1984-03-15

[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Wednesday, March 14, consideration of the motion of Mr. MacLaren that Bill C-21, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for Willowdale (Mr. Peterson).


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Jim Peterson (Willowdale):: I am grateful to my colleagues in the House for the generous reception of my impending remarks.
We are gathered here today to discuss a Bill dealing with the borrowing authority. In one sense it reflects the over-all economic purpose of our Government. We are asking for the authority to borrow funds to finance our programs. Having listened for many, many months now to Opposition debate, I cannot understand why members of the Opposition would not be prepared to support this Bill without debate.
[DOT]	(H15)
If we listen to members of the NDP, they have asked us to spend much more money, to increase the deficit further. If we listen to the Conservatives, they have asked us to do the impossible. They have asked us to reduce the deficit and at the same time to implement perhaps 150 additional spending programs which are not within our contemplation at the present time.


An Hon. Member:: Name one.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: The Hon. Member from Winnipeg asks me to name one. For example, in the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs we dealt with the financing of post-secondary education. Did they want us to put six and five limits on the transfers to provinces in that area? Absolutely not. They called for increased expenditures of over a couple of hundred million dollars. What have they asked us
to do in terms of financing health care? The Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) said that we must give more money to the provinces. What have they asked us to do in terms of defence spending? They have said that we are not spending enough on defence and, if they were elected, that they would be prepared to vastly increase defence spending.


Mr. Blenkarn:: We would get rid of Canadair expenses, and we would look after some other things as well.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: This has to be balanced against what the official spokesperson on economic matters for the Tory Party has told us. He has told us that if he had his way, he would get mean and dirty and nasty.


Mr. Malone:: With Canadair.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: That means that he would be cutting off transfer payments made to the provinces and to individual Canadians in order to create that safety net, in order to create a floor below which no person, regardless of their circumstances, should have to fall.
When we talk about the deficit at this time, perhaps many people would agree that in the past we have made mistakes.


Arnold John Malone: Hear, hear!


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: During the seventies when we had positive growth in the country, perhaps we should have been running some surpluses and setting them aside for a rainy day.


Mr. Nickerson:: That is right.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: That is history. Let us deal with the Budget measures in the April 19, 1983 Budget and in the February 15, 1984 Budget. Are the Tories prepared to advocate to the House one measure whereby they would cut back on expenditures?


Dave Nickerson: Canadair.


Arnold John Malone: Yes, Canadair.


Mr. Taylor:: Patronage.


Mr. Ellis:: Do you want three?


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Call an election.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: I would be delighted to hear them make one positive suggestion. They have not broken-


Gordon Edward Taylor: Metric and patronage, that is what we would cut.

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James Scott (Jim) Peterson: -their Leader's injunction to all members of the Conservative Party not to utter a declaration on policy. We see them falling apart. Their Leader told them not to utter one declaration on policy because it might be good for the Canadian people-


Gordon Edward Taylor: That is baloney.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: -and we, the Government of Canada, might want to adopt it.


Gordon Edward Taylor: You don't know what you are talking about.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, order.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: 1 would welcome suggestions from the Conservative Party if it had any.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. 1 think this is a good time for the Chair to appeal to all Hon. Members to observe the rules of debate. The Member who has been reecognized to make a speech should not be interrupted, according to Standing Order 15. The Hon. Member for Willowdale has the floor.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that courtesy.
I ask where the Tories would cut. They said that they would cut Canadair. That is the one positive policy we have heard from them! Are they telling us to drop the entire Canadair program, the CL-601? Are you telling us that you want us to pull the plug-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. The Hon. Member must address his remarks to the Chair.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: 1 want to go on record as saying that if it is official Tory policy to pull the plug on the Challenger program, I am delighted to hear for the first time one positive program of the Tories. They are now going back to the glorious Conservative rule when they scrapped the Arrow and sent some of our finest minds south of the border. I will not be part of that. I am glad they have finally come out of the woodwork. They are ignoring the injunction of their Leader. They now have a policy: Scrap the Challenger, kill Canadair.
I would like the Tory Members to make another positive suggestion for the economic development of this country. I am absolutely disgusted that in their role as elected Members they have no positive alternatives to present to us. They will not co-operate with other Members in this House to give us some positive alternatives.
I am pleased that the NDP at least has come forward with very positive alternatives. I do not accept their approach, but they are at least being constructive. Within the limits available to them, they are trying to pose alternatives. They are trying to work with us and the people of Canada to help those who are unemployed. Do the Tories want to cut our unemployment programs? Do they want to cut the amount of money we are giving to the unemployed? Do they want to cut the programs that are designed to create jobs for the unemployed?


Gordon Edward Taylor: No.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: There we have a second positive policy statement from the Tories. They do not want to cut the money that we are giving to the unemployed. I am delighted. Where, then, are they going to cut if they want to reduce the deficit?


Gordon Edward Taylor: Metric.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: We have taken a very positive approach in the last two Budgets. When we in the Finance Committee advertised right across Canada for people to appear before us to discuss the April 19 Budget, we had three requests only. That was a sign of the acceptance of that Budget. At least the clown prince of the Tory Party had the integrity to admit that it was a pretty good Budget in the circumstances. I say as well that the February 15 Budget in the circumstances was a first-rate budget.
The Official Opposition have come up with none of the alternatives that I feel it is their beholden responsibility to come up with as trustees of the public will, elected by those in their ridings. They were not elected to come here to say they have no policy, and if they had, that they would not tell us what it was anyway. Their constituents told them to come here and work with us in a constructive way to try to tap the incredible potential that we have in this country. That is the type of spirit which I would hope to see from all Members in the House. I regret to say as a Member of Parliament, albeit a new one, and perhaps I am not wise to the ways of Parliament, that I did not expect Tories would come here and adopt an official Tory policy of no policy and, if they had one, that they would not tell us what is was anyway.


Gordon Edward Taylor: That is patronage.


James Scott (Jim) Peterson: It is not. That is the approach that I believe trustees of the public will take in dealing with their beholden responsibilities to the people of Canada. I would hope that in the days ahead they will change their head-in-the-sand policy and exercise their responsibilities as Members of Parliament in a constructive and positive way.


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and take part in this important debate on the borrowing authority Bill, Bill C-21. Two days ago, all Members of the House joined in honouring the work done over a period of some 60 years by the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles) who has fought long and hard on behalf of the poor, pensioners and the powerless for a better and more compassionate Canada.
I was pleased to be a part of the group which honoured the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre that day and I think it is important that when we take part in a debate on a Bill as significant as this Bill, which seeks authority to borrow almost $30 billion, we reflect on some of the principles of which the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre spoke during the remarks he made two days ago. I think it is
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important that we recognize very clearly our responsibilities as the representatives of the people of our constituencies. I think it is important that we not bicker with one another but speak out constructively regarding our options and proposals to deal with what is clearly the most important economic crisis facing the people of the country, and that is the devastating crisis of unemployment.
It is essential that the Government, when seeking the authority to borrow some $30 billion, clearly recognize that its most important priority must be putting back to work the almost two million Canadians who want to work and cannot find jobs. We are not only dealing with the literally hundreds of thousands of people who are in their fifties and early sixties and have been laid off from their jobs or fired or, as a result of technological change, found themselves no longer able to continue with the work they have been doing for many, many years. We must deal as well with a whole generation of young people.
In excess of half a million young people are desperately looking for work but find that the doors are closed, that as a result of the bankruptcy of the Government's economic policies they are unable to work. At the same time, because of the catastrophic economic policies of the Government, we find that access to post-secondary education is becoming more and more restricted. Young people are being hit with a double-whammy. On the one hand, they are unable to find work; on the other, they find that the opportunities for continuing education are becoming more and more restricted as a result of cutbacks in post-secondary education funding.
As well, Mr. Speaker, we find that women and the disabled are affected to a very significant extent by cutbacks. Governments, both federal and provincial, have refused to implement mandatory affirmative action plans to ensure that women are not the first victims on the firing line in these rough economic times.
Many of us are also concerned about the fact that at a time when Canadians are bearing a record level of debt on a per capita basis, the Government refuses to make the necessary changes to the federal income tax system, whether to the corporate income tax structure or to the personal income tax structure, to ensure that loopholes are closed and that large corporations are paying their fair share.
We hear much talk from members of the Official Opposition about the size of the deficit. I share the Opposition's concern about the burgeoning deficit but they are silent when it comes to putting an end to the massive network of the so-called corporate tax expenditures. These expenditures amount, in effect, to direct grants to the corporate sector and in 1979 totalled some $6 billion. We know that the tax system for the banks in this country is effectively a voluntary "pay-as-you-go" system. How on earth can they defend a system in which Revenue Canada puts the boots to ordinary working men and women at the same time as they turn a blind eye to loopholes which permit literally billions of dollars to be retained in corporate coffers instead of being spent on job-creation programs?
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There are many ways in which we could move forward to create jobs in this country, such as by significantly enhancing research and development. Our record of R and D is one of the worst in the western economic world.
There is a host of other programs which could be implemented immediately to create jobs, whether it be identifying public works projects in conjunction with local municipalities, work that has to be done now and should be done, such as in the forestry sector which has been disgracefully neglected by both federal and provincial governments. As the Science Council of Canada has noted, there is a serious crisis in the industry and if we are not prepared to take emergency steps toward reforestation and conservation of our forest industry, we may lose it. For a Member of Parliament from British Columbia where forestry is the number one industry, that is obviously a very serious matter.
There must be a fundamental restructuring of our economy to strengthen the manufacturing sector. There is no excuse for the fact that Canadians are the largest per capita importers of agricultural and mining machinery in the world. We are quite capable of making our own mining and agricultural machinery and putting Canadians to work in that way. We should have a Canadian merchant marine and ship Canadian goods on Canadian ships.
It is essential that in dealing with the whole question of technological change we must be its masters and not its servants. Where working people are affected by technological change, they should have the right to negotiate and there should be provision to give them ample notice. It is women who are affected to a disproportionate extent by technological change. We must look at the length of the work week, at early retirement, at part-time work for those who want it and at effective retraining schemes for those affected by technological change.
Over the past six or eight months, I have gone out to the doorsteps of my constituency of Burnaby and listened to the people I represent. In my constituency office in south Burnaby my assistant, Del Carrel, and I have noted a dramatic increase in the level of personal hardship and suffering being experienced in that community. I am sure the Hon. Member for Vancouver Centre (Miss Carney) and others from British Columbia have experienced the same thing. We see the devastating impact of the Government's economic policies on the people we represent, whether they be pensioners, young people or those thrown out of work.
What alternative does the Official Opposition offer? Occasionally we get a few hints. The Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) has said: "If I told you what I would do we would never get elected". Just a few weeks ago he told us what the Tories would do with respect to the means test for old age pensioners and for family allowances. He is the official finance spokesperson for the Tory Party. He said:
You have to look and see, on the social side, whether it is possible to introduce more means testing so that programs are not universal,-

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That is the vision of the Conservative Party in this country. We have seen the devastating impact of the Liberal Party. Now more than ever it is essential that Canadians listen to the voice of the New Democratic Party, listen to the voice of the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North Centre. It is time for a government which puts people ahead of profits.


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, in the first two presentations made this morning you have heard the voice of profligacy. You heard it from the Liberal Party, desperately trying to defend the proposal to borrow some $30 billion, and you heard the voice of the New Democratic Party-that voice that is getting weaker day by day as people realize what they are up to-saying that a $30 billion deficit is not enough, that we should spend more. If the Liberals are bad, as they are, then the New Democrats are three times worse.
Now you are going to hear the voice of responsibility, Mr. Speaker.


Svend Johannes Robinson: It is five times worse!


Dave Nickerson: That is the voice of the Conservative Opposition. We are completely of a contrary mind to the Government when it comes to its request to borrow some $30 billion. We note that even in its own Budget documents tabled in the House, the requirement was only for some $25.5 billion. That is what it told Parliament it needed for the balance of the fiscal year. Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I do not believe that; I think the Government will come back for yet another borrowing authority later, but that is what it said.
When we examine this Bill we see that there is built into it a borrowing authority for $4 billion in excess of what the Government told us it wanted a couple of weeks ago. It is pretty obvious what it is up to: it wants to establish a $4 billion slush fund. We know why it wants that slush fund; it is because an election will be coming up in the not too distant future. I wish we could have it next week and get it over with and have a new government in Canada. I am scared of what might happen if we let these gentlemen go around the country with that $4 billion at election time. In the past we have seen what they do when they have money in their pockets, money with which they are prepared to try to buy votes, money with which to bribe the public of Canada-trying to bribe the public of Canada with its own tax dollars which have been confiscated by the Government.
Let us put this borrowing request into context. This is the eighth time in this Parliament that the Government has made a request to borrow yet more funds. Every time it comes before Parliament with this request it is for more money; it is a roller-coaster request and there seems to be no end to it.
In the Budget documents presented on February 15 the projected financial requirements from the current 1984-85 fiscal year over the next three years to the 1987-88 fiscal year is some $87.25 billion. Even if that estimate is correct it means that within the next three years the Government will come back time and time again with a request for more borrowing
authority. I hope the election is called soon and the Government changes so that we can have a responsible government which will put a responsible financial policy into effect and these requests will not be necessary. Under the present system, the present spending plan of the Government, a steady stream of like Bills is guaranteed. There is no hope for the taxpayers of Canada with the present Government in office.
Let us look, Sir, at the history of the financial mismanagement of the Liberal Party. When did we first get ourselves on this treadmill? I believe it started in the days when John Turner-John "Deficit" Turner, as my friend, the Hon. Member for Brandon-Souris (Mr. Clark), called him the other day-was Minister of Finance. Previous to that we had been in a state of balance for some time. Some years there may have been a deficit and some years a surplus, but things would even out. That is the way government should be run. However, Sir, under the ministry of that hon. gentleman, the leading light, the golden boy of the Liberal Party-or so the press would have us believe-deficits were run up of some $5.5 billion.
When that gentleman left office, Sir, in came someone who is presently contending for the leadership of the Liberal Party, a gentleman who presently occupies the position of Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Chretien). As Minister of Finance he, in the Liberal way, went a little further than his predecessor. He ran up a debt of some $12.25 billion during his term of office. After that in came another leading light in the Party opposite, a gentleman who is presently Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen). In his term he almost doubled the record of the previous incumbent. He came to Parliament for $25.25 billion. Finally, Sir, in this history of mismanagement we come to the present incumbent in that high office, the gentleman who in one year can run up deficits of $31.5 billion. It gets worse and worse.
John Turner put us on this treadmill and no one yet has been able to get us off. If you examine the sequence I have just outlined, Sir, you will see that in good Liberal tradition that Party alternated between an English-speaking Canadian and a French-speaking Canadian for that ministerial position. I am told this is a tradition with the gentlemen opposite. But this formula, this transition from English to French, at least when applied to Ministers of Finance, appears to be nothing more than a formula for disaster.
I would suspect that were the same to occur in the leadership aspirations of the gentlemen opposite, much the same would occur. That Party has gotten us into such a state now that the accumulated gross national debt at the end of this month, the end of the present fiscal year, will be some $190 billion. This is about half the annual Gross National Product of Canada. This is the situation in which we find ourselves.
Hon. Members on this side of the House have spoken eloquently on what this means to Canada. What it means. Sir, is the destruction of the national economy of Canada; of that there is no doubt. That has been explained on many occasions.
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I see that I have very little time left. Suffice it to say that just the costs of servicing this debt are now $20 billion per year. That is about $1 in every $3 raised in the form of taxes from Canadians. The result of this policy of financial mismanagement year after year after year has been the following: a higher burden of taxes on all Canadians; higher interest rates, as the Government has to compete within the capital markets of the country, affecting employment, housing construction and other elements of the economy.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order, please.


Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, once again, it seems, we must stand in the House of Commons to bring to the attention of the Government the seriousness of the situation which it is foisting on the Canadian people. I was really distressed this morning as I listened to the Hon. Member for Willowdale (Mr. Peterson) because he is so far off base in what he says. It is hard to understand how an elected representative of the Canadian people could be so far off base. In trying to protect the Budget just brought in by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde), he is misleading not only himself and his colleagues but he is misleading the Canadian people.
It was an April fool's budget, Mr. Speaker, nothing short of that, simply because of the fact that the Minister in that Budget was trying to back-pedal to 1976 and even before that. An example of that was the rollover of capital gains. I do not need to remind you, Mr. Speaker, that prior to 1976 we did not have such a thing as capital gains in Canada. The Minister of Finance is now trying to back-pedal and everyone on the other side of the House says it is a good Budget.


Dave Nickerson: Who brought capital gains in?


Thomas Gordon Towers: The Hon. Otto Lang brought it into this House of Commons. The Government would not listen to us when we told it the mistake it was making. He foolhardily went ahead with it and now the Minister of Finance is trying to back-pedal to get away from that position. In the meantime, however, we have suffered disastrous consequences as a result of it.
It was the same thing with the National Energy Program and its taxation system. The Government has to realize that it cannot keep siphoning off all those dollars through the taxation structure. They have to be left in the system if we are going to function properly. This is a lesson which the Government apparently has not learned. I am really surprised at the Hon. Member from Toronto not realizing what one of that city's main newspapers had to say with respect to some of the things which must happen. I trust, Mr. Speaker, that you will permit me to read a portion of that editorial?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: It is perfectly permissible to quote, as long as the Hon. Member reveals the source of the quote he intends to use.


Thomas Gordon Towers: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is an article in the Toronto Sun of February 16. This is the advice it gives to the Government and, I would think, to the Hon. Member for Willowdale:
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The Liberals have missed their last chance to do something effective. High taxes, high government spending and the resulting inflation have wrecked Canada's economy.
If Lalonde really wanted the private sector to create jobs he should have slashed government spending and cut taxes. Instead he's merely handed out minor sops.
Yet in spite of all the bluster, taxes are going up. The 1 per cent increase in the federal sales tax will result in large across-the-board increases on everything.
This is not leadership-just more jiggery-pokery that's caused our once strong dollar to lose 25 per cent of its value and the Canadian deficit to grow 30 per cent larger in per capita terms than that of the U.S.
How was it done? Simple. By reducing competitiveness through ever-increasing government regulation and interference-
It is just as simple as that. Apparently, Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Willowdale is not reading his own local papers. He says we have no policies. That is what we believe in. That is just exactly what we will do when we form the Government.
I am sure Canadians do not realize the amount of money the Government is spending which it does not have. The rapidly increasing expenditures are going to put a burden on future generations which they will never be able to pay off. We are mortgaging the lives of our children and grandchildren. We cannot spend $11,250,000 an hour 24 hours a day every day of the year, Sundays and holidays included. This is a horrendous sum, Mr. Speaker.
The Canadian people must begin to realize the direction in which the Government has been leading them. In my constituency I find that more and more people are starting to think about what is happening. I hear a lot of people talking about the tremendous deficit and the effect it is going to have on the economy, their lives and their livelihood. It cannot be otherwise. The Government is taking too much out of the system and not leaving enough for the business community to survive or expand. That is the engine we must use to get back to where we were in 1968 when the present administration took over.
I would like to bring to the attention of the House some comments made by Mr. W. R. Wyman, who is Chairman of the Board of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. This is his advice as to what the Government should do. This is free advice. It is available to the Government but apparently it does not understand what it reads. He said:
What we need is not nostalgia, nor is it a new crop of trendy slogans touting temporary restraint. We do need a new national commitment to an economic regime that is based on individual freedoms and responsibility, with that individual freedom protected by the right to acquire, hold and use property. And, lest anyone miss the point, it will be impossible to promote that freedom and responsibility unless the distribution of rewards is determined by the free market.
That is where the Government has gone wrong, Mr. Speaker. The Government is not allowing the free market system to make this determination. The Government is making this determination. It is being made by Members such as the Hon. Member for Willowdale who does not understand what it is all about. Mr. Wyman went on to say:
To use an overworked phrase, the "Just Society", based on individual freedoms, cannot prevail if people interfere in the market, and the rush to regulate in

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the last two decades has not, on balance, proven its worth to our society. Quite the opposite. It has retarded growth, encouraged inflation, and undermined our competitiveness.
No, the long-term path to progress-to recovery, if you will-lies in Government restraint not just in spending but in overall terms. In its size. In its activities. In its will to guide us from cradle to grave. No thinking person would deny Government's role in formulating economic and social goals for Canada, but I'm suggesting it need not and should not be concerned with specifying the means to achieve those goals. That is better left to the marketplace.
That is sound advice, Mr. Speaker. I do not know where you would get any better. In place of that we have the Minister of Finance saying he is not worrying because the value of the Canadian dollar is depreciating. He is not lying awake at night thinking about that. When the value of the Canadian dollar depreciates the first effect is that we run into inflation. This is devastating. We must be able to control inflation. The only way we will do that is to have more responsibility put into the marketplace in the hands of the Canadian people. The Government must create that climate in order for that to take place. That is the best advice I can give the people opposite. I hope they pay attention.


Mr. Alex Patterson (Fraser Valley East):: Mr. Speaker, the Bill we have before us is very light and short. The body of the Bill is contained on one page about eight inches by eleven inches. Even though it is light and very short, that is not the effect it is going to have upon the Canadian people. Its weight -will substantially add to the burden of debt which rests upon 'the shoulders of Canadians today. The effects will span the years and enchain our children and our children's children for generations to come,
I have lost count of the times I have heard Liberal spokesmen declare that their intention was and is to exercise restraint and reduce the deficit. However, like most of the predictions made in so many areas, the announced goals were seldom, if ever, realized. In seeking borrowing authority for the unprecedented amount of $29.55 billion in this Bill before us, the Government has reduced its diminishing credibility to minus zero.
I listened with interest this morning to the speech of the Hon. Member for Willowdale (Mr. Peterson). He stated that we in the Progressive Conservative Party have been asking for the impossible in requesting reduced deficits. Why, then, has that been promised so often by the Liberals? Apparently they had no more intention of reducing the deficit and exercising restraint than they had when they promised to keep the price of gasoline lower than that which was predicted by the Conservative Government several years ago.
The Government is asking for authority to borrow $29.55 billion. This is the eighth time the Government has come before this Parliament to request such authority. Bill C-30 was for $12 billion. Bill C-59 was for $14 billion. Bill C- 111 was for $6.6 billion. Bill C-125 was for $7 billion. Bill C-128 was for $4 billion. Bill C-143 was for $19 billion. Bill C-151 was for $10.71 billion. Now, Mr. Speaker, we have the unconscionable Bill C-21 requesting $29.55 billion. This is a total of $102 billion requested in this Parliament.
As has been underlined by several of my colleagues in the course of debate, the amount requested in this Bill is far in excess of the amount required to meet the Government's commitments. There has been no clear reason given why the request has been made or for what purposes the money will be used. The Government's spokespersons, including the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde), have loudly declared that economic recovery is the prevailing trend today. I suggest that the evidence points to the contrary. I think it is safe to say that any seeming degree of recovery is, at the very best, exceedingly fragile. Furthermore, unemployment as of January this year stands at 11.2 per cent. Manufacturing is at 70.5 per cent of capacity and business and farming bankruptcies continue at an alarming rate. Farm income is declining. These facts do not indicate or support in any way the claim that recovery is a continuing reality.
I would like to call attention to the report of the Conference Board of January, 1984. It points out that the Canadian economy will experience four quarters of negative growth in 1985. The rate of job creation will slow over the course of 1984 and 1985, and will be negative in the last half of 1984. As a consequence, unemployment will fall to 10.8 per cent this summer and then rise to 11.3 per cent by the end of next year. It points out that the federal deficit is seen as remaining in the $27 billion range on a national accounts basis. Short-term interest rates will rise by two percentage points between now and the end of 1985. Capital investment will continue to be weak or negative. I do not believe there is anything in those figures that would indicate that the recovery is even holding, let alone improving across the country.
I suggest that the Bill in its current form is completely unacceptable. While we can acknowledge the necessity to meet the legitimate costs of a responsible government, we cannot meekly permit the Government to build up a surplus to finance unknown activities at taxpayers' expense.
When we look at the entire picture, I cannot understand how the Government has the colossal nerve to come before this Parliament and ask us to support a measure that will impose such a further horrendous deficit upon the Canadian people and demand that they contribute another $29.5 billion without indicating what it will be used for or how it will affect our country.
If we could see that these vast expenditures were improving the lot of the Canadian people, perhaps it would be entirely different. However, the figures that I and many of my colleagues have presented to the House would indicate that, to the contrary, it is simply a matter of pouring money into a hole in the ground. Rather than seeing an improvement so that our people are happy, contented, prosperous and confident, I believe when people see the activities of the Government and the demands it is making on the taxpayers of this country, they become increasingly depressed, to the point where we find that the social effects upon Canadian society because of the eco-
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nomic situation are resulting in disaster as far as many people in our country are concerned.
1 repeat that there would be some reason for hope if there was an improvement but the Government is placing an increasing burden of debt upon Canadians and putting succeeding generations in a position where they will not be able to carry this debt plus a possibly increased debt in the future if, God forbid, a government like that remains in office for any further length of time.


John Raymond Ellis: Mr. Speaker, when I decided this morning that I would speak for a few moments in this debate, I realized that I was tired. I did not know whether I was tired because I have had a few late nights, whether I might have spring fever since spring is nearly upon us, or whether I might even be tired because of a heavy work load. But Members of Parliament do not work hard, so it could not have been that. Then I realized that I was tired of the Government, i was tired of the excesses that have resulted in bringing before us the eighth borrowing Bill in this Parliament. My colleague from Fraser Valley East (Mr. Patterson) detailed the various numbers to the House and I will not do that again. However, this is the largest borrowing Bill in Canada's history.
Let me compare the projected deficit with some other projections. In 1979, my colleague from St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) projected some deficits. He indicated that by this year we might well have a deficit as high as $9 billion. We are now looking at a deficit of approximately $30 billion.
His successor, the first Minister of Finance in that infamous government that is now in power, the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen), projected in 1980 that we would have a deficit in the $12 billion range this year. Once again, it is far off the mark. Less than a year later that same Minister projected that he would have that deficit down to $10 billion. He did not do that.
Finally, the current Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) projected last year that he would bring the deficit down to $31.3 billion. They are finally making projections of what the figure actually is.
1 realized that 1 was tired of the incompetence of the Government. Like my colleague from Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Darling), I think in terms of municipal governments. I spent many years in municipal government. I think in terms of Mayor Zegouras of Belleville, Warden Rabel of Hastings, Warden Kotchopaw of Prince Edward and the other reeves and mayors in the small communities of my constituency. They must budget annually for their requirements and are required to pass a borrowing bylaw to borrow the funds which they might need to fulfil the commitments they make in their communities throughout the year. They are concerned with real money because they budget and borrow exactly what they need and, at year end, their budgets are very close to the mark. Indeed, if their budgets are off, it is usually by a small surplus because they very carefully consider what must be done
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throughout the year. Would that this Government have that kind of decency.
I also realized that I was tired of the misconduct of the Government, particularly as displayed by Revenue Canada recently. I could add many stories to the tales of woe that we have heard. I think of one case which came to me just a few days ago of a woman who is widowed with one child living on a small cheque left over from her husband's estate and one disability cheque, for indeed she is disabled. In an entire year, that woman lives on what the Government spends in two seconds. Despite that, she owed Revenue Canada some money and was paying it off. She found she could not make the payments in the amount she promised and continue to live at the same standard, so she decided to move to cheaper accommodation and found a less expensive place to live. However, in moving to that less expensive accommodation she had to pay the first and last month's rent together. Consequently she missed a couple of payments to Revenue Canada. This woman, who was living on such a small income, had her bank account of $500 seized by Revenue Canada. That is why I am tired.
We are told that the federal Government must borrow money in order to pay the income tax refunds that will be coming due. The Government is giving taxpayers some of their own money back. The Government is borrowing money and paying interest-at least, the taxpayers are going to pay the interest-to give people their own money back. Would that it had some of its own medicine inflicted upon it. Would that its bank account be seized as well.
I realized I was also tired of the unbusinesslike ways of this Government. We know that this Government is going to spend $18 billion this year just to pay interest on the debt. We know the Government is into the money market for over 50 per cent of the money to be borrowed this year. We have businessmen who want to make Canada grow, who want to build buildings, who want to produce products and create jobs. But frankly, they cannot borrow the money to do it because of the bungling of this Government.
I talked to a businessman just the other day, Mr. Speaker. He needed to borrow really just a very small amount, $4.5 million, only he found that the markets do not have money available right now. It could be that the markets are fudging a little bit because people can see interest rates going up and they will hold money for a few more days to get higher rates of return. We are told there is no money because the Government is into the market so heavily that there is no excess money around.
I am tired of the malicious boondoggling and make-work programs that partly cause this problem, but when the Minister and his Department are caught, they express such righteous indignation that indeed they could ever be the cause. Yet we know there are hundreds of millions of dollars being spent in these phoney make-work programs that produce nothing, unless you happen to be in a Liberal constituency.

March 15, 1984
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Then I realized that I am tired of the blundering and the stupidity that goes on. This is my country, Mr. Speaker. I think my constituency of Prince Edward-Hastings-I may get an argument from some of my colleagues-is God's gift to Canada. I think Prince Edward-Hastings is one of the most perfect places in the entire country to live. People are happy and proud, as I am, to live in this beautiful part of Canada, but I find they do not have the confidence they once had. When I talk to them, as 1 do every weekend at meetings and at functions, I find they are concerned, disturbed and upset. They are not sure where this country is going. They are not sure that their children will make it through the various schools or make a niche for themselves in the future. They are concerned that maybe next year the tax burden, which is already horrendously high, will be just that little bit too high and they will not be able to make it. People are concerned about the deficit because they are hearing more and more about it and feel that it will finally catch up to them. They are concerned about the way in which this country is going.
I find that I am tired, sick and tired, of the posturing arrogance, the pompous conceit, the egotism and the insolence of this Government. It is not spring fever, Mr. Speaker. It is the need that we have for a new government, the need to get rid of this crew and put in a government with some spirit and belief in Canada, a government that will make a difference.


Hon. Allan Lawrence (Durham-Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity of speaking to the House this afternoon on Bill C-21. Just in case, Sir, that you are unaware of what this debate is about, it is debate on second reading of a Bill to give authority to the Government to borrow $29.5 billion. This is the largest borrowing Bill in Canada's history.
When you talk about borrowing in the House, that inevitably brings up the question of the deficit. The deficit brings up the general question of taxation, and taxation and all of these other subjects bring up the general topic of the economy of the day. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, it is not easy these days to get people excited about the economy, but it is, nevertheless, the single most important Government issue facing Canadians in general today.
Any way you look at it, Canada is in a deepening financial crisis. I think any doubts about that were rudely dispelled by last month's federal Budget which told us that Canada's deficit-and the borrowing Bill is directly related to that deficit-will be $31.5 billion this year and more than $25 billion for each of the next four years. By the end of the fiscal year 1987-88 the national debt of Canada will climb to $261.5 billion. That is almost four times the 1979-80 level of $68.6 billion. Four times in less than ten years the national debt has grown.
These multibillion dollar figures are almost impossible for me to grasp-I do not know about you, Sir-considering that most of us will never even see a million dollars during our lifetimes. But these horrendous deficits do affect us all directly in ways in which I think we can all easily understand. Basically those deficits, and this borrowing Bill, mean that higher
interest rates for bank loans or for mortgages will be inevitable. It will mean less value for our Canadian dollar if we travel abroad. It will mean higher taxes and less money for personal spending. That in turn means business and industry cutbacks. People simply will not be able to buy new cars, new appliances, or new homes. As a result there will be fewer jobs. Everything is all related, all down the road. I say every Canadian suffers as a result of these deficits.
The question obviously is why do we have them? I must say to you, Sir, that from today's perspective it is a great deal easier to explain how they came about than why they came about. Spending at all levels of government in Canada has been rising since the end of World War II, partly at least in response to increased public demand for more government aid and more government services. Until the early 1970s growth in government spending was matched by rising government revenue: a very logical and simplistic balance existed. As people wanted more services and wanted more government aid, we were able to match that at all levels of government because rising government revenues balanced and matched those expenditures.
Then in the early 1970s governments seemed to become concerned about raising taxes. However, they also started spending at an even greater rate, especially the federal Government. To make up for this imbalance, governments, especially the federal Government, began borrowing against the future through deficit financing. That has resulted in the Government's asking the Parliament of Canada today to pass a borrowing Bill which, as I say, is the largest in Canadian history.
In 1976 the accumulated federal Government debt since Confederation-a time period which encompasses two world wars with vast expenditures on armies and armaments- totalled $22 billion. Now, as the last Budget indicated, our federal deficit is increasing yearly by more than what was our 109-year total just eight years ago. Last year the federal Government alone borrowed more than $26 billion. Ottawa's total debt now exceeds $130 billion. Mr. Speaker, that means you and I are $5,200 in debt; $5,200 for every man, woman and child in the country. According to the Budget forecast, $800 will be added to that debt each year for each and every one of us. Incidentally, when those of us who live in the Province of Ontario add on the debt of the Ontario Government-and I am sure it is roughly the same for every provincial government across the country-we have a debt of about $8,000. Every resident of the Province of Ontario, thanks to the combined governmental debt load of both the province and the federal Government, is now about $8,000 in debt and it is getting heavier by $1,100 every year.
I was very interested to read just recently that the Chairman of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, for instance, pointed out that if the parents of a child born today started borrowing in that child's name at the same rate of $1,100 per year, by the time the child was 25 years of age he or she would be in hock for
March 15, 1984

almost $120,000. That is a great deal of money as far as the average citizen is concerned. Obviously no responsible parent would think of doing that. It is almost inconceivable, yet that is exactly what is being done to our children and their children right now through government deficit financing and the imposition of a government Bill borrowing to the extent we are being asked to authorize today.
What is the answer? There is no easy one, but I think we have to start looking at it a darn sight harder than we have in the past. Otherwise we will awaken one day to find that we have a major economic collapse on our hands. Obviously part of the problem is that government has grown too large and has become too fat in the process. We must look at it closely to determine whether we really need and can afford all those offices, all those employees, all those bureaucrats, all those expensive Crown corporations and all the services they provide. We have to put it bluntly to our constituents: if we want to keep all these services, then we will have to start paying for them through much higher taxes. It is as simple as that.
If the question is put fairly to these people, I suggest they will realize that we have to go the other route. Obviously there is some fear that reducing the deficit must mean a cutback in the universal social welfare system of which Canada is so proud, such things as the family allowance and the old age pension. In fact, they are a very small part of the problem. Recent calculations show that if old age pensions and family allowances were restricted to families with less than $30,000 annual incomes, the savings would only be about $1 billion. That is a tiny proportion of next year's projected $30 billion federal deficit. This is why we as a Party and our Leader last week reaffirmed that we were certainly committed to reducing the federal deficit. Universality of social programs and opposition to any form of means test is a cornerstone of this Party's political philosophy in any event.
This is the only vehicle I have as a Member of the House to protest deeply the Government's mismanagement of the economy over the whole time it has been in office. This is why I speak today and voice my opposition to the horrendous Bill before us.


Mr. Dan Heap (Spadina):: Mr. Speaker, 1 am pleased to have the opportunity to speak against the present proposal to borrow $29.5 billion. This would mean a crushing debt of about $2,000 for every member of the workforce in Canada. Perhaps it would be a little over $2,000. The figures have to be rounded because the Government does not explain clearly how big is the workforce. The numbers keep shifting.
It is especially unsatisfactory since probably half this amount of money will go as gifts to large corporations. On past experience, approximately $15 billion or more will go as tax gifts to the largest corporations, not to corner grocery stores, not to small factories nor to little service operations. It will go to oil companies-


Mr. Fennell:: And Canadair.
Borrowing Authority Act


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: Yes, to Canadair-and to the very large corporations which have the ear of government, whether it is the Liberal Government in Ottawa or the Conservative Government in provinces like Ontario. Also it will go to land speculation which will make land more expensive without actually increasing its value. It will go to mergers and take-overs which have already destroyed many thousands of jobs. It will go to foreign investment in the way of tax gifts to those projects. Generally speaking, those projects do not create any more new jobs. They may create a few jobs by destroying more jobs, but the net result is that they do not create any new jobs. What the country needs above all is a restoration of employment and the prospect of full employment for everyone who is willing and able to work.
A year ago the Roman Catholic bishops spoke on this point and advocated two principles which the borrowing Bill opposes. One principle was the preference for the poor. The principle was that if we fulfilled the needs of the poor, the rich would also have their needs fulfilled. That is the opposite of the trickle-down theory espoused by the federal Government and by most provincial governments. The trickle-down theory holds that if we take taxes from poor people and give them to the rich, then some day some of that money will be returned to the poor people from whom it was taken in the first place. Most poor people do not think they will live long enough to see that day.
The second principle was the priority of labour over capital. Obviously the bishops do not mean by "labour" the Canadian Labour Congress or by "capital" the Canadian Manufacturers Association. They were talking about a basic fact of human life, namely that live, present labour uses past or dead labour. The goods we produced yesterday, a year ago or a century ago, whether they be railroads, trucks, factory buildings, electrical power, food or whatever, are dead labour. They are capital. They are intended to be used in the service of live labour, which is the new work we will do today. That is how I understand the teaching of the Roman Catholic bishops. They are saying that today's work must take priority over the results of yesterday's work, not the other way around.
This Bill ignores that principle. It suggests the Government should have more billions of dollars to hand out in the way it has been handing them out; that is, giving to people who simply increase the dollar value of yesterday's work. They will argue about who is going to be the president of the company that will control that capital. No new jobs will be created with that $29.5 billion.
It would be possible to support this borrowing Bill if the Government would reverse that principle. I am certain that support could be found in this corner of the House. I cannot speak so confidently for the moss-backs to my extreme right, but I hope that support will be found across the way. If the order were reversed, the working men and women in Canada would support it.

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One-fifth of the workforce in Canada is either completely unemployed or severely under-employed. That is our greatest unused resource. If we had 25 per cent more people working, that one-fifth, that is 25 per cent more than now, working at their best, we could wipe out a $29.5 billion debt in very short order. We would cure many other troubles as well. It would be worth borrowing the $29.5 billion if the Government would apply it in that way. The Government would have to reform the tax laws so that over half of it would not be given to corporations. Instead, they could institute a program that would eliminate unemployment in a short while by suggesting that each worker should work four days a week and be paid the fifth day to study, train or improve himself or herself for the new challenges in the workforce that are in front of us right now.
We say we need a workforce capable of doing something more than dull manual labour or pen-pushing. That is true. We need a workforce capable of handling the new challenges of modern technology. The way to do that is to enable not just a small, select few to study, not just those who have been forced out of active work by layoffs to study and not just those who have been discouraged by years of unemployment. They should have the opportunity to study until they are ready to be employed again when the country is ready to use them.
If this $29.5 billion were used to enable all workers-men, women, youth, middle-aged and older workers-to study one-fifth of their time and also include the one-fifth unemployed and under-employed in the active workforce, we would not only save close to $15 billion in unemployment insurance but save another large amount in welfare. We would restore our educational system which is falling into ruin through cutbacks if we applied this $29 billion in that way. Best of all, we would mobilize the workforce with a kind of enthusiasm that has not been seen since World War II. We have not had a labour shortage in Canada since World War II. We should have such a problem again!
With a program such as this, we would put a hopeful prospect in front of all Canada's workers, both those who are working and those who are not. We would give them something to look forward to by way of sharing in active terms as workers in the growth of this country. I hope that an idea like this will be taken seriously by those on the Government benches, to the extent that they will seriously want to reconstruct Canada, to rebuild our economy. The resource we have to use is the one-fifth of our workforce that is unemployed or under-employed. The best place to use the $29 billion is in putting those people immediately to work.


Hon. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, what prompts me to get to my feet are the numerous charges coming from across the way, particularly today from the Hon. Member for Wil-lowdale (Mr. Peterson), with respect to the absence of policy on this side. I must go quickly because of the fact that I only have ten minutes to address the subject of Crown corporations. As Hon. Members know, during the past few months the Progressive Conservative task force has been examining this very important subject. We have consulted widely both within
the public and private sectors. While the report is not yet finalized, some of the interim recommendations we have received as policy matters are as follows:
First, rationalizing and clarifying the Government's relationship with Crown corporations, based on a return to a system of effective individual ministerial responsibility.
Second, a revised classification system for Crown corporations based on the extent of a corporation's reliance on Government financing and its role in implementing public policy objectives.
Third, stringent measures to restrict the incorporation or acquisition of Crown corporations, subsidiaries and affiliates; including a requirement that aparent Crown corporation may only be created by a special Act of Parliament. This would end the ability of Ministers to create corporations by Orders in Council with absolutely no scrutiny or control by Parliament.
Fourth, a requirement for the submission of three to five-year business plans by each parent corporation for government approval and for tabling in Parliament, and for annual reports and quarterly financial statements of the highest possible quality and integrity.
Fifth, expansion and clarification of the role and responsibilities of the Auditor General in auditing Crown corporations and in his relationship with private sector auditors.
Sixth, improved accounting procedures and practices for Crown corporations conforming to principles and practices accepted in the private sector.
Seventh, clarification of the role and responsibilities of directors and officers of Crown corporations, including a requirement that the duties, responsibilities ands liabilities that apply in the private sector also apply to Crown corporations.
Eighth, creation of a joint Senate and House of Commons Standing Committee on Crown corporations, with the mandate and resources to undertake effective cyclical reviews of individual corporations.
These are just some of the policy suggestions that have been developed by this Party. It may be, however, that some of these proposals will be implemented before we are called upon to form the next government. I rather expect that we might see some of them at three o'clock when amendments to the Financial Administration Act are brought in by the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray).
After years of neglect, the Liberals now tell us that legislation will be introduced next month. That means this month, because I am reading from a speech given on February 23 last in Toronto by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) on the subject of Crown corporations. That is where the policy came from. Nobody picked it up, let alone the Hon. Member for Willowdale or anybody else over there. Let no one say that we are not addressing policy matters.
After years of neglect and years of prodding by this side, the Liberals now tell us they will be introducing legislation today which will address the problem of Crown corporations and financial control. The reason, of course, is that the existence of
March 15, 1984

our task force has caused a flurry of activity in the Government, just as our task forces on tax simplification and Revenue Canada practices caused the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Bussieres) to do something which is yet to be observed but caused the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) to address the subject in his recent Budget.
One can only hope for the country's sake that the existence of the task forces of the Progressive Conservative Party on productivity enhancement, youth employment and the employment impact of technological change will prompt further Liberal action, where they are taking our policies and putting them into their legislation. That can only result in good for the country. Better yet, Sir, perhaps we should start a task force on when to hold the next election.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Miss Pat Carney (Vancouver Centre):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) is a hard act to follow. He has successfully attempted to repudiate the accusation of Liberal Party members that we do not have any policies.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pat Carney: I am sorry that they cannot give me the courtesy of listening to my speech. Perhaps they are still so upset by the House Leader's accurate report of our policy that they cannot contain their concern about the next election.
I would like to talk about the fact that, as pointed out by the Hon. Member for Durham-Northumberland (Mr. Lawrence), this Bill is the biggest borrowing Bill in Canadian history in that it calls for $29.5 billion of additional borrowing. This is also the eighth borrowing Bill since 1980. Eight borrowing Bills have been sought in only four years, yet the need to borrow this massive amount of money attracts the interest of only about a dozen members on the government side. During the course of this debate, I have counted the number of government Members present in the House and the count has fluctuated between eight and 12. I see that not one member of the NDP is sitting in the Chamber to discuss the fact that the Government has gone back to the trough for $29.5 billion. The other point is that $4 billion of this-


Mr. Riis:: 1 rise on a point of order.


Pat Carney: Excuse me, Mr. Speaker. I thought I heard a member call to be recognized on a point of order. It is the custom of the House to-


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The Chair also heard the call to rise on a point of order but does not see anyone standing other than the Hon. Member. She may continue her remarks.


Pat Carney: Mr. Speaker, another point I would like to make is that the Government is asking for authority to borrow $4 billion now for a contingency fund which can be carried over into another fiscal year. That means that $25.5 billion must be used in 1984. Of course, we are concerned about the
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use to which this contingency fund will be put. Having a contingency fund in an election year raises the fear that it will be used as a political slush fund, as has been the use of so many of the funding programs of the Government in the past.
One of the candidates for the Liberal leadership race, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts), has just left the House. The Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) has accurately described that Minister as the "Minister of oink oink". As the House knows, that Minister has managed to spend $186 million through a special employment initiatives fund, mainly in Liberal ridings. Our big concern is whether or not this $4 billion will be used for this kind of sleazy slush fund in an election year.
I can only remind you, Mr. Speaker, of the concerns of Conservative members, and I have raised this matter in the House, about the 15 per cent unemployment rate in British Columbia, a province which received only 5.5 per cent of the funds to which I just referred. Other members of the Conservative Party have pointed out how strange it is that none of the needs of the post office in the next fiscal year can be met at all in Conservative ridings. Similarly, Canada Mortgage and Housing projects are apparently only desired in Liberal ridings. Even members of the NDP, and I now give credit to the finance critic for the NDP who has returned to the House, have pointed out that in terms of this particular program the average funding across Canada amounted to $150 per unemployed person. The Province of Quebec received $206 per unemployed person, the Maritimes received $227 per unemployed person and British Columbia is at the bottom of the heap, having received only $60 per unemployed person. That is what concerns us about this kind of borrowing in an election year.
Another point we must keep in mind when debating this borrowing Bill is that borrowing is the true legacy of the Prime Minister's years in the House. We have heard a great deal about the Prime Minister's contributions to the House but his main contribution during his tenure was the shattered dreams and the debt burden that he placed upon Canadians. He will go down in history as the Canadian Prime Minister who mortgaged the future not only of ourselves but of our children and grandchildren; the one who eroded the hopes of many people to ever own their own homes; who drained the bank accounts of small business either through tax policies or harassment by National Revenue; and who has consistently, through policies of high interest rates, bankrupted farmers, lost family homes and shut the doors to the education of children. He has left a mammoth legacy of grief with which we must live.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Pat Carney: However, I noticed that the candidates for the Liberal leadership race are trying to put some distance between themselves and these Liberal policies. It is fascinating to see the Minister of Employment and Immigration go on national television and talk about how he has new ideas and that he is a man of the future as compared to a man of the

March 15, 1984
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past, referring to the former Finance Minister who started the whole program of spiralling deficits. I look forward to seeing such a person return to the Elouse of Commons so that we may lay all the numbers on the table and he may discover what he began when he first took a balanced budget and added $5 billion in deficits, until the deficit has now reached over $31 billion. It would be enchanting to have the opportunity to table his record as Finance Minister before the House.
Let me return to the issue of the man of the future with new ideas and a new outlook. I was reminded of last weekend when some of us in the House attended a Canada-U.S. parliamentary delegation meeting to discuss our mutual problems. Of course, American senators were talking about the astounding development surrounding Senator Hart. One of our American colleagues said that yes, he himself was a new hopeful; he was younger than Senator Hart, he had been in the House for fewer years than Senator Hart, he had some new ideas since breakfast and he may even have had some new ideas since lunch. He would be prepared, if he could just think about those ideas long enough, to articulate them and present them to us as a hopeful leader of his Party.
That situation reminds me of the situation of the unfortunate "Minister of oink oink", who truly believes that a man of his tattered reputation can possibly be taken seriously by the Canadian electorate, particularly by those who live in ridings which were deprived of his particular brand of porkbarreling.
Indicative of the legacy of the Prime Minister's years, I think, is the calibre of the leadership candidates as evidenced by the Minister of Employment and Immigration. That he is all the Party can offer to date is really the best commentary that can be made on the fate of the Liberal Party and the best reflection of what its members have done to the nation as a whole.
What has this terrible legacy cost us? Some of the figures have already been presented. For instance, it has cost us an increase in interest rates. Last week, Treasury bills had risen again. That move puts the terrible fear in the hearts of Canadians that interest rates will again increase and we will be faced with a terrible spiral of mounting debts and hopeless futures. Furthermore, the amount of money we will be paying in terms of the additional debt will be some $50 million.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Pat Carney: I am sorry that the Liberal members who are present find this so distressful, and I am sorry they cannot listen and take heed. Perhaps if they run as leadership hopefuls as well they will have a new idea to present: no debt.


Mr. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, as I rise to speak on Bill C-21, the $29.5 billion borrowing Bill, I must say that it is difficult to find words to cope with such a complex piece of legislation. If we wanted to review the borrowing Bills in this Thirty-second Parliament, we could start with Bills C-30, C-12, C-59, C-ll 1, C-125, C-128, C-153
and now C-21. Each Bill requests an increase in borrowing authority.
There is concern with this ever-growing interest burden not just in this House, Mr. Speaker, but all across the country. In 1984-85 the servicing of this debt will cost an estimated $20.4 million, $800 for every man, woman and child in Canada, or $1,900 per taxpayer.
As a new Member of Parliament I should like to take a few moments to describe my feelings about this $29.5 billion. In 1968 when the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) was chosen to lead the Liberal Party, he said there would be a just society for all Canadians. Mr. Speaker, I should like to say to you that the problems in this country will not be bilingualism or regional distribution; the problem in this country is the pork-barreling that is going on.
Before being elected as a Member of this House, Mr. Speaker, I thought it would be an honour to have the opportunity to represent the riding of Timiskaming and take part in the history of Canada as one of the 282 Members of Parliament. The day of my election, October 12, 1982, was a great day for me, when I became one of those 282 Members.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Alexander Frances MacDougall: I felt that I could work not only for Timiskaming but for all parts of the country. But my expectations have been diminished by what has happened in the last few months, Mr. Speaker.
Unemployment is a major problem not only in my riding but in other ridings which have 12, 14, 16 or 22 per cent unemployment. The Government and the Minister introduced a Special Employment Initiatives Program but apparently it was only available to members of the Government. That is a tragedy, Mr. Speaker. The ridings which surround mine received generous funds; Timmins-Chapleau $459,000, Sudbury $957,000, Nipissing over $1 million. But the riding of Timiskaming received only $130,000.


Some Hon. Members:: Shame!


An Hon. Member:: Do your job.


John Alexander Frances MacDougall: Before my election to this House I was told, and I believed, that as long as one was honest and sincere and worked hard for his constituents, it would be for the betterment of the country. When there is 13 per cent unemployment in my riding, I do my utmost to help people but if I do not have an opportunity to get a fair allocation of the funds available, I cannot. What we are doing is dividing this country, not working together, and that is certainly indicated through that program.
I made application for two major projects under the Special Employment Initiatives Program, Mr. Speaker, one for a water tower and sewer projects in Kirkland Lake and the other for the extension of an arena in Haileybury. I received a letter from the Minister's office assuring me that the Minister would be writing to me in the near future. That does not create jobs,
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STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S.O. 21
[Stage Direction]
Mr. Speaker, it just delays matters and it does not give me any of the funding that has been made available to elected Members.
The last Budget did nothing to help the unemployed of this country, Mr. Speaker. In this country there are mines, sawmills, and industries in which men and women have worked 20 or 25 years and at the age of 45, 50 or 60 have found themselves out of work. Today there is nothing for them. Was this addressed in the Budget? No, it was not. Did the Budget address the question of financial assistance to the spouse of 50, 55 or 60 years of age who has lost her husband? No, it did not. What has been offered to help the young people who have just come out of college with a degree and find that the only job available is driving a taxi? Nothing has been done for them.
1 should like to look again at the work programs, Mr. Speaker. Under the Canada Works programs, this year the riding of Timiskaming received $96 per person yet the riding next door, which is of a different political stripe, received $146 per person. Is this a just society, Mr. Speaker? I really believe that if we are going to work together the unemployed of this country should not be punished because they happen to have a democratic right to elect whom they please.
The people who are unemployed or on welfare, those who cannot find work, are being discriminated against because in a democratic election they decided to support the Conservative Party. Now they are being penalized for that. Hon. Members opposite should consider the position of these people. How would those Members like it if they lived in a small community and after 12 months their unemployment insurance benefits ran out? The only thing those people can do is humbly walk into the municipal office and, with tears in their eyes ask for welfare. Their future is shot.
If we are going to grant a $29.5 billion borrowing authority, Mr. Speaker, then every Member of the House should be treated equally; but I am afraid that will not happen under this Government. There will only be equality when the people of Canada are given the opportunity to judge the Government, that tired Party, on what it has done to Canadians. I urge that that judgment be taken as soon as possible, no matter who may lead that Party. The unemployed have been hurt, Mr. Speaker; people have lost their homes, their businesses, their farms. There are men and women who fought for this country in a number of wars and who came back to what they thought was a just land.
I see that it is one o'clock, Mr. Speaker. I thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. 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. Howard Crosby (Halifax West):: Mr. Speaker, public attention focused on the operation of Revenue Canada has revealed auditing and assessing practices that have resulted in financial difficulty, even disaster, for many Canadian taxpayers. The disturbing element in many cases is that Revenue Canada's quest for money overrides fair application of the taxation rules.
In order to protect Canadian taxpayers from over-zealous and unfair tax collectors, it is essential that we have an effective and accessible appeal process. This process should involve independent officers who can apply impartial judgment to tax questions. In short, the tax appeal process must provide a judicial forum for settlement of tax disputes.
In 1983 Parliament created the Tax Court of Canada, presumably to guarantee fair treatment for Canadian taxpayers. The Government claimed that the Tax Court of Canada would provide easy and expense-free access for taxpayers who dispute tax assessments made by Revenue Canada. It is, therefore, disturbing to discover this newly constituted tax court is already jammed with a backlog of cases, which will create unreasonable delays in processing cases. Justice delayed is justice denied, especially when those taxed must pay in advance.
If the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Bussieres) wants to be fair to Canadian taxpayers, he will act immediately to expedite income tax appeals and ensure that the Tax Court of Canada has adequate personnel and resources to carry out its parliamentary mandate.


POLITICAL PARTIES
Mr. Gaston Gourde (Levis):: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition is now reaping his whirlwind. By showing he is only an illusion, he is now losing those who might have been his best supporters, in fact, all those who have been deluding themselves about his capabilities.
The Leader of the Provincial Conservatives in Alberta, Mr. Gary Filmon, did not mince his words in today's edition of the Globe and Mail... sorry, Manitoba ... He said that one day, the Leader of the Opposition-the Progressive Conservatives are amused-but it was Manitoba, and in any case, it is a fact that last night Mr. Mulroney, the Leader of the Opposition, turned down an invitation to attend a meeting of ethnic groups, apparently because of a previous engagement, while

March 15, 1984
several weeks ago he had accepted an invitation to be the Honorary President at this dinner.
One day he repudiates the Member for Winnipeg-Assinib-oine (Mr. McKenzie) and other members of his party because of their position on bilingualism, one day he claims he will not tolerate dissent in the party on a subject as important as bilingualism, and the next day he says that dissent is permissible in certain areas.
Mr. Speaker, I think Francophones in Canada will not forget what the Leader of the Opposition has done for bilingualism in this country by failing to commit himself.


CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD
Mr. Stan Schellenberger (Wetaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, fortunately for western feed grain producers, off-board prices are rising rapidly and will soon attain values of 30 cents to 35 cents per bushel above initial prices offered by the Canadian Wheat Board. Because of relatively stable world prices, helped by the United States payment in kind program and drought, our Canadian producers deserve a better deal from the Canadian Wheat Board. This can only be accomplished if the Government approves another interim payment on barley and a first such increase on malting barley and oats.
The Pool has sufficient funds to satisfy such a request. Perhaps as much as $1 billion of farmers' money will be in that Pool by the end of this crop year if no further interim payments are made. Farmers need this money now as they prepare for Spring seeding. They also require action from the Government on the Western Grain Stabilization Fund, farm interest rates, particularly extension of the Farm Credit Corporation rebate program, farm fuel prices and taxation, and the list goes on. Food production must be given more serious attention by the Government.


ESTABLISHMENT OF NEW ALUMINUM COMPANY IN QUEBEC
Mr. Pierre  Gimai@: Mr. Speaker, in a speech he made this week in Montreal, the Quebec Minister of Industry and Trade, Mr. Rodrigue Biron, announced that a special group of officials had been formed to meet representatives of major aluminum companies throughout the world and persuade them them to locate in Quebec. Mr. Speaker, as the Member for Lac-Saint-Jean, 1 am rising in the House today because I wish to point out to the same Minister that aluminum has always been one of the major industries in my region. Over the years, more
than 10,000 people have been employed in aluminum refineries in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area. In my riding and more specifically in Alma, we have lost 600 jobs out of 1,200 available over the last six years. Mr. Speaker, I am concerned about the fact that the Government of Quebec, in its worldwide campaign to bring new aluminum companies to my province, seems to have forgotten the development potential of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area for this industry. I think this is unfortunate, in view of all the infrastructures that were provided by the federal Government, including gas, harbour and airport facilities, thus making it attractive for new companies to locate here with Alcan, especially considering that Alcan has to modernize its facilities to remain competitive, with the resulting loss of jobs which started a few years ago. I therefore urge the Government of the Province of Quebec to remember those who pioneered in the aluminum industry in Canada and the Province of Quebec, the people of the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean area who very strongly supported-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Hon. Member. The Hon. Member for Saskatoon East.


HUMAN RIGHTS
Mr. Bob Ogle (Saskatoon East):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw to the attention of this House the upcoming Conference of the Latin American Association for Human Rights which begins tomorrow in Montreal and continues through Sunday. This event is of particular interest because it brings Latin Americans of note, including the Vice-Presidents of Bolivia and Ecuador, to Canada. It provides a special opportunity for discussing and developing initiatives for defence of human rights and the establishment of peace with justice between Latin Americans and with their American colleagues.
One aspect of the preparation of the Conference is troubling. Although its organizers, the Latin America Association for Human Rights and Canadian co-sponsors, La ligue des droits et libertes, the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace, and the Inter-Church Committee on Human Rights in Latin America, have made frequent representations to the Department of External Affairs seeking limited financial support and high level personal participation in the conference, neither the funds promised nor the participation have been confirmed.
Given the level of significance of the visitors from Latin America, and the scope of the issues before the event, I fail to undertand this attitude. I am disturbed by this seeming lack of enthusiasm and I encourage the Hon. Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen) and the Hon. Minister for External Relations (Mr. Pepin) to support the Conference and ensure high quality representation from the Government of Canada.
March 15, 1984


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Jean-Guy Dubois (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, today I wish to make a statement under the provisions of Standing Order 21 about the Holstein Association of Canada. The Association was founded in 1884, and this year, its annual convention is being held here in Ottawa, to celebrate its 100th birthday and to honour various Canadian breeders belonging to the association. Among the various Holstein associations in Canada, there are a number that have been in existence for some years.
Mr. Speaker, in my riding, we have the Holstein Association of Bois-Franc, which is now fifty years old. Members of the association are in the visitors' gallery, and I am proud to see them here today. The Holstein Association of Bois-Franc has many members who have enhanced Canada's reputation in Holstein cattle breeding and have improved Holstein milk production in the region. I am happy to see that the Holstein Association of Canada has chosen Ottawa to hold its annual convention and also to honour the master breeders who received this award last year. Mr. Speaker, perhaps I should explain that in the region of Bois-Franc, which is in the riding of Lotbiniere, a number of people have been classified as master breeders, including, this year, Mr. Andre Laroche of Warwick. Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to see that the Holstein Association of Canada continues to progress and that it has a very solid Quebec membership. People in the riding of Lotbiniere are active members of the association, whose local chapter has more than 300 very active members who are a valuable asset to the Holstein Association.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, I recently visited the Sioux Valley School which is operated by the Sioux Valley Indian Band in my constituency. On that day the students were unable to attend classes because the sewage system had backed up. There were other problems. The school is actually a cluster of small buildings, and the result is a fragmented student population. As well, there are no gymnasium facilities to speak of, and one building is a health and safety hazard.
Despite these conditions, in the five years since the Sioux Valley Indian Band assumed responsiblity for operating the school, the student population has grown, attendance has improved, and students who had once dropped out of offreserve schools have now returned to Sioux Valley to finish their education. Clearly this band has risen to the challenge of preparing for self government.
It is ironic, therefore, that the federal Government is discouraging the band's efforts. Despite repeated pleas by the band for a new school with decent facilities, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development has refused to construct one until at least 1987, and very possibly much later. The band has offered to take out a loan to finance the construction, but it needs a loan guarantee from the federal Government, and that has not been forthcoming. The Sioux Valley school, therefore, joins a growing backlog of capital projects in Indian education.
Like numerous other Indian bands, the Sioux Valley band has demonstrated that it is capable of meeting its own commitment to education. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development should hold up its end of the bargain.


HUMAN RIGHTS
James Scott (Jim) Peterson: Mr. Speaker, today, March 15, 1984, Anatoly Shcharansky, Jewish prisoner of conscience in the U.S.S.R., begins his eighth year of imprisonment. We all recall in 1977 when this brave and courageous man was arrested and later brought to court on trumped up charges of having acted as an agent of the U.S. Government. Shcharansky's 13 year prison sentence can only reflect the harshest element of a society which continues to persecute its most vulnerable community.
Shcharansky, who first applied to leave the U.S.S.R. 11 years ago, now symbolizes all Soviet Jews who desire only to be allowed to leave the U.S.S.R. to be reunited with family in their homeland. Last month his mother was given permission to visit him in prison, the first visit in over 18 months. His condition continues to deteriorate. He has heart pains, and suffers from bone and spine diseases.
A new regulation in the prison, Para. 188.3, was in effect under which he could automatically and repeatedly have his sentence extended by up to five years if his behaviour was deemed improper. Previously a change to an inmate's status required a court ruling. Now the commandant can simply note on a prisoner's dossier the details of the alleged misdeed.
At this time, with a change in leadership in the U.S.S.R., we appeal to the Soviet-


Mr. Speaker:: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member, but the time allotted to him has expired.

March 15, 1984


AIR TRANSPORT
Mr. Gerry St. Germain (Mission-Port Moody):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Transport Commission's Air Transport Committee office in Vancouver is being forced to close in April. This office, which enforces CTC air regulations affecting the licensing of air carriers, is closing because Treasury Board refuses to grant one and one-half more person years. Only five field officers cover our entire nation. Yet other sectors receive billions of dollars. The best way to promote air industry is to ensure safety.
When the Vancouver office closes, the Edmonton field office will have to cover B.C., Alberta, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. B.C. is experiencing the fastest growth in Canada in the number of new air carriers. Small carriers servicing the resource industries are sprouting up all over B.C. and the Yukon. Yet the Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) shuts the Vancouver office, and keeps the Winnipeg office open despite the negligible growth in Manitoba.
Effective licensing enforcement is crucial for air safety. The air industry is a very exacting and technical industry. The terrain in B.C. and the Yukon is among the most treacherous in the flying world, Mr. Speaker. For the safety of all Canadians, all tourists, and everyone flying in B.C. and the Yukon, I urge the Minister of Transport not to close the Vancouver office, to remain within his budget Estimates, and to consider alternatives other than safety.


THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a matter affecting national unity. Our Constitution allows our citizens unrestricted travel from one province to another. Sadly, I must report to the House that the Leader of the Official Opposition, the Hon. Member for Central Nova (Mr. Mulroney), is not being allowed to travel to the Province of Manitoba.
The provincial Leader of the Conservative Party, Mr. Filmon, is reported as saying that Conservative memberships are down and donors are refusing to give money. In reaction to the negative feeling in Manitoba toward the federal Leader, Mr. Filmon is quoted as saying: "I've seen the letters. It's not a crisis... but whether it reaches crisis proportions I can't say right now".
Before this crisis is allowed to occur, the House must act. I recommend that the House pass an all-Party resolution stating that the Conservative Party Leader has a constitutional right to unrestricted travel within Canada, and that this must be respected by the Manitoba Tories. To make the passage of this resolution easier I recommend that a House order be passed stating that each Party be limited to one speaker, that the motion be deemed to be passed without a vote, and that the
Manitoba Conservative MPs be allowed to reach the airport before the debate begins.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Hon. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. On March 7 he made the incredibly stupid statement that he was not going to spend his nights up worrying that the dollar is not at 81 cents. As a result the dollar is now struggling to stay above 78 cents with the help of the Government and the Bank of Canada, using up our U.S. reserves. On March 11 the Minister said that interest rates would remain stable for most of 1984 and drop toward the end of the year.
Today the Bank of Canada rate went up from 10.20 per cent to 10.56 per cent. The prime bank rate is 11 per cent. Why is it the policy of the Bank of Canada and of the Government of Canada that interest rates should go up? This increase is very likely to force up the bank prime rates and all other interest rates in Canada.


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, we will have to see what evolution takes place in terms of the prime rate in the next few days. The Hon. Member knows there are pressures at the present time upon interest rates, both in Canada and in the United States. There is strong speculation that the prime rate in the United States will also go up in the next few days. We will carefully follow the evolution of the situation.
As to detailed explanations in that regard, we had a debate in the House on Monday of this week at which time I made quite an elaborate statement on the Budget. The Hon. Member was in the House. If the Hon. Member wants to refresh his memory on the position of the Government in this regard, I invite him to review the debate in the House on March 12.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the problem is not refreshing my memory. The problem is to obscure the memories of everyone who heard the Minister's stupid statements of a week ago.


EFFECT ON COMMERCIAL BANK RATES
John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is for the same Minister. Historically the difference between the Bank of Canada rate, which today went to 10.56 per cent, and the prime bank rate, which today is 11 per cent, is 1.25 percentage points. The corollary from that is that this increase in the Bank of Canada rate, which has been approved by the Minister, will inevitably force up the
March 15, 1984

bank prime rate, and all interest rates in Canada. Can the Minister explain to the House why that is this policy? Can he tell the House how Canada's economic recovery can be on schedule, as he said on Sunday, if these rates are going to go up again?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, insults are the last resort of those who are at a loss for arguments and for those who lack the intelligence to find any.
I will let my hon. colleague decide to which category he belongs.
What I said, I said in the House at the beginning of the week. My hon. colleague has been Minister of Finance. He knows as well as I do that it is not the Minister of Finance who determines the weekly rate for Treasury bills. The rate is set at a weekly auction held every Thursday under the auspices of the Bank of Canada, and that is when the rate for Treasury bills is set.
I must say my hon. colleague has a very short memory, but if he has forgotten that the rate for Treasury bills is set in the way I just described, he should at least recall his own statement in the House when he was Minister of Finance, when he said that as far as he was concerned, there was nothing he could do about interest rates.
[DOT] (M20)


MINISTER'S OCTOBER STATEMENT-REQUEST FOR RESIGNATION
John Carnell Crosbie: The present Minister of Finance is responsible for the debacle that this country now suffers. Why did the Minister, on October 19, last Fall, five months ago, state that interest rates would likely drop by another two to three percentage points in the next six months? Why would he make that prediction and then so conduct himself that today he and the Bank of Canada, to which he can give directives, are now forcing interest rates up? I remind him that the 180-day T. Bill rate today went to 10.95 per cent, almost 11 per cent, which will certainly force those rates up.
How can the Minister have any credibility since he prophesied five months ago a two to three percentage point drop, when the rates are now going to go up? When will he tender his resignation?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is getting deeper and deeper in his own hole, I am afraid.


John Carnell Crosbie: You got us all in your hole. Everybody is going down the hole with you.


Marc Lalonde: My poor friend does not even have a memory.


John Carnell Crosbie: You are Brer Rabbit.
Oral Questions


Marc Lalonde: He can't even read. I invite him to go back to that alleged statement of last fall-


John Carnell Crosbie: The Toronto Star. The Liberal bible.


Marc Lalonde: I said at that time that I had hope, and indicated-


John Carnell Crosbie: Could I have the camera, please?


Marc Lalonde: I said that the forecast was for a decline of interest rates in 1984 and that I hoped at best that there would be a decline of up to 2 per cent and 3 per cent in 1984. But I stressed quite clearly that this was, at best, a hope. It was not a forecast.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: It is a hopeless Government.


Marc Lalonde: In effect, for 1984 we have forecast a decline in interest rates in Canada between now and the end of the year, and I still believe that this is a possibility. This has been stated in the Budget, and it is still our view.
This does not mean that in the course of the year there will not be upward pressure on the interest rates. As I have indicated-and I indicated that in the article to which my hon. friend refers-this was extremely dependent on what would happen in the United States. If interest rates in the United States go up, as they have been doing lately, it is quite clear that it would be impossible to prevent them from going up in Canada also. We have done everything we can, and continue to do everything we can, to ensure that there will be no large increase in the interest rates in Canada and no large decline in the value of the Canadian dollar.


CROWN CORPORATIONS
Thomas Scott Fennell: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Treasury Board. When will the Government get its act together? The Minister of State for Economic and Regional Development states that he will get rid of Canadair altogether. The Minister of State for Social Development is planning a paper cover-up. Will the President of the Treasury Board agree to spin off the operation of the Challenger in order to secure the jobs for the people working at Canadair on the profitable ventures that they have under way?


Hon. Herb Gray (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, what my hon. friend says has a familiar yet ominous ring. It reminds me of what the Conservative Diefenbaker Government was saying not too many years ago. It said that the A.V. Roe Company was a great company, but the Avro-Arrow had to go.

March 15, 1984
Oral Questions


Mr. McDermid:: St. Laurent made that decision, and you know it.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: That is what the Diefenbaker Government did. It killed the Avro-Arrow, which killed A.V. Roe and the thousands of jobs involved. My hon. friend wants to do the same thing, but we will not let him and the Canadian people will support us in that.


CONTINUATION OF PROGRAM-GOVERNMENT POSITION
Thomas Scott Fennell: Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. There is an article about Canadair on the front page of The Wall Street Journal that is damning to the company. There are no further funds available for development beyond the 601. The Falcon 900 and the Gulfstream 4 will be out in 1986, with far higher technology and a far better capacity. What right does the Government have to continue this operation that has already cost the taxpayers of Canada S3.5 billion?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is now saying that his Party's policy is guided by The Wall Street Journal. I say that our policies are determined by the best interests of Canada for the Canadian people and Canadian workers generally. This is what we are doing. He can rely on The Wall Street Journal; we will serve the interests of Canada.


FINANCE
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. He knows that the announced major increase in rates by the Bank of Canada today will be passed on, with major increases implemented by all of Canada's chartered banks. This will mean that many small businesses that were going to expand will not be able to do so. The input costs of all our farmers will go up, and mortgages that are going to be renewed from coast to coast will be on the increase as well. All of those facts can only mean that the precarious economic recovery that seemed to be under way could be brought to a devastating halt. Given those facts, why is the Government of Canada pursuing this very regressive economic policy?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to point out to my hon. friend that mortgage rates, for instance, started to go up before the bank rate went up.


John Edward Broadbent: They will go up higher now.


Marc Lalonde: When my friends says that the increase in the Bank of Canada rate today will be passed on wholly to the consumer, I think he is running ahead of himself. We will have
to see what will happen in the market in terms of increases in the rates.
Like my hon. friend, I do not like any increase in interest rates. I would certainly prefer to have lower rates, but I must remind him again that we do not live in a glass house. We live in North America and are extremely dependent on what is happening in the United States, and the rates in the United States have pushed upward in the last few weeks. This is the unfortunate situation in which we are living at the present time.
We have brought our rates down as low as we could in relation to the Americans. Over the last six months there has been no difference in the prime rate between Canada and the United States. We have been able to achieve this.
The rates seem to be edging up in the United States. I have not heard any sensible suggestion from the NDP or Conservative side as to how we would prevent rates from going up in Canada when they are going up in the United States.
With respect to my hon. friend's conclusion, I would like to remind him again that he has seen rates going up in the United States and this does not seem necessarily to have stopped the recovery. The recovery seems to have been going on in spite of some increase in the U.S. rates.


FLOATING VALUE OF DOLLAR-GOVERNMENT POSITION
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, the Minister knows that almost every private sector group in the Canadian Economy, whether they are institutions or economists, indeed I suspect his own officials have also told him that when interest rates in Canada go up, the very precarious recovery that is under way could grind to a halt. The million and a half who are unemployed will be increased in number instead of having the opportunity to get jobs.
One reason he has given for increasing our rate is to protect the level of the Canadian dollar artificially. Considering that lower rates will mean easier business opportunities for small business, better opportunities for home owners, lower input costs for farmers, and I add that if the dollar drops a bit it means increased exports in our forest products sector, increased exports in our manufacturing sector, and increased exports in almost all of our trade, which means more jobs for Canadians, not fewer, why does the Minister not let the dollar have a clean float?


John Carnell Crosbie: He wouldn't lose any sleep about it.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, for a very simple reason. Movements both in interest rates and in the exchange rates would have negative impacts. I have myself spelled the positive elements that result from some decline in the value of the Canadian dollar. But there is also the negative side, as the Hon. Member knows, in terms of inflationary costs to the Canadian consumer for everything we
March 15, 1984

import. That will also be passed on to the consumer and will mean higher costs of living for Canadians.
I have indicated that our policy, that of the Bank of Canada and that of the Government, is to moderate strong swings in terms of higher interest rates or a lower dollar. We are not trying to prevent the natural flow of the market, but we are certainly not going to be indifferent to strong speculative movements in either direction.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I have difficulty understanding that the Minister actually believes all of what he has just said. He did not say it with his usual elan.
1980 ELECTION PROMISE


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I would like the Minister of Finance to address the substance of the argument, in so far as he can in the Question Period. Lower interest rates at home also mean lower costs for all our small producers, farmers, and home owners, which means more growth in the economy. Since a dollar that drops just somewhat would also mean a good increase in our export sales, which would mean more jobs for Canadians, why does the Government, I repeat, not see those trade-offs, see the limited impact on inflation that a higher dollar would have, and say it makes a lot more sense in terms of Canadian job interests and in terms of Canadian recovery for ordinary people to have lower interest rates, and deliver what the Liberals promised in the 1980 election, which was lower interest rates?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, in reply to this question, perhaps I may refer my hon. colleague to what was said in the House on Monday, March 12 of this year. Unfortunately, the Hon. Member was not in the House when we discussed the entire matter of interest rates and the value of the dollar. My reply is therefore the one given on page 1981 of the Hansard, where I said:
Neither the Bank of Canada nor I wish to see a substantial devaluation of the Canadian dollar with the inflation rate consequences that would follow, and which would ultimately produce higher interest rates as well. At the same time neither would we wish to see a sharp rise in interest rates, particularly at this stage of the recovery. The policy which has been followed, therefore, has been one of moderating movements, both in the exchange rate and in interest rates. My objective is to ensure that the significant and hard won gains in reducing inflation over the past two years are preserved and the momentum of our recovery is maintained.


PUBLIC WORKS
Hon. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Public Works. This morning I read in the papers that the people who were expropriated at Mira-
Oral Questions
bel have been turned down again, and that the Federal Court has refused to accept as evidence the Cabinet Document of March 1970.
Last September, I asked the Minister whether he could make public, or table in the House, a document on the Mirabel land assembly project for the new International Airport. The Minister answered that he would make enquiries-this was several months ago-and that as soon as he got the document he would give me a reply.
Considering the Minister's desire for a fair solution which, I am sure, he still has, could he table that document in the House, so that the people expropriated at Mirabel would have a very legitimate argument to present before the Court?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, last fall when the Hon. Member raised the matter, I made enquiries to find out whether I could table this document in the House. At the time, our departmental legal adviser informed me that since the matter was before the courts and the document in question was involved in the proceedings, it would be unwise to discuss the document, the case being sub judice.
I do not know if, in view of the information we had this morning to which the Hon. Member was referring, the situation has changed. I will have to consult the Department's legal adviser, and if it will serve a useful purpose to provide this information, I will do so. Of course, I will have to follow the advice of my legal adviser.


DEMAND THAT DOCUMENT BE TABLED
Roch La Salle: The Minister gives the impression, as does the Attorney General for Canada in this case, that the Government does not want to publish this document, since it confirms the monstrosity of the Mirabel land purchase, stressing the partisan nature of the Government's action in refusing to give the land back immediately to those who were expropriated.
In the circumstances, since the Minister has confirmed today that this document exists, and in the interests of equity, I think that since there are people who have been expropriated and who would be able to use this document to support their claim that the expropriation was not justified, I demand, on behalf of these people and on behalf of the just society that an almost former Prime Minister promised us not so long ago, I demand therefore that the Minister insist on tabling this document, in the same of equity and justice for these people, and prevent the Government from concealing a document that would be very revealing for all Canadians.


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member, who himself was a Member of Cabinet though only for a short time, is putting me in a very difficult position. In his first question, he told me I had made
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March 15, 1984
Oral Questions
some attempts at appeasement and had tried to find a compassionate solution. That is what I have done. In fact, last week's announcement reflects the results of my work.
As far as the Hon. Member's second question is concerned, which he asked after I told him that my Department's legal adviser asked me not to mention the matter or give my views since it was still before the courts, the Hon. Member is indulging in pure rhetoric.
All I can say is that I am unfortunately bound by the advice of my legal adviser not to comment on this case.


INCOME TAX ACT
Mr. Chris Speyer (Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. As he knows, the administration of the Income Tax Act is the responsibility of the Minister of National Revenue. Changes in the actual legislation are his responsibilities. Yesterday in a judgment of the Federal Court of Canada, Mr. Justice Cattanach described the powers of search and seizure as awesome. We know that the soul of the Rowe Report, the 30 pages that deal with the rights of people, is the responsibility of the Minister of Finance. Has the Minister read the Rowe Report? Does he himself believe that the powers of search and seizure are too broad and must be restricted? When will the Minister bring in legislation to restrain the officials in Revenue Canada with respect to these powers?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend refers to a particular judgment. I think I heard on the news this morning of another judgment by the Ontario Court of Appeal which declared that the rights of search and seizure given to National Revenue officials were not violating the Charter of Rights. This judgment would appear to be in contradiction to that of Mr. Justice Cattanach. I will read those judgments, obviously with great interest, and study their points of view. I have not read the full report of Mr. Rowe, but I have had an opportunity to examine a summary of it and its various recommendations. I will examine those recommendations further with great care. I will take the point of view of the Hon. Member as a representation.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Chris Speyer: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question, in the absence of the Minister of National Revenue, is for his Parliamentary Secretary. Two days ago in
the House the Minister of National Revenue announced that as a result of questions which Members on this side of the House were asking with respect to Revenue Canada, we had deprived ourselves of our privileges and from now on applications for material within the Department would have to be made under the auspices of the Access to Information Act. Would the Parliamentary Secretary please amplify upon this? Is the Minister saying that there will be one rule for government Members and another rule for opposition Members? Do we have to make application under the Access to Information Act, whereas Hon. Members on the other side of the House do not? Is that the exact position of the Government?


Mr. W. Kenneth Robinson (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for his representation, and I will have to leave it at that. I do not know whether I could confirm or deny what he is saying, but I will certainly look into it and get back to the Hon. Member.


CANADA MORTGAGE AND HOUSING CORPORATION
Mr. Douglas Fisher (Mississauga North):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister responsible for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. The Minister has announced the 1984 CMHC allocations for Ontario for public non-profit housing units. The Ontario Minister, Claude Bennett, however, has announced his plan to distribute these units to every municipality except Toronto and Metro Toronto. Could the Minister tell us what action he is taking to correct this incredibly insensitive imbalance, especially given the long lines of seniors, pensioners, single parents and other low-income groups in the Toronto region who desperately need low-cost housing?


Roméo LeBlanc: Mr. Speaker, in the area of social housing we recognize that we must make a special effort to direct housing units to those most in need and who have been waiting the longest. Because of this, when I gave provincial Ministers of housing the allocations for 1984, I asked them to indicate how and where they would use these units, and what priorities they were giving. I was quite amazed, not to mention shocked, to find that the minister in Ontario had completely ignored the needs of cities like Toronto and Ottawa where there is-and everyone recognizes this-a very serious need, and in fact had used the tactic of not allocating units to those areas as a pressure tactic. I must confess that I find that a bit naive on his part.
March 15, 1984


CROWN CORPORATIONS
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, on a number of occasions we in this Party have made it perfectly clear that the people of Canada, through their Government, will be asked to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to assist the development of Canadair. If and when it becomes a viable company, we do not want to see it turned over as a prize to the private sector. However, today the Economic Development Minister said that he would love to see Canadair sold. The Minister of Employment and Immigration also said today that he thought we would all be happy to sell it and that he, especially, would be happy to sell it. Is the Minister of Employment and Immigration speaking government policy when he says that he would like to sell it?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member had paid full attention to my remarks he would have realized that all I have done is simply restated what has always been government policy, that at the appropriate time it would be desirable to sell, not Air Canada as I think he said-


Some Hon. Members:: Canadair.


John (Moody) Roberts: -but Canadair, if there is a Canadian buyer-hypothetically and with the condition that there is a Canadian buyer-who is prepared to do so and to maintain the positive benefits which government ownership of Canadair has provided up to this point.


GOVERNMENT POLICY
Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Right Hon. Prime Minister of Canada. Could he confirm that this is government policy? His Minister has just indicated that, after Canadians have been asked to spend hundreds of millions of dollars essentially to bail out Canadair, it will be turned over to the private sector. Is that the view of the Prime Minister?


John Carnell Crosbie: Sell the Bank of Canada.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Is it government policy to use taxpayers' money to set up a Crown corporation, make it viable, and then turn it over to the private sector?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I think we have made it clear over the years that our policy in regard to Crown corporations is that they were an instrument of government policy.


John Carnell Crosbie: That is the old Liberalism.
Oral Questions


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: We could, and did, and do use them, but we do not think that they necessarily have to be government owned and directed forever if there is no longer any reason to achieve government policy through them. In the case of Canadair, and de Havilland for that matter, the decision of the Government was taken because we did not want this high technology to flow out of Canada as it had, as the President of the Treasury Board reminded us, in the case of the Arrow. We wanted it to remain in Canada. The private sector was closing it down, and therefore we kept it open. Once it is open, once it is operating and once the technology is assured in Canada, we have no policy objection to selling it for good and valuable considerations; maybe for $1 and other valid considerations, to use a formula.
To speak seriously, in terms of keeping it in government direction forever, the answer is no. The question is purely hypothetical. We are keeping it in Canada; we want the technology to remain here; and the future will speak for itself.


John Carnell Crosbie: We want Roberts. We want Roberts.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE COMMISSION
Hon. Bill Jarvis (Perth):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. He may be aware that some 18 part-time, casual or contract employees at the UIC office in Kitchener will be laid off at the end of the month. These people process unemployment insurance claims and, coincidentally, are doing a great deal of overtime work. Some of them are doing as much as three nights a week.
Without necessarily expecting the Minister to know the individual cases, but as a matter of departmental practice, is it his practice to effect these lay-offs on the one hand and, on the other hand, continue to pay what I would presume to be very costly overtime payments? Is that a cost effective procedure?
Second and much more important, what guarantee or assurance could the Minister give us that this will not result in undue delay in the processing of claims, as has been the experience in the past, during this period of peak unemployment wherein there has been not only a great deal of human suffering on the part of applicants but other agencies, such as social welfare agencies, have had to step in in the interim and provide some measure of relief for applicants-


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Hon. Member has asked
his question.


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first part of the question is yes, I am aware of this situation. The Hon. Member for

March 15, 1984
Oral Questions
Kitchener on this side of the House brought it to my attention. 1 may not be aware of all the details which are in the hands of the Hon. Member. I can tell him that I have raised the matter with officials and have asked for a full report, so I will have those details.
It is not our policy or approach that there should be lay-offs of term employees while overtime work is being performed by other employees, though there may be specific ad hoc and rather short-term situations in which overtime employment would take place even though there is, in a broader sense, loss of some employment. The fact is that we are having fewer unemployment insurance claims and therefore do not require as many term employees as was the case last year. It is not surprising that there should be some dimunition of employment in that sense. There are, upon occasion, specific instances which require other employees to perform overtime tasks. The general answer to his question about whether there was a policy to this effect is that the policy, or administrative direction, is to avoid that kind of situation. I will be able to give the Hon. Member a fuller report after I have received the information from my officials.

[ Translation]


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Bernard Loiselle (Vercheres):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Regarding the Canada-Quebec agreement on job creation programs for municipalities, I would like to know what the agreement involves and whether the Government has indeed the intention of signing an agreement? If so, when does it intend to do so?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce to the Hon. Member and the other members of this House that we and the Province of Quebec have agreed to sign an agreement, and I expect to do so, with my Quebec counterpart, tomorrow morning.


FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION ACT
Hon. Ron Huntington (Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, today the President of the Treasury Board will be tabling a very complex series of amendments to the Financial Administration Act. I have just come from the briefing which was allowed one member of this Party. The briefing does not do very much for the work of the Public Accounts Committee, the work of the
Auditor General and the Treasury Board over the years since 1978, in that it completely appears to diminish the role of Parliament in the overview and control of these Crown corporations. It does not do anything to address-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I invite the Hon. Member to put a question.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, in view of the total failure of these amendments to the Financial Administration Act to address the real issues that have been on the table and before committees of Parliament since 1978, why is this legislation, which has taken five years to develop, being rushed in today when he had on his desk legislation from the Clark Government, C-27, which was a far more fundamental approach to these problems than is apparently coming in today? It took only six months to prepare. Why has it taken five years to deliver this pile of confusion that is coming in today?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend's question is rather novel since it is based on a Bill which has not yet had first reading, but regarding which, as a courtesy which is rarely extended in this House, I have enabled him as an Opposition critic to have some advance briefing. I reject categorically as inaccurate and unfounded the premises of his question. Once the Bill receives first reading it will be found to be a very responsive and complete response to the concerns we all have about the need for a better framework of accountability and control of our Crown corporations. When that Bill is tabled, I believe the House in general and the public will agree with what I have said, and will regret that my hon. friend has so misconstrued what is a very important and forward-looking piece of legislation.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary.


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair has difficulty at this point. The Hon. Member is referring to something which is not a Bill. It relates to a briefing which was presented in a capacity which the Chair cannot take official recognition of, at this stage.


Erik Nielsen: It was on CTV this morning.


VOLUNTARY ORGANIZATIONS
Mr. Walter McLean (Waterloo):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue. In his absence, I will direct it to his Parliamentary Secretary. It relates to Department of National Revenue harassment of voluntary groups in Canada. L'Association des services de rehabilitation sociale du Quebec, which advises the Solicitor General of Canada on Crime Prevention Week, has been denied charitable status. The reason for the denial, the Parliamentary Secretary will be
March 15, 1984

interested to hear, is because of its support for the give-and-take tax proposals and also because it advocates that there be no more prison construction. Can the Parliamentary Secretary tell the House, and other voluntary agencies in Canada, why there is this attack on this Quebec-based voluntary agency?


William Kenneth Robinson: Mr. Speaker, I do not really know that there is an attack on this organization per se, or any group of organizations that feel the same way that it does. If this association made an application for a Revenue number which has been refused, it should certainly have reasons for the refusal. If that is the case, I would be pleased to look into it and find out why it was refused a Revenue number for charitable purposes.


REQUEST FOR REFERRAL TO COMMITTEE
Walter Franklin McLean: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Government House Leader. For some time the Secretary of State has been promising the House that there would be a task force to look into this type of harassment of voluntary sector groups, and to bring some incentives forward. There was a reference to this task force in the Throne Speech, but no incentive in the Budget. When will the reference be tabled for the parliamentary task force to look into all aspects of support for Canadian voluntary groups?


Hon. Yvon Pinard (President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question. In fact a few minutes ago I was speaking with the Secretary of State. We should be in a position to come to the House and, hopefully, get the reference with a very short debate, or with no debate, to allow the committee to look into the matter. I assure the Hon. Member that his concerns are being taken into account on this side. We are about to raise the matter with House Leaders so that we can allow parliamentarians to look into the matter in an orderly fashion.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Terry Sargeant (Selkirk-Interlake):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. It is with regard to a $1.3 million grant under the Special Employment Initiatives Program for the Toronto International Festival. Can the Minister confirm that the Festival was notified of its reception of this grant before the program was even announced, and that there are no terms attached to this grant requiring that jobs be created? Is it part of his new Liberalism to give away job-creation money under such conditions?


John (Moody) Roberts: No, Mr. Speaker. The assumptions underlying the Hon.
Oral Questions
Member's question are false. To the best of my knowledge the grant was approved something like four months after the program was started. Indeed, there are considerable benefits in terms of job creation, not only for those who participate in employment during the Festival but in terms of spinoff benefits for employment which will be involved in the Festival, creating tourism, dining and other business activity in Toronto during the festival.


Terence James (Terry) Sargeant: That is contrary to what the chief director of the Festival, and one government official, have said.


FEE PAYABLE TO TENOR
Terence James (Terry) Sargeant: Mr. Speaker, I point out to the Minister that one of the entertainers at this Festival, whose fees will be paid SEIP funds, is Placido Domingo, who is arguably the finest operatic tenor in the world. He is also one of the world's wealthiest recording stars. Is it part of the Minister's new Liberalism to pay wealthy entertainers with money intended for Canada's unemployed?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member's question is obviously fatuous. The singer he described is coming with the visit of the Metropolitan Opera to take part in the Festival. That is one of the keystone events of the Festival. It is not I, nor this Government that has provided those payments. They are coming from the Festival which is supported by a variety of governmental organizations. The objective of the Festival is not only to celebrate the sesquicentenary. It is, as I just said to the Hon. Member, to create employment, and that is what it is doing.


SOCIAL SECURITY
Mr. Jesse P. Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. Today Members of all three Parties met with British parliamentarians from all three Parties, under the auspices of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. One of the issues raised was the subject of 40,000 British retirees living in Canada, who are being denied an indexed pension paid by the British Government. If these people had remained in England, they would qualify today for a fully indexed pension. Because they chose to live in Canada, many of them with their children, they are being denied a full pension. Will the Minister tell these 40,000 pensioners what her Department is doing to convince Prime Minister Thatcher and her Government to pay full pensions to these British citizens who chose to live in Canada?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I guess the answer is everything, except become a Tory. We have written several times to this

March 15, 1984
Oral Questions
and previous British Governments. I have met with my counterpart, my various counterparts I must say, more than once. We have supported and will continue to support the work of the British Pensioners' Association from within Canada, which is doing an excellent job with regard to information, pressure, education and so on. These people have paid for an indexed pension and they are not getting it. They bought it with their income tax. Past that point, I am afraid our country has no recourse but to try to convince British public opinion that this is a question of equity and fairness.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Some bands in my area have had to close their offices and lay off staff. Some bands are unable to pay the salaries of their chiefs and coucillors, forcing them on to welfare. This is due to under-funding in their budgets for administration. They are not allowed by departmental officials to transfer funds from other parts of their budgets. Based on statements the Minister has made supporting Indian self-government, why is he allowing his officials to interfere in the internal management of band budgets?


Hon. John C. Munro (Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, that type of question indicates contradictions in approach. Members of the Official Opposition have berated me because I was not prepared to interfere in the internal management of bands when certain non-native people were owed money by the Indians. They wanted me to interfere and tell the Indians to pay. In this particular case the Hon. Member wishes to adopt a different approach and tell me not to interfere in the internal management of a band. I agree with him that I should not interfere in the internal management of a band. It could be that in this particular case the band itself over-spent its budgetary allotment and for that reason is asking for more money from the Department.
I think that I know which band the Hon. Member is talking about. If we were to give additional moneys to that particular band, because the budget is fixed as voted for in the Estimates, we would simply have to take the money away from other bands which perhaps are in the immediate vicinity. That does not exactly go over too well, as the Hon. Member knows.


PUBLIC SERVICE
Hon. Janies A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Employment and Immigration. Yesterday in Toronto during his Ides of March candidacy announcement he said: "We have what has tended to become a somewhat bloated system in both the civil service and in the executive." I would like to ask the Minister if he could explain what he meant by that statement. Does it in any way relate to the failure of the Minister to hand out money fairly under the Special Employment Initiatives Program?
Perhaps while I am on my feet I could ask the Minister what has become of the $90 million left for the SEI Program. If that money is still available, will he put it toward the Youth Initiatives Program?


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first part of the question is that I went on to say, as I hope the Hon. Member heard, that I thought tremendous progress had been made over the past four or five years in strengthening both parliamentary institutions and control at the centre of government. I believe that, in any institution as large-scale as the federal Government, there are bound to be areas in which there is excess employment as well as over-employment of officials.
The answer to the second part of the Hon. Member's question is, as I think has been indicated to him before, that a considerable amount of funding still remains in that program. A variety of applications have been received for its use, including many from Members opposite, and those applications are being put through the normal process of consideration.


RESIGNATION OF MEMBER FOR SCARBOROUGH EAST
Mr. Gordon Gilchrist (Scarborough East):: Mr. Speaker, it is with great regret and a deep sense of personal loss that I have today tendered my resignation as the Member of Parliament for Scarborough East. It is my unshakeable belief that my constituents are entitled to the best possible representation without any shadow of doubt cast on the integrity of their Member of Parliament. The verdict in my tax trial has created a doubt as to my ability vigorously and honourably to represent my constituents. If I cannot serve them honourably, I will not serve at all.
However, let there be no doubt in anyone's mind. I believe that this judgment is wrong. My company, my family and I are innocent and I believe that was proven by the evidence which was presented at the trial. Accordingly, I have instructed my counsel to commence appeal proceedings immediately. I only wish that this appeal could be heard well before the coming election. Without that certainty, I cannot in all fairness allow my personal situation to impair the choices of my
March 15, 1984

constituents in the crucial issues which they and all Canadians must judge in the next election. Similarly, I cannot and will not allow this issue to in any way reflect badly upon the great Party and the outstanding Leader which I have been so privileged to serve.
The costs of defending my company's good name, measured both in dollars and in personal anguish to the members of my family, have been enormous. They have caused me to understand in all too graphic terms the staggering burden imposed on the taxpayers of the country in meeting both the absurd complexities of the Canadian tax system and the overwhelming power of Revenue Canada. In spite of these burdens, I intend to pursue this matter to clear the good name of my business, my family and myself. To this end I am therefore privileged that Mr. John J. Robinette, Q.C., has agreed to act as counsel on my appeal, furthering the fine work already done by Messrs. Stikeman, Elliott.
I cannot adequately express my gratitude for the steadfast support which I have received from so many of my constituents irrespective of their political affiliation throughout this entire ordeal. It has been a privilege and an honour to have served them. I thank them from the bottom of my heart and hope that I have met their expectations in the performance of that service. Finally, I am deeply indebted to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) and to every member of the Progressive Conservative caucus for their undiminished support and friendship.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, could I please ask the Government House Leader what will be the business of the House for tomorrow and as far as he can take us into next week?


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, tomorrow we will resume debate on the second reading stage of the security Bill, Bill C-9. We hope that this Bill will go to committee as early as possible, and hopefully tomorrow. The back-up legislation to that Bill is Bill C-10, the Divorce Act, to be dealt with on Friday and Monday.
Tuesday of next week we will resume debate on Bill C-21, the borrowing authority Bill, if need be. The back-up Bill to that is the report stage of Bill C-12, the Fiscal Arrangements Act. Next Thursday will be the last allotted day of this period of supply so I wish to designate next Thursday as an allotted supply day.
Finally, some time next week we would like to be able to send to committee the Insolvency Act, Bill C-17, without debate. I wish to inform my hon. colleagues that I have just learned that the amendments the Minister has committed to propose to the committee were distributed to the Conservative critics three weeks ago. I would welcome an agreement to send
Business of the House
the Bill back to committee because we will recall that when the House prorogued, the Bankruptcy Act had been debated at length in the House and was at committee stage. We would like very much to see this Bill sent to committee again without debate in the House and with the commitment of the Minister responsible to bring in the amendments which were made available to the opposition Party three weeks ago.
In essence, Mr. Speaker, that is the business of the House for the coming days.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, just a moment or so ago, I learned that our critic had received those amendments, as the Government House Leader suggested. I will discuss the matter with the Hon. Member for Cambridge and respond to the Government House Leader accordingly.
In the meantime, before the Hon. Member for Algoma was promoted to Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, he was Chairman of the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections. The Government House Leader will recall that I obtained from the Prime Minister the assurance that the Canada Elections Act amendments, which at one time were contained in Bill C-169, would be going to that committee. When the Hon. Member for Algoma was Chairman of that Committee, he said that he was expediting steering committee meetings to deal with Bill C-169.
Could the Government House Leader give us the assurance that he will encourage that Committee to meet as quickly as possible in order to consider the report of the Chief Electoral Officer for 1983, which, among other observations, contained observations concerning Clause 72 of Bill C-169, the section which is giving such widespread concern to Canadians throughout the country?


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, I am very surprised by the question asked by my hon. colleague. First of all, his Party gave unanimous consent to the passage of the legislation, Bill C-169. Second, a radical group in the country has decided to go to court with it and the matter is sub judice. It is not my practice to discuss, even in the House, sub judice matters. I have respect for the courts and I am told that the matter is to be tried very shortly, perhaps in mid-April. I would hope that the courts will look at the unanimous consent that was given in the House and see if in fact the legislation is or is not contrary to the Charter of Rights.
In so far as the Chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections is concerned, despite the fact that he has been made Parliamentary Secretary, he will remain the Chairman of that Committee for the next period of time. I am sure he will assume his responsibilities and his duties as chairmen usually do, that is, without the interference of the House of Commons, unless we develop some kind of unanimous agreement. It is not my practice to interfere with the business of committees.
This Committee has a report made by the Chief Electoral Officer, which was tabled in the House and referred to it. It

March 15, 1984
Business of the House
will look into it and establish its own priorities. Of course, if it feels it necessary to deal with some parts of Clause 17.1 and 17.2 and matters in relation to editorials in the newspapers that my hon. colleague raised before in the House and with me, I will not object to the Committee doing so. Certainly I will not instruct any committee or any chairman of a committee how to do his job. I think the chairmen are able to do their job and I am convinced that the report of the Chief Electoral Officer will be dealt with in a responsible way by the Committee.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I am really surprised at the twist the Government House Leader has given a very civil question requesting a civil answer, which I do not feel I have received. I put the first question to the Prime Minister on January 23 and he very responsibly replied that the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections which the Hon. Member for Algoma, apparently the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board, is still chairing. I am glad to see him in the House now because he was not here when I put the first part of this question to the Government House Leader. I am now going to put the question to him.
I did not ask the Government House Leader to instruct the Committee. If I could have the attention of the Government House Leader, I just want to say that I did not suggest he instruct the Committee. I chose my words very carefully. I asked him if he would "encourage" the Committee to commence its meetings, as was promised by the Prime Minister and the Chairman of the Standing Committee when I put the question to him two or three weeks ago. At that time the Chairman of the Committee said he was holding a meeting of the steering committee to determine the agenda for dealing with the report of the Chief Electoral Officer. Since he is still Chairman, I am asking him whether there has been any progress in that steering committee, not so that any radical group representation, as the Government House Leader puts it, can be brought before the Committee, but so that the report of the Chief Electoral Officer for 1983 can be considered in its entirety. That is what the Prime Minister said.


Mr. Foster:: Mr. Speaker, I can only reiterate the answer I gave the last time to the House Leader on the opposite side, that a steering committee of the Privileges and Elections Committee has met and it will make a report to the full Committee at nine-thirty next Tuesday morning. That Committee will consider the report of the steering committee relating to the report of the Chief Electoral Officer. I cannot prejudge or reveal what is going to be recommended at this time to the full Committee. If the Hon. Member will just be patient it will be revealed at that time what the steering committee has agreed on and it will be debated before the Committee.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his civil reply. I am very gratified to learn that the Committee will meet next Tuesday.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Government House Leader. In the November Speech from the Throne there was a promise that the Government would remove the discriminatory provisions in the Indian Act. Since that time, the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister said on January 16 that it would be introduced within a month. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the Minister responsible for the status of women have all made the promise that a Bill would be introduced to amend the offending sections of the Indian Act which discriminate against Indian women. Would the Government House Leader tell us when we might expect that Act to be introduced?


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member surely knows that the Liberal Party and the Liberal Government usually stand by their commitments.
[Translation}


Mr. Gauthier:: Mr. Speaker, almost a year ago in April 1983, the Fifth Report of the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons recommended establishing a Standing Joint Committee of Official Languages. On the Order Paper, under the heading "Government Business", we find proposed motion No. 11, to amend Standing Order 69(3), in connection with the proposed committee. I would ask the President of the Privy Council and Parliamentary House Leader (Mr. Pinard) if he could inform the House when the Government intends to call proposed motion No. 11 which would make it possible to set up this Standing Committee of the House?


Yvon Pinard: I apologize to the Hon. Member. I can confirm that the matter has been raised and that I am now negotiating with the Opposition Parties with a view to disposing of the motion concerning the creation of the Standing Committee as soon as possible. The motion is on the Order Paper and is selfexplanatory. We intend to follow the recommendation of the Special Joint Committee and the Commissioner for Official Languages. We shall very shortly introduce the motion to create the Standing Committee on Official Languages, and today, I have already submitted to my colleagues, the Parliamentary House Leaders, a proposal to dispose of this motion as expendi-tiously as possible. I think we should normally wait until after next week's caucus meetings before calling the motion. However, 1 can assure the Hon. Member that this is an important matter and a priority one for the Government, and that we intend to call this motion in any case, and shall be doing so in due time.
March 15, 1984



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 46(2) I am very pleased to table in the House in both official languages a Supplementary Agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of the United States with respect to social security. Pursuant to Standing Order 46(4) this document should be deemed permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.


PETITION
[Stage Direction]
Order Paper Questions
above the legal limit and over 42 per cent had been drinking to some extent. I believe there is agreement among all Parties that the problem is a serious one and I trust when this Bill comes before Hon. Members it will receive unanimous support.
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.

Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: for leave to introduce Bill C-24, an Act to amend the Financial Administration Act in relation to Crown corporations and to amend other Acts in consequence thereof.


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

Mr. Benno Friesen (Surrey-White Rock-North Delta):: Mr. Speaker, I have a petition with a list of signatories from Surrey-White Rock-North Delta collected by an organization known as End the Arms Race of Vancouver, which says that it is alarmed by the threat to survival of humanity posed by the existence of nuclear weapons and the continuing arms race. It goes on to say:
We the undersigned residents of the federal riding of Surrey-White Rock-North Delta call on our Member of Parliament, Benno Friesen, to make every effort to prevent testing of the Cruise missile in Canada. In signing this petition we support the following statement endorsed unanimously by the United Nations in 1982: The increase in ... nuclear weapons, far from strengthening international security, on the contrary weakens it. Enduring peace cannot be built on the accumulation of weaponry.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I believe the Hon. Member has indicated the purpose of the petition. I do not believe it is in order to read a lengthy statement.


CRIMINAL CODE
Arnold John Malone: for leave to introduce Bill C-229, an Act to amend the Criminal Code (drunk driving).


Some Hon. Members:: Explain.


Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this Bill is to amend the Criminal Code, to deter persons from driving motor vehicles while having alcohol in their bodies. Every day we read about drunk drivers and their innocent victims. Statistics show there were nearly 158,000 impaired driving convictions across Canada last year. That is more than 400 each day. Of recorded driver fatalities, 34 per cent had a blood alcohol level


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. John Evans (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 46, 181, 337, 397, 411 and 565.


Mr. Mazankowski: 1.	For 1980 with respect to (a) the total petroleum industry in Canada (b) the upstream segment, what percentage of the industry was (i) foreign-owned (ii) Canadian-owned (iii) Canadian-owned and government-owned (iv) Canadian-owned held by the private sector?
2.	For 1983 to date with respect to (a) the total petroleum industry in Canada (b) the upstream segment, what percentage of the industry was (i) foreign-owned (ii) Canadian-owned (iii) Canadian-owned and government-owned (iv) Canadian-owned held by the private sector?


Mr. Leonard Hopkins (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: 1.	1980
(i)	Foreign-owned
(ii)	Canadian-owned
(iii)	Canadian-owned and government-owned2
(iv)	Canadian-owned held by the private sector
(a) Total Industry	(b) Upstream
73.9%	72.0%
26.1%	28.0%
3.8%	Information not available1
22.3%	Information not available1
'The information requested is not available for reasons of confidentiality. See Section 33 of the Energy Monitoring Act, Statutes of Canada 1980-81-82 Chapter 112.
3 Federal and provincial Governments.
2. The requested information for 1983 is not yet available. Therefore, data for 1982 is being shown.

March 15, 1984
Order Paper Questions
(i)	Foreign-owned
(ii)	Canadian-owned
(iii)	Canadian-owned and government-owned2
(iv)	Canadian-owned held by the private sector
(a) Total Industry	(b) Upstream
65.8%	62.0%
34.2%	38.0%
8.6%	Information not available1
25.6%	Information not available1
1	The information requested is not available for reasons of confidentiality. See Section 33 of the Energy Monitoring Act, Statutes of Canada 1980-81-82 Chapter 112.
2	Federal and provincial Governments.


Mr. Blenkarn: 1.	In the fiscal year (a) 1981-82 (b) 1982-83 were outside consultants employed by the Department of National Revenue 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?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of National Revenue):: 1.
National Revenue, Taxation (a) 1981-82. Yes, outside consultants were hired, (i) There were 46 consultants/consultant firms hired, (ii) The total amount paid was $349,481.03.
(b) 1982-83. Yes, outside consultants were hired, (i) There were 73 consultants/consultant firms hired, (ii) The total amount paid was $499,363.83.
National Revenue, Customs and Excise (a) 1981-82. Yes, outside consultants were hired, (i) There were 54 consultants/ consultant firms hired, (ii) The total amount paid was $609,682.00.
(b) 1982-83. Yes, outside consultants were hired, (i) There were 60 consultants/consultant firms hired, (ii) The total amount paid was $1,021,565.24.
2. Yes, see list below.
National Revenue, Taxation
(a) Name	(b) Amount	(c) Services Provided
1981-82		
D.N.L. Baylis	$45,848.30	Advice on the taxation of banks.John W. Hearn	34,126.05	Advice on the taxation of the pharmaceutical industry.1982-83	Ultracom Consultants	26,500.00	Two contracts. One to design a simulation model for processing individual tax returns and the other to construct a tax model.Sperry Univac Computer Systems	30.000.00	To assist in the installation of a large computer system.Federal Systems of Canada	51,000.00	Two contracts. Advice on computing requirements for the departmental statistical services.DMR & Associates	54,575.00	Four contracts. For assistance in computer system analysis and programming.Rowe & Rose	49,789.31 To review and report on complaints concerning taxation in the fishing industry.I.S.L. International Surveys 28,115.00 Two public opinion surveys of the quality Ltd.	of service from the Department.
National Revenue, Customs and Excise
(a) Name	(b) Amount	(c) Services Provided
1981-82		
R.E. Boston	$ 25,088.67	Management consultingE.L. Burke & Associates	30,500.00	Management consultingCurrie, Coopers & Lybrand	90,784.87	Management consultingD.G.B. Consultants	27,900.00	Scientific consultingD.M.R. Associates	87,300.00	E.D.P. consultingP.T. Dixon Management Consultant Inc.	37,675.13	Management consultingFederal Systems of Canada Ltd.	20,707.04	Management consultingFederal Systems of Canada Ltd.	24.000.00	E.D.P. consultingMurray, Nicholson and Assoc. Inc.	20,182.38	Management consultingPeat. Marwick & Partners	43,000.00	Management consultingWoods Gordon Management Consultants	30,609.11	Management consulting1982-83	Currie, Coopers & Lybrand	$ 44,000.00	Management consultingCurrie, Coopers & Lybrand	174.575.00	Management consultingD.G.B. Consultants	24,155.00	Management consultingD.P.A. Consulting Limited	26,500.00	Management consultingPeat, Marwick & Partners	36,730.00	Management consultingP.T. Dixon Management Consultant Inc.	40.584.33	Management consultingSystemhouse Ltd.	83,625.00	Management consultingTaylor Partners Information Consultants	24,096.20	Management consultingThorne Stevenson and Kellogg	87,000.00	Management consultingTouche, Ross & Partners	226,670.00	Management consultingWoods Gordon Management Consultants	79,380.00	Management consulting


Mr. Heap: 1.	Were any crew reductions made in the food and beverage service on trains running through Sudbury and Capreol?
2.	Does the use of a dispensing cart in the aisle of a moving train meet all relevant federal safety legislation and regulations?


Hon. Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Transport):: The management of VIA Rail Canada Inc. advises as follows:
1. Crew levels on meal service cars vary seasonally and depend on traffic volumes. The daily meal service crew complement on trains 8-7 Winnipeg-Capreol, has been reduced. This change occurred when a cafe lounge car was replaced by a cafe coach car.
March 15, 1984

The other train servicing the route is the "Canadian", trains 1-2. A new type of meal service introduced in February, 1983 streamlined the employees' workload, thereby permitting a crew reduction from seven to five persons during off-peak periods.
2. Yes.


Mr. Howie: Did the National Film Board produce "The Kid who Couldn't Miss'' and, if so, at what cost?


Hon. Francis Fox (Minister of Communications):: I am
informed by the National Film Board as follows: The National Film Board produced "The Kid Who Couldn't Miss" at a cost of $514,007.


Mr. Howie: 1.	Will tenders be called for the construction of the Maritime Forest Ranger School in Fredericton, New Brunswick and, if so, on what date?
2.	What is the present status of planning for the project?
3.	Were outside consultants, architects, or planners engaged and, if so, what (a) are their names (b) amount was allocated for their services?


Hon.   Chas. L. Caccia@Minister of the Environment: 1, 2
and 3. The planning of the project is the responsibility of the Forest Ranger School in Fredericton, N.B. Therefore, all questions should be directed to the School.
The Department of Environment will contribute 50 per cent of the cost of the project up to a maximum of $10.5 million.


Mr. Howie: What are the (a) names (b) positions of the persons who occupy positions on the Executive and Board of Directors of VIA Rail Canada Inc. and, in each case, what amount was he/she paid in respect of that position in the Fiscal year ended March 31, 1983?


Lloyd Axworthy: The names and positions of VIA Rail Canada Inc.'s executive are as follows:
Mr. Harold A. Renouf, Chairman of the Board
Mr. Pierre A. H. Franche, President and Cheif Executive
Officer
Mr. Rejean Bechamp, Vice-President, Development
Mr. Ray L. Borden, Vice-President, VIA Ontario
Mr. Gilles Dufault, Vice-President, VIA Atlantic
Mr. Gabriel Fortin, Q.C., Vice-President, Corporate Affairs
and Secretary of the Company
Mr. Robert J. Guiney, Vice-President, Operations
Mr. John A. Hanna, Vice-President, Finance
Mr. B. Eldon Horsman, Executive Vice-President
Mr. Jean Pierre Laorche, Vice-President, Human Resources
Order Paper Questions
Mr. Leo Moisan, Vice-President, VIA Quebec Mr. Harold Murray, Vice-President, VIA West Mr. Howard A. Whiting, Vice-President, Marketing
The names and positions of the members of VIA's Board of Directors are as follows:
Mr. Michael J. Brogan Manager, Purchasing and Traffic Chrysler Canada Limited P.O. Box 1621-Chrysler Centre Windsor, Ontario. N9A 4H6
Mr. Bernard dayman dayman, Kirshin Barristers, Solicitors, Notaries 180 Bloor Street West Suite 303
Toronto, Ontario. MSS 2V6
Mr. Henry Ewasechko Manager
Operations-Room 241 The University of Alberta 352 General Services Building Edmonton, Alberta. T6G 2H1
Mr. Pierre A. H. Franche President and Chief Executive Officer
VIA Rail Canada Inc.
P.O. Box 8116
Montreal, Quebec. H3C 3N3
Mr. Lionel Kennedy Grant Vice-President
Cornwall Gravel Company Limited 390-11th Street West Cornwall, Ontario. K6H 5R9
Mr. William P. Kelly Senior Assistant Deputy Minister Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
Labour Canada Place du Portage Phase II-11th floor Ottawa, Ontario. K1A 0J2
Mr. Evan S. Lloyd Travel Industry Consultant 146 Sunrise Drive Sydney River
Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. B1R 1N7
Mr. Robert Matteau Chartered Administrator Geoffrion Leclerc Inc.
602-6th Avenue

March 15, 1984
Order Paper Questions
P.O. Box 397
Grand-Mere, Quebec. G9T 5L1
Mr. Kyle R. Mitchell Senior Partner
Dunhill Personnel Consultants Ltd.
220-1155 West Georgia Street Vancouver, B.C. V6E 3H4
Mr. Giovanni Molina President
Molina Fer Ornemental Ltee
6543 Magloire Street
St. Leonard, Quebec. HIP 1N7
Mr. Harold A. Renouf Chairman
VIA Rail Canada Inc.
P.O. Box 8116
Montreal, Quebec. H3C 3N3
Mr. Clarence Surette Industrial Commissioner Grand Falls Region Development Commission Inc.
P.O. Box 566-273 Broadway Street Grand Falls, New Brunswick. EOJ 1M0
Mrs. June A. Westbury 227 Montgomery Avenue Winnipeg, Manitoba. R3L 1T1
Mr. Jaffray Wilkins Associate Deputy Minister Transport Canada Place de Ville, Tower "C"
Room 2501
Otttawa, Ontario. K1A 0N5
Mr. John Wiebe President
L & W Feeders Ltd.
P.O. Box 308
Herbert, Saskatchewan. SOH 2A0
Compensation. See Report on Governor in Council Appointees tabled in the House of Commons on November 17, 1983. Compensation for all other positions not listed in the report is regarded as proprietary information to VIA Rail Canada Inc.


Mr. Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the Parliamentary Secretary have been answered.


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, if Question No. 363 could be made an order for return, this return would be tabled immediately.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that Question No. 363 shall be deemed to have been made an order for return?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Mr. St. Germain: Since April 1, 1981, did any firms and/or individuals receive financial assistance under the Canadian International Development Agency's (a) Industrial Co-operation Program (b) Information Development and Dissemination Program (c) Starter and Viability Studies Program (d) Canadian Technology Transfer Facility Program (e) Canadian Project Preparation Facility Program and, if so, which firms or individuals and, in each case, what amount was received by them under the program?
Return tabled.


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


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, on October 11,1 placed a question on the Order Paper inquiring about federal assistance to Iron Mountain golf course. It was Question No. 5,309. In the new session I resubmitted this question as No. 422. The question remains unanswered, despite the fact that a November 4 interdepartmental memo from Doug Sawyer to the NEED Secretariat Director, Michael Calott, contained the information. That memo was sent to me and accidentally ended up in my constituency office, yet I have received no answer. Can the Parliamentary Secretary reply to that?


John Leslie Evans: Certainly, Mr. Speaker. I believe the Hon. Member mentioned October 11. That was in the last session of Parliament. That question died on the Order Paper when the House prorogued.


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, if the Parliamentary Secretary had been listening he would have heard me say that I resubmitted it in the new session as Question No. 422.


Mr. Gurbin:: Give him the number again. He did not hear it.
March 15, 1984


Gerry St. Germain: It is No. 422, Mr. Speaker.


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, you can see from the size of this document, that the Government is doing a good job in answering questions.
I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


Mr. Speaker:: Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. MacLaren that Bill C-21, an Act to provide borrowing authority, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
Mr. Marcel Roy (Laval):: For various reasons, Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-21 to provide borrowing authority. Since the beginning of this debate, I have heard my colleagues opposite make every kind of unwarranted accusations. I should think that the basic question in this whole debate is whether the Budget will foster the economic recovery. It all depends on the political approach or doctrine which one may have or uphold in this House, and that is what we have been hearing since the beginning. Some Conservatives whom I will not mention, even though I made a note of their riding-my time being limited, I do not intend to single out every unwarranted allegation that has been made-have tried to isolate certain votes, one in particular which this Government adopted to promote investment in high technology, de Havilland and Canadair in this case. However, they remained silent about de Havilland when the Government was blamed for its approach to the future of Canadair. As the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) said in answering a question today, we have to decide whether technology will stay here or be exported to other countries such as the United States.
Mr. Speaker, a number of countries in the world-France, England, Belgium and the United States among others-have developed their aeronautical industry through defence budget appropriations. If we in Canada want to support our aeronautical industry, we will have to spend money and foot the bills. When it was decided to take over de Havilland and Canadair from the private sector in 1975-76 to secure the future of our aircraft industry, I remember very well that
Borrowing Authority Act
Canadair had 825 employees. Eventually, Canadair ended up with a labour force of 8,000 in that field of high technology.
That is the challenge which the Liberal Government agreed to face in that highly technical field, so as to offer job opportunities to young Canadians now attending school.
Last March 8 in the House, I stressed the importance of developing that high technology sector. In Montreal alone, 12,310 CEGEP graduates of 1982 and 1983 invaded the labour market to seek employment in engineering and science. There are seven engineering schools which specialize in research and have created 2,110 graduates in 1982-83. It is for them that we want to promote high technology, Mr. Speaker.
I was proud to hear the Prime Minister and the President of the Treasury Board say today that, of course, it is imperative to change the structure of Canadair. When he appeared before the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs on March 13, the Minister responsible, Senator Jack Austin, spoke of our awareness to make some changes in Canadair. Those changes were explained when the Budget was under consideration. We know that Canadair management was wont to see everything through rose-coloured glasses. Not that we did not try to tell them! They had an overly optimistic outlook on marketability and closed their eyes on obvious operational problems. Even their accountants were riding on cloud nine. In addition, they tried to make the Government look on the bright side, while at the same time glossing over their difficulties. The company was overstaffed and the responsibilities of management were not clear cut. That is why the Canada Development Investment Corporation made it a priority to bring the company back to earth and reduce its operational expenditures. As a result of those measures, the deficit went from $145,100,000 in 1982 down to $83 million in 1983. So, there were two possibilities: either take the approach of the Progressive Conservatives and bail out, or adopt the Liberal philosophy, see what could be done to improve management and maintain jobs in the field of technology. Mr. Speaker, I have here an article published in the Montreal Gazette of February 20 and written by Mr. Nick Auf der Maur. It is a biography of the Leader of the Opposition and it says:
Killing of Arrow Still Hurts Today
Twenty-five years ago today, at 11 a.m.. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker got up in the House of Commons to announce a momentous decision that still lives with us.
He cancelled the Avro Arrow program, the CF-105 fighter-interceptor that aviation experts say would still be one of the best aircraft in the world if it were flying today.
Arguably, it was a decision that adversely affected Canada's industrial capacity, and wreaked such havoc on our aerospace industries that they still haven't fully recovered.
That day, Feb. 20, 1959, is still known as Black Friday in the industry.

March 15, 1984
Borrowing Authority Act
That day, 22,000 Canadians were thrown out of work-14,000 at the A.V. Roe and Orenda engine plants in the Toronto region, the rest from suppliers mostly in the Montreal area.
And an estimated $475 million in development and production costs were simply poured down that drain. (That was roughly the same cost as the St. Lawrence Seaway, built in about the same period, or an estimated $3 billion in today's terms.)

It is exactly the same attitude Progressive Conservatives are taking twenty-five years later. They would rather get rid of the problem instead of coping with it. We on the Government side are prepared to support the aerospace industry, and as far as Quebecers are concerned, the questions that have been asked since the beginning of the debate on this Bill are entirely unacceptable. The Progressive Conservatives are denying Quebecers an opportunity to take part in the expansion of our high technology industries. That is the difference between our Liberal philosophy and the philosophy of the Progressive Conservatives. To hear them talk, we ought to close the airport at Mirabel. The Member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens) has spoken many times here in the House, and the leadership candidate, the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie), said today that Canadair should be shut down! What will be left for Quebecers with a Progressive Conservative Government and a balance-the-Budget philosophy? Mr. Speaker, it is a matter of attitude, and when I look at the investments the Government of Canada has made in the Province of Quebec in the last few months, and I am referring to federal investments in major industries in the Montreal area, it really confirms that we have a different approach, especially when we look at the Budget, which has earmarked $996 million for the construction of patrol frigates, $368 million for research and development at Pratt & Whitney . .. That is the kind of funding Parliament is being asked to approve to provide various departments with the money they need and to continue the economic recovery process in Canada. I could go on, Mr. Speaker: $165 million for the Bell Helicopter project; $30 million for the agro-food research centre; $ 15 million for the office automation research centre in Laval; $10 million for the robotics centre at the Lionel-Groulx CEGEP; and I could go on and on Mr. Speaker. We have $2,843 billion that will be spent by the Liberal Government on developing the high-tech industry in the Province of Quebec. As for the attitude of the Progressive Conservatives who spoke in the House and who regularly question the Government about developments at Canadair, twenty-five years ago that very same group buried the Arrow when Mr. Diefenbaker was Prime Minister. Their Party has not changed. It still has the same philosophy, but we on the Government side feel that we cannot follow their course of action and say no to this challenge. We say that Canadians too must have high technology. We are going to develop the aerospace industry, and the aerospace industry will be to Quebec what the automobile industry is in Ontario. That is the difference between the attitude and the approach of a government with a
Liberal philosophy and the attitude and the approach of the Members of the Official Opposition, Mr. Speaker!


Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, I realize the next speaker for the Conservative Party wishes me to speed up. He has his birthday party later today and he wants to get to it. Congratulations to the Hon. Member for Saskatoon West (Mr. Hnatyshyn).	m
I rise to speak on the borrowing authority Bill. I will be making a speech very similar to a speech I made a couple of years ago on another borrowing authority Bill which was before the House of Commons. At that time I pointed out that the Government had no economic direction or strategy for the development of our country. In the two years which have elapsed since I last spoke on a borrowing authority Bill, nothing has changed in the country. We see project after project which are basically short-term make-work efforts and bailout operations by the federal Government. The Government has yet to come up with a concrete economic plan for the development of the country. With regard to interest rates, the Government reacts to what is happening in the United States, allowing interest rates to go up, as they did today. With regard to large scale economic developments, it is not a matter of planning but of reacting to what happens in the private sector.
I cannot support the Government's request for borrowing authority for $29 billion worth of debt for Canadians now and for future generations. Before the Government makes any more requests for borrowing large sums of money we need a plan from the Government stating where it wants to take the country and what it needs the money for. Rather than this, however, we have money going all over the place for small projects. This is increasing our national debt without any direction at all or any plan from the Government for developing the country.
Another reason I object to the borrowing authority Bill before the House is that the Government has been so unfair in levying taxes over the years. The average Canadian citizen pays about 20 per cent of his income in income tax. The average large corporation pays much less. The big five banks pay only 8 per cent of their profits toward federal income tax. In 1982 the Royal Bank and the Bank of Montreal have made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit and did not pay 1 cent in federal income tax.
If one studies the pattern which has developed one will see that industries, banks and financial institutions other than banks owe as much as the borrowing authority Bill is requesting. Deferred corporate taxes for 1980 are $22 billion. These are the latest figures we have. The Bill before us is requesting borrowing authority for $29 billion. If the Government collected all the taxes owing from corporations in the country at the present time we would not have to go into debt for $29 billion. We need economic planning and we need the Government to collect the money owing to it at the present time. We also need the Government to develop a strategy to ensure fair taxation so that banks and large corporations do not make huge profits without paying income tax.
March 15, 1984

Let me give some examples. In 1981-82, a number of corporations made millions of dollars in profits but did not pay one cent in tax. It is completely unacceptable for an average Canadian taxpayer not to pay his income tax. He goes to jail or is threatened by taxation officials and has all sorts of personal problems. This country has legalized a system which allows corporations and some rich individuals to pay not one cent in tax, even if they make hundreds of thousands of dollars in income. It is a ridiculous situation which the Government has not attempted to address in this Bill. It has not attempted to overcome the unfairness that exists within the tax system.
It is completely unacceptable for the Government to come before us year after year, increasing the national debt as it does so, to say that it does not have to change the tax structure in this country, collect money that it is owed by important corporations or take money from the banks. The Government comes before Parliament continually to ask for $20 billion, $22 billion and $29 billion and thus increases the national debt. Unfortunately, I think Canadians are beginning to accept this simply as the way in which things are done in Canada. I and my Party do not believe that this is the direction in which Canada has to proceed.
In closing I suggest that before the Government attempts to seek borrowing authority of $29 billion it should introduce a tax scheme that is fair to all Canadians so that all Canadians who make money will pay their fair share of taxes, and nothing more. It should tell the House its plans for the country and why it needs to borrow $29 billion. It should ensure that the corporations that owe Canadians billions of dollars will pay that money to the national Treasury so that we will not continue to put not only this generation into debt but future generations of Canadians.


Hon. Ray Hnatyshyn (Saskatoon West):: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate, albeit briefly, in this very important debate on the Government's borrowing Bill, Bill C-21. I suspect that people have become desensitized to the amount of deficits and the amount of money that the Government spends on their behalf, whether it is by various forms of assistance or various forms of taxation. I think that when the average Canadian is told that the Government is seeking to borrow $29.5 billion to meet its obligations, that figure does not really sink in, but it is $29,500 million. Many people would love to have an income of $29,500 and would consider themselves to be wealthy. The Government is asking the Parliament of Canada to support legislation to borrow an amount in excess of the expenditures that have been authorized by this Parliament. When one considers the amount of money involved, it boggles the mind.
I listened to government Members say how they will stand up for the right of Canadians in terms of Canadair and how they will support this Crown corporation, which has spilled $3 billion of the Canadian taxpayers' money. I have heard them say that they believe that this money should be used to support that enterprise.
Borrowing Authority Act
I believe that one of the tragedies of this debate, as we get closer to a federal election, is that the back-benchers of the Liberal Party are becoming more concerned about being reelected and are starting to lash out irrationally and say things out of sheer desperation. They are prepared to act like a bunch of sheep, as they have been depicted by many columnists and others over the years. They are terrified of the prospect that the people of Canada will say to them that enough is enough. Canadians will say that it is time for an accounting, and where were they when this kind of overspending took place. They will want to know where those Members stood within their caucus in terms of asking their Leader and Cabinet about the amount of money that has been literally stolen from the pockets of Canadians.
I see that the great leadership aspirant, the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts), is here to take his place during his duty hour. This reminds me that Canadians have been given the opportunity recently to see the attitudinal posture of the Liberal Party and of those who aspire to the leadership of that Party and how they approach the management of public funds. Here is a Minister who, with malice of forethought, created a slush fund of $300 million. Was this fund conducted on an orderly basis? Was there some logic to the expenditure of that money on a properly managed basis? The answer is no. The fund was set up purely for partisan political purposes.
I can only surmise that this kind of expenditure of public funds was made for the purpose of creating some type of support within the Minister's caucus so that they would say, "What a jolly good fellow that old John Roberts is, he gave me $500,000 to spend on my favourite project in my constituency".


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order. I must remind the Hon. Member that he should refer to Members of the House by their constituency.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for that breach. I will not get involved in a procedural debate. I was just paraphrasing what Liberals were saying about the dear old Minister of Employment and Immigration.
The fact of the matter simply is that we have seen the attitude of the Liberal Government which likes to spend money just before election time. In order to give an idea of how the Liberal Party considers the whole question of financial management, let me hark back to the activities of the Liberal Party the last time it had a convention. The reports indicate that the $23 billion federal deficit in 1982 would look minuscule by comparison if the federal Government were to take into account the Party's resolutions passed in the Liberal Party policy convention. The fact is that if Liberals are given their way, the debt obligations of this country will be placed on the shoulders of our children and our children's children for years to come.
In defence of the Government's overspending in terms of Crown corporations such as Canadair, it says that this money is absolutely essential to salvage this corporation. We in this

March 15, 1984
Borrowing Authority Act
Party understand that it is important to take action as a government in order to keep employment levels up. No one has any complaint about that. I simply want to know which members of the Liberal Party stood up to ask what was happening when these enormous and almost criminal overexpenditures on Canadair took place at the expense of the taxpayer? Where is the accountability? What Minister had the courage to stand up and take political responsibility for this very scandalous situation? It is not in the lexicon of the Liberal Party. It does not believe in accepting responsibility. It is always the fault of someone else. What director was reprimanded? What deputy minister was asked to account for the activities of Canadair? What Minister has stood in his place and said that there has been a serious breach in terms of management principles with respect to Crown corporations? There is not one Member across the way who has the political courage to stand up on a question of principle and resign either his portfolio or his seat. It is simply not in their lexicon. That is one of the problems we face now in terms of political responsibility.
My Leader has gone on record with specific and concrete proposals with respect to accountability in Crown corporations. We, as a Party, have taken steps and brought in legislation that would have made Crown corporations accountable. Right now there is less accountability in a Crown corporation than in any private corporation. Private corporations have far more requirements in terms of specifying and protecting the investment of people who have moneys invested with them. Where was the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans)? He was mute. He refused to stand up. He aspires for a Cabinet position. He would not stand up and jeopardize his possibility for advancement. My Leader has brought forward proposals and suggestions on behalf of our Party. These had to do with accountability and management practices for Crown corporations that should have been adopted. Today the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray) brought down his answer concerning Crown corporation accountability in Bill C-24. This legislation, I think it is fair to say, is at first glance a failure in terms of addressing the problems concerning accountability for Crown corporations. This legislation is a continuation of a cover up for which this Government is so famous when it comes to its operation of Government enterprises which are clouded in secrecy.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order, please. May I request that Members who want to make interjections come out from behind the curtains so they can be identified.


Arnold John Malone: Come out of the closet, John.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I am never distracted by the utterances of Members who do not have the courage to come into the House and participate in the debate. I have never in my life been frightened of a sheep. This is a sheep in sheep's clothing, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Neil:: He is pulling the wool over our eyes.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: I must conclude because you have indicated, Sir, that I have only two minutes remaining.
If the Government is really interested in the accountability of Crown corporations and in one aspect of it that we as parliamentarians are able to deal with on the floor of the House of Commons, Members on the other side would read the position set forward by our Leader and our Party in terms of the accountability of Crown corporations, which rationalizes and clarifies the Government's relationship with Crown corporations. It is based on a return to the system of effective individual Ministerial responsibility. These fellows over there do not know what that term means, Mr. Speaker. They would probably not understand a revised classification system for Crown corporations based on the extent of the corporation's reliance on Government financing and its role in implementing public policy objectives. This document fails to meet that particular criterion. I could go on and on but, I see that my time is up.
If I were a Member of the Liberal Party and a member of that Government-


John Leslie Evans: No such luck.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: -I would hang my head in shame, having come to the people of Canada with an unprecedented request for borrowing authority in the amount of $29.5 billion. I say to the Liberals and to this Government that they should be ashamed of themselves.


Mr. W. C. Scott (Victoria-Haliburton):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address Bill C-21 which requests authority for the Government to borrow funds far beyond what it has need of in the next year and obviously even farther beyond what it needs before the next election.
My constituents sometimes ask me what borrowing authority Bills do. I explain to them that Governments all require parliamentary authority to borrow new money. The question why this Government is now asking Parliament for authority to borrow for the eighth time since the last election is not so easy to answer. First, people want to know how much money these eight requests add up to. Telling them that the Government has forced us to borrow $102.85 billion since 1980 begs another question. The answer is that Government spending is out of control.
Since 1968, Government spending has increased approximately 668 per cent. Since 1980 alone, it has risen by 97 per cent to the point where it is now 25 per cent of our gross national product. What has this done to our requirement to borrow? Well, in 1984, according to the estimates, we will spend 21.5 per cent of Canadians' tax dollars on servicing the national debt. In the year just before the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and his gang of spenders over there took over, the Government was spending only 11.6 per cent of taxes on paying off that debt. This has caused us to borrow over $100 billion in the last four years. This Government has thrown money at all its problems rather than taking the time to look for real solutions. By doing so, the Government has increased
March 15, 1984

Government spending from just over $12 billion in 1968-69 to slightly over $100 billion in 1983-84, all at the expense of the taxpayer.
When I explain this to my constituents they cannot understand how little regard the Government has for their hard earned tax dollars. I try to explain the situation to them. Imagine that the Government is a bank, that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) is the bank president and Parliament is its board of directors. On this board of directors, the president has a majority of the votes on his side. Each of the eight times in the last four years the Government has needed money, the bank president has asked the board to give him another loan. As loyal friends of the president the majority of the directors, without question, agreed to do so. However, the minority of directors did ask questions, and twice succeeded in reducing the amount of the loan slightly. Because the board, in this case Parliament, was loaded with unswerving and unquestioning followers of the president-the Minister of Finance-the loans were granted. This was done irrespective of the financial position of the loan requestor, the Government, or of the interests of its owners, the people of Canada.
I would like Hon. Members sitting over there on the Government benches to put themselves in the position of the bank manager of one of their local banks. If any company came to you today and made a request to borrow $29 billion, what questions would you ask? First, you would ask for the company's financial position as of its last fiscal year. If that company told you that its deficit last year was about $31.5 billion, I think you would then ask what their net position was at the end of last year. A response giving a net debt of over $150 billion would not, I am sure, dispose you towards lending further funds to that company. If you asked a company what it expects its profit to be over the next five years, as Revenue Canada does of some farmers, and the company told you that it expected its yearly deficit to remain nearly constant and its net debt to almost double, would you not write them off as a bad credit risk, as does Revenue Canada?
I have been through this kind of an ordeal with constituents of mine who were applying for loans through the Farm Credit Corporation and through the Industrial and Regional Development Program. Neither of these institutions would touch a company or an individual in this type of financial position. On a few occasions they have told companies that they must change their management structure, as they obviously were not being run correctly, before they would even talk to them about Government loans.
What we have here is a Government which, if it applied for its own loans, would undoubtedly be turned down if the same criteria were applied to the Government as they are to those whom it is supposed to be helping. Unfortunately, the Government has no new blood. The people of Canada are not about to give the Liberal Party or its ghost of Budgets past, Mr. Turner, a chance to continue running our economy into the ground after the election.
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It is amusing to watch the Liberal "lack lustre" leadership race developing. The first nag out of the gate, Mr. Johnston, was obviously trying to dissociate himself from the policies of which he has been a part. On the subjects of the deficit and the borrowing authority, he had the following to say on March 9 on Canada AM:
1 think all Canadians understand that governments have to live within their means and that the only way of getting at the deficit is either more taxation or, on the other hand, cutting programs, or inflation, because that's another way governments traditionally have gotten rid of deficits in historic times.
Mr. Johnston also stated in The Globe and Mail on the same day:
The deficit has a very pragmatic restraint which people don't see. 1 mean, people have to understand that governments simply can't borrow and borrow.


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is bad enough that the Hon. Member is reading a speech, which is in violation of the Standing Orders, but he is using the names of Hon. Members in a way which is totally inappropriate. I would appreciate it if he were called to order.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The point of order is accepted. The Hon. Member can mention the name of a Member when he is quoting. He has been making quotations, but I believe he should keep the point of order in mind.


William C. Scott: I am sure the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) must have shuddered when he heard the suggestion of cutting programs and increasing taxation in an election year. The comment of the Economic Development Minister about not being able simply to borrow and borrow money is foreign to the philosophy of the Liberal Party and certainly goes against the interests of Bill C-21, which asks to borrow billions of dollars more than the Government actually requires before the end of the 1984-85 fiscal year.
In closing, I would like to join my colleagues in repudiating this Bill. There is no need for the Government to borrow money now for use after the 1984-85 fiscal year. Indeed, if government spending were under control, there would be no need to borrow money at all.


Douglas Charles Neil: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate this afternoon on Bill C-21 which requests the authority to borrow some $29.5 billion. If we relate that to millions, it is $29,500 million. It would not be so bad if this were the only borrowing Bill that had been before the House during this thirty-second Parliament. If one looks back at the first and second sessions, one realizes that in a four-year period the Government brought in some eight borrowing Bills. These Bills provided for the borrowing of a total of $102.85 billion, an astronomical figure. That figure represents the incompetence and absolute irresponsibility of the present Government, yet Hon. Members on the other side have risen in the debate time after time to defend the Government's position. They see nothing wrong with it. They do not realize the harm which the policies of the Government have done to the country and to the people of Canada. They do not seem to understand that the country is bankrupt. They do not realize that if they continue year after

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year borrowing more and more money and spending more than is taken in, we will end up in an impossible situation. That is what has happened over the years.
Many constituents have asked me about government expenditures and government financing. I relate government to a small business or a farming operation because there is no real difference. Government is a business, big business. If any business, whether large or small, spends more than it takes in year after year, it ends up in a bankrupt situation. Of course a government cannot go bankrupt.
When I came here in 1972, the Budget for that year was between $15 billion and $16 billion. The Budget for this fiscal year alone is over $100 billion. The gross debt in Canada now stands at $190 billion. If we net that out, that is take away the assets of the country, we still have a net debt of $150 billion, and the Auditor General has said that the Government has overstated its assets by some $20.4 million.
To service our debt or to pay the interest for which we are responsible costs $20 billion per year. That is more than it cost to run the entire country in 1972. That represents some $800 per capita or some $1,900 per taxpayer. If we analyse the situation, we see that one ouf of every three tax dollars goes to paying the interest on the country's debt. We are leaving an unbearable debt load for our children, a legacy of the Trudeau years.
When our children and grandchildren are our age, Mr. Speaker, will they have the Old Age Security pension? Will they have the guaranteed income supplement? Will they have the Canada Pension Plan? If we continue borrowing at the rate at which we are presently borrowing, all the revenue of the country will be required to pay the interest on our debt. There will be nothing left for social programs for our children and our children's children. What about unemployment insurance? Nation-wide the cost of unemployment insurance is between $11 billion and $12 billion this yeaer. That is more than the combined spending of the four Atlantic provinces for this year.
Paying an individual unemployment insurance does not do anything for our Gross National Product. It is a drain. It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, that time after time in this House of Commons, Government Ministers have stood up and said they are spending x number of dollars and creating thousands of jobs. I hope that someone sometime will sit down and add up all the jobs the Liberal Government said it has created in the last ten years, because it would amount to millions. We do not have enough people in this country to fill all the jobs they say they have created. We would have to bring people from offshore by the planeload and boatload. Despite all these make-work programs and the jobs the Government says it has created over the years, we still have 1.5 million persons unemployed in Canada.
When speaking in the House earlier, the Hon. Member for Willowdale (Mr. Peterson) posed the question, "What would a Conservative Government do under the circumstances?". A
Conservative Government would run a good, efficient government. It would not be bribing the taxpayers with their own money. It would not build white elephants like Mirabel. It would not spend $266 million of the taxpayers' money on advertising. It would not spend several billion dollars on Canadair and de Havilland.
I have heard comments from the other side condemning our attitude toward Canadair. I happen to be on the Public Accounts Committee and I have some knowledge of Canadair. It was a disaster, it was mismanagement and it was a waste. An interesting news report came across my desk yesterday issued by Senator Austin. It was regarding the revamping of Canadair. One thing he said was that they were going to reduce the number of vice-presidents in the company from 22 to 12. Imagine having 22 vice-presidents in a company like Canadair, a Crown corporation. This is unbelievable.
We have Centennial Towers where the Government spends $1 million a month on rent. The building has just recently been occupied, and then only three out of ten floors are rented. I see my time is up, Mr. Speaker. I simply want to say that this Party cannot support incompetence and irresponsibility, which is really what this Bill is all about.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: 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. Lewicky)- Multiculturalism-Media portrayal of visible minorities. (b) Use of visible minorities in advertising commercials; the Hon. Member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby)-Government decentralization-Announced transfer of Health and Welfare Branch from Halifax to Sydney. (b) Impact on employees; the Hon. Member for York North (Mr. Gamble)-National Defence-Frigate construction of program contracts. (b) Request that Minister table list of contracts.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. MacLaren that Bill C-21 an Act to provide borrowing author-
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[Stage Direction]
ity, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs.
Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, 1 appreciate the opportunity to speak on the Borrowing Authority Act by which the Government is seeking to borrow an additional $29.5 billion. All of us agree that borrowing money is not necessarily wrong. I am sure at one time or another all of us have had to borrow money. The question is, how much and for what will it be used? Let me use the example of an unemployed worker. There is a major difference between that unemployed worker borrowing a substantial amount in order to go to Hawaii for a vacation and borrowing to purchase a car so that he can get to a nearby town to find employment. There is a big difference between this Government's borrowing money so that it can give $8 billion over the next few years to oil companies that will be drilling on Canada Lands, whether or not they drill dry holes, and conversely borrowing money to be used for labour-intensive projects which would help restore our economy to a sound footing, putting people back to work and ending some of the misery of unemployment.
Our Party would be much more open to this Bill if the Government were serious about the major problems affecting Canada today, but we see no indication of that. Where is the Government's commitment to reverse the loss of jobs and the drain this creates on the total economy? Victoria, B.C., in the southern part of my constituency, now has the second highest level of unemployment in Canada. People in that community are suffering deeply from the knock-out punch of the punitive attitude of the provincial Social Credit Government and the neglect of the federal Government. While a great deal of attention has been focused on the punishing attitude of the provincial government and the neglect of the federal Government, the attitude and drift it has taken toward basic resource industries such as forestry and the fisheries is, in the long run, almost as disastrous as the punishing attitude of the Socreds.
Another area of Government neglect about which I would like to speak briefly is the whole area of Indian Affairs. Last week Canadians witnessed the last minute conversion of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to at least the rhetoric of aboriginal self-government. There was some surprise when the provinces did not buy this rhetoric as it was presented to them.
If we look at the Prime Minister's proposal, we see that it lacked any real commitment to the aboriginal people. We see that the Government's response to the report of the Special Committee on Indian Self-Government lacked any specific economic commitment to the Indian people. Indian self-government without economic commitment to back it up will be nothing more than a comic opera, a meaningless charade.
Let us look at housing on Indian reserves. Housing is connected to the concomitant problems of sewer and water. These are woefully inadequate on reserves from one end of Canada to another. We can point to some outstanding examples where housing, water and sewage systems are good, but by and large the housing situation across Canada is woefully inadequate. It is tied in with the terrible standard of health
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that Indian people have to face, the high drop-out rate of Indian children at shcool, unemployment and the loss of culture. When people do not have adequate housing and an adequate infrastructure in their communities, all of these other things tend to go by the board as well.
Across Canada right now, there is the phenomenon of Indian people being forced off the reserves and away from their home communities into the crowded ghettos of large cities. Once those Indians are in the ghettos, the federal Government thinks it is able to wash its hands of them and no longer provides them with basic services. For example, educational services to off-reserve Indian people were terminated last year. Indian people find themselves forced into a welfare system.
This year, the Department of Indian Affairs is saying that it will not be able to fund training programs for the urban training centre in Vancouver. Last December, some attention was directed to the case of Joyce and Birdie Canton, an Indian couple from the Wabigoon Reserve in northwestern Ontario who moved to the City of Winnipeg because their home on the reserve was condemned for health reasons. However, I think it is important to remember that a couple like the Cantons are not the exception to the rule. Rather, they were exceptional only because of the fact that they received a certain amount of media attention because they refused to submit quietly to the indignity of bad housing and welfare when they did not want to do so and should not expect to have to do so.
In 1979, it was estimated that the Indian people across Canada had a housing shortage with a backlog of some 13,000 units. Five years later, our best guess is that there are still some 10,000 housing units urgently needed on Indian reserves.
I say that that is the best guess because no up-to-date national survey has been done. This year, approximately 2,400 housing units will be built, and this will keep up only with the necessary replacements needed for deteriorating homes and new family formations. However, it does nothing to address the continuing backlog of 10,000 or more needed housing units. Last year, special recovery funds went toward building an extra 900 units, and it is rather depressing to realize that those 900 units represented the largest single dent that had ever been made in the badklog.
It would be encouraging, Mr. Speaker, to see some of the money that the Government is borrowing used to address this urgent national problem. However, we do not see the Government addressing that problem with any degree of urgency. In addition to the inadequate funding, there is inefficiency in the way in which the Department delivers the funding. Money often arrives too late for the Indian people to take advantage of the short construction season experienced in many parts of northern Canada. When Indian bands receive their funding late, it means that they are stuck with high interest charges.
The Government is committed to Indian control of Indian education, or at least it is committed in its rhetoric to Indian control of Indian education. However, in situation after situa-

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tion we find that there is no funding to provide for new schools on Indian reserves, even when it is clearly recognized that they are needed. Building schedules are being constantly pushed back, promises are made and then denied. In Manitoba, some 40 school buildings are needed.
The Government indicates it wants to borrow $29.5 billion, yet government Members have announced plans for the spending only of some $25 billion. The Government wants to borrow $4 billion more than it has planned to spend. We say that government Members should bring in a plan which would indicate to the people of the country where they want to use that money. I would like to suggest some areas which urgently need that money. There should be increased attention paid to the forests and to the fisheries, particularly the fisheries of the Pacific Coast, and increased attention to the need for decent housing and sewage and water systems in the Indian communities.
The Government's approach to the economy has been one of drift, mismanagement and borrowing to make up the difference. I do not think that is good enough any longer. Let the Government do some long-term planning that will help to get the economy moving again. In short, we cannot accept this Bill because it is too large, too loose and we do not know what the Government wants to do with the money.


Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, standing in the Chamber today, I am reminded of the day that the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) called Members of Parliament nobodies. Far too often, when out in our ridings around the country, we tend to think that what happens in the Chamber of the House of Commons is irrelevant to the day-to-day lives of the people. Today, Mr. Speaker, we are looking at the largest borrowing Bill in Canadian history. We can predict that members of the Liberal Party of Canada will stand up in the Chamber and vote for it. Will that affect the lives of individual ordinary Canadians?
On a day-to-day basis this week we have watched the value of the Canadian dollar drop. During the auction for Treasury notes today, interest rates went up better than one half of 1 per cent. Anyone who bought a home this morning or who yesterday put in his offer to buy, did the paperwork necessary to receive a mortgage, but now finds that he is having his pocketbook tapped this afternoon. One half of 1 per cent on a $50,000 mortgage amounts to extra payments of better than $20 a month of after-tax income out of a wage earner's pocket. If that mortgage is $100,000, one half of 1 per cent amounts to an extra $40 a month. That is $40 a month that people cannot use for food, clothing, entertainment and education.
This situation has been caused by a further four years on top of 11 years of economic mismanagment. It is hurting the country. It is costing the country jobs. It is costing the people anxiety and putting more people in hospitals. How did such a situation come about? Government Members, including all the leadership candidates, are asking Members of the House of Commons to give them permission to borrow $29,550 million. That is a sum so staggering that it defies the imagination.
Let us put that amount in perspective, Mr. Speaker. There are 24 million Canadians, and some of them are in the fortunate position of being able to save money either by putting it in banks or in a variety of money certificates. The amount of money the Government wants to borrow from those who save is 91 per cent of all the money that will be saved in the country this year. This government borrowing Bill does not even include the amounts to be borrowed by Crown corporations, which are an extension of Government.
If the Government will borrow 91 cents out of every dollar that every Canadian saves, that leaves only nine cents for the rest of us to borrow for the purchase of a car or a home. Because of this, what happens to the interest rates, Mr. Speaker? This Bill has not yet been passed, is not yet law, and the borrowing has not even begun. We are only at the beginning stages of this Bill, and already interest rates are up one half of 1 per cent. Perhaps they will rise another 1 per cent, 1.5 per cent or 2 per cent. Everyone who borrows money in the ocuntry will have to pay that extra amount.
Pensioners in the country who are on fixed incomes will have to pay more for the food they eat because the costs run down throughout the entire economy. Rents will go up and the cost of medical supplies will go up as well. If any Member of this Chamber thinks that what we do here does not affect ordinary Canadians, he is pulling the wool over his eyes. This is the largest borrowing Bill in Canadian history.
This year the Government plans to spend almost twice as much as it planned to spend the day it was elected. In four years it has almost doubled its expenditures and it has more than doubled the amount of money it borrows. People do not like high interest rates. They complain that their business went bankrupt because they could not afford those rates, that they had to turn their home back to the mortgage company because they could not pay the interest, or that the finance company repossessed their car. They should hold every single Member of the Liberal Party of Canada accountable because they support Government mismanagement year after year after year. It is the Government's willingness to borrow year after year after year that is causing the problem. Some may say that the blame lies with the Cabinet, but that is not so. Members of this Chamber vote for these measures and so it is the job of government backbenchers and opposition Parties to hold the Cabinet accountable and put some common sense into the legislation. When government backbenchers do not do that job, then the voters of the country have a job to do, and that is, to kick each and every one of them out of this Chamber so that they never have an opportunity to do this sort of thing again.
When I was elected almost five years ago, 17 cents out of every tax dollar went to pay interest on the public debt and 83 cents was left for health care, unemployment insurance and so on. Now, not quite five years later, 31 cents out of every tax dollar goes to pay interest on the public debt. That leaves 69 cents instead of 83 cents to go into health care, pensions, and
March 15, 1984

all the things people expect the Government to provide. That is a tragedy, Mr. Speaker.
There are 1.5 million people unemployed. Young people want to go to university, but governments are cutting back on funding for universities. People want to go to hospital and cannot because beds are not available. The reason behind all this is the economic mismanagement of the Liberal Party of Canada, and it has gone on far too long and hurts too many people.
The story must be told and the lessons learned, Mr. Speaker.
I urge Canadians, wherever they live, to take a good, hard look at the behaviour of their politicians and what they say they believe in and compare it to what they do in this Chamber. What they do is to vote to support that mismanagement and the Cabinet. Unless Members across the way have a change of heart and start to behave differently, Canadians have an obligation to turf each and every one of them out, not only in this election but for the rest of the elections in this century. That is the obligation of Canadian voters.


Mr. John Gamble (York North):: Mr. Speaker, I participate in the debate on Bill C-21 with the faint flicker of hope that the government Members may exercise their ancient but rather atrophied power to bring some sense to the Government's spending policies. Bill C-21 is an abomination. It lays an immense burden on the people of Canada today and on future generations. That is spelled out in the rather brief piece of legislation which provides for the Government to borrow $29.55 billion or, as my colleague has just put it, twenty-nine and a half thousand million dollars. That tidy sum for a profligate and spendthrift administration exceeds by $4 billion the entire financial requirements of the Government for a full fiscal year. That is not the full fiscal year that we are now in but the full fiscal year to come. That projection of the requirement was announced in the House one month ago today. Now the Government brings in a Bill asking for $29.55 billion to see it through the entire fiscal year beginning April 1.
I pause here to note that it is rather strange that there existed on February 29 a full $5 billion in unused borrowing authority, and I asked myself why it is so essential that today, before the fiscal year begins, the Government should ask Parliament for authority to spend the entire financial requirement as projected in the Budget of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) well in advance of the period yet to begin.
It occurs to me that it might be convenient if the House were no longer required by the Government of the day-if it might be sent into recess while those seeking the hollow grail of leadership of the Liberal Party were permitted to travel the country pursuing their own personal goals. It would also be convenient if the House were muted in its discussion in this place of the waste and extravagance undertaken by the Government. In place of the legitimate criticism that is levelled in the House we might have an expensive advertising campaign initiated by the Government to tell the people of Canada that the days of wine and roses has returned. The contrary is the truth, Mr. Speaker.
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Yesterday, as a consequence of a meeting of a committee of this House, we heard that the Government had decided to pump an additional $310 million into Canadair. That is in addition to the $1.4 billion that had been accumulated as a consequence of the guarantees provided to that corporation- guarantees of the Government of Canada over the years and written off, assumed by the Government of Canada in 1983. Senator Austin has told the country that the project undertaken by that company will succeed and that it will be profitable.
I wonder what would have happened to the Ford Motor Company if the chairman of the board had said that they would sell Edsels and that Edsels would be profitable.
The problem with the Government and the Crown corporations that it sustains is that there is no relationship between reality and its goals. It is appropriate to think positively and it is wise and prudent to endeavour to achieve the best we can with the instruments that have been given to us. It is foolhardy, however, to pursue goals which result in the further wasting of the finances of the people of Canada. These funds are not the Government's funds. They are the funds of the people of this nation. The people sitting in this House as Members of Parliament have an obligation to the people whom they represent to administer their financial affairs astutely. It is for that purpose that my colleagues and I stand here in our places and endeavour to persuade members of the government Party to come to their senses. Just a smattering of good judgement exercised by them would stop this process.
What is the process with which we are currently involved? It is the borrowing of money, which has the effect of creating an opinion of the way in which this Government has performed, not only in the financial community of Canada but in the financial communities of the world. And what is the judgement of those who can reflect their judgement in a positive sense? As compared to other currencies, our currency is under attack. It is under attack because it is overvalued as a result of the Government of Canada reaching too far into the combined savings and assets of the people of this nation. The Government has shown internationally that it is unequipped to deal with the financial affairs of Canada.
The Minister of Finance stood in his place in the House and explained that interest rates, if they rise, are beyond the control of this Government because interest rates in the United States are increasing. Interest rates will rise, Mr. Speaker, so long as the Government and the Minister of Finance intervene with the Bank of Canada, as they do regularly. The Government, in fact, instructs the Bank of Canada on what price should be paid at the Treasury bill auction every Thursday. We know what the effect of that was today, that is, 10.56 per cent. We know what the increase will signal to the financial community. It will signal that interest rates should also go up on commercial loans and on home mortgages. What will the effect of that be, Mr. Speaker? It will return this nation to the series of bankruptcies and home foreclosures and judicial sales of the assets of the people of this nation, from which we hoped we might extricate ourselves, relying on the financial recovery

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of the United States. That will not occur if this Government persists with the spending practices which it has unveiled in Bill C-21.
I urge Hon. Members of the House, if they are concerned about their constituents and about the welfare of Canadians in general, if they really hope to create employment through the resurrection of a stable, profitable business community, and if they hope to keep people who have acquired homes in those homes, to reflect upon the lack of wisdom which is embodied in Bill C-21.


Howard Edward Crosby: Mr. Speaker, in making some remarks on Bill C-21, the Borrowing Authority Act, 1984-85, it is difficult to place in perspective the effect the provisions of this Bill will have on Canadians and on the economy. Many Hon. Members have stood in this Chamber and tried to indicate the enormity of borrowing $29.55 billion and the effect it will have. Mere numbers do not indicate the harm, economic and otherwise, it will do to Canada. It is a real challenge to try to bring meaning to figures like $100 billion in expenditures, $70 billion in revenues, and the deficit which arises with expenditures at such a high level and revenues at such a low level. It is very important, indeed vital, that we get across to Canadians the relevance of this legislative measure to their daily lives.
We have heard time and time again what the borrowing of this amount of money, over $30 billion, added to the existing national debt, will create for each tax-paying Canadian at the national level alone. It is a debt of $15,000 to $16,000 for each taxpayer. When you add to that the provincial debt which is represented and applied to that taxpayer, you get a figure well in excess of $20,000. Every taxpayer in Canada carries with him on daily basis, in addition to whatever personal debts he or she may have incurred by way of mortgages, car loans, and so on, the government debt in excess of $20,000.
What is the effect of all this debt accumulation, Mr. Speaker? It has a very important effect on all Canadians, but it has an immediate effect on interest rates. Only today we have seen a further additional increase in basic interest rates which will be charged by banks, because the rate for 180-day Treasury bills has risen to 10.95 per cent. That, Mr. Speaker, is plunging us into another series of interest increases which will bring us up not only to the double-digit level, but higher. If that kind of inflationary trend in interest rates and other prices occurs, we can look forward to a termination of any thought of economic recovery. That again will affect each and every Canadian and the way of life to which each and every Canadian is entitled.
What are we going to do about it, Mr. Speaker? That is the real question. We know the disaster of deficit financing over a long period of time. We know about the crushing burden of accumulated debt, not only on the Government of Canada but on individual taxpayers. We must face the problem of what we are going to do about it. For taxpayers, there is not only, as I indicated, the problem of interest rates, but they are also faced with the need and desire on the part of the Government of Canada for additional revenue. This has shown up in two
ways: first, in the increase in the tax load for individual Canadians, and, second, in the acceleration and emphasis on tax collection by Revenue Canada.
We have heard time and time again in the House of Commons and elsewhere in Canada about the disastrous effect of overzealous tax collection. I want to point out to Hon. Members of the House and to all Canadians that we now have a very sophisticated tax system. Not only does it deal with direct taxes such as income taxes, sales taxes and the like, but there are very subtle ways of taxing Canadian people. Those subtle ways include changing the method by which tax deductions are assessed and the hidden taxes we find, for example, reflected in the price of gasoline, transportation fuels and commodities which are used by virtually all Canadians. We are hit by taxes from all sides and many of the taxes imposed on Canadians are not even known to them.
I have here an indication, Mr. Speaker, of what each Canadian family with a net income in the area of $22,000 pays in taxes. The global rate approximates 45 per cent. That is to say that a Canadian family with a net income in the area of $22,000 pays $11,000 in taxes. That is inclusive of all taxes paid to all levels of government. The result is that the crushing burden of taxation on Canadian people is coupled with the effect government borrowing has on the interest rates available to Canadian consumers. That is magnified by the collection practices of Revenue Canada, which pounces on these burdened taxpayers and demands, without any justification, every inch of the tax requirement plus, in many cases, something more. Decisions are at all times against the taxpayers, forcing them into appeal procedures which are costly and time consuming and serve to discourage Canadians who might otherwise want to contribute more to the economy and the productive capacity of the country.
Reversing this process is going to be very difficult, Mr. Speaker. However, we cannot stand helplessly and do nothing.
I believe Government Members are entitled to ask what we would do. As opposition Members there is an onus upon us to indicate ways in which we would reverse this process. When one looks at the public accounts and at proposed expenditures, it is quite easy to find ways of reversing this process. There have been expenditures such as $900 million on Mirabel which could have been eliminated. Time and time again in the House of Commons we have spoken about the $3 billion which has been virtually wasted on Canadair and its related activities. Yet the Government tries to tell us that expenditure was made in the interest of all Canadians, that it saved the aeronautic technology and provided employment for 1,200 persons. At the same time the Government refuses to provide less than $100 million to the Sydney Steel Company in Nova Scotia to eliminate its public debt and enable it to function on a businesslike basis. That plant would employ over 2,000 steel workers. As well, the Government would be assisting an industry which is basic to an industrialized economy, has export capacity, and has the abilily to provide local employment.
March 15, 1984

I am trying to point out that it is not the amount of the expenditures which the Government makes, but rather, it is the quality and the kinds of expenditures that are made which count. In that respect, Mr. Speaker, over a period of 15 years the Government has lost track of the purpose of government expenditures. No one disputes that social services are necessary. However, it is in the area of optional government expenditures that the Government has failed completely and miserably. That has led to this deteriorating situation which has resulted in such damage to the Canadian economy. The Government has failed to recognize that some government expenditures are productive and others are not.
I will give you one example which is at a low level but it can be magnified and demonstrated in other areas. The Government spent $2 million on empty office space because the Solicitor General of Canada (Mr. Kaplan) anticipated that there would be a new security agency ready to occupy those premises some months ago. The Government spent $100,000 on a crazy advertising assessment scheme which related to the Special Recovery Program. Those are minor expenditures, but we can find expenditures of much greater amounts which have been documented time and time again in the House.
The point is that we need to clean house. The only way the Canadian people will get the benefit of that housecleaning is to elect another government which can take a new approach, start from square one, look at the purpose of government expenditures and recognize the difference between providing necessary social and health services on the one hand and reviewing the optional expenditures which should only be made by Government when they have a productive result. That does not include pouring money into an industry which has no hope of success. That is only deluding the persons involved in that industry. There is no place for buying votes with programs which have no long-term beneficial result. There is no place for $400,000 expenditures per Liberal constituency.
I will conclude by saying that the public is finally catching on to the Government. People are finally realizing what the policies of the Government have done. It is our duty to bring this message to the attention of the Canadian people.


Gerry St. Germain: Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House, but to oppose Bill C-21, the borrowing Bill, is truly a great honour for any Conservative or any Member on this side of the House. This should have been called the blank cheque for $29.5 billion detabe. The amount of $29.5 billion is beyond the comprehension of most Canadians. It is a clear indication of the Government's waste, mismanagement, incompetence, irresponsibility and lack of accountability. Yesterday the Hon. Member for Humber-Port au Port-St. Barbe (Mr. Tobin) said we had not done enough research on this. We do not have to do any research, Mr. Speaker. It is so blatant.
I would like to address the lack of accountability, Mr. Speaker. That is why we oppose the Bill in its present form. Early last fall when I came into the House I was asked to attend a meeting. As a matter of fact, I was a member of the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration.
Narcotic Control Act
We asked about the Special Employment Initiatives Program. We asked what the criteria were to gain access to these funds so that all Canadians could share them. We were never given an answer, Mr. Speaker. It became a slush fund for the corrupt crew across the way. That case and many more could be cited.
No one knows how damaging our huge deficits are to the economy. In the United States they are concerned about the ramifications of the huge deficit. I do not like to compare us with anyone else because we are Canadians. We should compare ourselves only with perfection. Our deficit is devastating. It has been pointed out in the House before, and I do not believe it can be pointed out too often, that every Canadian owes in excess of $6,000. The average family of five owes about $30,000. You could work your hands to the bone to pay off your debts, but you would still have the debt incurred by those people across the way. They blame the recession. Why is it they had a deficit before the recession came, Mr. Speaker? They are to blame, not the recession or anything else. The Liberal Party is to blame. How big is the Canadian deficit? There are more zeros in the Canadian deficit than there are in the Liberal Cabinet. I believe there is a direct correlation between these two groups of zeros.
I would like to dwell on something close to my heart in which I participated, that is, small business. Mr. Speaker, most of the Hon. Members across the way have obviously never produced anything prior to coming here. If they had run any form of business, they would never have presented a Bill such as Bill C-21 in its present form. They would have understood that you cannot borrow your way into prosperity. Every Canadian knows this, whether he is a householder or a business person. Small business is the one sector of our economy that is the most affected. Bill C-21 is what will make interest rates rise again, such as they have today. That will be the death of how many more small businesses? It is small businesses that will create 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the jobs in this country.

Unemployment is the biggest issue on the street today.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member but it is now five o'clock.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-PUBLIC BILLS

['Agreed.']
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Shall all orders and items preceding No. 37 stand by unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.

March 15, 1984
Narcotic Control Act NARCOTIC CONTROL ACT



James Aloysius McGrath: that Bill C-221, an Act to amend the Narcotic Control Act (therapeutic use of heroin), be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this Bill, as implied in the title, is to amend the Narcotic Control Act to allow for the therapeutic use of heroin by designated physicians, particularly those in cancer clinics, in order to help alleviate the pain and suffering of those who are terminally ill with cancer. There are 40,000 Canadians who die every year from this terrible disease. In my opinion, many of these suffer terribly and, in many cases, needlessly.
I cannot take credit for this Bill, although I do not hesitate not only to sponsor it but to embrace and support it totally. This Bill was introduced in the House on April 29, last year, by the late Hon. Walter Baker who was the distinguished Member of the House for Nepean-Carleton. He was a Member for 13 years.
He was prompted to introduce the Bill by a personal experience with cancer in his family. Somebody very close to him had contracted cancer and had been successful in overcoming it. But he saw at first hand the suffering that is associated with this dreaded disease and what happens in our cancer clinics. It is one of the tragic ironies that when he introduced the Bill on April 29, 1983, he thought he was in reasonably good health. Less than six months later, he was dead from cancer. He did not know that he had it at the time.
I suppose there is not a Member of the House who has not been touched either directly or indirectly through knowing someone who has had this dreadful terminal disease. Consequently, I suppose we can all speak about it with a certain amount of feeling. I do not understand why the laws of this compassionate nation do not allow for the medical use of heroin for those suffering people. That, of course, is the whole purpose of this exercise here today.
There are 37 countries in the world that do permit heroin to be used for medical purposes to help alleviate the pain and suffering of those who are terminally ill. I hope that the House today will either agree to second reading of my Bill, which is a very simple Bill, or at the very least agree to compromise and allow the subject matter of the Bill to be referred to committee. I anticipate the latter because there have been the usual consultations. I thank the House in anticipation of that, not for my own sake but out of respect for the memory of the late and distinguished Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton, my friend, the Hon. Walter Baker. That is what he wanted. He wanted the Bill to go to committee. He wanted to have at least the subject matter of the Bill go to committee so that Members could hear evidence and hear expert witnesses and come to a consensus on this very important matter.
There is a division of opinion among certain medical practitioners, but the consensus among those who are most closely identified with the suffering, that is, tho?e selfless people in the
nursing profession, is that we should permit the medical use of heroin to ease the suffering of those who are terminally ill. I have not been able to find one nurse in this country who expresses any reservations whatsoever on this subject. Indeed, most of them are militant and ask why in the name of suffering humanity we do not permit the use of heroin, which is many more times effective in alleviating the suffering and pain identified with cancer.
I had a brother who died of cancer. I remember watching the terrible agony he went through before he died. That agony could not be alleviated by morphine or any of the other painkillers because his suffering had become so acute that he had passed the threshold. If they had increased the amount of morphine, it would have been fatal. However, if they had been permitted to give him heroin, his last days would have been more peaceful. There are many in this country who are in the same position.
When my late friend and distinguished colleague introduced this Bill, he quoted from a letter from a Dr. Colin D.B. Cunningham of the Queensway Carleton Hospital in the City of Nepean. I will not quote the entire letter but there is one very important point which he made. I quote the following from Hansard of July 1, 1983, at page 25937:
There is no other drug quite like heroin or as effective as heroin in suppressing pain and discomfort and I feel most strongly that it should be available as a prescription drug to alleviate the terrible pain and suffering of some late or terminal cancer patients and others.
There is also a syndicated column under the pen name of W. Gifford-Jones. The column is called "The Doctor Game". The person who writes that column is a distinguished physician by the name of Dr. Kenneth Walker. I want to quote from one of his columns. This is what he says about nurses:
They clam that nearly 100 per cent of their patients eventually receive heroin by injection. And that it would be cruel not to have heroin available when needed.
He is quoting here nurses he interviewed in Great Britain where the use of heroin is permitted for medical purposes. Then he goes on to cite a case of a 17 year-old girl terminally ill with bone cancer who was suffering dreadfully. This girl was given 1,700 milligrams of heroin every four hours-five milligrams is the average dose for postoperative pain. The doctor said:
It would have been impossible to control her pain without heroin. You simply couldn't inject such a huge dose if you were using morphine.
Other instances are cited. I believe that we have an obligation to the suffering people of this country who are terminally ill with cancer. I fail to understand why we cannot amend the Narcotic Control Act to permit doctors, designated physicians and nurses in designated cancer clinics, to apply this pain-killing drug which is so much more effective than the drugs now in use.
I do not profess to be an expert. I am merely putting forth a layman's opinion. But I believe that we, as Members of Parliament, are entitled to determine whether or not the case
March 15, 1984

can be made for amending the present legislation and permitting the use of heroin in Canada.
I remember the day that my colleague died. There was a great out-pouring of respect, affection and admiration for him. He was a distinguished and dedicated parliamentarian. I would hope that, out of respect for his memory and out of consideration for the hundreds of suffering people in this country today who are terminally ill, the House will agree to get on with the study of this important subject and will hear witnesses. Hopefully, from that will emerge a consensus to amend the parent legislation so as to permit doctors and nurses to use heroin to alleviate the pain of those who are terminally ill.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Miss Aideen Nicholson (Trinity):: Mr. Speaker, I will speak briefly on this Bill. Like the Hon. Member who has just spoken, I would like to see the House come to a decision to deal with this Bill today, and I do not wish to prolong the discussion unduly. In common with my colleague who has just spoken, I am very much aware of the fact that this Bill was introduced by a very distinguished and well-respected Member of this House in response to family concerns at a time when he himself was very well and could not have expected that he would die shortly of this disease. Cancer is a disease which has probably touched everybody here in one way or another.
In the developed countries, cancer is responsible for approximately 20 per cent of the total number of deaths. Although pain is not inevitable, from 65 per cent to 85 per cent of patients experience moderate to severe pain, and about two-thirds of those dying of cancer experience severe pain.
This is an enormously difficult subject for relatives and friends as well as for the person dying. In our society up to now, insufficient care and thought has been given to the whole question of managing pain in a way that gives the patient dignity and choice.
Palliative care, the hospice movement, which started in London, England, has started to bring a large change in attitude. Terminally ill patients in palliative care are considered in their social context and in the context of their families, and pain is regarded in the total context, involving not only physical but also psychological, social and spiritual factors. The evidence indicates that the best results in pain control are achieved with this approach. Indeed, the careful and intelligent use of drugs enters into it. Drugs are given regularly and at intervals as short as required to prevent pain rather than to treat it repeatedly, aiming at a continuous pain-free state, the aim being that patients remain pain-free, alert, and with no abnormal effects. This approach would allow the dying to be pain-free but also to have quality of life and dignity. This is something we would all want.
The question of the use of heroin in terminal illness is one that has been fraught with controversy. In 1955 we saw the United Nations' decision to try to ban the use of heroin. At the same time there were many physicians who said that heroin was particularly effective in the treatment of pain and that in
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our concern about the abuse of drugs we were forgetting about the need for their legitimate, controlled use. On the other hand, there are studies that say that heroin does not have any more efficacy in the control of pain than morphine or other drugs, if applied correctly.
The Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) has established a committee which is now studying pain control. It is the advisory committee on pain, which is reviewing all the available information on heroin. The Minister is prepared, if the results of that committee so indicate, to make recommendations about the facility and use of drugs. But it is a very technical matter, as the Hon. Member said. Those of us who are not physicians have impressions but these are not backed by scientific study. The study to be produced by the committee established by the Minister should make an important contribution to our understanding of pain management. I also trust that the subject matter of this Bill will be sent to the standing committee where representatives of the Advisory Committee on Pain and other experts can be heard so that we do whatever can be done as soon as possible to ensure more humane treatment and effective management of pain in those who are terminally ill.


Mr. Neil Young (Beaches):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to start my remarks first by thanking the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) for giving us another opportunity to speak on this matter. As the Hon. Member for St. John's East already indicated to the House, we are also grateful to the late Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton, Walter Baker, for introducing this Bill in the first place. The intent of the Bill is certainly one that we on this side of the House support wholeheartedly.
Bill C-221 before us today is identical to the Bill introduced by the former Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton. When the earlier Bill reached second reading stage on June 1, 1983, the New Democratic Party spoke in favour of the Bill. At that time the Liberal Government talked out the Bill. I hope that the Government, upon second consideration, will not do that on this occasion. As has already been indicated to the House, as I understand it, this will not be the case and the Bill may perhaps be referred to committee.
The purpose of the Bill itself, as Hon. Members know, is to amend the Narcotic Control Act, thus permitting designated physicians, particularly in cancer clinics, to prescribe heroin as a pain killer for terminally ill cancer patients.
Despite its use in other countries, most notably in the United Kingdom, legitimate use of heroin has not been allowed in Canada since 1955. The United Nations World Health Organization recommended in 1947 that member countries ban heroin used medically, as a measure to fight increasing illicit use and addiction. The rationale of the World Health Organization was that such a move would limit the availability to addicts and pushers, and there was widespread belief that a synthetic drug of equivalent potency was just around the corner. Neither prediction has come true, some 30 years later.

March 15, 1984
Narcotic Control Act
Meanwhile, the illicit import and use of heroin in Canada has become a multi-million dollar business on an annual basis. Nothing found in nature or in test tubes comes close to heroin as an analgesic, with the arguable exception of morphine.
It is on this point, the question of whether heroin is a more effective pain-killer than morphine, that the medical profession is sharply divided. Due to the fact that heroin has been illegal in Canada since 1954, doctors, at least in this country, have not had the opportunity to conduct any comparative studies of their own. Research in other countries has resulted in divergent findings.
If the medical community cannot come to a consensus, then I as a non-expert am not about to take up the cause of one side or the other. However, I do believe that the comparative effectiveness of pain-killers merits examination, given that 30 years have passed since the banning of heroin. Also the fact that there are many credible physicians who advocate a change in the law regarding the therapeutic use of heroin adds impetus to the need for a re-examination of the issue.
No two pain-killers are entirely identical. A cancer patient may have an adverse reaction to one drug yet be able to tolerate another. This alone justifies having alternative painkillers available, especially in the case of terminal cancer patients, many of whom experience a great deal of pain. Surely the principle of the Bill and the heart of the issue is, if I may quote the late Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton, Walter Baker, "that physicians should be armed with every weapon to look after every case to the extent that is possible". It is time that this matter were re-opened.
The Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) has undertaken two initiatives. The first was the appointment of the Committee on the Medical Management of Severe Pain early in 1983. The committee was directed by the Minister to "draw up a guide for Canadian doctors on treating severe pain and to discuss within this document the optimal clinical use of various analgesic drugs including the medical need for heroin for the treatment of pain associated with preterminal malignant disease". The Committee has met on a number of occasions and, I am told, is now in the process of writing its first report, which it is hoped will be completed by this fall.
Dr. Kenneth Walker, whom many Members will know by his other name of Dr. Gifford-Jones, has led a controversial media camaign to legalize heroin for therapeutic purposes. Dr. Walker has contended that the choice of members of the Medical Management Committee amounts to "loaded dice against heroin". I am not in a position to agree or disagree with Dr. Walker's opinion. However, given the importance of the issue at stake and the weight that would or should be attributed to any medical or scientific opinion emanating from the committee, I think the committee's credibility before the public is critical. Hence, I would like to see the issues surrounding the Bill receive a broader and more open hearing by referring it to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.
The Minister's second response to public pressure was the announcement in May, 1983 of the trial clinical use of heroin.
The purpose of these proposed clinical trials would be to measure the effectiveness of heroin versus that of other painkillers. The trials are to be conducted in ten centres specializing in cancer treatment, and apparently between 300 and 350 patients are to be involved. These tests were supposed to have begun last fall, but now it is hoped that they will begin this summer. This delay concerns me, especially since the trials themselves are to take place over a period of between 12 months and 18 months. I strongly urge the Minister to expedite the start-up of these clinical trials.
Even if it were to be found that heroin for therapeutic purposes should be legalized, there is the question of security and control surrounding the drug. Many legitimate concerns have been raised regarding the appeal that such high-grade heroin would hold for addicts and pushers. However, surely security concerns also apply to drugs now used in hospitals, clinics and pharmacies. No doubt this could be dealt with by access and licencing controls. No matter how valid these concerns are, they should not pre-empt the potential for alleviating pain. Even the Minister herself has accepted the premise that suffering Canadians should have access to the complete spectrum of choices involving relief from pain.
We as Members of Parliament have a responsibility for leading the way in society's attempts to humanize the health care system, particularly as it pertains to the treatment of terminal illnesses. It is for these reasons that I would like to see the Bill sent to the standing committee where public and expert opinion could be vetted and where the scope of the deliberations of the standing committee could be broadened to include matters such as security and control. This should take place concurrently with the clinical trials and the Medical Management Committee. Needless to say, time is of the essence.
As was pointed out earlier by the Hon. Member for St. John's East, according to Statistics Canada the figures for death caused by cancer in 1982 would indicate that in the male population a total of 23,449 died of cancer and in the female population, some 18,515, for a total of both sexes of 41,964. That was in 1982 alone. Also, as the Hon. Member pointed out, Mr. Baker died of that particular disease not knowing that in actual fact he was suffering from it. More recently, within the last several weeks, another Member of the Conservative Party died of exactly the same disease, the late Hon. Member for Calgary East. In my own case, both my parents died of cancer. It is a disease, as has been pointed out, which touches every person in Canada and elsewhere in the world. We as legislators have a responsibility to ensure that people suffering from this dreaded disease receive the kind of assistance which would at least allow them to die with some dignity.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Hon. Jake Epp (Provencher):: Mr. Speaker, it is a distinct honour to be able to rise in the House this afternoon to associate myself with the comments and the initiatives of the Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath). He has
March 15, 1984

clearly and well expressed the fact that his work is the continuation of the work of our former late colleague, Mr. Walter Baker. It is also an opportunity to participate in that the Hon. Member for St. John's East presented this Bill and its subject material with the dignity, concern and sensitivity that the subject deserves. In that as well he was following no better example than that of our late colleague.
Members of Parliament often have to take positions on controversial issues, issues where other members of society might say it is easier to take no position at all. This is one of those issues. It is also incumbent on Members of Parliament to make value judgments on issues where our training or experience does not give us any technical background on which to make an assessment. The only background or preparation for that kind of decision is one's understanding of society and one's sensitivity to society and to those events which bind us all as human beings. What we are discussing today binds us all together in the most personal way.
The Bill that my colleague has put before the House has as its central theme making herein available for therapeutic use. It should be understood in that narrow context. I want the public who is watching and those who will read this debate later to understand clearly that what we are doing in this House today is not legalizing heroin. That is important to understand.
It is ironic that in order for this matter to be debated one of the arguments put forward is that it could create heroin addicts, that there might be problems of control in our hospitals, medical clinics and doctors' offices. It is ironic in that that ban being there has not stopped the illicit trade in heroin in billions, when whe are talking about money, nor in the destruction of life. The purpose of my colleague's Bill is the opposite, to enchace life.
I mentioned earlier that I am not a medical expert. What do the experts say? I went back to the Canadian Nurses Association who, as compassionate individuals in our hospitals, deal with this every day. What do they have to say on the subject? I quote one sentence from a document entitled "Statement to the Expert Advisory Committee on the Management of Severe Pain", dated August, 1983, submitted by the Canadian Nurses Association. It reads:
Although major studies on the conceptualization and treatment of pain have demonstrated that pain can be adequately managed, far too many patients with cancer do not achieve the degree of pain relief that is possible.
That is what this Bill addresses. I know there is a debate going on within the Canadian Medical Association as to whether or not the therapeutic use of heroin would in fact achieve the goals that have been stated by my colleague. That is the reason we want this matter taken to the standing committee, so we can study the subject matter. I will come to that later when I get to that technicality. There is a debate in the medical community, and that is exactly the reason why I would suggest that debate should be brought to the standing
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committee. Let us look at the evidence. Let us look at the facts. I look forward to that opportunity.
Additionally, I read from an article by Jeanie MacFarlane which formed part of a larger presentation entitled "Pain, New Ways to Manage one of Man's Oldest Mysteries". There is an extensive study on pain and its effects. That has been in medical circles before, but with technology, with the whole question of what I think Dr. Kubler-Ross has brought so well to the public attention, the whole question of death and dying and the dignity that surrounds it, as well as the ethical questions that surrounds that fact of human life that all of us some day will face. It is important to read this sentence:
It's such a powerful sensation-severe pain is real and naked and incapacitating. It's an equalizer, and it's one of the most dehumanizing things we ever endure.
Maybe nobody of our collective humanists has said it better than the poet John Keats. He said:
Pleasure is oft a visitant; but pain clings cruelly to us.
I am honoured today to associate myself with the work of my friend and colleague from St. John's East. I will be moving in a minute that the subject matter of the Bill be referred to the appropriate standing committee. I hope that that committee can sit soon. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mr. MacLellan) is in the Chamber. He and I both realize that the study of the Canada Health Act will be concluded in the committee on Tuesday next by agreement. He has been co-operative in that committee. I look forward to that continued co-operation in the committee on this subject as well. I look forward to this subject being taken up quickly by that committee, not waiting until summer, and I also hope we will not hear the argument put forward that the Estimates are now before the committee. We could sit extra hours and bring in the experts that we need to hear on this matter.
Having made those comments, I want to move, seconded by-and I believe this to be an expression of further co-operation on this matter and a further recognition of the work of our late colleague-the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans):
That Bill C-221 be not read a second time, that the order be withdrawn and the subject matter referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Motion (Mr. Epp) agreed to.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Accordingly, the order is discharged, the Bill is withdrawn and the subject matter thereof is referred to the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs.

Adjournment Debate Order discharged and Bill withdrawn.


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Given that we have found unanimity on this item of Private Members' Business which is before us, may I suggest that perhaps you could call it six o'clock and we could move on to the adjournment debate?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Shall we call it six o'clock?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Mr. Laverne Lewycky (Dauphin-Swan River):: Mr. Speaker, I want to pursue a question I raised in the House on January 25 concerning media portrayal of visible minorities. This particular question is based upon a study conducted by Dr. Gary Granzberg of the University of Winnipeg which concluded that prime time television misrepresents, stereotypes and discriminates against blacks, Asians and native Indians. The study calls for the Canadian television networks to find ways to portray minority groups more accurately.
I would also like to acknowledge the fact that the President of the CBC responded regarding the serious statements which had been attributed to the Manitoba regional director of the CBC when commenting on the Granzberg study even though I did not find the President's comments totally satisfactory.
The multiculturalism directorate had previously conducted its own studies in areas such as the presence and portrayal of non-whites in English-language television advertising as well as the attitudes of the general public toward visible minorities in television commercials. These studies have always resulted in the same sort of conclusions, so there is no real need for the Government to wait until parliamentary committee and other reports are presented. By now, the federal Government has a good idea of the problems existing in the media's portrayals of visible minorities since the recommendations of these studies are very similar. Now is the time for the federal Government to act.
On another occasion, 1 made reference in the House to the excellent example set by Radio-Quebec with its Planete series on television. That series is perhaps a good model of multicul-
March 15, 1984
turalism in action. Documentaries have been made on some 20 various ethno-cultural groups in those various languages and shown to the people of Quebec. Of course, as an example I could specifically refer to the show about the Ukrainian holocaust. The Planete series is shown on prime time.
I would ask why the Minister is not acting on the conclusions of these various reports in order to see that guidelines and instructions are given for more adequate presentations in this regard. In other words, why is the Government not acting on this particular measure at this time?


Mr. Robert Gourd (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Mr. Speaker, in answering my hon. colleague, I can inform him that this is not true. The Government is not taking any action, and on the contrary, as my colleague, the Hon. Minister, said previously in the House on January 25, it was not the Ministry of State that ordered the study. It had simply given a grant to a professor last year, and the professor's decision to publish the results of that study had nothing to do with the Ministry.
I also understand that the CBC has clarified the statement attributed to its regional director in Manitoba. He indicates that he did not recall using remarks referring to financial disaster in connection with any affirmative action programs in relation to the media.
On the issue raised by this question, it would be inappropriate for me to comment at this time, given that the Special Parliamentary Committee on Visible Minorities will undoubtedly be considering this topic as part of its report, which I understand will be tabled shortly in Parliament.


GOVERNMENT DECENTRALIZATION-ANNOUNCED TRANSFER OF HEALTH AND WELFARE BRANCH FROM HALIFAX TO SYDNEY. (B) IMPACT ON EMPLOYEES
Howard Edward Crosby: Mr. Speaker, it is my purpose and intention to review in greater detail a matter which I raised in the House on March 8, 1984 by way of a question to the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray). That matter concerns the transfer of employees of the Income and Securities Branch of the Department of National Health and Welfare from their current location in the Halifax area to the City of Sydney in Cape Breton. The chain of events that resulted in this proposed transfer of these employees goes back prior to 1979. Let me first mention the circumstances under which it was brought to more recent light.
A report in the Halifax Chronicle-Herald referred to a meeting attended by the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen) in honour of my good friend and colleague the Member for Cape Breton-The Sydneys (Mr. MacLellan). The Secretary of State for External Affairs congratulated the Hon. Member on the fact that the Treasury
March 15, 1984

Board had approved the expenditure of $500,000 to enable this transfer.
One of the unfortunate aspects of the whole situation is why this is being done. Is it simply to implement the policy that was established in the past when reasons for it may have existed, or is it being done simply to satisfy the special concerns and needs of members of the Liberal Party who represent these various areas of the Province of Nova Scotia? For that reason it is important to review the history of the matter.
Prior to 1979 the Liberal Government proposed the decentralization of government offices. That would have an understandable effect on government employees who would have to be transferred to these new locations. In 1979 when the Right Lion. Joe Clark became Prime Minister, a review was conducted of these proposals. The then President of the Treasury Board decided that in the interests of economy some of the proposals to decentralize and transfer employees would be scrapped. One of the proposals, namely, that of the previous Minister of National Health and Welfare, to transfer employees of the Income and Securities Branch at three locations across Canada to new locations, was scrapped. In 1979, the idea of moving employees from Halifax to Sydney was not only delayed but was actually abandoned.
The Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) revised that proposal in June 1982, for two reasons. First, she said she wanted to integrate the staff dealing with the Canada Pension Plan, family allowances and old age security, and, second, she wanted to help create jobs.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada has given a full and complete answer to the Minister's proposal with respect to these transfers. It indicated that the transfers would involve $34 million and that the money could be spent more effectively on job creation and other programs. That should have been a complete answer. It was also clear that no benefit was to be derived from this transfer with respect to the more efficient administration of the programs.
As my colleague from Cape Breton and the Sydneys knows, I have the greatest admiration for Cape Breton, and the people in it. However, Halifax is the capital of Nova Scotia. It is the central spot and programs of this kind can be more effectively administered from that location.
However, Mr. Speaker, that is not my only concern. The fact is that there is a human element in this. The transfer involves over 60 employees, most of whom are in the low paid clerical bracket. In fact, over two-thirds of the employees involved earn between $14,000 and $21,000 in their clerical classifications. These are not the kinds of employees who can easily relocate to a totally different part of the Province, into a totally different atmosphere. In most cases, they are members of families who would not be involved in the relocation, second income earners, in some cases, who would prefer to remain with their spouses in the area in which they have perhaps lived their lifetimes. Notwithstanding these human considerations,
Adjournment Debate
government officials, aided and abetted by their political superiors, have charged on and sought to effect this transfer.
I stand here to appeal to the Minister of National Health and Welfare, who apparently is the authority involved, and to the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray), to the extent the Treasury Board is involved, to stop this unnecessary action right now. I understand that out of 23 employees involved in this transfer who were advised they must make a decision to move from Halifax to Sydney, 17 have refused to make the move. They have some benefits under Treasury Board regulations but, by and large, those benefits will not be effective because there are no jobs available in the federal public service in the Halifax area, nor, indeed, in the whole of the Nova Scotia and Atlantic regions. They are not going to be able to take advantage to any great extent of vacancies which might occur from time to time. In most cases it will simply result in the loss of their employment. In cases where the employees do make the transfer, they will be going to an environment which may be hostile to them at their particular stage of life.
My final request is an appeal to the authorities in government and in Parliament to end this move, to review the whole situation and decide that it is in the public interest to allow these employees to remain at their present location in Halifax.


Mr. Russell MacLellan (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I take great pleasure in replying to the remarks of the Hon. Member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby). I can assure him that the employees who are decentralized from Halifax to Sydney will not be going to a hostile environment. In fact, they will be treated most cordially and hospitably, as are all people who visit Cape Breton Island. The employees who will be decentralized number between 75 and 85.
This is a very important decentralization for Sydney. Sydney has a very high unemployment rate, as has the whole industrialized area of Cape Breton. This decentralization will not only create a federal presence on Cape Breton Island, not only create jobs which are badly needed, but because these jobs will be located in downtown Sydney it will help create a catalyst for the redevelopment of the downtown area.
The Hon. Member is right in one thing he said. The President of the Treasury Board under the former Tory administration did cancel the decentralization of Health and Welfare from Halifax to Sydney. When Hon. Members talk about patronage in ridings which are held by Liberal Members, then I feel the most blatant example of patronage which I have seen was the cancellation during the Clark administration of the decentralization to only those ridings in which there were Liberal Members.
The money which would be used for this decentralization cannot be better used, Mr. Speaker. These are permanent jobs and these jobs will have a spin-off with respect to the whole economy of the industrialized area of Cape Breton. The employees who are presently working with income security in Halifax, Mr. Speaker, have been given notice of the decentralized move. The decentralized move is not beginning until

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Adjournment Debate December. They have been assured they will be given first opportunity to other jobs in the federal service in Halifax. I have been assured it is very unlikely that even one of those people will not be placed. On the one hand there is the industrial area of Cape Breton with a very severe unemployment rate, and on the other hand the area of Halifax-Dart-mouth which has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.


NATIONAL DEFENCE-FRIGATE CONSTRUCTION OF PROGRAM CONTRACTS. (B) REQUEST THAT MINISTER TABLE LIST OF CONTRACTS
John Albert Gamble: Mr. Speaker, I raise at this time the unsatisfactory response given to me by the Minister of Defence (Mr. Blais) earlier this week when I pressed him with respect to the Canadian Patrol Frigate Program and his commitment made in June of 1983 that two-thirds of the entire project would be awarded to Canadian firms. In replying to my question on Tuesday of this week the Minister said:
I will be pleased to provide the Hon. Member with as much information as can be made available, taking into account some commercial confidentialities that have to be maintained.
My request, very simply, was that the Minister's promise that two-thirds of the contract would be awarded to Canadian Firms be maintained and that he identify the contractors which had been selected, so that we might be assured on an ongoing basis that that original promise was being kept. I know there may be a substantial difference between the promise of Government and the delivery.
I am mindful of the comment the Minister made with respect to this project on June 29 that two-thirds of the contract will be supplied by Canadian firms. I draw to the attention of the House a statement which appeared in the Speech from the Throne on December 7, 1983, that small scale entrepreneurs are the unsung heroes of the recovery. Small businesses are a perpetual source of inventiveness, valuable export earnings and vast job creation potential. To assist this sector an expanded "shop Canadian" program was to be launched.
1 have had some rather unfortunate personal exepriences in dealing with the present Minister of National Defence when he served in his former portfolio as the Minister of Supply and Services. I approached him on behalf of a constituent of mine, Delavel Turbine Limited of Maple, Ontario. Delavel was among a number of competitors for a contract to be awarded by the National Research Council. Among the competitors were foreign suppliers of a similar product from Switzerland and West Germany. I interceded on behalf of my constituent and asked that special consideration be given because there were 400 employees of this firm whose jobs were substantially at risk in the event that this contract was not won. I pointed out that special subsidies were awarded to the foreign contractors by their governments and it was inappropriate that an award be made in the absence of special consideration of those hidden benefits and subsidies.
On April 18, 1983, I received a letter from the then Minister of Supply and Services, the now Minister of National Defence in which he said to me:
You will have received my reply to an earlier letter on this subject in which I advised that this particular procurement is subject to the GATT agreement on Government procurement with which all signatory countries are bound to comply. My understanding is that it is among the provisions of the agreement that no premiums for domestic content will apply to purchases that are governed by the agreement.
It was impossible, according to the Minister, to intervene on behalf of a Canadian supplier.
We are concerned in this patrol frigate program with a potential expenditure of $3.85 billion for the six ships. In the event that the Government does not on an ongoing basis supervise and examine the awarding of these contracts, I can assure you that by the time the contracts are fully awarded we will find that the Canadian content element will be substantially less than the two-thirds to which reference has been made by the Minister when he served as the Minister of Supply and Services, and by the Minister as he sits in the House today who commented favourably to my request for assurance earlier this week.
When I first came to Parliament I spent about two years serving on the Public Accounts Committee. It is a committee which examines matters after they have taken place. What I discovered with respect to the icebreaker program undertaken by the Government in terms of contract procurement was that mistakes were made that were extremely costly to the Government. But the matter was over. You could not go back and rectify something that had been done.
I am drawing this matter to the attention of the Government so that something may be done on an ongoing basis before all the contracts are awarded and the money is spent, when we begin to lament the inadequacy of representations that have been made to assure Canadian industry that they will get a fair share of this entire project.
One of the great tragedies about our defence procurement policies is that the electronics and the armament and weapon systems on the ships will all be bought off the shelves from a foreign nation. Regrettably, that is the result of the Government of the day failing to maintain an adequate armament industry in this country.
Not long ago the Minister spoke of the fact that he acquired small arms for Canadian soldiers. He indicated that the contract was going to cost twice as much as a similar supply of material in the United States, but that it would be made-in-Canada production. The reason we are in that predicament is that unfortunately our defence industry has shrunk, almost vanished. It is clearly time that we begin to protect Canadian industry. By supervising carefully the awarding of these contracts we will be doing just that.


Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to say in all fairness that the question as discussed, with specifics
March 15, 1984

brought to the attention of the House, is unfair inasmuch as I only have three minutes to respond. The question does not cover that which the Hon. Member has raised in the House and on which this debate is based. I would suggest to the Hon. Member for York North (Mr. Gamble) that he should bring the specifics of this question before the Minister of Defence at a meeting of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence. He should provide the Minister with the details and obtain the answers he seeks from him. He will in that way get the response he wants.
In the meantime I want to talk generally about what is happening in the specific field covered by the question. That is, what is the Canadian content and what are the industrial offsets of the Canadian Patrol Frigate Program which is now in force and which has been in effect for approximately a year.
I want to assure the member that there is no doubt that this is not the first defence contract of this magnitude the Government has undertaken. The ability to negotiate substantial benefits to Canadian industry in this very complex environment is well proven by the efforts involving the new fighter aircaft, the Aurora aircraft program, as well as the Leopard program.
Adjournment Debate
Even though the CPF contract is only beginning, we are fully confident that what the Government set out to do, that is, acquire an excellent weapons system while at the same time maximizing benefits to Canada is achieved. The contractor's commitment to the Government is to achieve at least $1.6 billion, two-thirds in Canadian content and one-third in offset benefits. This represents approximately two-thirds of the contract target price, less federal sales tax. The commitment is to be achieved over the life of the contract and is made up of specific sums for each contract year. The first contract year will end on March 31, 1984.
Keeping in mind that the time for adjournment debate does not permit any further discussion, I will give the Hon. Member the list of the contracts he seeks and, of course, welcome him to the next meeting of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence at which the substance of his argument can be debated in greater detail.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order, please. The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock.
At 6.05 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Friday, March 16, 1984