a clear and unambiguous example of why it is against the rules of the House to allude to correspondence between Members and Ministers. Again, the difficulty inherent in the
tabling of private documents by Ministers is underlined for all Members to see, and unfortunately for you, Mr. Speaker, it is up to you to determine how the House should proceed to extricate itself from this dilemma.
Had this been an error in the Votes and Proceedings or in Hansard, Mr. Speaker, it could have been easily remedied by a motion under Standing Order 36(1 )(p). However, Mr. Speaker, 1 do not know if a sessional paper can be accurately described as a record of the House. It may be that the Minister will be required to table a corrected version of the translation of the April 30, 1982 letter. On the other hand, if you were to rule that a motion under S.O. 36(1 )(p) would be appropriate, I would be prepared to move such a motion.
In any event, Mr. Speaker, 1 ask that you take the matter under consideration in the larger content of the point of order and provide some direction to the House as to the proper solution to this problem.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I too rise on a point of order relating to last Tuesday's exchange between the Minister of Finance and the Leader of the Opposition. I have had the opportunity to note that there are certain discrepancies between the electronic record of the debates and the printed record as it appears in Hansard. In one instance the reference made by the Minister of Finance to "the only representation" received from the Leader of the Opposition, which is audible on the video tape of the proceedings, does not appear at all in Hansard.
In another instance, a remark made by the Minister to the effect that the Leader of the Opposition went behind the Minister's back in communicating with officials of the Department, which is audible on the video tape of the proceedings, does not appear in Hansard. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, there does appear to be a substantial number of changes made by someone between the time the remarks were uttered by the Minister and the time the account provided in Hansard was printed.


Mr. Domm:: Cover-up!


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Editorial decisions, as you know, Sir, made by Hansard are one thing but if on the other hand these changes were made by the Minister or by someone working in his office, I would have concerns as to the extent to which the transcripts were altered in light of the tabling in the House of not one, but several letters from the Leader of the Opposition to the Minister, to his predecessor and to departmental officials.
Certainly, Mr. Speaker, if the changes were made by the Minister or his office, I think they should be examined in the light of Citations 155(1) and 155(2) of Beauchesne's Fifth Edition. I will not recite them at the present time, but I know you will read them for yourself, Sir.
I would be most appreciative, Mr. Speaker, if you would look into this rather serious matter to determine the full extent of the alterations and, indeed, the person, persons or agency responsible for making these changes. I have a video tape that was provided to me by the broadcasting branch of the House
January 30, 1984

of Commons, and 1 would be pleased to pass this on to you if it would be of assistance in your investigation into this matter.
I would just like to say that this is a very fundamental and serious matter that you are considering. That has been stated by a number of my colleagues. The charge that was made by the Minister of Finance is entirely different from the red herring raised by the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans). He mentioned that I had raised a question concerning a constituent of mine in the House of Commons. Sir, I did that at her express request and with her full permission. That is entirely different from the way in which the matter was raised in the first place by the Minister of Finance.
One of the things that you will know, Sir, is that we as Members of Parliament have what we consider a relationship with our constituents that is comparable to a lawyer-client relationship or to a doctor-patient relationship in that it is one of true confidentiality. That is how we operate in the House. That is exactly how we take information from people in trust and confidence. We pass it on to Ministers of the Crown in that way.
I feel very strongly about this, Mr. Speaker, because some years ago I raised a question of privilege in the House, something 1 do not do very often. It has happened only two or three times in the years I have been here. Members of the Ottawa Police Force and the RCMP had come into my office to examine documents that were supposedly in my files. They came in to look through my files. Your illustrious predecessor, Sir, Mr. Speaker Lucien Lamoureux, ruled at that time that those materials were confidential to the individual Member concerned and that no one should have the right to release that information. 1 pass information on in the same way to Minister of the Crown, knowing, I hope, that they will respect that ruling in the same way. What will happen, if this kind of exhibition the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) has given us is allowed to stand, is that confidentiality will be broken for all time. The trust we have established with individuals across this country will be jeopardized. That, Sir, will endanger the whole structure of, and the way in which the House of Commons operates.
I feel very deeply about this, Mr. Speaker, and I ask you to consider that the issue of trust and confidence of individual Members of Parliament is very much at stake here.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


William Henry (Bill) Domm: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from employees of Canadian National Railways who
Order Paper Questions
are requesting the assistance of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) and those officials concerned in the CNR in placing political pressure wherever it might be placed in order to cancel a proposed plan to change the seniority boundaries of the Rideau area of the Great Lakes region. The petitioners are concerned that their seniority will be adversely affected as changes to the boundaries that determine seniority, namely the boundaries of the Rideau area of the Great Lakes region, are being contemplated by the CNR.



ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE ACT


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (for the Solicitor General) moved: for leave to introduce Bill C-13, an Act to amend the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act.


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

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 89, 129, 135, 169, 187, 258 and 380.


Mr. Howie: How many persons engaged in public relations, media relations or publicity are employed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans?


Hon. Pierre De Bane (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans):: As of December 8, 1983, the number of persons engaged in public relations, media relations or publicity employed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, is:
DFO headquarters	24
Regional offices	23
Total	47


Mr. Stewart: Is there an Incubator Program and, if so, for each fiscal year since its inception, what amount was spent by the National Research Council under the Program?
Mr. Rolland Dion (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State for Economic Development and Minister of State for

January 30, 1984
Order Paper Questions
Science and Technology): In so far as the National Research Council is concerned, the answer is as follows:
The Incubator Program has been in existence at the National Research Council since 1979. It is one of several mechanisms that the National Research Council uses to promote the transfer of technology to industry.
Linder the Incubator Program Canadian companies are allowed to use the National Research Council premises and facilities so that they may interact closely with the Council's scientific and engineering staff. Participating companies locate a number of their scientific staff (usually from 1 to 10) at the National Research Council for a limited period, normally two to three years.
Companies are accommodated only if existing space and staff resources permit. There must be a close link between the technical assistance needed by the firm and the expertise available at the National Research Council. Preference is given to small, recently established Canadian companies working on high-risk, advanced technology projects that would benefit from NRC technical guidance and assistance.
The incubator program does not provide direct financial support to the company.
EM&R-ENERGY PROGRAM 
Question No. 135-Mr. Skelly:
With reference to the Supplementary Estimates B, for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, Energy, Mines and Resources-Department-Energy Program, did the Government transfer $50 million from the Canadian Home Insulation Program (Vote 15) to the Petroleum Incentives Program (Vote 25b) and, if so, for what reason?


Mr. Dave Dingwall (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources reports as follows:
Yes, $50 million was transferred from the Canadian Home Insulation Program (CHIP) to the Petroleum Incentives Program (PIP) because payments under CHIP have been less than allowed for in the 1983-84 Estimates. However, the funds underutilized in 1983-84 are still available for 1984-85 or future years.


Mr. Mazankowski: 1.	Is there a Canadian Advisory Committee on Remote Sensing and, if so (a) who are the members (b) what is the (i) background or expertise (ii) term of appointment of each member (c) what remuneration, such as salary or travel expenses, do the members receive and, for the length of each appointment to date, what amount did each member receive (d) what other funding, if any, is provided by the Government?
2.	(a) What are the terms of reference of the Committee (b) what matters did it consider in the fiscal year 1982-83 (c) how often did it meet and how often is it required to meet (d) what reports and/or recommendations did the Committee publish in the fiscal year 1982-83?


David Charles Dingwall: The Department of Energy, Mines and Resources reports as follows:
1.	Yes. (a) and (b) (i) Membership in the Canadian Advisory Committee on Remote Sensing (CACRS) comprises representatives of provincial and federal organizations, industry and universities. Most members represent a government agency or national working group and thus ensure a broad representation of users, scientists and technologists.
CACRS Executive (Representatives from the provinces and the working
groups).	
Mr. E. A. Godby (Chairman)	Director General, Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, EM&R.
Mr. F. Hegyi	Director, Inventory Branch, Ministry of Forests, Province of British Columbia.
Mr. W.G. Best	Chief, Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Renewable Resources and Transportation, Manitoba Government.
Mr. V. Zsilinszky	Associate Director, Ontario Centre for Remote Sensing, Ministry of Natural Resources, Ontario Government.
Dr. J. M. Zarzycki	Director, Development Division, Surveys and Mapping Branch, EM&R.
Mr. V. R. Slaney	Resource Geophysics and Geochemistry Division, Geological Survey of Canada, EM&R.
Dr. F. J. Bonn	Directeur, Laboratoire de teledetection, Universite de Sherbrooke.
The Interprovincial/Territorial Advisory Subcommittee (IPTASC) (Representatives appointed to CACRS on the recommendation of the provinces and territories).	
Mr. F. Hegyi (Chairman)	Director, Inventory Branch, Ministry of Forests, Province of British Columbia.
Mr. W. G. Best (Vice-Chairman)	Chief, Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Renewable Resources and Transportation, Manitoba Government.
M. Herve Audet	Coordinateur provincial. Teledetection, Ministere de I'Energie et des Ressources, Gouvemement du Quebec.
Dr. J. L. Bergsteinsson	Chairman, Saskatchewan Research Council.
Mr. Cal D. Bricker	Administrator, Alberta Remote Sensing Center, Alberta Government.
Mr. I. E. Ford	Special Projects Division, Department of Development, Government of Newfoundland.
Dr. D. Gillis	Engineering Faculty, University of Prince Edward Island.
Mr. A. L. Hodgson	Resource Planning Branch, Government of Yukon.
Mr. E. M. MacAulay	Chairman, The Maritime Remote Sensing Committee.
Mr. L. Peters	Water Resources Branch, Department of the Environment.
January 30, 1984

Mr. A. B. Stephenson
Mr. J. F. Wightman
Mr. V. Zsilinszky
Supervisor, Management Studies,
Fish & Wildlife Service,
Government of the Northwest Territories.
Chairman, Remote Sensing Committee, Cartography,
Nova Scotia Land Survey Institute.
Associate Director,
Ontario Centre for Remote Sensing, Ministry of Natural Resources,
Ontario Government.
Order Paper Questions
Image Analysis System Users Working Group
Dr. P. H. Kourtz	Petawawa National Forestry Institute,
(Chairman)	Environment Canada.
Oceanography Working Group
Dr. J. F. Gower	Institute of Ocean Sciences,
(Chairman)	Environment Canada.
CACRS Working Groups (These working groups are established by CACRS, whenever necessary, to carry out its work. Some groups operate on an ongoing basis, while others are ad hoc groups appointed to carry out a specific task and then are disbanded upon completion of the task.)
Renewable Land Resources Working Group
Dr. J. Cihlar	Applications Technology Division,
(Chairman)	Canada Centre for Remote Sensing,
EM&R.
Agriculture Working Group
Dr. A. R. Mack	Agrometeorology Section,
(Chairman)	Land Resource Research Institute,
Agriculture Canada.
Water Resources Working Group
Dr. B. E. Goodison	Research Scientist, Hydrometeorology Division,
(Chairman)	Atmospheric Environment Service,
Environment Canada.
Cartography Working Group
Dr. J. M. Zarzycki	Director of Development, Topographic Surveys,
(Chairman)	Surveys and Mapping Branch,
EM&R.
Data Handling & Satellite Technology Working Group
Dr. W. Shaw (Chairman)
Director, RADARSAT Project, Canada Centre for Remote Sensing, EM&R.
Education Working Group
Dr. F. Bonn (Chairman)
Director, Department of Geography, University of Sherbrooke.
Forestry Working Group
Dr. P. A. Murtha (Chairman)
Professor, Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia.
Geography Working Group
Ms. M. D. Thompson (Chairman)
Vice-President, Biophysical Services, Intera Environmental Consultants Ltd.
(b)	(ii) The members of the working groups are appointed for terms varying from one to three years, depending on the needs of the working group.
(c)	The members receive no remuneration in the form of salary. Travel expenses under Treasury Board Guidelines are paid only for those working group members from universities and private industry. For all representatives from federal and provincial government agencies, travel expenses are funded by their own agencies.
(d)	The only other funding provided by the federal Government is the cost of accommodation and of translation at a federal conference centre for the three-day annual meeting. The total travel accommodation budget for CACRS in 198283 was $39,965.12, and the cost of translation was $4,580. Liaison and secretarial support are provided by EM&R's Canada Centre for Remote Sensing.	!
2.	(a) Terms of Reference, (i) Advising and assisting the Government of Canada, through the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources, in meeting the objectives of the national program of remote sensing, by assessing national needs and capabilities, and making recommendations regarding existing and proposed programs funded by EM&R.
(ii)	Advising and assisting all participants in the national program of remote sensing in the application of remote sensing techniques to the nation's resource management systems by: studying the need for technology to the end-user and industry; promoting the active participation of interested parties in the execution of such transfer, and facilitating the co-ordination of their efforts; evaluating the results.
Geoscience Working Group
Mr. V. R. Slaney	Radiation Geophysics Section,
(Chairman)	Geological Survey of Canada,
EM&R.
Ice Reconnaissance Working Group
(iii)	Promoting the development and diffusion of remote sensing methods and applications by: promoting research and development activity; exchanging scientific and technical information; organizing conferences, seminars and training courses.
Mr. E. Lewis	Ocean Science and Surveys,
(Chairman)	Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
(b)	In 1982-83, CACRS considered the future priorities of the National Program on Remote Sensing and made recom-

January 30, 1984
Order Paper Questions
mendations in support of the Canadian radar satellite program, as well as expressed the strong desires of the user community in Canada for guaranteed continuity of satellite data such as that provided through the American LANSAT-4 program. CACRS further expressed the concern of the users over the escalating costs of satellite data.
(c)	CACRS met once, at its annual meeting held March 29,
1982-April 1, 1982. Beyond the annual meeting, there is no requirement for any particular number of meetings. However, smaller meetings of the IPTASC, the CACRS executive and seven of the working groups were held throughout 1982-83.
(d)	In 1982-83, CACRS published a report containing a summary of their activities and recommendations.


Mr. Blenkarn: 1.	In the fiscal year (a) 1981-82 (b) 1982-83 were outside consultants employed by the Department of Labour and, if so (i) how many (ii) what was the total amount paid?
2.	Were any consultants paid more than $20,000 and, if so, in each case what (a) was his/her name (b) was the amount (c) services were provided?


Mr. Normand Lapointe (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour):: 1. (a) (i) 109, (ii) SI,061,494. (b) (i) 98, (ii) $992,717.
2.	1981-82
(a) G. Di Giacomo Canadian Loric Consultants Creative Management Association Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales	(b) $31,026 $23,000 $38,600 $20,175
University of Laval	$60,361
Lemmex & Associates	$26,300
Performance Management Systems	$23,272.40
R. H. Elfstrom & Associates Labour College of Canada	$30,101.70 $47,624.17 $34,900
R. P. Riendeau	(1)	$25,000 (2)	$25,000
Trist, Lareau & Associates Ontario Institute for Studies in Education(80-52)	$34,683.39 $79,000
McGill University	$23,562.56
1982-83 M. Cotter	$20,019.15
J. Hilson	$23,431.28 $24,279.14
Smith, Auld & Associates	$44,972.70
McGill University	$95,600.11
University of Toronto McGill University	$28,795 $27,039.50
(c)
Research and speech preparation for the Minister.
Study on impact of extending benefits to part-time employee.
Study of Union organizations.
Develop and conduct a course on Quality of Working Life for management and unions.
Study the joint Union Management Committee of the Canadian Textile Industry.
Produce a training program of Part III Canada Labour Code, Conditions of Work.
Design training & development program for safety committees of Labour Affairs Officers.
Present the training program for Labour Affairs Officers.
Develop codes of Safe Coal Mining Practices.
Develop, organize & present a course on "Union & Management Strategies in the Workplace."
(1)	Advise on evaluation process of Conditions of Work.
(2)	Advise on evaluation process of Federal Mediation & Conciliation.
Co-ordinate & develop regional QWL units.
To evaluate educational activities conducted in Labour Canada's Labour Education Financial Support Program.
Conduct 6 workshops on Quality of Working Life.
Advise Labour Adjustment Benefits Program on program development.
Partaking in investigations on claims.
Advise on the development of the capacity of the Labour Adjustment Review Board.
Develop method for turnover of safety inspections of uranium & thorium mines to Province of Ontario & Saskatchewan.
Develop & facilitate a program of Quality of Working Life for Labour Canada.
Study of causes & consequences of strikes.
Study in organizational, human & industrial relations in Canadian hospitals.
January 30, 1984

M. Hardie	$52,500
ABT Associates of Canada	$87,445.66
Serge Lareau	$41,122.42
Trist, Lareau	$35,604
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Director of Administration Task Force on Micro-Technology. Evaluation of Condition of Work Program.
Advise on program development & evaluation methods of Quality of Working Life.
Continuation of 81-82 contract.


Mr. Stewart: Does the Department of Labour publish the Labor Journalists' Report and, if so (a) how many copies of each issue are published and at what cost to the taxpayer (b) what is the stated purpose of the publication?


Normand Lapointe: Yes.
(a)	Some 176 copies of the report, averaging 50 pages per issue, are published on a twice-monthly basis; estimated annua! cost for printing and mailing, $12,000.
(b)	The Labour Journalists' Report is a digest of comment and opinion on labour issues from selected print media across Canada, covering such subjects as labour-management and safety; technology and labour adjustment issues, and other topics relevant to labour affairs.
The report is targetted to selected labour journalists and economic writers, across Canada, labour union public relations practitioners and provincial Departments of Labour.


Mr. Howie: 1.	In the current fiscal year how many persons are employed in the office of the Public Service Staff Relations Board and what is the total estimated cost of salaries?
2.	For each of the two preceding fiscal years what amount was spent for salaries?
Mr. John Evans (Parliamentary Secretary to President of
the Privy Council):	
1. 1983-84	
Person-years	- 172
Salaries	- $6,035,000
2. 1982-83	- $5,390,000
1981-82	- $4,921,000


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
ALLOTTED DAY, S O. 62-TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE The House resumed consideration of the motion of Ms. Mitchell:
That this House endorse a program to be incorporated into the forthcoming budget that will:
1.	provide for employee consultation in the introduction of technological change;
2.	provide flexible work arrangements to minimize job losses;
3.	ease the impact on the employees affected by technological change by having the corporate sector pay a fairer-share of the costs through longer pre-notification periods and improved severance pay;
4.	expand the necessary retraining programs; and
5.	encourage technological changes that promote new products, industries and jobs.
Hon. Bryce Mackasey (Lincoln):: Mr. Speaker, may I take this opportunity to congratulate you on your appointment, one I am sure all Members of the House agree with.
It is rather unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, but unavoidable that this debate has been cut so short, because it seems to me to be one of the more important debates the House has been seized with in some considerable time. At the very outset I want to congratulate the Members of the NDP for not only introducing the debate, using up one of their opposition days to do so, but also for the rather moderate proposal which they put before the House for our consideration. As other people have noted this morning, the five NDP proposals are, essentially and in principle, acceptable, or should be, to all Members of the House and to all Parties.
It would be wrong, of course, to leave the impression that none of the proposals are not already in law at one level of

January 30, 1984
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government or another. One of the difficulties of debating the particular issue of technological change is that there are so many facets to it. One could talk with a certain amount of knowledge 1 suppose on a multitude of things and it would take days and weeks. However, what I also like about the NDP motion is that they use the term "technological change", rather than "high-tech" or "technological innovation" or "new technology". That reminds the House that technological change has been part of the industrial scene for a long, long time.
I want to predict perhaps the future rather than dwell too long in the past, but I also want to remind Hon. Members of the House that technological change in the 1960s had as wrenching an impact on the work force as technological change will have in the 1980s or 1990s. It is, if you like, a different sector which is affected. In the 1960s the main cause of concern, worry and uncertainty was the technological change occurring in the railway industry through the introduction of diesel power in an industry which had been dominated by steam. We had the spectacle, unfortunately it was necessary, of railway workers lying down on the railway tracks at Wainwright and Nakina, transfer points from the West, because the diesel made those points redundant. The trains no longer had to stop there.
In the Freedman Report Judge Freedman said that workers who were affected detrimentally by the introduction of technology should have a right to negotiate that change. In 1968 in the House we introduced a compromise which said in effect that workers should at least have the opportunity to negotiate the detrimental impact of technology. We recognize that we cannot prevent technology, nor should we. However, if we are an employer or a government we have a moral obligation, if not a legal one, to do everything in our power to minimize the negative impact of technology. This was true in the airline industry when we brought in something of which we all approve today. In the reservation section, which was not computerized, there was fear and concern on the part of the workers that these computers would do away with their jobs. I had the Minister of Labour move in to prevent a strike in that sector.
1 am glad, Mr. Speaker, that the NDP has raised this important issue of technological change. It is something in which I have been particularly interested in my years on the Treasury benches and since. It is the reason the Liberal Party introduced into legislation the obligation of the employer in the federal area to negotiate change. It was the fundamental reason behind unemployment insurance. We recognized that even in times of great prosperity technological change would create hardships and the loss of jobs for people who had a right to presume after 20, 30 or 40 years that their jobs would not disappear. It is the reason the Liberal Party brought in additions to proposed assistance to the textile industry which make it obligatory under law to provide a pension to workers who have been linked to the textile industry for 30 years, have reached age 55 and are without work. The Government
financed, with no strings attached, the modernization of the textile industry. Eventually that feature was made part of the shoe industry as well.
I am not going to dwell on the wrenching effects of changes in the pulp and paper industry which make one-industry towns redundant. I would like to suggest that in the eighties major work stoppages in our key industries will be an exception rather than the rule. Based on history, because of technological change, productivity will improve. I would also like to say, for a reason which I would like to develop in the time remaining, that we will see a tremendous increase in management, labour and government joint committees. In other words, Mr. Speaker, I believe that the adversarial concept which dominated the relationship between management, labour and government in the past will gradually be replaced by a more realistic relationship. I do not believe that that change in relationship between management, labour and government will be the result of legislation. It is too simplistic a solution. I have heard it mentioned here in the 20 years I have been here. Like other people in the House, I have participated in seminars in no less than 14 countries in the world. You cannot borrow other people's labour legislation. You cannot legislate that type of co-operation. I am certain that the future bodes well for the country and that we will have increased labour-management consultation because technological change has been going on since before the turn of the century. Each time major innovations are introduced into the country, they have a dramatic effect on the social mores of our nation. Perhaps what is more important at the moment, it has a dramatic effect on the characteristics of the work force.
A few years ago, Mr. Speaker, just before the recent recession I did a lot of reading on the make-up of the work force, as did many other people. What effects did the growth of technology have on the work force? In the early part of the century it took two-thirds of the Canadian work force to produce the goods that all of us needed or wanted. Today it takes little more than one-third. Perhaps my figures are slightly out of whack, but I believe in the United States it is one-third. The one fundamental change that technology has created in this country is to change the characteristics of the work force. Only one-third, as opposed to two-thirds a few decades ago, is producing. The two-thirds who are not producing goods are producing services; government, education, health, law, leisure and convenience. The service sector has become the fastest growing sector of the economy. Industry no longer dominates this country. The largest group in the labour force is no longer the blue collar worker or the semi-skilled worker; it is the white collar worker. He now outnumbers the blue collar worker by more than five to four.
As we look to the eighties and technological change, it is significant that the fastest growing category within the white collar workers group is the technical and professional worker. Of the technical and professional workers the college trained group is growing twice as fast as the total remaining work force. Among scientists and engineers the group rate is tripled.
January 30, 1984

Knowledge rather than skill is becoming the base of the economy and work force. For this reason workers are more mobile and more independent of their labour leaders and co-workers. They can move and bring their knowledge with them. They are very independent, resourceful, responsible and mobile. That all adds up to a new social framework in the economy, the work place and the work force. No Government legislation forged that change any more than Government legislation will force management, labour and Government to sit down and iron out the problems if one or more of the partners do not want to co-operate. Today three out of five workers are in the service industries and the bulk are knowledgeable workers rather than semi-skilled. This situation evolved because the creator of this new structure was technology itself. Human society created technology and now technology is remoulding society. This adds up to the fact that where the adversary system is badly needed in a free industrial society or economy it does not work nearly as well in the half free service economy which we have.
The adversary today is often the society or the government bureaucracy rather than the employer. Therefore, the knowledgeable worker, in looking for a new type of society, can see that it is being moulded. Perhaps the recession has hidden the degree to which we have changed. I was looking back with particular interest at 1972 and saw that the change has been quiet and dramatic yet almost unobtrusive. It is evident only now as the recession ends-the buzz word is technology-that we are realizing that there has been a subtle change in social patterns in society and in the make-up of the workers.
The Government should take time and re-analyse the characteristics of the work force. The average worker today will follow the union leader only if the union leader makes sense. The worker is a fairly independent individual. The new emphasis on technology, dramatic as it is, is simply accelerating that change which I have been talking about. Thirty per cent of the present products for sale in this country were totally unknown 20 years ago. New products mean shifts in material, manpower, plants and population. It means problems in urban transportation and it means that regional industries are left behind. New priorities are set up, credit is allocated and people are trained.
Directly or indirectly, public funds support half of the country's scientists. Out there is that huge challenge of coordinating research.
Technology as I see it does not ask for a planned co-operative; it asks for a new society that plans and co-operates. This means a new working relationship between government, business and labour. Labour understands that. The knowledgeable workers, who form the majority of the workers today, understand and appreciate that that working relationship is important to their future and to the application of their knowledge. They understand that government and business should sit down, and plan our future. They expect their labour leaders to understand that. The day has long passed when workers in an
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industrial union were hauled out on May Day for some strange philosophy. However, if the worker is pushed far enough- doctors are a good example-he will strike and Fight for what he thinks is right.
Therefore I believe that labour has come to recognize its stake in productivity. That was evident in the six and five program when it was accepted by the labour movement quietly, with the usual ritual, but the average knowledgeable worker, the member with college education who goes to work with his knowledge and not necessarily with his tools and who makes up three out of five members in the country, understood the relationship between inflation and wage settlements. Those workers more than anyone told their leaders to get with it. They were telling their labour leaders to sit down with management and government to plan future productivity and how to divide the profits that will come to the country as a result of that planning.
Management can no longer ignore the workers because Canada's consumers are more knowledgeable today of private enterprise and public offerings. They are more prone than ever before to be participants in the industry through such things as pension plans. They demand that as well of the employer, which is very evident in the approach taken by Chrysler, as we have mentioned.
Technological change and equality brought about by education are pushing our institutions toward a genuine economic partnership. Eventually, long term mutual goals will override short term self-seeking goals. 1 suggest that this will lead to self-regulation by the managers of capital whose thousands and thousands of investment decisions based on private profit are vastly superior to those of a central planning board.
In the 1950s when I worked for a large corporation, we were expected to conform and dress in acceptable fashion, to punch a clock, to think in terms of corporate values and to subordinate family life to corporate needs. This has changed. The success of Whyte's The Organizational Man was its obituary. The new society's need to educate people in many disciplines underwrote a new declaration of independence.
[ Translation]


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order, please! The time allotted to him having expired, I invite the Hon. Member to resume his seat.


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In order to facilitate the business of the House now, I think there would be general agreement to dividing the time in the following way. There are 45 minutes left, which would leave 15 minutes for a PC speaker, 15 minutes for another Liberal speaker, and then members of the NDP should have the right to close their own debate. If we forgo the questions now and let the next speaker begin, we should be able to complete the debate with all Parties participating. I would ask for unanimous agreement to this suggestion.

January 30, 1984
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Is there unanimous consent to the proposal made by the Elon. Member?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 45, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the Hon. Member for Dauphin-Swan River (Mr. Lewycky)-Multiculturalism-Proposal to establish research centres, (b) Request for establishment of western regional centre; the Hon. Member for Fraser Valley West (Mr. Wen-man)-Olympic Games-Selection of alpine sports teams; the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald)- National Defence-Finding of sexual harassment in Department.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Ms. Mitchell:
That this House endorse a program to be incorporated into the forthcoming budget that will:
1.	provide for employee consultation in the introduction of technological change;
2.	provide flexible work arrangements to minimize job losses;
3.	ease the impact on the employees affected by technological change by having the corporate sector pay a fairer-share of the costs through longer prenotification periods and improved severance pay;
4.	expand the necessary retraining programs; and
5.	encourage technological changes that promote new products, industries and jobs.
William Herbert Jarvis: Mr. Speaker, as may have been evident from questions I put to the Hon. Member for Vancouver East (Ms. Mitchell) who commenced this debate, I have some trouble both technically and substantively with this motion. I hope those questions were not interpreted as implying that the issues raised by the Hon. Member are not important and ones certainly worthy of debate in the House, because if that implication was left, I hasten to withdraw it. I sincerely believe that some of the issues raised in the motion
are not only worthy of debate but demand debate and indeed direction at all levels of government.
I might indicate that I have four areas of concern with respect to the motion. It was framed in such a way as to indicate that budgetary provisions would hopefully be forthcoming from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) to deal with five separate items. I have no trouble understanding how a budget could deal with the necessity to expand retraining programs, which is the fourth point in the motion, or to encourage technological change that promotes new products, industries and jobs, which is the fifth point in the motion. On the other hand, I have serious trouble in understanding how a budget could deal effectively with points one through three in the motion.
My second concern is much more substantive. It was alluded to by the Hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Mackasey) a few moments ago. That concern is that we attempt to put into legislation what would legitimately be contained in a collective agreement. Frankly, I am in complete accord with the Hon. Member for Lincoln when he said that we cannot legislate a good collective agreement, because there remains the basic responsibility of the employer on the one hand and the employee on the other to arrive at a mutually satisfactory collective agreement. Therefore, particularly when I, as have many of my colleagues who have been around here any length of time, have been either called back or, in the course of my business, have had to deal with emergency legislation that we generally call back-to-work legislation, that has always deeply troubled me. I am the first to recognize at certain times it is in the national interests that we in this House must interfere with the normal collective bargaining process. I greatly regret that we are put into that uncomfortable and unsatisfactory position, but from time to time it is necessary. To me it is even worse, given that unwelcome situation, that we are put in the position in effect of writing a collective agreement here on the floor of the House of Commons. Frankly, I do not believe we are suited, equipped, trained nor do we have the inclination to write a collective agreement on the floor of the House of Commons. Therefore, points one and two of the motion deeply disburb me. To me there is a clear indication, and I hope I do not do my NDP colleagues an injustice, that the NDP would have, for example, the Canada Labour Code amended to provide for employee consultation in the introduction of technological change, in other words, in a compulsory sense. I see some nodding in agreement. I have absolutely no concern about providing a reasonable framework within which the parties can negotiate collectively, none whatsoever. But to provide obligatory measures causes me deep concern. Even more so with point number two which reads:
-provide flexible work arrangements to minimize job losses.
This would indicate to me that we are being urged to legislate work sharing. Work sharing itself concerns me very much because I can see that rather than its being used as a tool to deal with the very immediate and serious economic and social problems, work sharing may become a system where a
January 30, 1984

man or woman in our work force finds himself or herself in work sharing for the rest of his or her working life. That to me is a very dangerous prospect. Surely we should devote our attention not to providing work sharing or a reduced work week for a very able worker but to providing full time jobs. That should be our challenge. When we start talking about putting work sharing into legislation, I become extremely concerned that we are losing sight of the fact that work sharing initiatives are merely of a temporary nature to deal with, admittedly, a serious problem but hopefully a very short-term one.
I may be over optimistic in saying that. But I want my colleagues in the NDP to understand that 1 have a serious concern about legislation in those two areas, particularly to use the words of the motion "flexible work arrangements."
We often lose sight about the federal influence in this area, which I think is somewhat less than 10 per cent of the work force-somewhere between 5 per cent and 10 per cent, under the Canada Labour Code. I admit that federal legislation may serve as a model for other jurisdictions and may have some value in that sense. To believe we are going to address the very serious problems with which we are faced in terms of productivity, unemployment and technological change by amending the Canada Labour Code is, to use a popular expression, to revez en couleur. I note the Parliamentary Secretary was quick to grasp the significance of that point.
While the motion has, in my view, serious flaws, both technically and substantively, let me proceed to address some of the legitimate and serious issues it does raise. It raises them with respect to unemployment. None of us are so insensitive as to realize the economic and social cost and horror of that. The motion deals with technological change as well. The danger in my view, however, is leaping too quickly to link the two issues inextricably. In terms of the U.S. experience, Jerome Mark, the Assistant Commissioner for technological change at the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics, has this to say:
When computers were first introduced for office data applications, predictions were made that large numbers of clerical and kindred workers would be displaced; and job opportunities for millions of people in what was one of the largest occupational employment categories would be curtailed. What actually did happen was quite different. In 1960, clerical workers amounted to about 10 million workers and accounted for 15 per cent of total U.S. employment. By 1978, they increased to about 17 million workers, and accounted for 18 per cent of total U.S. employment. Thus, instead of clerical workers' employment decreasing because of the introduction of the computer as had been predicted, employment actually increased 73 per cent between 1960 and 1978. Clerical employment is likely to continue to increase significantly to 1985.
One cannot ignore the problem in terms of technological displacement of workers, but one should not jump too quickly to the conclusion that robots, high technology of all sorts, is automatically going to increase in the displacement of workers. Certainly it will cause some jobs to be lost, there is no question of that, but I hope only a minimum will be affected. It will also cause some skills to become redundant. I also believe it will create many new jobs to replace them. What we are experiencing now is job losses due to lack of competitiveness. In Canada, according to my information, we have about 700 robots. They alone cannot be held responsible for the 592,000 jobs lost in
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the manufacturing sector during the recession. We must adapt new technologies which will allow us to become competitive in world markets to improve our productivity.
There is the narrow issue of the Canada Labour Code. It is here and not in the budget that 1 think the first three points of today's motion should be directed, and I would like to deal briefly with those parts of the Code, Sections 149 to 153. The existing standard is basically that any employer who proposes to affect a technological change that is likely to affect the terms and conditions or security of employment of a significant number of employees shall give notice of the proposed change to the bargaining agent at least 90 days in advance. There is a procedure to follow. As a matter of fact, when a provision exists for technological change issues within the collective agreement, the Labour Code stipulations do not apply. Only Saskatchewan, Manitoba and B.C. have legislation mandating advance notification.
I see a number of problems. To ignore them I think would be to ignore reality. One might very well ask, are current provisions too vague? Is the definition of technological change too narrow in that it does not cover all types of changes in the manner in which work is carried out which may be the result of a new technology? The second question we have to ask ourselves, and I do not know the answer to this but I think we should ask the question, is: Are unions asked to prove too much before being able to activate the process for renewal of bargaining, because now they must show that the employer plans to introduce new equipment or material, and that there will be a change in the manner in which work is carried out, and that particular change is directly related to the introduction of new equipment?
I think a third question we have to ask with respect to the Code are whether phrases like "substantially and adversely affect" or "significant numbers of employees" are too ambiguous to allow the affected parties to determine whether notification is necessary.
I believe another legitimate question is: Is the 90 day clause too short? That is certainly the position of some people in the House. That is a very difficult question to answer. I would think that that provision would suit very well a modest sized company in, say, the auto parts business employing 25 people in a plant. But to compare that with General Motors with thousands in its plant and to have the same number of days apply as a minimum really begs reality as the two situations are so dramatically different.
Finally, the question we have to ask about the Code is: Should employers be required to provide sufficiently well detailed information and, in any case, are the standards too vague? There are a number of very legitimate questions we should ask ourselves with respect to the Canada Labour Code and not the budgetary provisions.
Because I have about a minute and a half remaining, I will have to confine myself in summation to saying that I acknowledge that my comments about the Code deal with a very

January 30, 1984
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narrow issue contained in the motion. There is no question about the profound importance of the subject matter. That is why our Party established a task force on technological displacement and manpower training.
In conclusion, may I say that I believe all of us should place an extraordinary emphasis upon productivity both in terms of job creation and in terms of international competitiveness. The risks of interim solutions such as work sharing and discouraging high technology certainly cannot be in the interests of the country, private entrepreneurs operating within the country or employees who seek legitimate, long-term or permanent employment within the private sector.


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the chance to speak after the Hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Jarvis) because it gives me an opportunity to say to him how much 1 have valued his contributions to the House and how much I personally regret the fact that he has decided to leave the House of Commons at the end of this Parliament.


William Herbert Jarvis: You say it smilingly.


John (Moody) Roberts: It is a sad fact that people only say nice things when one has decided to go, but I say it smilingly and with pleasure because of the contribution he has made to the House. The House of Commons will be poorer for the fact that he will no longer be in it after this Parliament.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John (Moody) Roberts: I also welcome this resolution, though I do not necessarily agree with all aspects of its wording. It puts before the House an extraordinarily important and indeed central question to the politics of the country for the future, that is, in essence, the impact of technological change on our country and what approaches the Government of Canada and society have to take to that technological change. Indeed Alvin Toffler was right when he said that the new wave which comes upon us and carries with it continual change is a new kind of situation in which it will become difficult to design government and social policies to respond to, but which will be absolutely essential and at the heart of the political process. The impact of technological change is not only a challenge to the economy of the country. It is also a challenge to our political Parties. It is a central question around which they will have to define their policies for the generation to come.
Those on the right often believe that the response to technological change will take place almost automatically through market forces. Those on the left often believe that it requires extensive government direction to have society adapt to these changes. We on this side of the House, if I could speak for my colleagues, would say that the essential approach to dealing with technological change is that it must be undertaken through a partnership-a partnership of government with labour, management, the private sector and others.
If we look at the impact of technological change on our society, not basically as a threat to society but as something
which will extend tremendous opportunity to Canadians, we admit that there is not in fact a consensus on the overall impacts. There is not yet a consensus on the part of futurists as to what the overall impact of technological change will be upon society. It is not something which we should fear. It is something to which we should respond positively.
I would like to talk about a few elements in the motion which the New Democratic Party has presented to us. In commenting upon them, I will be able to give some indication of how we believe that the approach to partnership can take place. I will be able to talk about some things we have already done as a government to try to implement that sense of partnership in responding to the problems of technological change. It will also enable me to indicate some areas where we still need ideas, from wherever they may come, and knowledge to help us better prepare and define our policies.
For instance, the motion refers to flexible work arrangements. As we look ahead, there is no doubt that increasing flexibility in work arrangements will be required in our economy both as an economic and a social need. Some people in the country, for instance, think that the idea of work sharing is a rather daring idea. They do not realize the extent to which work sharing is already taking place in Canada, not as some program or policy imposed by governments but as a program which is there because both workers and management want it and think it is useful in a variety of circumstances. Over the past two years work sharing has involved something like 120,000 participants in Canada. If I have time-and I may not-I hope later in my remarks to be able to describe in more detail how work sharing arrangements work. They are supported by the Government but they are essentially in response to needs defined by both labour and management.
We need more knowledge in the area of what the future is likely to bring in flexible work arrangements. It is for that reason that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ouellet) commissioned the Wallace report on part-time work. It is for that reason that my predecessor commissioned the skills development leave task force. Its final report should be in the hands of the Government within the next few weeks. We need to have a better understanding than we have now of the prospects and possibilities as well as the difficulties which may occur in the labour market of the future.
The motion refers to necessary retraining programs. Again I emphasize that while we are obviously undertaking extensive retraining programs, spending something like $1 billion in Government of Canada funds on retraining this year, we need better knowledge than we now have to define precisely what will be the work opportunities for Canada's economy in the future. There is a need to have that definition of work opportunities as a necessary base for describing the proper retraining programs so that the substance of our retraining programs equips people for job opportunities which will be there rather than frustrate them by giving them new skills for which there is not adequate opportunity of exercise.
It is this need for more knowledge about the direction of the Canadian economy which underlies the Government's decision
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to appoint the Macdonald Royal Commission. It is also the theme which underlies the appointment of the skills development leave task force which I mentioned a moment ago. Simply commissioning studies is not nearly an adequate response to the present situation we face. That is why we have already undertaken other steps to create and gain the kind of knowledge we need.
For example, I cite the signing last Friday of the memorandum of agreement which brought into being the productivity centre. While funded by the federal Government, it is to be administered by the Canadian Labour Congress and the Business Council on National Issues. It is to do two kinds of work. It is to detect, to examine and to try to understand where productivity improvements in our economy can take place. Also it is to examine and analyse labour market opportunities for the future so that we will have a better understanding of not only where productivity can be increased but where employment opportunities can be found.
That purpose and its successful fulfilment are important in themselves, but the establishment of the productivity centre reflects something else which is equally important, that is, that labour and management are coming together in co-operation with each other and in partnership with government to undertake that task. It is an example of the kind of partnership which I suggested represented the Government's approach to tackling these problems.
I could make the same kinds of comments about the last part of the New Democratic Party resolution, the need described there to encourage technological changes. We on this side of the House have not only agreed with that. We have acted to try to encourage that to happen, particularly in the area of the encouragement of research and development in a variety of ways with which I was associated for a time as Minister of State for Science and Technology. Whether it is in partnership with the universities in greatly expanded funding of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, whether it is through our joint efforts in micro-electronics with the private sector, whether it is the study of opportunities for Canada in bio-technology undertaken by the Ministry of State for Science and Technology, whether it is the co-operative program with the private sector in the advancement of Canada's space industry, whether it is the establishment of computer-assisted design and computer-assisted manufacturing, the CAD-CAM systems, whether it is in co-operation with universities establishing centres of excellence across the country, in all those areas we see practical steps being taken to encourage the constructive context that will lead technological change to promote new products, industries and jobs and always reflecting the idea of partnership with labour, the private sector, universities, and often partnership of all three.
I could illustrate the kind of partnership that is needed to encourage the growth of employment by pointing to one of my Department's major job-creation programs. I refer to the LEAD Program, Local Employment Assistance and Develop-
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ment. This program, under which in the last year the federal Government spent about $200 million, is heavily oriented toward community development in areas of chronic high unemployment. The Employment and Immigration Commission makes funds available for worthwile projects which will not only create new jobs, but will also help develop the community itself based on its own interests and priorities.
I discussed as recently as last week other key job-creation programs that we have. Perhaps there is not much point in my reiterating those. It is important to understand that they are all aimed in one way or another toward different groups of jobless Canadians in order to reduce unemployment. Equally important, however, the ultimate objective is to build up a skilled work force more closely attuned to the labour market of the future as we see it. Altogether, the four job-creation programs will require an expenditure of well over $1 billion in
1983-84.
Those are programs which we exercise, not simply as some representation of Government activity alone, but programs which have been worked out in collaboration with labour, business and the provincial governments. They represent the emphasis we place on partnership in programs in both job creation and in training.
We have had a considerable amount of success with our Manpower Consultative Service. This is a program we developed to bring management and labour together, along with our CEIC counsellors to work out solutions to difficulties facing a particular plant or business. The problem might involve, for instance, a threatened lay-off resulting from a cutback in production or perhaps a manpower adjustment made necessary to the introduction of new equipment or machinery. We do assist by providing counsel and bringing together labour and management to discuss their problem.
As I said, our job-creation programs are only part of the story of the Government's activities. As I said earlier, we must look forward. Although we cannot say precisely what the labour market will look like in, say, five years, we do know it is going to look vastly different from anything we have seen so far. In trying to better project our needs, we have developed the Canadian occupational projection system. This is a computer system designed to pinpoint possible imbalances between projected labour supply and demand. It is expected to provide valuable assistance in planning and managing our human resources. More specifically, it will help determine what skills may be in demand at any given time.
Obviously we cannot wait for COPS or anyone else to tell us that we are going to need so many word processor operators in this or that part of the country, so many welders in another, so many mill workers in still another location and so forth. We do have a general sense of the changes that are taking place. We need to have that general knowledge more precise by the kind of accuracy that that kind of projection system will give to us.
I already mentioned that the occupational projection system will complement the work which will be done by the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre which was established last Friday. This centre, funded by the federal Government,

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will bring together business and labour jointly to find ways to increase productivity and to advise the Government on economic and labour matters. 1 congratulate the individuals from management and unions who have worked so hard to bring this centre into being. We look forward to their advice and training because, as we know, the development of skills of Canadians is key to this Government's strategy for growth.
I see my time is running out. 1 would be remiss, however, if I did not emphasize that the $1.2 billion national training program is a central element in our strategy. Under this program, almost a quarter of a million Canadians each year acquire the skills needs for jobs of the future. Canadians must be given fair and equal access to every possible facility to develop skills that will sustain them and their families in years to come. Our heavy emphasis in our programs has quite naturally been on young people. They have been the ones hardest hit by the recession and they are also the businessmen, business women, the workers of the future. We place a great deal of importance on our skills growth fund. A key component of the national training program, its purpose, is to provide enough highly skilled people to meet the future demands of the economy. To accomplish that objective, it provides financial aid to provinces and private non-profit organizations to establish or expand training facilities and to develop new courses as required.
I see that my time has come to an end. which I regret. I close by saying that while there are many uncertainties about the impact of technological change in the future for our economy, we on this side believe that there is one certainty, that is, that we must approach these problems with a sense of partnership, which I described in my remarks. That is the key mechanism, the key method by which we will properly take advantage of the opportunities which technological change provides to us.


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, the NDP Members of Parliament have brought forward this motion because we face the fact, as do Canadians, that in recent years and at present we have at least 1.5 million unemployed. Unlike a few years ago when the majority of the unemployed were young people, women and the unskilled, for the first time since the end of World War 11 there are people in our basic industries who were never unemployed, people who never had to avail themselves of unemployment insurance benefits. Those in the auto industry, steel industry, farm implement industry or packing industry have been or are now unemployed. This is partly because we, as in most countries, have been living through a recession. Part of the reason they are unemployed is the development of new technology and of those that will occur in the next few years. This means that many of these people will never get back the work they had in earlier years. 1 do not say that because of some wild ideas of far-out people. That kind of analysis was made in a document prepared for the federal Government and published about six months ago entitled "The Rocky Road to 1990". Let me put on record a few of its predictions.
It said that productivity increases generated by new technology will accelerate the job loss in traditional sectors in Canada such as auto, steel and farm machinery. This evidence is increasingly apparent, that many jobs lost in the recession will never be replaced. It further states that overall, up to one-half the jobs in manufacturing will be lost and up to one-quarter of the jobs in business-financial circles will be lost. It is for those kinds of reasons that we brought forward this resolution. I will try to make clear why we believe that the Government must play a major role in solving the problems which the new technology will create for the people of this country.
The Hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Mackasey) suggested that Government should not play a big role, that it should be up to labour-management negotiations. The Hon. Member for Lincoln knows, as well as most Members, that only 30 per cent of the workers in this country belong to unions. The other 70 per cent do not have a union to protect them. Even those workers who are represented by unions face the fact that those things that are not in the collective bargaining are assumed by custom and by law to be part of management rights. It is for those reasons, Mr. Speaker, and others, that we say that Government must play an increasingly important role in solving these problems. We have seen in recent years the weakening of international markets for the primary goods which this country has traditionally relied on to support our relatively high standard of living, and we have been driven to seek out other sectors which offer the promise of economic expansion and jobs. This Government has plunged into supporting the development of a high technology solution. We have had massive government support for the creation of a new industrial sector which seeks to apply the inherent advantages of microchip technology, data management and manipulation to traditional and emerging enterprises and industry.
We must ask ourselves some pretty fundamental questions. We are told that the new micro-technologies will lead to hundreds of thousands of new jobs. We must ask ourselves, Mr. Speaker, if there will be as many jobs in the new fields as will be lost in the traditional basic industries in which Canadians have been employed. Many people think not. However, let us assume there will be many new jobs. The second question must be: Will those jobs be in the same places where people have worked in the past? In other words, if the new technology jobs are in Ottawa, Toronto or Vancouver, as is likely if we leave the development to the free enterprise system as we know it, what will happen to the thousands of workers in Hamilton who work in the steel industry? What will happen to the thousands of workers in Oshawa, Windsor and Oakville who have worked in the automobile industry? What will happen to the thousands of workers who have worked in Sudbury and Thompson, Manitoba, in the mining industry? There will be a few jobs, Mr. Speaker, according to experts, but there will be more jobs in high technology for the very highly skilled, the engineers and the people who develop the programs. Most of the other jobs will be for the relatively unskilled, because the
January 30, 1984

computer will do the job, for example, which the machinist or the tool and die maker did up to now. Many of those good jobs will go, to be replaced by some relatively unskilled jobs.
Studies compiled in the United States until now have indicated that the average annual salary or wage in the new fields is $5,000 a year less than for the jobs which have been lost in the traditional manufacturing fields. If that is the case, Mr. Speaker, we must ask ourselves, where will the purchasing power come from to buy the goods which the new productivity will put on the market?
We support the efforts of the Government and industry in developing the new high-technology industries, and we support the Government in giving over $17 million recently to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council in order to promote co-operation between industry and universities in a network for microelectronic design research. We support that because we realize that the aim is to produce university graduates who are ready and prepared for jobs in silicon chip technology and research. However, what about the jobs of these hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have worked in the established industries, which some people have just assumed will be producing with less and less people? It is not enough to continue blithely on with new programs and subsidies and grants in order to develop high technology industries while the impact of these new industries on our already existing work force is ignored, and it has been to a large extent.
The Minister talked about the new centre for productivity. We applaud and support that, Mr. Speaker, but we say what value will that be to the thousands of workers who have already lost their jobs, or are likely to do so in the next year or two before this productivity centre really gets going? The modernization of industry cannot be opposed. However, we say it must be done with the participation of those people who are affected, not just those people who will gain but those people who have been and will be so adversely affected. If the Government is to favour this modernization and provide support to the companies in the high-tech sector, it must also give the workers the means to participate in the decisions which will affect their lives.
The New Democratic Party has made a number of very specific proposals, which we feel merit consideration by the Government and by the people of Canada. We are suggesting, Mr. Speaker, that there is a minimum necessary protection due to employees whose positions are threatened by change. They need pre-notification. There should be consultation with the employees. There need to be more flexible working arrangements, improved severance pay and a maximizing of the number of jobs produced by high technology in this country. It is for those reasons, Mr. Speaker, among others, that we say that Government must play an important role and there must be legislation to protect the workers.
Another aspect of the change which is going on is the shift to increasing levels of part-time work and part-time jobs. Any Hon. Member just has to walk into a supermarket or any retail establishment to see how much they have moved to part-time
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employees, people who work a few hours a day or a few days a week. And, Mr. Speaker, it is not just that they are part-time employees, but without government legislation, they very frequently do not qualify for unemployment insurance, for pensions, for health care insurance and so on. We say that the Government must be involved because only the Government can guarantee those part-time workers the benefits which full-time workers have won through union negotiations or through legislation.
Government policy and strategy have resulted in a steady growth of part-time employment and a reduction of full-time employment. The Government, we say, must extend the basic benefits which full-time employees receive to those part-time employees. There are a number of suggestions which have been made which are worthy of consideration. In a recent article, Bob Kuttner, the Associate Editor of The New Republic, has suggested that what is happening because of the spread of micro-technology is more part-time work, and one of the things which could be done as an incentive would be for workers to pre-pay, along with their Canada Pension contributions, payments which would permit them at age 60 to work for the next five years two or three days a week. They would draw the balance of their pay from the contribution which they made earlier toward the Canada Pension Plan. Another similar scheme would allow young parents of a minor child to spend five years working half time while receiving full-time pay. This would be a good social policy which would allow parents to spend time at home with their children during the formative years while providing additional employment for others in the work force.
Wassily Leontief, a well known and respected Nobel prize winner in economics, has pointed out that the failure to redistribute the gains of automation could condemn society- and he is talking about the United States, but the same if true of Canada-to a paradoxical condition of rising productivity on the one hand and rising destitution on the other. The position that this Government has taken in promoting high technology while, we believe, ignoring its effect on workers, invites this very process to be realized in our country. I suggest that Members look at what is happening to people in Hamilton who work in the steel industry or people in Sudbury who work in the mines to see how they are losing their homes and everything else because they no longer have jobs.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order, please. It being six o'clock, it is my duty to inform the House that, pursuant to Standing Order 62(11), the proceedings on the motion have expired.
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January 30, 1984
Adjournment Debate



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

[Stage Direction]
A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 45 deemed to have been moved.

Laverne Lewycky: Mr. Speaker, in this adjournment debate I want to address a question that I raised on January 18 with regard to the proposal to ensure that our new multiculturalism act establishes research and resource centres in other parts of Canada. In some ways my question follows on the statement I made earlier about a model I found in Washington State University in the United States, one which I think we could accept in Canada with certain modifications. In the response I received from the Minister reference was made to representations being made with regard to such a centre at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and also at the University of Winnipeg.
In response to the answer I was given I should like to indicate that we have a rich resource in our multicultural heritage in Canada which we should utilize to the extreme. Traditionally, the United States has been referred to as a melting pot; this mythology is found in some of the graduation exercises that Henry Ford used to suggest for English classes. At the commencement exercise a large number of people would come off an immigrant ship wearing their native costume. They would then come into a gigantic melting pot, teachers would stir it with big ladles and then all the students would come forward waving American flags, dressed in an American costume. This is the melting pot image found in that mythology.
In Canada we prefer to talk about a mosaic. In and of itself a mosaic has certain shortcomings. It implies a certain element of equality, as all the panels appear equal. However, authors and sociologists such as John Porter have spoken about Canada as being a vertical mosaic, implying that there is inequality. A mosaic also implies some sort of static. We find that with immigration movement into Canada, with the aboriginal Indian first nations and Inuit people, we have more of a kaleidoscope than a static mosaic. It is in that context that I think it is important for us to examine this matter.
I want to elaborate on this because I felt when the Minister talked about ethnic chairs in his response that perhaps I was not communicating clearly enough what I meant by research and resource centres. I know my colleague, the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-St. James (Mr. Keeper), has also written to the Minister in support of this concept. There are people at the various universities making proposals, people who have been doing some work, have been on some standing committees and who are very heavily involved in this. Even President Farquhar of the University of Winnipeg has given personal attention to
this matter, as has Dr. Alan Artibise of the Institute for Urban Studies. This is commendable and I think we ought to do all we can to see that there is a development of that kind of research and resource centre.
I should like to refer again to the model I was using. In the Department of Comparative American Cultures at Washing-tion State University in the United States there are four programs. There is a program that deals with Asian-American studies, a program that deals with Black studies, a program that deals with Chicano studies and a program that deals with native American studies. The leaders, Dr. Gail Nomura, Dr. Steve Sumida and others have created an awareness of the Asian-American experience. I think that if we had a similar sort of research and resource centre on the West Coast we could have an awareness of the Asian-Canadian experience. We could have a similar sort of centre of, for example, black studies on the Atlantic coast. This greater awareness would enable Canadians to appreciate the multicultural element a lot more. We would have a greater understanding of why the postal workers in Toronto would like to celebrate their Chinese New Year's day on February 2. We would have a truly political multicultural policy rather than a merely symbolic song and dance routine type of multiculturalism.
I trust that we will have a favourable response from the Minister to this suggestion, Mr. Speaker.


David Michael Collenette: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the question posed by the Hon. Member for Dauphin-Swan River (Mr. Lewycky). Let me say that I am somewhat concerned at his remark about the song and dance thrust of the multiculturalism policy. I think he should realize that in the last few years the federal Government has built upon the linguistic and cultural heritage retention programs developed in the last decade and concerned itself equally with questions of social justice, racism and discrimination. In the recent Throne Speech we showed that we were branching out in even more ways to build upon a multicultural policy. I think for the Hon. Member to refer to "song and dance" is somewhat derogatory and I am sorry he has done so. Perhaps I should give him the benefit of the doubt and say that it is simply the way that it came across. While the folk arts and cultural aspects of our policy are indeed very important, the Government has branched out in many other areas of concern to Canadians over multiculturalism.
With respect to the question asked the other day in the House, I agree there may have been some confusion both in his question and in my answer, since we both were probably not fully explicit.
In reference to his suggestion for a research centre on multiculturalism, he is perhaps moving toward an ideal situation for which we may not be able to find the resources at this particular time. I think the first step toward realizing his objective is to try and adapt some of our existing programs. The Canadian ethnics studies program is one.
January 30, 1984

1 mentioned the chairs of studies, there are now about six such chairs across the country, which have dealt with a specific multicultural group. The time may be coming when we should build upon that particular aspect of the chairs to broaden them into thematic chairs dealing with race relations or other components of multicultural policy. This is something I am now discussing with my officials. This may satisfy his initial request and we may be able to build on that in the future.
As to the specific question with respect to the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg, I checked with my officials and have yet to receive an official funding request from the University of Winnipeg, although we have from the University of Manitoba. I am examining that very closely and it hopefully can be adapted to the changing criteria which I think my colleagues may agree to.


OLYMPIC GAMES-SELECTION OF ALPINE SPORTS TEAMS
Mr. Robert Wenman (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, I stand with great regret today because the former Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sports failed Canada's young Olympic athletes. I am pleased, however, that the new Minister is at least making an effort in the face of serious rebuffs.
I am upset because young Canadian Olympic athletes met world standards, yet were rejected by the Canadian Olympic Association. I would like you to imagine for a minute, Mr. Speaker, that your child of the child of your friend across the street won the local city championships. You had watched this young person grow and develop, you saw that initial spark, that initial talent. You said, "That young guy looks pretty good; he is going somewhere". You watched him progress to the point that he won the provincial championships and set a new record for the province. He became a hero not only in his own community, but in the province. He then moved on and won the national championships. He set a national record. He had his eyes on the Olympic Gold. He worked under pressure hour after hour, seven days a week, every week of the year regardless of how he felt, fighting for that world Olympic standard. He met it. He made it and we all cheered for him. But what happened to him? His own country, the COA said, "no way, not for you. You cannot go. I might be ashamed of you because you might finish last or you might even finish seventeenth in the whole world. 1 could not stand that shame". That is what they are saying.
We are not ashamed of any Canadian who has become the best in our country in any field. I do not care whether it is politics, science or a professional field in one area or another. I am not ashamed of anybody who is the best in our country. I do not care how he stands in the world. If he is the best in our country I am not ashamed of him. I am ashamed of any Canadian who would be ashamed of another Canadian who has attained the level of Canadian record holder, Canadian champion, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks about him.
Adjournment Debate
I am not ashamed of Abbey Hoffman or Dick Pound, or even Roger Jackson, on their selection to the Canadian team, even though they could not qualify among the top 16 in their events when they represented Canada. Later they went on to set new records and they gained inspiration from their Olympic experience. 1 am proud of them but I am ashamed of Roger Jackson and his COA committee. Maybe it is not totally the fault of Roger Jackson, but he is the President and the symbol and therefore has the responsibility to show leadership now. 1 want to see that leadership. What do we see? Who could express it better than John Robertson who said:
When I think that this man, who was allowed to go to the 1964 Olympics as excess baggage, and confounded the Olympic forecasters by winning a gold, would then turn around and have the unmitigated gall to author this unspeakably cruel and elitist rule, making sure no future longshot ever got a chance to duplicate his feat... I want to throw up.
Turn in your blazer, turkey.
The very thought of you wading through the spilled tears of all those fine young athletes you've so calously betrayed, as you strut to the plane bound for Sarajevo, is enough to make any Canadian with a shred of decency break out in a series of unprintable Olympic oaths.
In Munich athletes were senselessly and brutally murdered. In Moscow athletes were politically denied by Canada the right to compete and the fulfilment of their dreams and desires. How much more injustice do we expect them to take? The four year cycle to compete has become an eight year cycle. Many were denied the opportunity of competing in the Winter Olympics. What is going to happen in the Summer Olympics?
Many questions need to be answered. What happened to the tripartite agreement between the Government, Sports Canada and COA to use the top 16 standard as a guideline, with flexibility? How was that ignored? How can the representative factor or formula be adjusted to reflect the inherent will of the Canadian people, the athletes themselves, the sports bodies and the Olympic associations?
It is my understanding that in the summer Olympic games, for example in track and field events, each event allows the entry of three athletes, if they have met the world Olympic standard in the event. I think those people should go. It is my understanding that in an event in which no athlete qualified for the Olympic standard we are still allowed to enter one athlete. I think that one athlete should be entered and should be allowed to go. This comes down to a philosophy of excellence and the building excellence, of building young Canadians and young citizens of the world. I want an opportunity for as many young Canadians as possible to become Olympians.
I have a sense that this new Minister is willing to fight; I hope that he will begin to fight and never rest again from this day until every possible athlete who qualifies and is able to be supported by our great country of Canada to represent us at international events and Olympics is in fact sent to those events, with the understanding that we as Canadians, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks of the qualifications of our athletes, are proud of them, that we are standing behind them and assuring that their opportunity as Olympians will be

January 30, 1984
Adjournment Debate
met if it is at all possible. I throw the challenge to the Minister and offer my support and encouragement in everything he can do in this direction.
[ Translation]


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order. The Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sports).


Hon. Jacques Olivier (Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport)):: Mr. Speaker, first of all, 1 would like to thank the Member for Fraser Valley West (Mr. Wenman) for raising the issue on January 25, and I want to take this opportunity to say once again how disappointed we were at Sport Canada about the way our amateur athletes were selected by the Canadian Olympic Association. All I can say is that 1 have yet to receive an answer to the telegram I sent to Mr. Jackson, in which 1 urged him to alter his decision and to increase the number of Canadian athletes taking part in the Games at Sarajevo.
Whenever these people need money they come to us and they know where to find us. In the circumstances, I can give the Hon. Member opposite and my colleagues here in the House the assurance that I intend to invite athletes to go to Sarajevo at the expense of the Canadian Government, without the authorization of the National Olympic Committee. We have decided to pay the travel expenses of a group of athletes who will at least be able to see what the Olympics are like.
Mr. Speaker, 1 feel our Canadian Olympic Association has lost a golden opportunity to give promising young talent a chance to get experience by going to Sarajevo. I fail to understand why Mr. Jackson and his friends have turned down requests from myself, my provincial colleagues and my colleagues here in the House to revise their list. It is not a matter of money, because if that were the case, Mr. Jackson would have come knocking on our door, as usual. We give these people an average of $1.5 million, and they know how to go about getting the money. Mr. Speaker, through the Chair I can advise the Canadian Olympic Association today that we are going to review the agreement signed between the Canadian Government, my Department and the Canadian Olympic Association, so that in future, we can have the assurance that promising young Canadian talent will be able to participate and acquire experience for the Olympics. Winning medals is a goal, but taking part in Olympic Games is a reward for our young Canadian athletes who have been training every day for two, three, four or five hours in an attempt to make it to the top.
We are not interested in winning every single Olympic medal. What we want is to reward our young amateur athletes who had the courage to train day in and day out, and to commend the parents of those young athletes. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that my Department is firmly committed, first to review our agreement with the Canadian Olympic Association and, second, since we have had no reply from Mr. Jackson,
upon recommendation by my officials, to invite two young athletes to go and see for themselves what goes on at Sarajevo, and to have their expenses paid by the Canadian taxpayers.


NATIONAL DEFENCE-FINDING OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN DEPARTMENT
Lynn McDonald: Mr. Speaker, this evening I want to address the issue of a sexual harassment case in the Department of National Defence. When I raised the issue with the Minister I was very surprised that he did not know about the case, and seemed to be perplexed as to which case it was, as if there had been many cases. In fact, it is the Robichaud case, of which I am sure he has been made aware. It is a very serious case. It is one in which the Department's conduct has been shameful.
The facts are these, A Human Rights Commission Review Tribunal, a three-person tribunal, on February 21, 1983 allowed an appeal in this case. It made a finding that the supervisor of the woman concerned, a Mr. Brennan, was guilty of sexual harassment by reason of his failure to rebut the prima facie case established by Mrs. Robichaud, and by his creation of a poisoned work environment. Both of these are, of course, contrary to the Canadian Human Rights Act, Section 7(b).
What I want to address is the procedure and the action by the Department of Defence, or the non-action in some cases. The review tribunal pointed out that there was no clearly defined policy against sexual harassment to be communicated to the employees. When complaints were brought to the attention of Mr. Brennan's superiors, no investigation was conducted by the Department to determine the truth or otherwise of the allegations. Let me quote from the decision of the review tribunal:
On the contrary, steps were taken to remove Mrs. Robichaud from the normal routine of a lead hand. She was ultimately transferred to the so-called "punishment block" on the barracks where her duties were severely curtailed. This treatment of Mrs. Robichaud would give the impression to the other employees on the base that she had fallen out of favour with the people in charge of personnel. There was certainly no indication that Mr. Brennan was disfavoured. There was the orchestrated attempt to discredit Mrs. Robichaud after she had filed her complaint by the flood of letters and petitions against her, a circumstance which should have prompted great suspicion and therefore closer inquiry. Finally, we find particularly irresponsible on the part of the employer that the activities of Mr. Brennan in relation to the personnel who were called to testify before the tribunal were not monitored so as to prevent any coercion or intimidation of them by Mr. Brennan.
Evidence was presented that an employee who testified on behalf of Mr. Brennan was given a night off with pay, while another worker who testified against him received a penalty in the form of a shift change. Clearly these are very serious matters, and clearly it is the responsibility of the Department of National Defence to do something about them. The Department was negligent in not dealing promptly and firmly with this matter. It goes back a very long time to 1979.
January 30, 1984

I should point out that this was the first time on the base in question that a woman had achieved the job of lead hand in this particular Department. It was especially important for the Department to ensure that she was able to perform her duties without harassment.
It took a long time to investigate this case. I do not want to blame the Canadian Human Rights Commission for this. It had to set up new procedures for dealing with sexual harassment. Finally, the Human Rights Commission did come up with this decision of the review tribunal. It is now nearly a year old, dated February 21, 1983, yet the Department has still not acted upon it, but is appealing the case further.
The appeal which the Department has prepared shows gross insensitivy to the whole issue of sexual harassment. The Department seems to question the credibility of the complainant when she was reticent to give details on what is clearly a most threatening, difficult and delicate matter, or when she tried to solve the matter quietly, which was most understandable under the circumstances. The Department seemed to condone the inaction on the part of the authorities. The Department whitewashed the whole situation. The Department founded its arguments on very trivial, legal technicalities.
Women need jobs. They need non-traditional jobs and they need the protection of the employer to be able to achieve them. The Government ought to be a leader in this respect. The taxpayers' money is paying all of the people involved.
Before closing I want to point out another irony. It is the involvement or the public in all of this. Here we have the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which under the act prohibits sexual harassment, funded by the taxpayer. This is public policy. Yet we have the Department of National Defence, also paid by the taxpayer as an employer condoning the matters. We have the Department now appealing the decision with legal advice from the Department of Justice, also paid by the taxpayer. Here we have the taxpayer paying one Department trying to defeat the efforts of another to promote equality of women and reasonable working conditions in their work environment. This is a situation which has been allowed to continue far too long. When a case finally is won, the Department of Justice either apeals it or participates in the preparation of that appeal. That is hypocrisy of which we have had far too much.


Stanley Hudecki: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member has raised a subject which is very important and timely. It does require continuing scrutiny.
Adjournment Debate
The Hon. Member knows very well that in anticipation of the human rights legislation covering personal harassment, which was proclaimed on July 1, 1983, Treasury Board did issue policy directives to all Departments based on the amendments before Parliament at that time. A complaint system was set up which provides at the regional and central levels the means for people to complain formally.
In so far as the Department of National Defence is concerned, these Treasury Board guidelines, as far as I have been told and have found upon investigation, were acted upon promptly and efficiently, as was the case in other Government Departments. It must be pointed out that the Canadian Armed Forces, through provisions of the National Defence Act, have had in existence a grievance system very similar and compatible with the one directed by Treasury Board.
Within the Department of National Defence, the Department's policy on these matters has been disseminated by letter from headquarters to command headquarters, bases, stations and units. It has also formed a part of the syllabus of various courses given to different levels of management, both civilian and military. Relevant articles have been published in departmental publications for both the military and the civilian members.
Even though both the military and civilian complaint systems are very similar, very minor differences between the two systems do exist and corrective steps are being taken within the Department to develop some uniformity of implementation. It is understandable that such minor differences should exist because of the differences between the civilian and military philosophy and objectives. Until this case, we know of no incidents where these differences have created problems or have come into play, and I would not expect them to negatively affect the results of any cases of harassment brought to adjudication.
I can assure the Hon. Member that the records show that this type of personal harassment has not been a major problem in the forces. Adequate means are being provided, and implementation of them is being improved. The current step of bringing together the two systems is being worked out in detail. I thank the Hon. Member for bringing this case to the attention of the Department of National Defence.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The motion to adjourn the House being deemed to have been adopted, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 11 a.m.
At 6.27 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Tuesday, January 31, 1984