1984-04-16

Mr. Jim Hawkes (Calgary West) moved:: That this House condemns the Government for its failure to work co-operatively with the provinces, business, labour, voluntary organizations and the educational community to provide adequate training and retraining opportunities that would enable Canadian workers to feel confident about their ability to deal with the challenges of rapid technological change.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in the House today and devote a full day of the time of the House to what I think may be the most important problem in the country which must be resolved if we are to have an economic future that is full of opportunity and hope for Canadians.
The Conservative task force which dealt with technological change, manpower training and retraining has concluded that those who tell us that the country will require two million new jobs by 1990 simply to retain today's unemployment rate are correct. We find ourselves in an era of rapid change. We on this side of the House have spoken many, many times about the fact that there are well over half a million young people in Canada today who are unemployed. What has not been said with enough frequency is that 73 per cent of those unemployed young Canadians have not been educated or trained beyond high school. In many cases, unemployed young Canadians have not even completed high school.
The fact that unemployed young people are not being trained beyond high school and that within six years we must find two million new jobs within the Canadian economy underlie the thesis advanced by the Conservative Party task force report. When those two facts are coupled with an awareness of the fact that 90 per cent of the people who will be employed in 1990 are already employed in the Canadian economy, we then begin to understand the degree to which we should already have embarked upon a priority program for the training and education of adults. Our failure to do so is inexcusable.
I brought with me today reports which have been prepared in the last four or five years which deal with this issue. At the top of the pile of these reports is a report entitled In the Chips, Opportunities for People Partnerships. That report was put
out by the federal Department of Labour. I was vice-chairman when a report entitled Work for Tomorrow, a report of one of the first task forces set up by Parliament to study the issue of the Canadian work force and its needs for training and retraining, was made. That task force reported to the House over three years ago with well over 200 recommendations. However, the Government is very good at appointing task forces and study groups and employing consultants to provide it with answers and policy proposals, but it does not pay any attention to such things.
The next major report I have with me is in two volumes and is entitled Learning a Living in Canada. What has been done about that report, Mr. Speaker? I have with me a very recent report entitled Learning for Life. What has the Government done about that report? What has it done about the report of the Canadian Adult Education Association entitled Prom the Adult's Point of View, What Should We Do About Education? I have as well a report entitled A Working Majority, What Women Must Do for Pay. I have listed just a sample of the total number of reports and studies which have been produced in the 1980s containing advice for the Government. Nothing has been done about these reports.
It is particularly galling to see on the news or in the newspapers night after night leadership candidates like the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts) talking about the need to use unemployment insurance funds for training. The Minister of State for Science and Technology (Mr. Johnston) has indicated that he has similar views. Those ideas were given to the Government well over three years ago by an all-Party committee of the House of Commons. When that advice was given to the Government, the committee also indicated that the need was urgent. Three years ago the need was urgent, and now we are into the spring of 1984 and the Government has done nothing about it.
[DOT] (mo)
The Minister of Employment and Immigration, a leadership candidate, rose in the House last week and said that any idea of the Conservative task force which was not already in place was regressive and startling. That told us more about the Minister and his knowledge of his Department and the advice given to it than anything else. That same Minister stood in the House and told us that $1 billion of unemployment insurance funds were going into the pockets of people so that they could take training, when the Main Estimates indicated $250 million or a quarter of that amount, and that the Government had the intention of cutting unemployment insurance funds for people to take training. To have the Minister stand in the House and tell us the opposite speaks volumes about the competence of

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the Minister, the concern of the Minister and of the entire Cabinet. The ideas have been around for years. To this day the Minister gives us no indication that he understands those ideas or that he has a legitimate committee to the actualization of those ideas.
What about the educational challenge of the future? Those of us who serve society in the capacity of Members of Parliament of whatever political Party, those of us who have constituency offices in our neighbourhoods and communities, are in touch with unemployed Canadians. They telephone us and they come to see us. Many of them have a rather consistent history of unemployment which goes back a good many years. The common characteristic of those people is that they are not particularly well trained or well educated. Statistics Canada and OECD tell us that somewhere between 27 per cent and 30 per cent of the labour force in the country are functionally illiterate. They cannot read or write well enough to participate fully in training for the modern age. That is a large part of the problem of those who have experienced a great deal of unemployment in the last 10 years to 20 years.
Every Member of Parliament who serves in this Chamber is meeting with unemployed Canadians who have a lot of education, who have obtained master's degrees or doctorates, who have been engineers with 20 years of experience. They are family people with mortgages, car payments and all the obligations which are characteristic of people who have been successful in the labour force for 10, 15 and 20 years. It is those kinds of Canadians who represent the increase in unemployment. Personal anguish is always part of finding themselves suddenly or unexpectedly unemployed. It is that kind of personal anguish which produces statistics such as the following: that every 1 per cent increase in unemployment in society produces a 5 per cent increase in stress-related diseases such as heart attacks, alcoholism, suicide, severe depression and mental illness.
In the life of this Government over the last four years, the unemployment rate has been hiked by 4 per cent to 5 per cent. That tells us, Mr. Speaker, that there is a 20 per cent to 25 per cent increase in stress-related illness in this country as a direct consequence of unemployment. What do we say to those unemployed people today? We tell them that they can collect their unemployment insurance cheque, but do we tell them that while they are collecting that cheque, in a climate where jobs do not exist they can go to school and upgrade their skills? Do we tell them to prepare themselves for the jobs of the future? As a society, Mr. Speaker, we do not, and I suggest to you that it is time we did.
In our Canadian society we must begin to treat the utilization of social expenditures as an investment in people, as a necessary investment, as a wise investment and as a compassionate investment. We must begin to invest in people so they can have a sense of hope about the future. That is the first major shift in public policy which our Party is calling for.
I would like to contrast the Canadian experience with the Japanese experience for just a moment. One of the research findings in the world today is that the average Japanese adult scores ten points higher on an intelligence test than the average North American adult. Does that tell us that there is a genetic difference? I suggest to you that it does not. However, it tells us a great deal about the Japanese culture and its commitment to the educational process. In a nation like Japan, Mr. Speaker, when the economy goes down a little and there is less need for people to do the jobs, the Japanese people go into further training. They are not laid off or put out on the street. They are not told to sit at home and apply for jobs three times a week. They are encouraged to learn something more than they already know. That pays off across their whole society. When we look at the Japanese economy today and we see that it is healthy, that its unemployment and inflation rates are lower, and that it is succeeding in an increasingly competitive world market, we do not have to look much beyond the commitment to education and training to find a reason for its success.
I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that there are five changes in public policy indicated in this country. We should make those changes as quickly as possible and with as much strength and vigour as we can muster.
The first change, Mr. Speaker, is to increase educational consumerism. We have to change the tax system to make it as desirable to invest in people as it currently is to invest in property, machinery and buildings. Surely, Mr. Speaker, the strength of this nation is in its people. Nothing is built, nothing happens in the economy, without well trained, committed, motivated and skilled people. We must examine every piece of public policy with a view to directing our efforts towards increasing educational consumerism, the willingness of people to participate in educational processes.
Second, Mr. Speaker, we have to use these social assistance and spending programs to support adults in the pursuit of knowledge, in training and retraining. They need income help to make their mortgage and car payments while they participate in training.
Third, we have to move beyond our dependence on the public sector to be the sole provider of educational opportunity and encourage the private and non-profit sectors generally to become more active and more involved in the provision of knowledge. They can then pass on their knowledge to succeeding generations, young and old.
The fourth plank, Mr. Speaker, is to provide special support to those with the inclination and background which enables them to fill jobs dedicated and devoted to the creation of knowledge itself, those of technicians, scientists and so on. We talked about this as a commitment to research. If you conceive it broadly, then we are on the right track. But looking ahead to the creation of the two million jobs necessary, no one knows what they are going to be. We do know, however, that it is human creativity and inventiveness, built on human skills and
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knowledge, which will produce those new products and services to employ Canadians who are looking eagerly for work. Therefore, the fourth plank is commitment to the creation of new knowledge and we must move quickly on that.
The fifth plank, Mr. Speaker, is really what I think of in a sense as an energy resolution. We waste so much energy in this nation of ours in confrontation between governments, between governments and labour, business and labour, and business and government. We have to re-examine many of the institutions in our society, always with the view to reducing confrontation and increasing co-operation. We will not solve major problems, in particular the training problem, we will not make the massive commitment necessary to training and retraining of our labour force, in the absence of an attitude characterized by co-operation rather than confrontation.
Throughout this day, Mr. Speaker, a number of Members from our Caucus will be standing in this Chamber and speaking to the issue we have identified in our motion. If I can just read it one last time before I sit down, it says:
That this House condemns the Government for its failure to work co-operatively with the provinces, business, labour, voluntary organizations and the educational community to provide adequate training and retraining opportunities that would enable Canadian workers to feel confident about their ability to deal with the challenges of rapid technological change.
Mr. Speaker, a recent survey in Canada told us that 40 per cent of Canadian firms are experiencing difficulty today in hiring people with the proper training to do the job. In a country where measured unemployment is 1.5 million people and true unemployment is two million people, we have jobs going begging because Canadians do not have the necessary skills to fill them. This is a national tragedy; however, it is solvable. I suggest to Members that as the day goes along it would be worthwhile to put on the table their ideas as to what we should be doing to solve that problem.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: There follows a ten-minute period for questions or comments. If not, then the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-St. James (Mr. Keeper) for debate.


Mr. Cyril Keeper (Winnipeg-St. James):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to participate in this opposition day debate. I want to commend the Conservatives for choosing this topic. I think it is important that this topic has been chosen for debate today because it is a crucial concern of all Canadians. The Official Opposition's motion calls upon us to pay attention to retraining as it affects the opportunities or lack of opportunities resulting from technological change. Although it is important to focus attention upon training and retraining as a result of the technological change that we are going through today, obviously a focus on training only is not sufficient. If we are going to train people we must ensure there will be jobs for people once they have the training.
Technological change, Mr. Speaker, does not only involve a few computer or software companies in the Ottawa valley or other kinds of high-tech industries being introduced into the Canadian economy. Technological change is an all-pervasive
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phenomenon that affects every institution, industry and sector of Canadian society. It is affecting the old and established industries which need to be retooled. It is a cause for the emergence of new industries and for a reshaping of the whole economy which involves a growth in the service sector.
Technological change promises the creation of new wealth. It is this promise of new wealth that is at the core of how we approach technological change. If this new wealth is simply going to be for the few, it is going to lead to continued polarization of society and continued injustice and we will be left with large numbers of people unemployed. We must address the question of the distribution of wealth that results from technological change.
One of the ways of approaching this is to look at it from the perspective of job creation and employment. Up until now technological change has resulted in massive job loss. Most of the studies which deal with technological change indicate that there will be more of this in the future. We must ask ourselves how we can assure that all Canadians have employment as we go through this period of technological change and job loss.
One of the concrete ways, Mr. Speaker, of assuring the fair distribution of wealth and jobs is to put greater priority on the concept of the introduction of a shorter work week. If technological change is going to produce greater wealth and raise the productivity of our economy, it should be possible within that framework to reduce the length of the work week. There would, therefore, be more people employed and the people who would otherwise be unemployed would not be bearing the burden of technological change.
However, moving toward a shorter work week will not solve the unemployment problems that will result from the social change that is occurring in our society right now. We will have very seriously to consider how we can create vast numbers of new jobs. One sector in which we can create new employment is human resources, whether as part of the Public Service or the volunteer sector. It is important to begin paying decent wages to people in these sectors. This includes people who work in daycares and those who take care of senior citizens in senior citizen homes, nursing homes or by assisting with chores that seniors cannot handle on their own.
Of course, in order adequately to compensate these people and ensure that enough are doing these jobs, it is necessary to find the money to pay for those services. I suggest this money should come from the increment in wealth that is promised as a result of technological change. Those companies which have increased productivity and therefore a greater share of markets, greater wealth and income should pay a fair share of the tax burden in this country so that we can see that human needs are being met and that our people are employed.
Fair distribution of wealth as a result of technological change brings into question the whole issue of fair taxation. It is a well known fact that over the last couple of decades in this country the burden of taxation has shifted from the corporate sector to the individual. The system for individual income tax
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is so riddled with loopholes that it is no longer the progressive taxation system that it should be. These many loopholes in the taxation system permit people who earn over $100,000 a year to pay no income tax while the very poor people are faced with a heavy taxation burden. An important part of dealing with technological change in the future concerns implementing a fair taxation system.
Technological change also involves a great adjustment for workers. In order for people humanely to adapt to this change, it is necessary that a number of policy changes take place. For example, when new technology is introduced into an industry, it is important that consultation should take place with the workers so that they are involved in the decision-making concerning the introduction of new technology. The decision for these changes should not be left solely to the individual manager in particular industries; the involvement of workers must be enshrined in legislation. Furthermore, those who will be affected by technological change should be given sufficient notice of this change so that they can prepare for that adjustment.
We must ensure that when workers are laid off as a result of technological change, there are adequate severance pay provisions because the provisions now in place are simply inadequate to deal with the massive technological change that we are experiencing today.
Training is another element of technological change and social adjustment which people must face. Those who lose their jobs because of technological change must have adequate training so they can move into new employment that provides them with a fair and equitable lifestyle and income. In other words, people who are displaced by technology should not have to leave a good-paying job for a low-paying position. They should be ensured of a fair share of the wealth which will eventually come to our society with these changes. This can be assured by adequate training.
There have been a number of proposals for increasing the amount of training in Canada, particularly with respect to the private sector. Let me focus my attention on this subject. A recent report recommended the introduction of paid educational leave. This is an important step for Canadian society to take. It would allow employees to accumulate the right to a certain amount of training, depending on how long they have worked in the industry. Such a program would encourage industry to support the training system in Canada. This is a necessary step, given the over-all record of inadequate training in this country compared to that which takes place in Europe, for example.
Paid educational leave could also alleviate one of the fundamental social problems we face today, which is the serious problem of functional illiteracy. Many people today simply do not have adequate literacy skills in order to function in a modern industrial economy. This recommendation must be considered not only in the context of a productive economy but also from the point of view of social justice. There is no way that those who are functionally illiterate can participate fairly in the wealth of our society.
Women have already been severely affected by technological change and will continue to be affected by this change in the future. Women already suffer inequality since they currently earn approximately 60 per cent of what men earn in similar employment. Since technological change will affect those industries which predominantly employ women, this inequality will increase rather than decrease the difference between their wages with men unless deliberate steps are taken to give them adequate training. These women must have specific training programs to which they have adequate access so that they can share in the wealth that is produced by our economy.
Women are not the only minority group that requires training for our changing economy. The recent report entitled Equality Now focused attention on visible minorities. A productive society which produces wealth must assume social peace and consensus. This can take place only when everyone is treated justly, which cannot happen if some are excluded from sharing in the benefits of our society. The visible minorities require specific strategies in order to have access to the mainstream of Canadian society and good jobs. This requires an affirmative action approach to visible minorities.
Today we have unprecedented numbers of young people who are unemployed, who really have come to the conclusion that they have no hope for the future with regard to employment. Our training endeavours must include them. If we simply abandon a generation of young Canadians to a hopeless situation, then we are setting a time bomb for Canadian society in the future.
When I first started speaking, I mentioned that it was not sufficient to focus upon training alone. When we think in terms of adjustment, we have to think not simply in terms of the adjustment of individual workers but also in terms of the adjustment of the economy as a whole. We need to put in place an industrial strategy to see that we get a fair share of tomorrow's markets, and as technological change sweeps through our economy we must see that we have strong and productive industries. This cannot occur simply by happenstance. Nor can it happen if we leave it to the private market alone. We have to plan the ways in which we are going to ensure that Canadians produce the goods to meet the domestic needs we have and that we can produce goods in a way that allows us to have an adequate penetration into international markets.
We have to plan policies for adjusting the Canadian economy not just with the objective of economic growth but also in the context of full employment. We must aim all of our instruments of public policy at the objective of providing jobs for all Canadians. If we are going to put in place adequate training, then we have to ask, training for what? Therefore we have to plan for those jobs which have to be in place if technological change is going to serve people rather than people being oppressed by technological change.
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Briefly let me say that the inadequacy of the Government's approach to technological change is visible in communities. It is visible by virtue of the fact that there are so many unemployed people today. The Government gives no evidence of introducing strategies that will be adequate to provide employment for Canadians. We know from experience that the Government's approach to technological change does not measure up. It is really totally inadequate.
The Conservatives have rightly introduced a motion today calling our attention to training to meet technological change, but the problem with the Conservative approach to technological change is that you have to ask the question, training for what? If you are going to train, you have to plan jobs. When you are hidebound by a free enterprise ideology and you simply leave economic development to the marketplace alone, then, Mr. Speaker, you are likely to end up with a situation no different from the situation from which we are suffering today, namely record high unemployment. I must remind my Tory colleagues that it is not only important to train people for work, but we have to plan the economy in such a way that we will provide work for all Canadians.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: There follows a ten-minute period for questions or comments. The Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes).


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member for bringing out the issue of notification of the introduction of new technology. Common sense tells us that in Canada today technology has been introduced into the workplace very, very successfully when there has been sufficient advance notification and when there has been a good collective bargaining process in place. I wanted to get to that, but I ran out of time and I thank the Hon. Member for bringing that issue forward.
However, the Hon. Member concludes his speech with the question "training for what?" I suggest to him that if he had spent the last six months, as I have, trying to look at the literature, meeting with representatives of industry, business and provincial governments, he would find that you are forced, in a common-sense way, to come to the conclusion that we do not know what the jobs of the future will be. We do know that we will not have them unless we are competitive and unless we have broad education which gives people sufficient background skills to be inventive so that they can bring forward the new products and services that will employ people.
In that context, I wonder why the New Democratic Party remains attached to the shorter work week. In nations where the shorter work week has been tried it is not producing the jobs that theory said it would. And I wonder why the New Democratic Party is still attached to the levy-grant system, Mr. Speaker. Surely the levy-grant system is a system dedicated to the promotion of the status quo, that is, the training of people for jobs which are most likely to become obsolete. That is the experience of other nations with regard to the levy-grant system, and that is the experience with the shorter work week. Could the Hon. Member for Winnipeg-St. James (Mr. Supply
Keeper) indicate to us whether or not the NDP supports the concept of broader educational patterns, things like computer literacy, not because we know what the jobs are going to be but simply because we know the computers are going to be involved in them? Therefore, a broader educational picture, a total societal commitment to more education for everybody, is better than a shorter work week and better than a levy-grant system.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, it is clear and obvious that we have to have a very broad educational base for all Canadians if we are going to have people with the skills and abilities to operate in a technological society. That is a given. We have to have very broad-based educational programs. As a part of that we have to move governments to deal with the whole question of functional illiteracy. We have to have broad-based education so that people are functionally literate. We have to deal with the presently existing career problem of functional illiteracy. We have long been urging the Government to attack functional illiteracy.
With regard to the question of the shorter work week, it is a concrete, important step toward sharing the work in society and toward sharing income in society. Obviously it cannot be the only thing; it has to be part of the over-all package. It has to be part of an over-all strategy the aim of which is the provision of employment for all Canadians. I am surprised that my Tory colleague has rejected the notion of a shorter work week. As long as we bring in new technology, as long as we increase productivity, why can people not look forward to a share in that wealth? Why can they not look forward to more adequate holidays? Why can they not look forward to early retirement? Why can they not look forward to a more decent work week? I think the shorter work week is an essential element of a full employment strategy. We should not be operating simply on the basis of growth for growth's sake; we have to use economic growth to serve people.
With regard to the levy-grant system, this is a system which would be set in place in order to encourage training in industry by industry.


Mr. McDermid:: Nonsense.


Cyril Keeper: One of the fundamental problems that we have as an economy is that companies do not do sufficient training. We do not train our own workers. We tend to import them, for example, from Europe.


John Horton McDermid: But not because of the levy-grant system.


Cyril Keeper: We can no longer operate that way and be competitive in international markets. The way the levy-grant system would encourage training is by sharing the cost of training equitably among all industries within a particular segment of the economy.
We stand four square for training in industry, for the levy-grant system, for a shorter work week and for full employment, Mr. Speaker.

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: I must ask Hon. Members to make their comments, questions and responses a little shorter in order to give everyone a chance to participate. The Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn).


Mr. Blenkarn:: Mr. Speaker, in his remarks the Hon. Member said that we could not dare trust the marketplace to determine what kind of jobs our young people and those who need retraining will have in the future. Whom would he like us to trust? Would he like us to trust the civil servants, the bureaucrats or politicians? Does he suggest that perhaps the New Democratic Party would be better to be trusted in terms of job creation and opportunities for young people? Is his idea that somewhere along the way the state, in its all-seeing wisdom, can create jobs and know where those jobs are going to be in a technological world? Is there some other place where we can look for expertise, other than the demands there will be for new products and so on? My son has a business today that two years ago did not exist anywhere in North America. We would not have that kind of development in his new world.


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, this is a typical Tory question which tends to distort rather than inform. It is not a matter of the market place or not the marketplace but a matter of planning in order to be effective in the world market. Individual firms plan. They have a strategic notion of where they are going. Likewise, it is important for a nation to plan where it is going. You cannot get to a particular destination unless you chart your way. What is missing in the Canadian economy is the laying out of a plan in order to indicate how we are going to achieve employment for all Canadians. How are we going to achieve the necessary economic growth that can put people back to work? It is not enough to leave it to the results of the marketplace without planning. We have to combine planning with the marketplace.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, following on the theme of who plans, I have here an article in The Globe and Mail of May 7, 1983, almost a year ago. There is quote after quote about Liberal federal Government planning regarding priority occupations, yet when people graduate with particular sets of skills there are no jobs. In the meantime, there are jobs but people with no skills. We have had decade after decade of central planning for training for occupations of the future.
I have one simple question. Is the Hon. Member willing to redefine the concept of work to include the concept of school and retraining? If he is willing to do that, does he hold to the position that the work week should be reduced? Does he believe that people should be engaged in productive activity, including school, fewer than 35 to 40 hours per week, or is he willing to redefine work so that a larger portion of a person's life cycle is spent in being retrained, re-educated and further educated?


Cyril Keeper: Mr. Speaker, obviously it is necessary for people to spend an increasing portion of their life in training and education. We need more flexible systems in order that people can get the training they need. This is not contradictory to the notion of a shorter work week; it is complementary to a
shorter work week. If people can get the kind of training they need, obviously when they are training, others can do the job they would otherwise have to continue doing. The notion of paid educational leave would have a positive impact with regard to employment because when an individual recognized his right to train, someone else would have to be brought in to do the job. That would provide employment for more people.
The Hon. Member also talked about planning. He said that we had central planning and it did not get us any place. Planning does not have to be central planning. There are some decisions that have to be made centrally, but a lot more decisions have to be made locally. It depends on the framework and structure put in place to ensure that the planning is done in an intelligent way. Just because the Liberals have botched up planning is no reason to throw out the notion of planning. If we want our economy to serve people, we have to plan how it can be done.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: That is the end of the ten-minute period for questions and comments.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that the Liberals are not participating in this debate today. May I preface my remarks by congratulating my colleague from CalgaryWest (Mr. Hawkes), not only for bringing forward this very timely motion but also to congratulate him together with a colleague in the other place, Senator Nurgitz, on the release of an excellent report by the task force on technological change in manpower training. It is a Progressive Conservative Party report, I might point out. It is an excellent report with some excellent recommendations. The Government has been asking for some positive recommendations from our Party and has been receiving them. The last two have been on Revenue Canada and on manpower training. I hope the Government will take them to heart because they are well thought out, well researched, well reasoned and will work.
I want to go back into the history of training in our country and what has gone on in the past that leads us to where we are today. For far too long we in this country have been importing our skilled labour, primarily from Europe. It has been extremely easy for companies to get skilled people from Europe because of the training programs there. I say to my colleague from the NDP that it is not because of the grant-levy system. The apprenticeship program in Europe goes back many hundreds of years. Apprentices are guaranteed to complete their apprenticeship. That is the difference between European apprenticeships and those in our country today. In this country we use the last on first off principle. An apprentice starts his apprenticeship with a Canadian company not knowing for sure whether he will finish it or not. That is a major problem here which is not experienced in the European picture.
When a young apprentice in Europe applies, is accepted and starts the long journey to getting his journeyman's papers, he is assured that he will in fact complete his apprenticeship. A
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job is not guaranteed with that company once he receives his journeyman's papers, but he does receive his apprenticeship.
I am told that in the manufacturing industry the first year of an apprenticeship costs a company some $60,000, what with the training, salary and loss of productivity within the plant for that period of time. That is a tremendous amount of money. When you look at something like that, you understand why companies go to Europe to import skilled labour. For $60,000 they can do a tremendous amount of looking in Europe for the skills required and pay the moving expenses of an individual or family to take a skilled labour job in Canada.
It is interesting to note that in this country training has primarily been undertaken by the small and medium-sized manufacturing firms as opposed to the large industries. For example, much to my surprise General Motors began an apprenticeship program within the last three or four years and has now set up quite a fine school in its Windsor plant. This was the first time that had been done.
When we were travelling around looking into the unemployment problem, officials of General Motors readily admitted to us that they had stolen all of their skilled labourers from small and medium-sized firms. In other words, they had let the small and medium-sized firms do the training and they took the expertise. That situation is changing slowly. Companies are beginning to realize that they do in fact have a responsibility to train employees and that it is very important to their increased productivity and competitiveness that they must in fact begin to train employees right here at home.
Another problem is that the skilled labour market in Europe has almost dried up. The remuneration and fringe benefits offered to skilled labourers in Europe do not motivate those labourers to come to a new country. The drop in emigration of skilled labourers has also forced companies in Canada to begin their own training programs and these programs must continue.
While I am on this subject, I would like to speak about the grant-levy system. Variations on this system can be found in Europe. France has a system which is entirely different from that in Britain but it is still called the grant-levy system. The theory of this system is that all of the manufacturing companies in one particular field pay into a fund, those who receive training can withdraw money from this fund to pay for the training and those who do not receive training simply pay money in without receiving any back. When we examined this program, we found that the grant-levy system was in fact not working and that it created a huge bureaucray. I can understand why members of the New Democratic Party like this system. It creates another huge bureaucracy and they love that kind of thing. That is their idea of job creation.
The policing that must go on within this system is phenomenal. People enter individual plants every week to make sure that training is occurring and that the proper forms are being filled out, et cetera. The people who participate in this system are so frustrated with the bureaucracy that they simply do not
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see it working. Others are happy simply to pay into the fund without receiving training because in the long run it saves them problems and the hassles of bureaucracy. Once a year they simply pay into the fund. I do not think that that is really the answer to the problem we are experiencing in Canada.
Another problem with the grant-levy system is that so many companies are exempt from it. Employers with fewer than 10 employees, those with their own programs and many other employers are exempt. It is a bureaucratic nightmare. If Canadian businesses are saying anything to the Government, they are telling the Government to stay out of their hair or whatever little of it they have left. I can see that the Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. Cullen) is winding up to make a comment so I thought I would say that before he did, Mr. Speaker.
The grant-levy system has not proven to be the answer. It simply does not work. When it does operate, it creates an enormous bureaucracy. We visited the operation in Britain and found the administration of the system required its own building. There were regulations like we have never seen before. It was a very interesting trip. I am sure that if the Government looked into that program in any detail, it would find that the grant-levy system simply does not work.
I would like to speak for a moment about one of the findings of the task force which has been reported from time to time and that is the high percentage of people in the country who are functionally illiterate. When I was involved in the task force on employment opprtunities in the 1980s, one of the greatest shocks I received as a member of that task force was to learn of the high percentage of people who are functionally illiterate. I think all of us from all Parties who were members of that task force were very surprised by this. Unfortunately, when this finding was included in a report, the provincial governments and teachers' associations interpreted it as an attack on their ability to teach in the public school systems. However, it was not that at all.
There are many people in the country who, for one reason or another, leave school at a very early age. Perhaps they leave school to work with their parents in the fishing industry or the hunting and trapping industry. There are many new Canadians who have not experienced the luxury of an educational system such as the one in Canada and who find it very difficult to read and write in either one of the Canada's official languages, or in their own language for that matter, because they have not had the opportunity to do so. We desperately need an attack on this problem. At one time the federal Government had a national reading program and was very concerned with the problem, but lately it seems that the Government is not paying too much attention to the illiteracy problem in the country.
I am finding that there are many Outreach groups in communities across this great land of ours which are very interested in getting involved and helping the illiterate. It is sometimes difficult to identify those who are illiterate but the staff at local Canadian employment offices will admit that they can readily identify those who have trouble reading or

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filling out forms and who need help. Before we can teach people the skills that are required for the times ahead, we must address the problem of illiteracy.
We read every day about the drop in the numbers of children who are attending school, about teachers who are being laid off and about schools which are being closed down. I know that schools have been closed down in the riding of the Hon. Member for Niagara Falls (Mr. MacBain). I believe we can use these facilities, not only as training areas for tackling this problem but also as daycare centres which will take care of children so that people can upgrade their skills. The challenge exists and I will return to that challenge in a moment.
I would like to speak about native people for a moment. Aboriginal people in the country are experiencing job discrimination; there is no question about that. The aboriginal groups are a great source of skilled labour. Native people must be given the opportunity to be trained and to receive the education that is available to the rest of Canadian society. I would hope that any national training program would pay special attention to the aboriginal people of the country who are experiencing the highest unemployment rate in the country.
When speaking about the unemployment rate, the 11.3 per cent or 11.4 per cent of the population who are unemployed today, one of the interesting things about that figure is that it does not include native people. If they were included, the figure would be much higher. Through any training program, aboriginal people must be given the opportunity to develop the skills that others have the opportunity of developing.
I would like to deal with co-operation for a moment. Because of the Constitution, education is the responsibility of the provincial governments. They guard that responsibility jealously. I cannot blame them; I understand. But when we are talking about training for skills which will be required in the foreseeable future and when we are talking about mobility of labour from one province to another, from one region to another, we must talk about co-operation.
I think twice a year the Council of Education Ministers gets together. There is very little federal involvement in that organization. When it comes to national training, the federal Government must participate more in a co-operative manner with that Council. There is a great necessity to involve labour and industry in meaningful discussions on manpower training. I have visited company after company in my riding and I am concerned when I see skilled workers becoming older and there are no younger ones to take their place. In a very short period of time the manufacturers will be coming to us and saying that they do not have any skilled labour and that they will have to go to England, Germany of France to find it. It is important that all levels of government sit down together and seriously discuss our training objectives and our training programs.
After travelling from the rocky shores of Newfoundland to Victoria, to the Northwest Territories and all places in between, visiting union halls, manufacturing plants, small businesses and high-tech industries, I realize that we have a
fabulous opportunity in Canada to be a leader in many areas of industry in the world. We must remain competitive and to do that we must become more productive. To achieve those goals we must have better training in the country.
Canada has the greatest opportunity of any country in the world. I do not think any Member of the House would disagree with that. Anyone who has travelled around the world is happy to come back home. We must stop bickering and his combativeness which seems to have developed and reached a crisis porportion today. We must start co-operating and ensuring that training programs and the expertise of the nation are allowed to grow and to flourish.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: There follows a ten-minute period for questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn).


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member shares a common region with me in Peel. In that area there is a program which has been ongoing for a number of years run by the Dufferin-Peel Board of Education. With the Hon. Member's interest in literacy, could he enlighten the House as to how he feels that program is working on a voluntary basis? Volunteers are recruited by the Board to teach one on one people who cannot read or write and therefore cannot apply for jobs or read ordinary headlines in the newspapers and so on. How has that program changed the situation and made it more practical for some of these people to be re-employed?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I am very familiar with that program. It is sponsored by the Dufferin-Peel Separate School Board. It has obtained funding through the Summer Works Program and the Winter Works Program, but unfortunately those funds have been cut because the Minister does not want programs to become dependent upon temporary funding. I agree with that but we must have-and I covered this in my speech-Outreach programs such as the one of the Dufferin-Peel Separate School Board. It has done excellent work.
One of my greatest thrills occurred after the first summer of this program. The students were required to write a letter to their Member of Parliament. This was the first letter any of these people had ever written in their lives. It was a magnificent experience. However, the program is too small; it only helped about 90 people and there are 500,000 people in the region about which the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) talks. If we are talking about 25 per cent to 30 per cent-and there is some argument about the number of functionally illiterate-we can see that we have barely scratched the surface.
This is a program in which the federal Government could quite legitimately become involved without stepping on provincial toes. It can co-operate with the provincial governments to a great extent. I am very familiar with that particular program. I congratulate them on their success and only wish that we could help them more by reaching more people in a very positive way.
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: On a question, the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor).


Mr. Taylor:: Mr. Speaker, I commend the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid) on his very excellent address. I was particularly interested in his comments on the education of native people. In my constituency we have a school called the Old Sun College. I have been delighted with its progress. Indian boys and girls are able to become mechanics, typists, et cetera. However, the Department of Indian Affairs is continually withholding funds or stalling with this college so that it never knows whether it will operate from one year to the next or otherwise. I agree with the Hon. Member that there should be some intensive programs for training native people. Many people bemoan the fact that they are on welfare, but here we have an opportunity in Old Sun College for people to learn trades and become self-sufficient. Would the Hon. Member enlarge upon his comments with regard to teaching trades and providing other educational facilities for our young native people?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, first of all I must congratulate the Hon. Member for Bow River (Mr. Taylor) on his renomination on the weekend.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


John Horton McDermid: We were very pleased to hear that he was renominated and will be back in the House on the government side after the next election.
I am very concerned about our aboriginal peoples and training programs for them. There is no question that there is job discrimination toward our aboriginal people. It is because of a reputation that has grown up which I for one think is unfair. We have to approach the problem very seriously and return responsibility to Indian people for their own affairs. For far too long the Government has controlled their lives. This comes into play in the area of education. The Progressive Conservative Government will concentrate-


Mr. Dubois:: Of Ontario?


John Horton McDermid: The Progressive Conservative Government of Canada after the next election will concentrate upon economic and cultural development for aboriginal people as opposed to the social welfare system upon which the Government concentrates. That is what has to happen. Education plays a very important part. We have to ensure that they have clear access to training programs, that they receive the same quality of education as everyone, and that, when they get out into the world, they are on an equal basis with every other Canadian. That is what the Progressive Conservative Government will do after the next election.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: If there are no further questions or comments, on debate, the Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Dubois).
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Jean-Guy Dubois: Since the beginning of the debate, Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservatives have created the impression that they are quite proud of the motion before the House. If, as they claim, the problem is that serious and if they have so much to say about it, how is it that their motion does not call for a vote? Just what do they have to say about the situation described in the motion? In any event, they may talk all day long about what they see as a crucial issue- they talk about their own future Government! They should not dream in colour nor count their chickens before they are hatched. With respect to new technology, or the rapid technological change, as the motion puts it, this will give us an opportunity today to consider what the Government has been doing these past few years, particularly since the adoption of the 1982 National Training Act which has paved the way for a new national program. Obviously, if Canadian workers want to have the highly paid future jobs, they will have to develop the skills required by industries in leading sectors, and this motion gives me an opportunity today to say what we have been doing. Mr. Speaker, we do not want to take a short-sighted approach, and that is why the Government was prompted by the worldwide economic crisis to provide Canadians with the National Training Program to make it a lot easier for our labour force to adapt itself to the new conditions of the labour market. The National Training Program is an offshoot of the National Training Act adopted by the House a little over two years ago. Having weighed the pros and cons of this program, Hon. Members-particularly our colleagues opposite-know full well that the Government did not spare any effort to improve vocational training and reassess its purposes. Our progress in that field stem from the National Training Program. Basically, Mr. Speaker, the Government had two objectives when it introduced the National Training Act in the House. I should like to mention them so that our Progressive Conservative colleagues will be able to refresh their memory and see for themselves just what has been done in answer to their motion of today. The first objective of the National Training Act was to create a pool of skilled workers needed by employers anxious to expand their operations. There cannot be any doubt about it, the future of our industries is at stake. The second objective, a sequel to the first one, is to help Canadian men and women become more competitive and more productive on the labour market. It stands to reason that the future of all Canadians is at stake. Those are the two objectives of the National Training Act, and discussions have already been held with the provinces, labour and management. In that respect, the Official Opposition Party has been doing a lot of talking and came out with its famous report at Mont-Sainte-Marie. The Minister himself referred to it in answer to a question in the House, explaining what the Canadian Government had done precisely to come to grips with new technology. The

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Liberal Government considers new technology as something important, and that is why we have been trying to attract high technology industries in every province throughout Canada. Bell Helicopter immediately comes to mind, Mr. Speaker, and I can still recall that Members of the Official Opposition had scoffed at that suggestion. They were saying that perhaps it should not locate in Quebec, or even wondering why it should even consider Quebec in the first place. I do remember some of their questions! Well, Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Government thought in terms of high technology precisely because it wants to emphasize programs and industries such as Bell Helicopter.
In order to achieve the purpose of the National Training Act, the government of Canada has established a manpower training strategy the implementation of which is continuing under the act.
If I may, Mr. Speaker, I should like briefly to describe the key elements of the employment opportunity strategy which the government has elaborated for the 80s.
First of all, it is absolutely necessary to secure the best possible information available on job requirements. It is clear that if we lack this basic information in the area of advanced technology and do not know in what direction we should go, we are doomed from the start. In my opinion, it is of the utmost importance to know where we are going. To this end, the government is working in cooperation with business and labour to ward the establishment of the Canadian Occupational Projection System. Also, Mr. Speaker, it was equally necessary to amend our institutional training scheme to ensure the success of our initiatives. Training schools must adapt to the new conditions prevailing on the labour market to provide workers with useful skills.
Such an adaptation is difficult because the number of trainees is not increasing. Special funds, therefore, had to be allocated to up-date training facilities wherever necessary. Projects financed by the Skills Growth Fund under the National Training Act are starting to yield very concrete results of which we can be very proud, Mr. Speaker.
In this connection, Mr. Speaker, when we consider the use which is being made by our teaching institutions, such as the Quebec CEGEPs and similar institutions in other provinces, as far as grades are concerned . . . Recently, the minister had also announced allocations to the Skills Growth Fund in Ontario, in Quebec and throughout Canada. A number of Quebec CEGEPs have received as much as $8 and $10 million, both in Montreal and the surrounding area where there are advanced technology industries requiring workers which highly specialized skills. That is what we have done through the Skills Growth Fund, and that is why we have made funds available to it and they are available because the National Training Act has been passed.
I believe that, by falling in with the requests from these financial institutions, the Canadian Government is also
answering the aspirations of businessmen and organized labour, who are well aware that, if we want to have high technology industries, keep those we have or attract new ones, we must have the skilled workers they call for. This is what we are doing through the National Training Act and the Skills Growth Fund.
The Government is constantly seeking to improve the amount and the quality of the training that is required by the industry. In particular, we must increase on-the-job training in the occupational fields essential for economic growth in Canada. The new programs for general industrial training and training in occupational areas where specialized manpower is in short supply are essential tools for bringing about the required improvements.
Other initiatives are needed, Mr. Speaker, to better integrate training programs within the institutions and the industries. We are working on it in co-operation with the Provinces, the employers, the unions and our specialists in the Department of Employment and Immigration.
In a fast changing world, workers will have to go on acquiring new skills throughout their career. Consequently, we shall have to find ways of allowing them the time to do so. Work sharing and development leave will have to be used increasingly for this purpose during the upcoming decade.
Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Government does not specialize in the closing down of plants as a means of solving the problems related to the upheaval that has been witnessed on the labour market in recent years. However, the Government is aware that we are entering an age where outdated industries will have either to modernize or be replaced by others better suited to the new labour market conditions.
Sure enough, this adaptation is hard to achieve in certain areas of the country where it is sometimes suggested that businesses are closing down. Mr. Speaker, we want to work at bringing in new industries and to offer retraining programs for these workers who, very often, do not have very many years of schooling and have been working for several years for companies which are closing down because of various problems. Naturally, it is not always easy. However, we have developed programs in certain sectors designed to help people who had to retrain or had to quit their jobs.
Of course, we must help industry which choose the lofty road to progress, and we must also provide special assistance to the workers of industries on the downgrade. Some businesses in high technology industries must get more generous assistance, because even though their order books might not yet be full, this government favours technological progress and must be willing to make the required efforts to prevent the industries with a future from sinking.
April 16, 1984

Mr. Speaker, we believe there are two factors that have a major importance when determining the impact of technological changes, namely those sectors in our economy which will be the most affected by these changes and the speed with which these changes materialize. In working out this concept in co-operation with the other Government levels, as well as with business and labour, the primary aim of the federal Government was to set up an early warning mechanism. Mr. Speaker, this mechanism is the Canadian Occupational Projections System.
As we have emphasized several times, flexibility is the key of success for the National Training Act, and I mean its flexibility to adapt to the ups and downs of the economy and the requirements of the labour market. The basic component of this flexibility is the Canadian Occupational Projections System.
With the information provided by industry, the unions, the Provinces and the federal Government, the Canadian Occupational Projections System, gets specific data on the trends in the labour market. Thanks to this system, fields of occupation \ which should have priority can be identified and the training grants provided by the Government can be directed to the appropriate disciplines. In other words, Mr. Speaker, we subsidize occupational training wherever it is genuinely needed.
Mr. Speaker, the substantial amounts available for occupational training in Canada shows the intent of the Government to guarantee that Canadian workers can meet the challenges of the upcoming decade. We still believe that the mainspring of the economy is the private sector, supported by practical and necessary initiatives taken by the Government. The economic interdependence of the industrialized and developing countries is a factor which we must more and more take into account in our projections because Canada has to be able to keep its rank as one of the most industrialized countries.
Mr. Speaker, let me now deal with one of the most important programs designed to help businesses face the challenge of new technology. I am speaking about the National Industrial Training Program, which is twofold. First, there is the general industrial training aimed at avoiding shortages of qualified workers, preventing lay-offs due to technological changes and promoting the training of specific groups within the industry. As an example, I could mention the programs for training women in non-traditional occupations, and those which provide training in skills where there is a shortage of specialized workers and which are aimed at promoting training in highly specialized fields of occupation, reducing chronic shortages in such fields of occupation and bringing the employers to enhance the skills of their own workers instead of recruiting foreign workers.
Under this National Industrial Training Program, the employer may be eligible for wage grants covering up to 100 per cent of the instructor's fees, up to 100 per cent of the costs of training aids, up to 75 per cent of registration fees for
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courses when training is provided by a public or private institution, up to 75 per cent of special general travelling and living expenses incurred by workers in training, and up to 75 per cent of the costs of course preparation.
During one year, Mr. Speaker, the employer is paid 50 per cent of the trainee's wages. This refund may even be more generous in the case of certain types of workers, such as the physically handicapped. Canadian employers are eligible for close to $95 million under this program in 1984-85.
In many respects, Mr. Speaker, our educational systems do not always make it possible for Canadian men and women to develop the skills required on the labour market. It does represent a serious problem because the Canadian economy is bound to stagnate unless people can indeed acquire appropriate professional skills. The National Industrial Training Program is the federal Government's major mechanism to enable Canadian men and women to acquire those new skills for which demand is very strong.
In 1984-85, Mr. Speaker-and this is in answer to those who censure the Government for remaining idle and failing to cooperate with a view to providing Canadian workers with adequate technological training-the federal Government will spend in excess of $902 million for the institutional training of more than 220,000 future workers. This program is more specifically aimed at young school drop-outs, women, native people and others who are at a disadvantage when it comes to employment. Here again, people will be trained in skills for which there will be a strong demand when their apprenticeship is completed.
Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that Canadians are aware that there are no simplistic solutions to the current need for new jobs, nor ready-made answers to the challenges of tomorrow's labour market. We do expect very positive results from our strategy to train people for immediate openings and to expand the labour market for the future. The efforts of the Canadian Government reflect the underlying principle to which we fully subscribe: job creation is first and foremost the private sector's responsibility. The role of the Government is to create the proper climate or environment to help Canadian workers and make it easier for them to face the challenges of the labour market. It is our duty as elected representatives to propose new structures to ensure the smooth operation of the labour market. I think we should also thank our colleagues opposite for their efforts to make the Canadian people aware of the situation, while at the same time reminding them that programs such as those I just mentioned and under which $902 million have been set aside for institutional training in 1984-85 are a giant step in the right direction.
As I said a few moments ago, Mr. Speaker, I think that this motion sets the high technology challenge in its proper perspective. Even before the Conservative Party set up their famous task force which made headlines last week, the Canadian Government had already established the foundation

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required by the National Training Act which was adopted by the House two years ago and which just happens to be the answer to the need for more skilled workers and assistance programs geared to future progress.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: A ten-minute period for questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes).


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member concentrated on COPS, the Occupational Projection System. The basic problem is that it takes three years for the system to work and we are in a rapidly changing world. Jobs change almost overnight. When one leaves this pinnacle called Ottawa to deal with people in the streets of the communities, one sees that they have very serious concerns about that system. This is true of the provincial governments and certainly of labour and the workforce. It is time that the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary left Ottawa to go to the streets to find out what is wrong with jobs and the training programs in Canada today. They do not seem to pay any attention to the reports which they commissioned or to the good advice of parliamentary committees that meet with the people.
If the Parliamentary Secretary believes that this program is so good, why did the Member for Laurier (Mr. Berger) criticize the Government's commitment on the weekend? Why did the Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine East (Mr. Allmand), the Chairman of the Liberal standing committee, ask the Minister last week why the Government paid no attention to the report's recommendations in three years? Why are there still skill shortages? Why are the take-up rates for a lot of government programs so low? Why is the Government ignoring all of those briefs?
There is general agreement among business, labour and provincial governments that the present initiatives are not adequate. As well, past initiatives have all been characterized by failure. There is no adequate across the board public strategy to ensure that Canadians get the training they need. When 30 per cent of the workforce is functionally illiterate, why has the Government cut every dime of training for functionally illiterate people? Why did it make that policy decision two years ago, when 30 per cent of the workforce cannot read or write sufficiently to take training in the modern world? Why did it remove every dime from training for 30 per cent of the Canadian workforce? Let us have an answer to some specific questions.


Jean-Guy Dubois: Mr. Speaker, my colleague wants to know where and when I meet people to discuss occupational training. Well, I should wonder about his whereabouts too, because I never see him when I do meet people.
Mr. Speaker, it is quite normal for my colleagues on the government side to state their concerns even if they have not
been provided with all necessary data. I will not dwell of course on the inconsistencies of his own party on many programs and issues of public policy. However, with respect to the Adult Occupational Training Act and some decisions which he referred to, I wonder if he has forgotten about the Skill Growth Fund when he says in his motion that we have not taken any adequate step to improve the workers' lot.
We have provided some $902 million during the past six months for institutional training as he will note in numerous press releases about learning institutions which have received money from the Skill Growth Fund. He will then realize that the Government of Canada has been dealing with training problems and with industries requiring financial assistance to provide such training.
When he sees what funds are paid through the Skill Growth Fund to various provinces to CEGEPs in Quebec and to post-secondary institutions to the so-called community colleges in Ontario and other provinces, he will get the answer to his question. If he takes all those matters into account, he will realize what funds are made available by the government in co-operation with employers and employees as well as with educators and officials of Employment and Immigration. Not long ago, at a federal-provincial conference held in New Brunswick, the Minister discussed with his colleagues these very issues which we will continue to emphasize. That is why $902 million have been earmarked for 1984-85.
Mr. Speaker as for our programs, in spite of what my colleague said about alleged cuts, some adjustments were made, practical and concrete results were achieved to provide occupational training.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the Hon. Member's answer. It is the stock Liberal answer-"We throw this amount of money at it". That is what the Liberals say every time a discussion arises on any program. It throws that amount of money at it in the hope that some of it sticks. That is not good enough.
Does the Hon. Member for Lotbiniere (Mr. Dubois) agree with the statement that "today a diploma or a degree for a million young Canadians is a ticket to despair"?


Jean-Guy Dubois: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member refers to stock Liberal answers. I say to him that we have been putting up in this House with stock progressive conservative questions for 20 years. They are always against something. Very seldom are they in support of anything. What they have been in support of on occasion, when they put forward a motion, is the death penalty for instance, but otherwise they are always against.
And when he suggests that in his mind his proposal addresses the issue of people's plight, I cannot agree with him because, in view of the various programs we have in place, he only has to look at the restructured programs, what, with job

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creation and help provisions we have brought forward. If I refer specifically to his question and the motion, one has only to look at programs such as CAREER ACCESS for the young, CAREER ACCESS for people discriminated against under current employment conditions, because those people can go to the Canada Employment centres. Employers receive grants, not only under the Training Act but under our Job Creation Programs, to help face the lack of employment. Because the employer who gets the money definitely is in a position, over a number of weeks, to give skills to those individuals. This is what we are doing with the CAREER ACCESS program, both for the young and the hard core unemployed, either women or native people across the land.
As I said, Mr. Speaker, we are fully aware of the situation of our Canadian workers, and this is why high technology is such a priority for the Canadian Government.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The Hon. Member will have to keep his supplementary short.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, the quote "today a diploma or a degree for a million young Canadians is a ticket to despair" is from John Turner, the Liberal leadership hopeful, at the Ontario convention a weekend ago. I am glad to see that the Hon. Member does not agree with what he has to say.
Recommendation 16 of the Employment Opportunities for the '80s report recommended, I might say most strongly, to the federal Government that Canada should adopt a ten-year national right to read program. A number of recommendations followed from that regarding the functional illiteracy problem that exists in the country. Why has the federal Government completely ignored those recommendations?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Immigration has the floor. I would appreciate a short answer, please.


Jean-Guy Dubois: Mr. Speaker, Hon. Members are quoting from statements made by our leadership candidates. For the benefit of my colleagues who will speak next, I could quote extensively from statements made by candidates to the June 1983 Official Opposition leadership convention, and my hon. colleague could very well learn some surprising facts concerning all these programs. As to all the whole series of situations mentioned by my colleague from the other side, I would like to tell him that we have put into place programs which adequately meet these needs. We certainly can try and improve on them. This reminds me of a question put by the Hon. Member's Leader to the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) concerning tax exemptions for Western farmers and the like. What about the deficit? The Hon. Member's Leader says that the deficit must be reduced, that expenditures must be cut. Regarding moneys that we are allocating to these programs, Mr. Speaker, we are trying to be reasonable and to keep in mind the budgetary
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considerations. Let me tell my hon. colleague that he should take the trouble to examine the various programs implemented by the Department of Employment and Immigration, that he should seriously consider the stated objectives of the Skills Growth Fund and other programs ... Since the Hon. Member worries about people who are having difficulties, he should consider programs such as Career Access Program and get some for information in a Manpower Centre in his riding. I am quite sure that Department officers would be happy to answer all his questions.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Debate?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The period for questions and comments has terminated. We will now continue debate. The Hon. Member for the Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson).


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, I hope I will be able to justify that round of applause by my presentation.


Mr. Reid (St. Catharines):: You will.


Dave Nickerson: I usually do!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Dave Nickerson: It is a pleasure to be able to speak on this motion today, Mr. Speaker. I notice that in the traditional style of Opposition motions it is framed in a condemnatory way. I do not think it is the intention to be condemnatory this afternoon, although we might point out some of the shortcomings and failing of the Government. Rather, the idea is to encourage debate on a most important subject, and hopefully some good ideas will come out of it.
I would like to read briefly part of the motion that we are discussing. The emphasis is "to provide adequate training and retraining opportunities that would enable Canadian workers to feel confident"-and I emphasize "to feel confident"- "about their ability to deal with the challenges of rapid technological change". It is not by accident that the motion uses those words. They express the idea of Canadians having confidence in their own ability to deal with changes that are in the process of occurring and will change in the future.
We on this side, unlike our socialist friends to the left, do not think it is the state that should be there to provide every last person in Canada with a job. I do not think that is a reasonable goal. What we can do as a national Government is provide the background and the framework in which Canadians can be confident in their ability to find work and to find meaningful and socially useful things to do. At present that confidence does not exist in Canada. If you travel around the

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country, you will find that there is fear of the future, sometimes the very near future, as to what might happen. People know how difficult it is for them to be able to make the necessary changes.
In order to illustrate the way I think we should go as a nation, I shall retell a story which I read in a book in the Parliamentary Library when I was reading about Greek history and philosophy. It is one of my favourite subjects and I think I share that in common with another well known Member of this House. This was a story of a person who eventually became a very famous philosopher and teacher; I am sorry to say I have forgotten his name. However, when he was a young man, less than 20 years of age, he was shipwrecked somewhere in the Aegean Sea. He managed to make it to shore. When he arrived on shore in a state of near exhaustion, he had no money and no clothing on his back. He arrived there destitute. He had no friends. He really had nothing going for himself. After a period of months and years he was able not only to survive but to earn the esteem of the people where he lived. He became quite wealthy and well respected. Finally he found his way back into the mainstream of Greek life.
As a result of that experience in his further teaching down the road he stressed the point that his parents had wanted him to enjoy and to participate in life. Although he had nothing when he arrived on this island after being shipwrecked he was able to make a living, he was able to do something useful and he was able to be part of the mainsteam of existence.
I think that is the attitude we should have in teaching in Canada. We should not have to concentrate on finding a job for everybody, but we should make sure that whatever happens to people they will be confident and have the ability to make the best go of it themselves. Things like money, possessions and social status come and go. They are ephemeral. Ability, training and skill beget confidence and they last forever. That is the way we should go, Mr. Speaker.
There are now, as we can ascertain, changes in society and we expect these changes will continue. These changes are not only occurring in Canada but right across the developed world. They are no secret to us. Let me outline some of the changes that are taking place in society. I made a brief list. It is expected that people during the course of a lifetime will not have one specific job. A person will not be a mechanic in a certain factory and spend all of his or her working life doing one job at one location. A person will have several jobs throughout a lifetime. I will come back to this a little later.
There will also have to be flexibility in location. I am thinking specifically of the situation in Ottawa. It is pretty difficult to find anyone who admits to having been born in Ottawa. Most people come from somewhere else other than Ottawa. Many people do not expect to stay here for the rest of their lives. They look upon being in Ottawa as a period before moving on to bigger and better things elsewhere. In this day and age when you can leave Ottawa in the morning and within 24 hours be in Adelaide, Australia, it is something we can expect and it is something we will have to learn to live with. I
do not take the parochial view which seems to be common in many areas of the land. I do not even take a national view. I see people travelling throughout the world in order to take the best advantages wherever they might occur.
Another point already mentioned is that education will have to be ongoing. A person will not leave school at 16, 20, or whatever, and consider that the end of his or her education. Education will continue on.
I see that the Steward is about to take the Mace from the Table. Perhaps we can call it one o'clock and I shall be here again at two o'clock, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: I would like to suggest that the Steward does not intend to take the Mace from the Table.

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. John A. MacDougall (Timiskaming):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a very important matter. I would like to read and fully support the following motion sent to me by the Cochrane Presbyterial United Church Women:
Whereas television programming that uses films portraying sex acts, perverted or otherwise, almost always degrades women and children; and whereas pornographic films tend to erode the basic moral values that have provided stability in our society, and
whereas no person or animal should be abused or degraded for the amusement of others;
therefore be it resolved that the Cochrane Presbyterial United Church Women urge the Minister of Communications (Mr. Fox) and the federal Government to formulate specific regulations that will prevent pornographic films and other forms of erotica from appearing on television.
This message that was sent to me by a group of concerned women in Timiskaming, and I too urge the Minister of Communications to produce legislation that will follow some of the points outlined in the above mentioned motion.


April 16, 1984



FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS JOB-CREATION PROGRAMS

Mr. Gaston Gourde (Levis):: Mr. Speaker, during last weekend's convention of Quebec's Union of municipalities, reference was made to the last federal-provincial agreement concerning job-creation programs. The Canadian government is being blamed for signing agreements without coming up with the money necessary to implement the municipalities' projects.
This allegation is false, and I am sure our municipal elected representatives will not be fooled by such allegations on the part of dishonest individuals. In fact, the agreement which has just been signed is concerned only with CANADA WORKS and LEAD programs. For that matter, that is a major consideration. From time to time these programs are supplied with funds necessary for their implementation, and it is quite premature to say that these programs will not be adequately funded. The last time cuts were made in these programs was during the short tenure of the Progressive Consevative Party in 1979. The real problem as far the Quebec municipalities are concerned is Bill 38, and that is where the Quebec minister of municipal affaires should direct his efforts, instead of denying his signature or that of his predecessor.



AGRICULTURE


Gordon Edward Taylor: Mr. Speaker, for months Hon. Members of the Progressive Conservative Party have been pleading with the Government to bring in the Western Grain Stabilization Act amending legislation to provide for a pay-out. But the Government is still procrastinating. This Liberal Government is stalling while farmers are going bankrupt-more than 400 in western Canada last year. The Government just does not seem to care. Three-quarters of our producers are tied into this plan. Cash flow is almost nil.
Close to $1 billion is in this fund which was built up to provide money to the farmers when things were tough. Well, with reduced income the last two years, with everything the farmer has to buy going up, and with aggravating federal taxes piled high on the farmers, any reasonable Government which had the interest of the country at heart would move instantly.
Is this Government trying to bring western Canada to its knees? How many more farms have to go belly up before this Liberal Government will take ten minutes to have this legislation passed?
This Government has raped the western farmers with its transportation Bill, ignored their representations on Canagrex, and is now forcing our producers in the West into receivership, while the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) is saying in effect
"Let them eat cake". Remember what happened when the same words were used in past history, and do not think for one minute it cannot happen here.
We do not want a lot of talk or deals. We just want the Act brought in and amended so that our farmers can stay alive and continue to produce. Will the Government act?



THE PRIME MINISTER

Mrs. Ursula Appolloni (York South-Weston):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize and record a significant milestone in the political life of our country. Today, April 16, marks the five thousandth, five hundredth and sixty-seventh day that the Right Honourable Member for Mount Royal (Mr. Trudeau) has served as Prime Minister of Canada. That record, Mr. Speaker, is exceeded by only two of our 16 Prime Ministers, Sir John A. Macdonald and Mackenzie King, and replaces Sir Wilfrid Laurier's record


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Ursula Appolloni: -as the country's longest-serving French-Canadian Prime Minister. Would you remind Hon. Members opposite to have some basic good manners, please, Mr. Speaker?
To have set this record in such turbulent political times is in itself a remarkable achievement, but those 16 years, Mr. Speaker, have been distinguished by quality as well as by quantity.


Mr. Lewis:: And unemployment.


Ursula Appolloni: During them we have seen the resolution of longstanding issues of nationhood, some of them issues which have frustrated a succession of earlier leaders. Most significant among these, Mr. Speaker, have been measures which have enhanced and strengthened our unique status as a bilingual, multicultural country, the patriation of our Constitution and the entrenchment of a Bill of Rights, the defeat of the Quebec referendum on sovereignty-association, and the growing role which French-Canadians have played in Canada's political and business affairs.
We should cite, as well, Mr. Speaker, the patriation of our energy resources, and the development of exploration policies which have brought new promise to our-


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member's time has expired.



PORT OF CHURCHILL-APPEAL FOR UPGRADING TO ASSIST GRAIN SHIPMENTS

Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure you are aware that farm incomes in the Prairies have been

April 16, 1984
dropping and that farm costs and farm bankruptcies have been increasing in the last couple of years. One possible way of improving the situation for farmers, particularly in my area, is to have more money spent on the port of Churchill. I say that because my riding, along with the ridings of the Hon. Member for Dauphin-Swan River (Mr. Lewycky) and the Hon. Member for Mackenzie (Mr. Korchinski), and places like that, are very close to the port of Churchill. We would like to ship more grain through that port.
The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that the federal Government has not spent as much money as it should over the years in upgrading that facility which is very valuable to Prairie Canada. My appeal today is that more money be spent in upgrading the port of Churchill, and that can be done in many ways. It needs upgrading.
I would also like to make an appeal that more money be spent to improve the rail line facilities which lead to the port of Churchill, and that more money be spent as well by the federal Government in co-operation with the Province of Manitoba, to improve the hydro services to that particular port. If these things are done, Mr. Speaker, we could ship more grain through the port of Churchill, meet more contracts, and in the long run put more money in the hands of farmers of western Canada, which would be a great contribution to all.
I repeat, to my region, to my part of Canada, the port of Churchill is very important, and this Parliament should put more emphasis on improving that port for our farmers and, indeed, for all of Canada.



THE ECONOMY


Mr. Girve Fretz (Erie):: Mr. Speaker, 1984 is the year of the unemployed. In the riding of Erie alone, close to 600 jobs were lost in the past month. This saddens me greatly because many of the people laid off had fine records of service to their companies and to their communities, and now they reap a bitter reward. Our Government is having a great deal of difficulty coming to terms with this problem. It is throwing money around like there is no tomorrow, and yet it seems unable to adapt our economy to build a basis for future prosperity in a rapidly changing and competitive world.
Our problem, simply stated, is that our resource base, traditionally our strong point, has been eroded by foreign competition. For instance, our share of world nickel production has dropped from 80 per cent to 35 per cent during the 1970s. In the same period our share of world copper production has dropped by nearly a quarter. Our share of the world market for lumber has dropped from 50 per cent in 1970 to 40 per cent. A similar trend is seen in the manufacturing sector. Canada's share of the world's manufactured exports has dropped by more than a third, from 4.8 per cent in 1970, to 3 per cent in 1980. We seem to be exporting less and importing
more. In 1970 imports accounted for 25 per cent of consumer purchases. The figure is now 32 per cent.
We are losing ground against other industrialized countries. In 1981 we ranked fifth in the western world. We are now eleventh. Such is the record of the Government. That is why an election should be called as soon as possible. We must get this country on the road to recovery with a Tory Government-


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member's time has expired.



FISHERIES


Mr. Donald W. Munro (Esquimalt-Saanich):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday, April 15, marked the traditional opening day for commercial salmon fishing on the West Coast for all gears and in all areas. This year only the west coast of Vancouver Island was opened on April 15, and then only for troller men. Stocks are sadly depleted, and no Canada-U.S. agreement is in place to preserve what is left and share it equitably.
The West Coast fishery is not just in "Desperate Straits"; it is in "Crisis Passage, Depletion Sound", and "Gravity Gulf'.
Matters are further complicated by the Minister's failure to get his conservation proposals through Cabinet where they now sit, we are told, like fishing boats waiting for the season's opening.
Millions of dollars are tied up on the West Coast in commercial fishing boats, sportscraft, fishing gear, and in back-up industries such as marinas, gear manufacturers, boat builders, and supply services in both the commercial and the sports fishery. Uncertainty about future prospects is causing increasing concern throughout the industry. When is Cabinet going to let it be known whether there are to be changes in the sports catch limit this year and, if so, what the limits are to be? What part will the native fisheries play this year? What catch allocations are to be enforced this year? What role is salmonid enhancement to play? What buy-back proposals are to be made this year?


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Hon. Member's time has expired.



RAILWAYS


Mr. Doug Anguish (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to urge the Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) to conclude his consultations quickly with the railways, the Canadian Wheat Board, the major grain companies, the Canadian Transport Commission, and the Grain
April 16, 1984

Transportation Agency, and announce his decision to allocate railway upgrading funds for the coming years.
In a recent letter to me the Minister indicated that the Government has committed more than $1 billion to prairie branch line rehabilitation. The railway companies are waiting to do upgrading work, the grain elevator companies are sitting on their development plans until the rehabilitation plans are announced, the farmers along the lines are worried about the Transport Department's priorities and are hoping that the Minister's consultations will mean improvements along our lines so that they can effectively deliver increased amounts of grain this year.
The Minister has received many representations from the rail line users along the subdivisions in my riding-Big River, Meadow Lake, Robin Hood, Blaine Lake, Amiens, Turtleford, and Bolney subdivisions in particular. He also heard from me on many occasions.
In addition, the Minister is aware that elevator plugging is a problem which adversely affects the producers in my constituency. I urge him to advise the Canadian Transport Commission and the Grain Transportation Agency that grain car allocations in northwest Saskatchewan should be increased to ensure that producers can get their quotas into the elevator system. It is time for him to make his decisions and let the work begin.



EMPLOYMENT


Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, in this age when Governments in Canada at all levels are focusing on job creation, the emphasis is being placed on education and training in high technology and specialized trades. In doing so, Governments and Canadians as a whole are neglecting a serious need in the employment world which, for the want of a better term, can be called "jack of all trades" jobs. These are jobs which are in tremendous demand and which require only minimal training of people with an entrepreneurial spirit.
Canada, like so many of the industrial nations, has become a throw-away society, the reason that there are thousands of senior citizens and single parents, and those who are mechanically inept, who are in need of multiple small repair jobs within their homes and businesses. These consist, for example, of essential but minor carpentry jobs and minor electrical and plumbing improvements. In general, help for these people is not available without calling in a series of tradesmen who, for the most part, are over-trained for these more simple jobs, who charge a great deal for their services, and who limit their expertise to a very small fraction of the range of jobs that need to be done in the average household.
It is my opinion that young adults with a basic apprenticeship training in any of the contruction trades could adapt their skills to the many minor repairs that are needed in the average
Oral Questions
Canadian household. They could provide such services when needed, at a price that could meet the pocketbook of the average person. Such a "jack of all trades" person would reduce the volume of throw-away articles-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Hon. Member's time has expired.



WESTERN GRAIN TRANSPORTATION ACT


Mr. Gordon Towers (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, a March 8 advertisement by the Department of Transport promised $16.5 billion in investment and creation of 375,000 jobs from Bill C-155 for western Canada. The Minister knew at that time that the level of investment would be substantially lower. The Crow freight rate that the farmers pay for moving their grain will now be double the $4.85 a tonne by 1985, and five times as much by 1991, on top of which a $651 million annual subsidy which the railways will receive will put the railroads on the gravy train.
The Chairman of the Canadian Transport Commission is remaining aloof from the transportation problems of the prairie grain producer by stating to the Transport Committee: "I think that we agree in principle, and that is important. We will see for the rest later on."
Where is the assurance to the producer when the new freight rate regime specified that the railways had to file their new rates by November 1 if they were to take effect on January 1, which they did not do? Where is the assurance to the producer when the Chairman of the Canadian Transport Commission states: "I hope the Government is conscious that there are a lot of improvements to make"? What about some improvement for the grain producers' economic position?



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, in the unfortunate absence of both the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Finance. The Minister will know that last Friday the Members of this House were unaware of the details of what the Canadian Wheat Board had done to western farmers. They were unaware on Friday that the initial price of grain had dropped in all cases. Unfortunately, it has dropped as much as 6 per cent with respect to spring wheat. Bearing in mind that the cost to the farmer has been increasing dramatically each year, and bearing in mind that farm bankruptcies are now double what they were last year, can the Minister

April 16, 1984
Oral Questions
explain to the farmers of Canada why he is unprepared to take any risks to support them, while at the same time he is prepared to rescue such giants as Canadair and de Havilland?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, I remind my hon. friend that he should look at the support the federal Government has given to the Farm Credit Corporation. He will find that over the last several years the support given by the federal Government has increased steadily. In fact the figures show that the increases over the last few years have been quite significant. I believe that over $800 million a year is now available under the Farm Credit Corporation. This is only one element in the kind of support the federal Government has been providing to the agricultural sector. I could enumerate a number of other areas, Mr. Speaker, but I see you standing to say this is not part of the Question Period as such.


REQUEST FOR ABOLITION OF SALES TAX ON FARM FUELS AND FERTILIZERS
Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, what the Minister of Finance failed to tell this House, and what farmers know very well, is that the Farm Credit Corporation in this last week raised interest rates to 14 per cent and 15 per cent. At the same time the Wheat Board dropped the price of grain by 6 per cent, or 27 and 28 cents a bushel. There are farmers I see every weekend who are going bankrupt, as are the small businessmen who serve them. The Government does nothing but increase the cost and reduce their revenue. Bearing that in mind, why will the Minister of Finance not follow up on a suggestion which the Minister of Agriculture has made on various occasions, and at the very least announce the abolition of the 9 per cent federal sales tax on farm fuels and fertilizers?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I remind my hon. friend that the Farm Credit Corporation is not setting the price of grain, as he seems to indicate. As to the increases in interest rates, the FCC has to follow the market. The Hon. Member knows this very well.
The Government has set up programs to help farmers. These programs are known to the Member, and certainly to the farmers who use them. My colleague cannot go on, like his Party is doing all the time, complaining about the deficit and at the same time wanting to increase the deficit by reducing taxes.


GOVERNMENT POSITION ON FARM ISSUES
Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, the farmers in western Canada are asking for some assistance to get them through this crisis. They ask for one of three things. They ask for decent grain prices and ask the Government to take some risk on their behalf; they ask for the abolition of the federal sales tax on farm fuels, or for a pay-out under the Western Grain Stabilization Act. What they get instead is a kick in the teeth from the Government. I ask on their behalf, is it that this Government does not care about western Canadian farmers? Is it somehow or other that they are second-class citizens?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend is talking as though he did not know that the federal Government is supporting the farming sector, and the grain sector in particular, to the tune of close to $1 billion a year. I would say that that is some kick in the teeth. That is the type of support that the Government is giving to the grain sector, which in turn supports the farming community. The Hon. Member knows this.
The Hon. Member's Party opposed the improvement which we put forward in the Crow legislation, but the Hon. Member should realize that with that legislation goes substantial support to the farming sector and to the grain community. As to the level of the initial payment, my friend also knows that it is only an initial payment. There will be other adjustments made as the year goes on, related to the prices we expect to receive from exports and sale of grain. In the mean time our support is indicated quite clearly by the $1 billion we are giving to the farming and the grain sector at this time.


DISASTERS
Hon. James A. McGrath (St. John's East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the President of the Privy Council who answers to the House for the activities of the Emergency Measures Organization. The Minister is aware that, over the weekend, prolonged freezing rain caused major power disruptions in the City of St. John's and the populated areas of the eastern Avalon Peninsula. Over 1,000 hydro poles have gone down. Many areas are without power. For example, the Town of Belle Island, with a population of 6,500, has no power at all and is not expected to receive power for another week. Many other towns are in the same predicament. Many steel transmission towers which carry the main supply of power to St. John's and eastern Avalon are also down. Is the Minister in touch with the situation and can he report to the House on it?


Hon. Yvon Pinard (President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, I certainly share the concerns expressed by the Hon. Member and other Members on both sides of the House about the situation in Newfoundland. The facts which he has just indicated are accurate, and I wish to assure the Hon. Member that it seems that the damages suffered in Newfoundland are considerable. If a request is made by the provincial Government, that request will be taken very seriously by the federal Government through its financial assistance program for cases of natural disaster.


REQUEST FOR EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE
James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, the Newfoundland Government is currently assessing the situation. I think the Minister now has enough information to measure the extent of the damage. I suppose the disaster that
April 16, 1984

could most nearly be compared to this situation in terms of the total impact on the community would be flooding. Many elderly people will suffer because of the lack of heat and lack of adequate distribution of water. All of these things would call for some input from and active involvement of the federal Government through the Emergency Measures Organization. I hope that the Minister will take such initiatives.


Yvon Pinard: course, Mr. Speaker, and we have already offered assistance and in fact given assistance to the population of Newfoundland. I am told that the RCMP have been asked to help the provincial police in Newfoundland, and I am also told that we have provided beds for those who need them. Our regional director in Newfoundland is continually assessing the situation and answering positively to a request for federal Government assistance. I can assure the Hon. Member that that is being done, and will be done as long as required.
I will go even further than that. We are told by officials from Newfoundland that damages will exceed the thresholds provided for in our financial assistance program for natural disasters. From the information we have already obtained, it looks like the federal Government could contribute up to 90 per cent of the cost of the damages suffered in Newfoundland. I wish to assure the Hon. Member that Emergency Planning Canada is looking at the situation very closely and that the federal Government will do all it can to assist the population of Newfoundland provided, of course, that such a request is made by the provincial Government.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance well knows the situation that continues to affect so many of the older workers today when faced with lay-offs or dislocation as a result of plants having closed or moved away. Given that there is now a litany of cases that clearly point to the fact that workers over the age of 55 are having grave difficulty qualifying for or being involved in retraining programs, and given that workers over the age of 55 are faced with an almost impossible task when trying to find employers who will employ them, will the Minister recommend three things to the Government?
Will he first recommend that there be a mandatory substantial employer contribution toward early retirement programs for workers between age 55 and 65? Second, will he alter the pension legislation in order to make early retirement a practical proposition for people of that age? Third, will he co-ordinate those two things with the unemployment insurance programs in order that those people do not have to carry far more of the burden of cost than they should reasonably be expected to carry during this economic-
Oral Questions


Mr. Speaker:: I caution Hon. Members regarding the scope of questions which are placed during Question Period.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I will take the question of the Hon. Member as a representation and I will study it with interest. I would like to remind him, however, that the federal Government is providing over $1 billion to special training programs for workers of all ages and that we have set up a Skills Growth Fund which concentrates particularly on cases similar to those mentioned by the Hon. Member. I believe the Minister of Employment and Immigration announced last week that additional funds will be allocated to deal with problems of this particular nature.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, it may not seem to be appropriate but I can assure you, Sir, that it is appropriate.


GOVERNMENT FUNDING
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, does the Minister not realize that for people over the age of 55 the possibility of being enrolled in job retraining programs is virtually non-existent? Given that the Government can find $20 million to give to Mr. Macdonald for his royal commission as he strolls around the country in an attempt to find a solution which is right in front of him, will the Government allocate direct funds now to ensure that those people to whom I have referred will not lose everything they have worked for simply because there is absolutely no corporate reponsibility evident in our country?
[ Translation]


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I must remind the Hon. Member there are already substantial funds allocated by the Department of Employment and Immigration to help workers, especially older workers, who have been laid off for various reasons.
Funding for those programs by far exceeds the odd $20 million referred to by the Hon. Member. I would invite him to find out about the programs that are now in place, and to help those very workers he is referring to, get acquainted with and apply for, those programs, so they can benefit from them.
The programs are there, and as I said there are very substantial funds allocated for this, and again I think the Hon. Member does not truthfully depict the reality of Government policies when he implies that there is no provision for such people.


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, the Minister knows full well, as my colleague has said, that the answer for most of those workers is welfare, but they are not prepared to accept welfare.


EARLY RETIREMENT AID REQUESTED
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, does the Minister not recognize that all across the country plants are closing down and their workers are being treated worse

April 16, 1984
Oral Questions
than cattle? Will the Minister bring forward a program which will allow the workers on whose backs this nation was built to retire with some dignity prior to the normal retirement age of 65? Will he bring forward a program with the allocation of sufficient amounts of money, both from the Government on the one hand and from corporations on the other, so that those people may have the idea that they will be able to live in dignity in Canada?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I have already replied to that question, and I wonder if the Hon. Member listened. All I can say is, to be perhaps still more specific, if he refers for instance to the textile, footwear and clothing industries, he will find we have set up a program similar to the one he mentioned. And further, as I said, the Minister of Employment and Immigration has announced substantial funds to help workers out of difficulties such as those the Hon. Member referred to.
I would once more invite him to get acquainted with the programs already in place, he will then realize there are tens of millions of dollars available to workers to help them out of their difficult situation. In fact, the overall funding available to workers for manpower training exceeds the billion dollar mark. Therefore, if the Hon. Member would look at those programs, he would realize that workers are being helped.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Hon. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Defence. I have been informed that five senior officers in the Department of National Defence have had reprimands placed on their files in consequence of the Pacific Petrel affair. Would the Minister confirm that this is the case? Would he advise the House of the names of these officers and their appointments, if they are still serving?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of National Defence: Mr. Speaker, the question of discipline is being addressed by the Chief of Defence Staff. However, because of the nature of the discipline which is being contemplated, it is not my intention to confirm or to comment upon that discipline.


TREATMENT OF SENIOR OFFICERS
Allan Bruce McKinnon: Mr. Speaker, the Minister seems to be dodging his responsibilities as the Minister of National Defence. That Department seems to have no qualms about Major Letson's case. He was court-martialled because of his alleged complicity in this matter. The court
martial took place during the final week of his lifetime of service in the forces, and he was found innocent of all charges. When senior officers are involved, no names are to be divulged, and it is a complete cover-up. Would the Minister explain why there is a tough standard for majors and a much more benign standard for major-generals?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of National Defence: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is drawing completely inaccurate conclusions. As he knows, I have made the report available to him. He has not seen it yet. I hope he would get information from the report on the Pacific Petrel affair in order to inform himself properly of the circumstances. Subsequent to that I would be pleased to deal with him on any of the aspects he wishes to raise.


CANADIAN DEVELOPMENT INVESTMENT CORPORATION
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Revenue who is responsible in the House to answer for the actions of the CDIC, which in turn is responsible for the de Havilland and Dash-8 aircraft. We were saddened to learn this weekend of the possible loss of $30 million worth of business from Air Atona-bee to de Havilland on the Dash-8. My question stems from the fact that they are now about to lose a very large order from Time Air of Lethbridge, Alberta, and another large order from Norcan Air of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, because this company has not been afforded the opportunity by the Crown corporation management to offer an aircraft at a competitive price with offshore industries.
Since they promised Air Atonabee, Time Air, and Norcan Air that they would be given assistance in the sale of the aircraft to these various companies, why are they holding back on that assistance program when they tabled today an order for five aircraft and they are unable to meet it because they are $2 million per aircraft higher than competitors from Ireland?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member's question is interesting and I hope that he will abide by the same underlying principles in any future suggestions.
The Hon. Member is talking about a situation where very strong competition exists between several aircraft manufacturers. He knows quite well that in most countries considerable efforts have been made to support companies such as de Havilland or Canadair and the Government has also clearly undertaken to support those companies.
April 16, 1984

I hope that the Hon. Member, unlike his party, will support the efforts made by this Government so that the company will become more competitive and sell as good an aircraft as the Dash-8 on the international as well as the domestic markets.


FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE OFFERED TO AIRLINE COMPANIES
William Henry (Bill) Domm: Mr. Speaker, the Minister knows full well that when that order was placed with de Havilland by Air Atonabee, they were assured by the Government that there would be financial assistance to private companies in Canada interested in selling aircraft. The Minister has completely disregarded the question. There is an order today-not tomorrow or next week-for five of those aircraft, by Air Atonabee. There is another order worth $60 million to $100 million from two other Canadian aircraft companies, creating tens of thousands of jobs. Why will the Minister not live up to the commitment of the Government when the orders were originally placed, that there would be financial assistance in order that they could compete, knowing full well that very few Crown corporations can compete with the private sector dollar for dollar? Why is that assistance unavailable when it was promised by the Government in order that these badly-needed jobs could be secured, not only in the air industry but in supply industries which complement the air industry?


Pierre Bussières: It is
very interesting, Mr. Speaker, to get support from at least one member of the Official Opposition for the Government policies to create and preserve jobs at de Havilland and Canadair.
However, I would like to remind the Hon. Member who is strongly interested in private enterprise that some regulations on domestic and international trade are set under the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade. The Hon. Member should realize that we have to enforce those regulations while clearly supporting, as the Government has been doing, our Canadian companies, especially those in state of the art aeronautics.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF HIS EXCELLENCY GENERAL
Mr. Speaker:: Order. I would like to call the attention of the House to the presence in our gallery of very distinguished guests, Mr. and Mrs. Eanes.


PRESENCE IN GALLERY OF HON. LUCIEN LAMOUREUX, AMBASSADOR TO PORTUGAL
Mr. Speaker:: I also draw to the attention of the House the presence in our gallery of a former Speaker of the House of
Oral Questions
Commons, Mr. Lucien Lamoureux, who is Ambassador to Portugal.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


INDUSTRY
Hon. Bud Cullen (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. A report in The Toronto Star yesterday indicated that the Minister had met with the Minister of Energy for the Province of Alberta. I wonder whether such a meeting took place and, if so, was there a follow-up to the recommendations of the petrochemical task force?
Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Energy, Mines and
Resources): Mr. Speaker, I had the occasion to meet on Saturday morning with Mr. Zaozirny, the Minister of Energy for Alberta. We discussed a scheme for an incentive price for natural gas in eastern Canada. We made good progress in our discussion and hope that we can reach a conclusion this week on an incentive price for new quantities of gas in eastern Canada, starting perhaps as soon as the month of May.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


EXTERNAL AFFAIRS
Ms. Pauline Jewett (New Westminster-Coquitlam):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Secretary of State for External Affairs. We are glad to see that he has returned from his first trip to Central America and hope that he will make a statement on motions, because we would be very interested to hear about his 10-day trip.
Since Honduras is a major recipient of Canadian development assistance and is now the base for CIA-supported armed aggression against Nicaragua, could the Minister tell the House if in his discussions with Honduran authorities he made it clear that Canadian development assistance is contingent upon a recipient country not supporting, or making possible, acts of armed aggression against a neighbour?


Mr. Nielsen:: Look out below.


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I did not make that clear because that is not the policy which the Government of Canada has espoused, particularly in circumstances where it is very difficult to ascertain from the Government concerned the nature of its participation in such activities. I discussed that question quite fully with the successor to

April 16, 1984
Oral Questions
General Alvares and I came away without any clear information as to the particular role of Honduras in the situation which the Hon. Member raises. However, if I were obligated to take that position with respect to Honduras, I would have to take a similar position with other countries in the area, including Nicaragua, about which allegations are similarly made with respect to its activities in neighbouring states.


DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATION IN CENTRAL AMERICA
Pauline Jewett: Mr. Speaker, it is difficult in Question Period, I know, but could the Minister be a little more clear? Is it that he got no clear sense that the "contras" were not in fact based in Honduras? I wonder if he would make that clear? Are they or are they not based in Honduras?
Also, Mr. Speaker, since the Minister, I gather, indicated on the radio program "As It Happens", that the importance of having Canadian representation in the area had really struck him, and our diplomatic representation was inadequate, could the Minister say what further representation he envisages, particularly in Honduras and Nicaragua?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I did make it clear that, in my view, it was important to have a Canadian presence in these countries, particularly, I thought, in Nicaragua, in light of developments there, so that we would be fully informed. We have taken steps, as the Hon. Member knows, to strengthen our personnel in Costa Rica, and the ambassador to Costa Rica and his staff are attempting to keep us completely in touch with the situation in Nicaragua. I would admit that it would be better if we could establish a full-time embassy in Managua, as we do in other countries in the world. However, that decision will have to be taken in the light of budgetary considerations and priorities elsewhere.
In principle, I would agree with the Hon. Member that it is important that we know what is happening in Nicaragua, not only that we know what their thinking is but that they know what Canada is thinking about with respect to quite a number of questions which are uppermost in their minds at the present time.


REQUEST FOR STATEMENT BY MINISTER
Mr. David Kilgour (Edmonton-Strathcona):: Mr. Speaker, also in welcoming back the Secretary of State for External Affairs, may I ask would be indicate whether he is planning to tell either the House or the Standing Committee on External Affairs about his trip to Central America? Or would he at least tell us the main point or points he made on Morningside this morning?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: Mr. Speaker, I believe it took me about 15 minutes to make those comments this morning. I doubt if that would be suitable at the present
time. I will attempt to inform the House at the first opportunity, probably through the Committee, when that is feasible.



CANADA POST CORPORATION


Mr. Dan McKenzie (Winnipeg-Assiniboine):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister responsible for Canada Post I would like to direct my question to the Minister of Finance. I am sure the Minister is aware of the business community's opposition to Canada Post's expansion into the Consumer Distributing plan. They feel that this would be a direct intervention into the private sector and that businesses are having enough difficulty in Canada today. Does the Minister, or the Government, have any plans to ask Mr. Warren to drop this Consumer Distributing plan in light of all the opposition from Hon. Members on all sides of the House?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I believe that the Minister responsible for the Canada Post Corporation has already answered the question in the House, however, I will be pleased to draw the Hon. Member's question to his attention.



REQUEST THAT PROJECT RESULTS BE RELEASED PUBLICLY

A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Minister of Finance would also bring to the attention of the Minister that Mr. Warren has informed the Canadian Federation of Independent Business that he will not release the results of the trial run he is conducting right now on Consumers Distributing. I believe the results of this trial run should be made available to all Hon. Members of the House, as well as to any business groups which wish to see how the trial run went. Will the Minister give a commitment that he will approach Mr. Warren to make this trial run public?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to pass on the Hon. Member's suggestion to the minister responsible along with the previous question.



VETERANS AFFAIRS


Hon. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. It is related to a proposition which was made to many of us by Mr. Giguere, President of the Dieppe Veterans and
[DOT];p?
i
Vi

April 16, 1984

Prisoners of War Association (Canada). The case with which this organization is concerned is that of a number of Canadian veterans who were imprisoned in Germany during the Second World War and suffered a very terrible experience, some for a few months and who received a bit of a pension.
The tragedy of the situation is that there were a number of these veterans who were prisoners of war in Germany for 33 months, almost three years, during which time they suffered a great deal. They do receive a pension, but it is very small. This organization feels that the least we might do for these veterans is to grant them a pension of 40 per cent. I ask the Minister of Veterans Affairs if he is giving consideration to this appeal?


Hon. W. Bennett Campbell (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, may I begin by thanking the Hon. Member for his question. As most Hon. Members of the House are aware, the subject of compensation for prisoners of war was the subject of a rather extensive study, known to most of us as the Herman Report, which was initiated by Doctor Herman. Within that study, Doctor Herman recommended that the levels of compensation should be geared to two factors, first, the period of incarceration and, second, the foreign power involved. While I can appreciate that the Dieppe prisoners of war feel that their level of compensation is too low, I would remind Hon. Members that, within the Herman Report, the level of compensation paid to Dieppe prisoners is the highest level paid to any prisoner of the German power.



REQUEST FOR MINISTERIAL CONSIDERATION

Stanley Howard Knowles: Mr. Speaker, I ask the Minister if he will consider further the appeal made by the Association, in view of its urgency? Will he give further consideration to this matter?


W. Bennett Campbell: Mr. Speaker, I am always prepared to give consideration to these matters. However, it is certainly not a high priority of my Department at the moment. I would also indicate to the Hon. Member that if, as a result of being involved as a prisoner of war, these are disabling conditions which have been identified, those individuals are always entitled to make application to the Pension Commission to have the effects of those disabling conditions considered, in addition to the compensation already paid to them as prisoners of war.



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Hon. Sinclair Stevens (York-Peel):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister indicate if he has been invited in the next month or so to meet with President Reagan? Has he accepted the invitation? When will the meeting occur? And what are the subjects he anticipates will be discussed?
Oral Questions


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, I only know that soundings were made with our embassy. The administration of President Reagan has given some thought to following up on the idea of trilateral meetings. I had on other occasions indicated that I would consider any such suggestion with interest. The answer was the same this time. I do not know if they are planning any particular date for a meeting. I just know that they have been told this time, as on other occasions, that the idea of trilateral meetings-which did happen once-would be one which I would welcome.



POSSIBLE AGENDA

Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says he would welcome the meeting. Will he indicate what he would like to see discussed as the main topics? I take it that would be the economic condition of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico, or perhaps trade. Can he indicate what agenda items he would most like to see discussed?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I must emphasize to the Hon. Member that the idea of an invitation did not originate with the Government of Canada but with that of the United States. In so far as there are any explorations, it is they who are making them. Therefore, I have not given any thought to an agenda of a meeting which I have not called and which I have not yet been invited to attend.



RAILWAYS


Mr. Bill McKnight (Kindersley-Lloydminster):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. In answer to my colleague from Brandon-Souris he said that $1 billion was being placed by the Government at the disposal of farmers through Bill C-155. Can the Minister explain why his colleague, the Minister of Transport, gave the rationale that investment by the railroads would be down some $4 billion from what was in Bill C-155 because the coal companies will be shipping 13 per cent less coal over the foreseeable future?


Mr. Siddon:: They knew that last fall.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the question was about grain, and I indicated there was up to $1 billion worth of support for the grain industry by this Government. My friend knows, for instance, that there is something like $652 million worth of benefits under the Crow program alone. I could go on talking about a number of other programs, whether they be branch line rehabilitation programs, the purchase of hopper cars, subsidies for canola oil, crop insurance for farmers, and so on. My friend can take the trouble of adding those figures and he will find very quickly that he will reach $1 billion of support this Government is giving to the grain producer in this country.

April 16, 1984
Oral Questions



SIZE OF INVESTMENT TO MOVE GRAIN

William Hunter (Bill) McKnight: Mr. Speaker, how does the Minister arrive at the $652 million as being only for the use of grain producers? Sulphur, potash, oil, and lumber travel over those tracks, as well as passenger trains. Could the Minister explain how the $1 billion invested by the Government is designed exclusively for the movement of grain? Is no one else using those tracks, or has he found another formula to double-track and triple-track?


Marc Lalonde: Does my friend realize, Mr. Speaker, that the farmers are not paying the commercial rate that the other groups pay for transportation? The difference comes from the taxpayers of Canada through the support given by this Government.



VISIBLE MINORITIES


Mr. Laverne Lewycky (Dauphin-Swan River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is addressed to the Minister of State for Multicul-turalism. Recommendation No. 21 of the House of Commons Visible Minority Report Equality Now! urges the federal Government to use Governor in Council appointments to increase the participation of visible minorities on federal boards and commissions. Can the Minister indicate what action he is taking or considering to see that this recommendation is carried out? Can he give me some specific examples, and I am thinking of things such as the CRTC?


Hon. D. M. Collenette (Minister of State (Multiculturalism)):: Mr. Speaker, the practice of this Government has been to encourage the appointment to Governor in Council positions of people who represent a cross section of Canada from all backgrounds and all racial origins. Although I have not ordered a study to find out which particular ethnic or racial backgrounds make up the various positions, I believe the record is indeed a good one and a principle we will follow in the months ahead.



CANADIAN RADIO-TELEVISION AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION VACANCY

Laverne Lewycky: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister, who will probably be aware that there is currently one vacancy in the nineteen positions on the CRTC. This past weekend, at the Visible Minorities and Media Advertising Conference in Winnipeg, there was a strong recommendation that the Prime Minister consider the appointment of someone from the visible minority community to fill this position, thereby displaying sensitivity to this aspect of multiculturalism. Will the Prime Minister consider doing that?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I will consider that as a representation and add it to the very many which are made on behalf of the various groups by the Minister responsible for multiculturalism.



INDUSTRY


Mr. Blaine A. Thacker (Lethbridge-Foothills):: Mr. Speaker, my question is supplementary to that of my colleague from Peterborough, to the Minister of National Revenue. Why is it that the Government, as a matter of policy, has hundreds of millions of dollars as export aid for other companies in other countries to buy goods, yet it has absolutely no money for companies here in Canada to buy planes from firms like de Havilland? Why is that so?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend should be aware of government policies in that area and he would then realize that if Canada, like most countries, has export aid programs, it is because our exports account for 30 per cent of our Gross National Product or 30 cents out of every dollar earned in Canada. As to our support of domestic industries, the Hon. Member knows that it takes various shapes and forms, but that Canada is bound to abide by its international commitments to other countries just as other countries are bound to abide by theirs as far as subsidizing their own domestic industries is concerned. These include the GATT agreements, which prohibit the use of subsidies for domestic purposes, something I urge my hon. friend to familiarize himself with. He would then realize that there are some kinds of domestic support which Canada can provide and others which it cannot because of the international agreements we have signed.



PROVISION OF ASSISTANCE SUGGESTED

Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, Air Atonabee is a local Canadian company and this is totally a Canadian matter. I have flown on those Dash-7s because Time Air in Lethbridge has them, and they are a good plane. I do not understand why there is no support for domestic purchases of airplanes involving hundreds of jobs in this country, when there is money for jobs in other countries, like building monuments to socialism in Algeria?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I am interested to discover that at long last the Tories are repenting of their sin of 25 years ago when they cancelled the Avro- Arrow-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
April 16, 1984


Marc Lalonde: -and brought about the demise of de Havil-land which the Government of Canada had to rescue and take over. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in direct support for de Havilland. The Hon. Member knows his Party was attacking the Government for that support, not 25 years ago but as recently as last week and two weeks ago. The Tories cannot speak out of both sides of their mouth on this issue. This Government has supported the Canadian aeronautical industry while the Tories have been attacking Canadair and de Havilland week after week in this House.



PROPOSED BELL HELICOPTER PLANT-SALES PROJECTIONS

Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of Finance and is concerned with Bell Helicopter. I am sure he is aware of the article in Le Devoir today which sets out some very incisive analysis on the Bell Helicopter purchase which led to the conclusion, in their words, that, "we may have a second white elephant at Mirabel".
The world helicopter market is very depressed. The projected average annual sales for the Bell project at Mirabel are equal to 45 per cent of total U.S. production in 1980, which was a record year, and Bell shares that market with ten other manufacturers. In light of that, does the Minister have any doubts that the sales projections made by Bell in support of the $275 million provided to them can be realized?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, here again we have another typical example of the attitude of Progressive Conservative Party members towards the development of aeronautical industry in Canada. They have relentlessly spent their time in the past attacking first the Canadair Corporation, then the de Havilland Corporation, and now Bell Helicopter Corporation, an American multinational seeking to establish itself in Canada, specifically in Quebec. My hon. colleague, as Progressive Conservative Party critic in industrial matters, began attacking the project the moment it was announced. He has been against this project from the very beginning, and his party's policy is to continue denouncing all advanced technology and aeronautical projects, especially in Quebec as is the case with Canadair and Bell Helicopter. I wi< o remind the Hon. Member that the projections which have been made public are those of Bell Helicopter USA and it is upon those projections that corporation has made its investment decisions. My hon. friend, therefore, should know better than to panic after reading a single article in a Montreal morning paper.
Petitions



THE ECONOMY


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, does the Minister of Finance still concur with the rosy projections he has been making in the House, in spite of rising interest rates and a falling dollar? As reported in Hansard of March 29, the Minister said that the economy has moved from recovery to expansion. Or does the Minister agree with the Minister of Energy who, speaking in Vancouver last Friday, said: "The recent upward trend in interest rates, the slow recovery of commodity prices, the generally low levels of investment, mean that growth years will not return in the foreseeable future"?
Which way would the Minister of Finance have it? Who is stating the Government's position? Does he accept this outright repudiation of the policies of the Government by the Minister of Energy? Does the Minister of Finance think it is appropriate for Liberal leadership candidates to go around the country contradicting government policy the way the Minister of Energy and others have done?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, one could find a nice way of answering the question by referring to a document which I am sure the Conservative Party has not read yet. It is the International Monetary Fund's analysis of the world economic outlook. If my friend refers to page 46 of that document he will find that the rate of growth expected for Canada in 1984 is 5 per cent. That is the highest rate of growth for any country, together with the United States. Only Canada and the United States have that high a rate.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. Fred King (Okanagan-Similkameen):: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present to this House a petition attesting to the alarm expressed by 380 residents of the federal riding of Okanagan-Similkameen. They are alarmed by the threat to the survival of humanity posed by the existence of nuclear weapons and the continuing arms race. They state that enduring peace cannot be built on the accumulation of weaponry. As a result of these convictions they pray and beseech the House to consider this vital issue and to introduce a Bill into Parliament to stop all nuclear-related activities, with due respect for life. And as in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray.

April 16, 1984
Order Paper Questions


CANADIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY
Allan Joseph MacEachen: for leave to introduce Bill C-32, an Act to establish the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security.


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House that the Hon. Minister shall have leave to introduce the Bill?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.

(d) 1965-66	6.41	Confederation Square LeBreton Flats Eastern Parkway Ottawa River Parkway(e) 1966-67	611.77	Quebec Gatineau Park(0 1967-68	.15	Ottawa River Parkway(g) 1968-69	100.18	Hull/Lucerne-Misc. S(h) 1969-70	17.16	Hull-Misc. Sites(m) 1974-75	3,505.55	South East City Rideau River Parkway(n) 1975-76	107.65	Gatineau ParkAll other years	Nil	Nil
2. Annual expropriation costs through negotiated settlements or adjudications of the Federal Court of Canada, many of which predate 1962-63, are listed for each fiscal year. There is no correlation with the specific parcels of land included in the total amounts of land by project area as reported under (1), because a parcel of land expropriated in any given fiscal year may actually be paid for in a subsequent fiscal year allowing for the time required to obtain either a negotiated settlement of expropriation or a court decision.


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. 7, 79, 377, 484 and 710.


Mr. McKenzie: 1.	For the fiscal year (a) 1962-63 (b) 1963-64 (c) 1964-65 (d) 1965-66 (e) 1966-67 (f) 1967-68 (g) 1968-69 (h) 1969-70 (i) 1970-71 (j) 1971-72 (k) 1972-73 (1) 1973-74 (m) 1974-75 (n) 1975-76 (o) 1976-77 (p) 1977-78 (q) 1978-79 (r) 1979-80 (s) 1980-81 (t) 1981-82 (u) 1982-83, what amount of land was expropriated by the National Capital Commission?
2.	For each year, what was the total cost of expropriating the land?
3.	For each year, what was the number of projects planned for the land and, in each case, how many (a) were completed (b) are actually under way?


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (Minister of Public Works):: Fiscal year (a) 1962-63
(b)	1963-64
(c)	1964-65
Acres of Land Expropriated
460.00
157.80
127.88
General Areas of Projects Planned
LeBreton Flats Bridgehead Quebec Sussex Drive Misc. Ottawa Sites Hurdman Road Quebec Gatineau Park Philemon Wright Parkway
Misc. Ottawa Sites Confederation Square Philemon Wright Parkway
Colonel By Drive Deschenes Britannia Misc. Hull Sites Gatineau Park Confederation Square LeBreton Flats
Fiscal year		Cost
(a)	1962-63	52,045,228.91(b)	1963-64	57,042,829.50(c)	1964-65	57,044,382.61(d)	1965-66	54,624,529.99<e)	1966-67	54,874,742.79(0	1967-68	53,698,683.57(g)	1968-69	5694,019.80(h)	1969-70	51,630,591.96(i)	1970-71	52,955,815.790)	1971-72	51,032,437.75(k)	1972-73	52,365,811.19(1)	1973-74	5564,773.13(m)	1974-75	53,156,332.25(n)	1975-76	55,395,579.47(o)	1976-77	5254,147.18(P)	1977-78	5256,087.95(q)	1978-79	5238,070.58(r)	1979-80	5194,341.45(s)	1980-81	54,034,654.93(0	1981-82	51,587,792.22(u)	1982-83	52,014,393.233. The data on	specific parcels of land
areas on a project-by-project basis and their current status regarding completion is not readily available. The cost in time and effort required to trace and gather specific data for each expropriated parcel of land under (1) would be prohibitive.


Mr. Howie: 1. How many persons engaged in public relations, media relations or publicity are employed by the Department of National Defence?
April 16, 1984

2. How many Canadian Armed Forces personnel have public relations, media relations, publicity or editorial functions as their primary duty?


Stanley Hudecki: 1 and 2. Seventy persons, of which 59 are members of the Canadian Armed Forces.


Mr. Howie: 1.	In the current fiscal year how many persons are employed in the office of the President of the Privy Council and what is the total estimated cost of salaries?
2.	For each of the two preceding Fiscal years what amount was spent for salaries?


John Leslie Evans: 1. Twenty-nine persons, $725,000
(forecast).
2. 1982-83-$664,642-$664,642 (27 persons); 1981-82- $618,020 (26 persons).


Mr. Howie: Since April 1, 1983, did the government pay any amount to the Canadian Film Development Corporation and, if so, what amount?


Hon. Francis Fox (Minister of Communications):: I am
advised by the Canadian Film Development Corporation as follows: The parliamentary vote 83/84 for the Corporation amounts to $4,764,000. Following the Broadcast Policy, the Corporation received $34,000,000 voted in July, 1983.


Mr. Hnatyshyn: 1.	To the knowledge of the Government, how many Canadian athletes participated in the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia?
2.	Did the Government incur any cost to (a) fund the athletes while in Sarajevo (b) transport the athletes to and from Sarajevo and, if so, in each case, what amount?


Hon. Jacques Olivier (Minister of State (Fitness and Amateur Sport)):: 1. The Canadian Olympic Team for the 1984 Olympic Winter Games in Sarajevo was composed of 76 athletes who represented Canada in eight of the ten sports on the Olympic program.
2. The federal Government contributed approximately one-half of the costs of transportation and accommodation associated with the Olympic Team's travel to Sarajevo and stay in the Olympic Village during the Games.
This amount was contributed to the Canadian Olympic Association as part of the agreed upon formula for government support for Olympic Teams. The COA has responsibility for the Olympic Team during the actual Games (including transport to and from Canada), while the federal Government shares with each of the national sport governing bodies the responsibility for the training and preparation of Canada's international athletes.
Supply
The cost to the federal Government of the transport and accommodation for the Sarajevo team was $250,000 approximately, while a further $6 million was contributed by the federal Government to the national sport governing bodies during 1983-84 for program costs associated with the preparation of the athletes for the Winter Olympics.


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


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Hawkes:
That this House condemns the Government for its failure to work co-operatively with the provinces, business, labour, voluntary organizations and the educational community to provide adequate training and retraining opportunities that would enable Canadian workers to feel confident about their ability to deal with the challenges of rapid technological change.
Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, when I was interrupted by the luncheon break I was in the middle of discussing certain social changes that were taking place in the Field of employment. The fourth point that I have listed, Mr. Speaker, is that in the future people will have to be more self-reliant. They will Find that they will not be able to rely upon a single employer for employment security throughout their lifetime, nor will they be able to rely on governments. People who put their trust in governments generally end up falling flat on their faces at some point in time. They will have to become more self-reliant as time goes on. Our education will have to reflect that.
Another change that will occur in the future, and which has to a certain extent occurred already, is that people will not rely on one single speciFic job for a source of income. Presently most people in Canada have a principal source of income from a job and very little income from other sources. Maybe in the future, as the number of hours per week consumed by working at a speciFic job decreases, you will Find that people will have other things to do. It is quite conceivable that they might work in the standard, accepted sense and do other things which will bring in additional revenue. It may be a second job in an entirely different Field in which they have a great deal of personal interest. It could be investment income because

April 16, 1984
Supply
people will have time to do other things for themselves. It could be income from entrepreneurial activity of one kind or another, or from property ownership.
I have noticed that in certain professions this is going on today. Not too long ago I sat on the flight deck of a Hercules aircraft and spoke to the flight crew. Most of them worked a couple of weeks a month. They could only fly so many hours and after that they went back to their home bases. Most of them were involved in other things. They were involved in voluntary organizations as well as profit-making activities. I think that is a good trend to see. In the future people will not be tied to working 40 or 50 hours a week for one employer; they will have a series of sources of income.
This will blur the distinction that our socialist friends are at pains to keep. If people operate in the way that I have suggested, there will not be that clear distinction between what the NDP call the working class, the capital owning class, and other types. Everyone will be involved as wage earners, investors and entrepreneurs. The politics of the day will have to reflect this. It is happening today. We see support for the socialist party represented here waning day by day.
The developments that I have outlined appear to me to be exiciting developments. The Government should act in consort with these trends and not try to go out of its way to oppose them, as presently appears to be the case on occasion.
We still have very parochial thinking, particularly at the provincial level in certain provinces. I have been a party to this myself, but I think that on the whole we should take a Canada-wide or even an international view of matters rather than being restrictive in our thinking in terms of a single province or part thereof.
Again with respect to education, there is still a tendency on the part of government to look upon education as something that takes place between the ages of five and 20, or whenever one leaves university. The Government has not yet accepted the notion of education as being something that is ongoing and a process that will last a lifetime.
The Government is still very much involved with hand-out programs. It has not got around to addressing problems on a long-term basis. It considers that our current difficulties will go away and it simply throws a few dollars here and there into one of its various alphabet soup programs. It is not really addressing the long-term problems and long-term societal changes.
For these reasons I would like to congratulate the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) on the task force report on technological change and manpower retraining, of which he was the prime mover. It is a subject to which he has given a great deal of thought, both presently with this report and also with other members of the parliamentary task force on the same subject.
Many of the ideas contained herein are not really new, revolutionary ideas, but the task force has collected and collated a wide variety of views from Canadians in all walks of life and has effectively crystallized these ideas out of the vagueness that existed before. It is a distillation of thought and an arrangement thereof in logical order. I am sure that in the future we will look back at this report and it will serve as a blueprint of what governments might do in the field of technological change and manpower retraining.
I do not propose to have all of the solutions to some of the problems I have raised, but I have a few which I would like to deal with later. In the next couple of minutes I would like to point out some personal observations about where we seem to be going at the present time. I have three illustrations.
The first deals with the manpower offices as they exist in my constituency. Some 15 years ago we did not have any at all and things seemed to be going reasonably well. There were not high rates of unemployment and maybe we did not need them. It is hard to judge which came first, the chicken or the egg, so to speak. However, there were no manpower offices or anything of that nature 15 years ago. Today, they must be staffed with a complement of somewhere between 50 and 100 people, when one considers the Territories as a whole. The problem has not been alleviated. If anything, the problem that did not exist when we had no manpower offices has now become a very difficult problem with which to deal. I am not so sure that the hiring of 50 to 100 people, the provision of office space and all the money that is spent on these things might be the best use of resources, human, financial and otherwise, available to the Government.
Another illustration is the difficulty people face if they want to give employment, particularly to summer students. I know that it used to be my practice some years ago to hire one or two summer students. Now, the roadblocks that are put in someone's place are almost insurmountable. I would not consider doing this today because I know full well what would happen. For the next five years I would be getting reports from Statistics Canada threatening to throw me in jail unless I filled them in. There are problems with the tax people and unemployment insurance people. There are all manner of problems and roadblocks which prevent small employers from hiring people, especially on a temporary basis. That is unfortunate because surely part of the training of young people, apart from schooling proper, is to get experience in work situations, particularly during the summer recess. It makes it very difficult and is unfortunate for the student when the Government erects all of these roadblocks.
You are signalling that my time is almost up, Mr. Speaker. I have several pages to go and I will not be able to get to my solutions. I like giving the solutions better than stating the problems. However, the last illustration is that of a silly make-work scheme. Last summer I travelled throughout my riding in which there were Summer Canada Works programs into which the Government throws quite a few thousand dollars. In two locations I noticed that there were unused fields in the middle of towns. They were about 15 acres each. Students were out there with little sticks with six-inch blades on them, cutting the grass or mowing the hay on these waste
April 16, 1984

areas. It was a scheme to employ perhaps a dozen young people for a period of six weeks. One man with a scythe could1 have done it all in one week and one person operating a power mower could have done it in one day. It represents a complete waste of government time and money and a waste of the talents of young people.
I believe my time has expired. It is unfortunate that you could not have heard all of my great solutions, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps I will be able to give them to you on another occasion.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. Questions or comments?


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I would be interested in hearing some of the solutions that the Hon. Member referred to in his remarks.


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, it just so happens that the solutions take exactly ten minutes.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I must remind the Hon. Member, before he enters into his solutions, that both the questions and the reply must be brief and to the point. I could not, under any circumstance, allow him to continue for ten minutes.


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, let me briefly put on the record some of those things which I consider would help in this area. First, I believe the Government should remove itself from administered programs. These programs include the illustration I just gave of these silly make-work schemes and the difficulties that they place before prospective employers or trainers. The Government can use its manpower and financial resources much more efficiently if it did not insist on running everything itself.
I believe the Government should concentrate on the basics, perhaps in the field of elementary education. While this is within the jurisdiction of the provincial governments, in my estimation government can do the most good by taking action on the basics, such as providing schools and teachers, especially in such areas as basic literacy, as we have heard on several occasions today.
I think the federal Government has a legitimate interest in sponsoring higher education. It is a shame that only the other day a Bill was presented to the Chamber and passed by the Government majority that would reduce assistance given to colleges and universities.
Another similar and related field that is especially important in my area is that of adult education. I think the critic of the Indian affairs and northern development portfolio addressed the need for adult education in his remarks to the House today. I think we should use the tax system to advantage, both industrially and personally. Employers might use this money for training in the plants. Individuals might set aside such funds for training purposes.
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Mr. Breau:: Mr. Speaker, I am very interested in the Hon. Member's remarks. Would he clarify for us whether he is indicating his own view or the view of his Party with regard to direct job-creation programs? He said he thought that a lot of the Summer Canada projects in his constituency were not very valuable. Could he indicate to us whether it is the position of his Party that direct job-creation programs, administered programs as he calls them, were not a good thing to have in areas of high unemployment, whether they are geared to young people or to other people who are unemployed? Could the Hon. Member clarify that, please?


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, had we not got ourselves into the predicament we have, it would not be necessary for these make-work schemes to exist. However, because of the way in which the Government has looked at these problems in the past, instead of trying to rearrange the structure they try to throw a few dollars here and a few more there and patch things up. We now find ourselves in a position where it would not be possible to cut out of all these things overnight.
What we have to do now, and what we will do when a Progressive Conservative Government comes into office, is this. At the same time as rearranging things of a structural nature and getting Canada back on track, making sure there are employment opportunities for everyone who wants them, we would adopt a system of phasing out these Liberal stopgap, alphabet soup programs. It cannot be done overnight but it will be done over a period of time as a gradual phase-out.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Questions? The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Dubois).


Jean-Guy Dubois: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member referred in his speech to the matter of summer employment, and also to what a Progressive Conservative Government would do. Maybe he was alluding to 1979. Could he tell us, since some of his colleagues, including the Hon. Member for Joliette (Mr. La Salle), have been calling for more money for Summer Canada, what his party's position is? Are they for or against job creation programs, and Summer Canada in particular? It will be remembered that before February 1980, more specifically during their short stay in Government, between May 1979 and December 13, when they were overthrown, they brought the axe to the summer creation programs, including Summer Canada, which the Liberal Government has brought back. Are they for or against summer employment programs for students? What would they do for students, in light of the fact that in 1979 they had to cut into those programs?


Dave Nickerson: That appears to be precisely the same question as the one asked by the Hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Breau). The answer remains precisely the same, Mr. Speaker.

April 16, 1984
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The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Are there further questions and comments? Shall debate continue? The Minister of State (Youth) (Mrs. Hervieux-Payette).


Hon. Celine Hervieux-Payette (Minister of State (Youth)):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate with my colleagues in the debate on an issue which, to my mind, is basic, especially after travelling throughout Canada and meeting with employ-1 ers, union members, voluntary organizations and young people, and then considering today the motion moved by the Progressive Conservative Party to single out our failure to work together with the provinces, business and labour organizations.
Mr. Speaker, it would seem that our colleagues do not work in the same country as we do, but there is indeed one undeniable fact: I am just back from a trip across Canada during which I visited the ten provinces and the Northwest Territories. The Hon. Member for Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson) should make an effort to recall that I was in Yellowknife about three weeks ago to attend the Arctic Games and at the same time to meet with employers, union leaders and all those who are involved in youth employment, as far as I am directly concerned, and to discuss the employment situation in Canada generally.
I am here today, Mr. Speaker, to speak on my own behalf since I happen to be Minister of State for Youth, and on behalf of my colleague the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts) who is now in Montreal to sign an agreement with a group called "EPOC" with which I met a few years ago and which is working with a group of Montreal businessmen to train young people and find employment for young drop-outs who are experiencing difficulties because they have been unemployed for several years or thrown out of the labour market as a result of their running afoul of the law, which does not make it any easier for them to land a job. Earlier today, the Minister signed an agreement with that dynamic group that, in nine cases out of ten, has been able to find employment for young people who have been rehabilitated over the past ten years through federal Government sponsored programs.
Today, I think we have not learned much from the report of the task force of our Progressive Conservative colleagues who said:

The task force reports that Canadian industry is slow to recognize much of the potential of merging technologies.

As if we were in 1940, Mr. Speaker.
[English\
The task force terms a disgrace the fact that the public educational institutions are often unable to afford needed equipment for training and hence make appropriate changes in curricula to reflect changing skill needs.

There again, Mr. Speaker, I think that, even after voting on the estimates and the expenditure items approved by this House, the Opposition Members do not even realize that we have a Skills Growth Fund worth several million dollars. I would at least ask them to read the official document.
On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, in my tour of Canada and as the Members opposite have pointed out in their report, I noticed that the labour market has been undergoing a major transformation because of high technology, silicone chips, robotics, and so on. Of course, when we see challenger's Canadarm, we realize that Canada is involved in the progress of technology and that all our young people and our working men and women in Canada are anxious to play a role in the many new jobs created in the high technology areas.

Most of us have already felt the impact of the new revolution in one way or another. One has only to look at the proliferation of home computers, automated bank tellers and home video equipment to realize how quickly and completely the new technology has taken hold. Under its influence, our industrial and business environment is changing rapidly. Combined with the economic upheaval through which we have been struggling in recent years, the implications for our human resources are far-reaching and critical.
More and more across the country, jobs are being defined using computer technology. Those of us not conversant with terms like Cobol, Pascal "C", Fortran, Bi Sync, Unix, and Ominel may react with the jitters when scanning today's roster of job qualifications.
Microelectronics will eliminate many unskilled and repetitive jobs, but it will create even more new and high-paying ones. In some cases, it will change the very concept of a skill. For example, with the transfer of a machinist's tasks to computer-controlled machines, the job of a machinist changes into one of monitoring the computer-controlled equipment. However, a machinist's job could be upgraded by combining his traditional mechanical skills with new computer skills. Much depends on how we choose to link existing skills with computer technology.
The high technology business is regarded as one of the healthiest and fastest growing. It is also widely recognized that Canada must encourage and support the growth of these industries to escape economic stagnation. So high technology is here to stay. As a woman, I recognize the usefulness of a microwave oven.
I feel we have to be optimistic about the changes occurring around us despite the growing pains and confusion that are part of this transition. At the same time, we have to be realistic enough to devise strategies that will overcome current problems and lay the foundation for the future labour market. An especially important strategy is to forge strong links between training and technology to overcome the skills gap and spur technological progress.
April 16, 1984

Good training programs that equip people to enter growth occupations temper their fears and anxieties about the effects of technology in the workplace. This makes training and retraining programs for new computer technology jobs both a social and economic necessity.
When all is said and done, skills are the building blocks of individual self-reliance and economic growth. They are the means of remolding our human resources to meet the new requirements. High levels of employment and productivity can be achieved if workers are equipped with the skills that will be in demand in the years to come. It is for this reason that the Government reorganized its training initiatives in 1982 and established the National Training Program.
The Government does intend to revamp the system where necessary and direct the bulk of federal funding to training high demand occupations. In the old days, some of our resources were clearly wasted on training for occupations which already had a surplus of skilled workers. We do not want that situation to recur. As a former president of a school board, I can remember this happening.
To prevent it, a number of initiatives have been set up under the National Training Act. These include the designation of occupations of national importance which are or will be in high demand and requires special training efforts to increase the supply of skilled workers. Sources of information in the federal and provincial governments and business and labour have been consulted to ensure that the list of occupations is on target. It will be reviewed and updated each year to reflect the changing labour market.
The need to channel workers into demand occupations is equal to the need to bring training facilities and equipment up to date. Undoubtedly, there is no point in designating occupations of national importance and embarking on a scheme to train people on sophisticated equipment which only a few facilities can afford. The Skilled Growth Fund is the obvious answer. The fund makes funding available to private and public non-profit organizations so that they can modernize facilities, buy equipment and develop courses to train Canadians in national occupations.

The need to set up a truly effective information system for the labour market is obvious to anyone who has ever had to determine manpower training priorities. Last year, the Government launched the Canadian Occupational Projections System for the purpose of undertaking the enormous and complex task of compiling and integrating data related to the labour market and obtainable from several sources in addition to the federal Government's own sources.
While this project is still in its early stages, it is already showing that it can be of great assistance in forecasting future manpower needs and identifying occupations where demand will be greater. Identifying and solving human resources problems will be vitally helpful in providing sound information
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about the labour market. Seven workshops have been established throughout Canada to ensure the exchange of information necessary for such an effort. Representatives of the private sector and of the various levels of government will be meeting for a day or two in seven Canadian cities to identify regional and sectorial problems in order to obtain the most recent data on available human resources and to suggest how we should better orient our policies. In fact, one of these meetings will open tomorrow in Halifax.

The human resource workshops illustrate an important point. The Federal Government cannot do the job of developing Canada's labour force by itself. What is required is a combined operation involving all levels of government, business and labour. I am sure Hon. Members would agree that what we clearly need in this country is a continuing exchange of ideas and information, a partnership of dialogue in spirit. We also need to make a commitment to work together for economic growth as economic partners. We already have the instruments and agencies through which this can be done, but we must take advantage of every opportunity for meaningful contact.
Nowhere is the need for partnership as acute as in the sphere of human resource development. We all have a role to play in managing change, in rising to the challenge that change presents. The onus is on individual workers to train for new occupations. Unions must help their members to cope with the transition to new work environments. Employers must contribute to the training and development of their employees. Training institutions must ensure that adequate and relevant programs are available. All of us must work together to make it easier to adapt to change.
This Government has given top priority to involving business and labour as key players in resolving labour-market problems. We have not only worked with them in attempting to find the answers to problems, but we have been content to step aside while they jointly pool their expertise.
A prime example of this approach is the recently formed Canadian Labour Market Productivity Centre. The centre, although financed by the Government, will be a completely autonomous body, operated jointly by the Canadian Labour Congress and the Business Council on National Issues. It will be completely free from Government intervention to assess such issues as the impact of high technology on the labour market and of the need to increase industrial productivity.
This marks the first time in Canada's history that labour and management have had their every own mechanism for dealing together with matters of national economic importance. The centre's findings and recommendations will be eagerly awaited by Government. I take particular pride in the fact that I was a member of a government which was able to bring labour and management together in such a positive way. I should also add that I have been very impressed by the calibre of academics expressing interest in working for the centre or being kept informed of its findings.

April 16, 1984
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Perhaps at this point I should mention the extent of our financial assistance for training. This fiscal year we will be spending more than a billion dollars to help Canadians upgrade their present skills or learn new ones. More than half the total training budget is directed toward the purchase of courses in both public and private learning institutions for individual Canadians. This will provide training opportunities for some 220,000 men and women, and nearly half of them will be young people.
Of course this billion dollar figure does not include the vast sums of money the federal Government channels into postsecondary education, much of which has a direct impact on preparing young Canadians for careers in such fields as computer programming. In addition, in recent years the federal Government has increased its grants to education councils so that more bright young Canadians can attain Ph.D.s in scientific and technical fields. To do so, the Government inspired itself with good reports like the one prepared under the chairmanship of the Hon. Member for Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine East (Mr. Allmand), the Dodge Report prepared in the Department of Manpower and immigration and the Wallace report on part-time and job-sharing. There was another good report prepared on educational leave.
This Government was very active in preparing for the jobs of tomorrow. We have also built training into our job creation and work-sharing programs. Two of our job-creation programs in particular, Career-Access and Job Corps, make it possible for young people to gain valuable on-the-job training. The work-sharing program has been modified to enable workers to take advantage of their day's off to undergo training. Once again we are taking the initiative in relating training to actual work situations.
I think in my remarks today I have shown how the Government is co-operating with the provinces, management and labour and develop training programs which will help individual Canadians adapt to rapid technological change. Many of the mechanisms we need, such as consultative processes, are already in place. Because of this, we are in a better position than ever before to modify our programs as required.
I was not impressed by the progress we have made in fostering provincial-federal co-operation in the training field. I was particularly pleased to respond positively to the suggestion that labour and education ministers meet before the fall to examine the recommendations of the National Advisory Panel on Skilled Development Leave, including the extent of illiteracy in Canada.
Mr. Speaker, some of the Opposition members may not be aware of recommendations concerning educational leave. Essentially, we are calling for a legislation which would give Canadians the right to accumulate educational leave credits with a view to acquire new skills while still earning a decent wage. I must stress that this kind of program exists in several
European countries. I suggest the same could be done here in Canada.
I believe we can no longer expect that people will acquire during the first 18 or 20 years of their life all the education they will need in their lifetime. Within an ever-changing labour market, studying is a continuing process which musts be extended to the whole life of workers. Government must find means and take steps to make such a process possible without affecting the individual's career.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would like to invite my hon. colleagues to avoid negative criticism of a program such as Summer Canada which will help thousands of young people. At a cost of $200 million, exactly 81,000 young Canadian students, through this program and through Youth Employment Centres, will have access to a summer job.
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the private sector has done its share last year by creating 330,000 jobs for youth. This was made possible by 1,600 young people who solicited these jobs, working within the Canada Employment Centres. I would like to remind the Hon. Member that this program enables young people not only to earn money to pursue their academic studies but also to gain experience which is a must. I deplore in these difficult times, especially hard for parents and young people, that Opposition members would reject any initiative taken by our youth. Young people may not be as experienced as their predecessors or their parents to establish a program and create jobs for themselves through the Summer Canada program; however, I can assure my colleague that 99 per cent of Summer Canada projects submitted are commendable initiatives and are quite remarkable efforts on the part of these young people. In my own riding, I can say that the work being done by these young people during the summer time enable them to pursue their academic studies and quite simply to gain a knowledge which they would not otherwise acquire through formal education.
I must remind my colleagues that I also call on the private sector to create jobs through the Summer Canada program. In my view, it would be a shame that such a Government program be criticized because of a handful of projects which may not have been profitable, while most of the thousands of projects which are funded bring enormous benefits at the community level to all beneficiaries of the services offered.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: We will now have a ten minute period for questions or comments. The Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes) has the floor.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, the Minister has indicated to the House that in her travels she has found that the Canadian industry is aware of advanced technology. The Science Council of Canada has said that even quite small economies have had a head start of at least four to five years with the kinds of studies and exhortations about a promising technology that began to
April 16, 1984

surface in Canada only in 1982. A recent study by the Ontario Government tells us that 24 per cent of the Canadian manufacturing industry is aware of the computer-aided design systems, 37 per cent is aware of the computer-aided manufacturing systems and 17 per cent is aware of the integrated CAD-CAM systems. If the Minister really does not understand those facts, then I think we have gotten to the root of one of the reasons for the inadequacy of government policy as it affects the issue of technology.

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Hon. Minister.
She claimed she held consultations with provincial representatives from labour, industry and the education sector. It matters little that consultations have been held in the past, since nothing has come out of them. This morning, I refer to the fact that the Liberal Party ignored report after report, study after study, work project after work project. Can you guarantee that this time, your consultations will yield concrete results rather than being ignored?


Céline Hervieux-Payette: Mr. Speaker, I want to answer the first part of the Hon. Member's question, where he referred to what seems to be the private sector's ignorance of some aspects of high technology implementation. I will remind the Hon. Member that there are special programs and provisions in my colleague's department of Regional Industrial Expansion, to promote the implementation of new technologies. But the issue at hand today is that of manpower, and it is my contention that in the present case it is a matter of adjusting manpower to our new technology. It cannot be said that the Allmand Report or any report, whether it be the Dodge Report or the Wallace Report, had no impact. I think your colleagues were part of the group that worked on the Allmand Report titled "Employment in the 80's", which gave an outlook and lead to the introduction of legislation to restructure vocational training financing.
On the basis of my experience as the former chairperson of a School Board that had to negotiate with employment centres concerning adult training, I contend that the new act, combined with moneys provided by the occupational skills development fund will make it possible to acquire highly specialized equipment, including computers, or more simply standard laboratory equipment biotechnology for instance. Therefore I feel that we did give labour and industry the means to adjust to new working conditions.
I am quite surprised, Mr. Speaker, at the Hon. Member criticizing the private sector because according to our Progressive Conservative opponents, private industry would be quite capable of creating jobs, while I have to fight to create the
550,000	jobs our young workers need. If anyone, the Progressive Conservative Party, the provinces or anyone else has a magic formula to propose I would be quite ready to recommend it as early as tomorrow morning to this Government. If they have not, there is no point in their criticizing the positive
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measures which have been taken and the $1 billion which is provided for vocational training each year, including $500 million for our young.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, this is the first opportunity I have had to congratulate the Minister on her appointment and I wish her good luck. She was very flattering about the task force on Employment Opportunities for the '80s on which my colleague, the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes), my colleague, the Hon. Member for Jonquiere (Mr. Marceau) who is present today, and myself served. That report contained 186 recommendations. I would like to ask the Minister three questions pertaining to the report.
First, has she read the report to which I have referred? Second, how many of its 186 recommendations has the Government implemented? Third, why was the chairman of that committee not informed of this debate today? Why did he have to rely on the Hon. Member for Calgary West to tell him about the debate during today's lunch hour?


Céline Hervieux-Payette: Mr. Speaker, in order to give a very accurate answer concerning the implementation of those 186 recommendations which relate to more than one Department, I would like to assure my colleague that I will be in a position to table a report in that respect. I am wondering why he has not raised that issue in the past two years, because the fact is that the report was made public at least two years ago. Since my colleague from Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine East (Mr. Allmand) is present, perhaps the Hon. Member should put his question to him directly.


Mr. St. Germain:: Mr. Speaker, the Minister claims that we as an opposition have criticized the Summer Canada Programs. We merely pointed out the ineptness of the Government when we referred to these programs. These programs were created as a court of last resort because the Government opposite had created such massive unemployment and the private sector did not have any hope whatsoever of creating the employment that was required because of the situation brought on by the devastating economic policies of the Government opposite.
The Minister has cited Training Initiatives in 1982, the National Training Act, the Skills Growth Fund and the Canada Labour Productivity Centre. All of these initiatives were taken in the 1980s. For 16 years the Government opposite has been in power. Could the Minister indicate why something was not planned in advance? We knew of the technological changes which were coming. They are still coming today. Why did it take so long for action to be taken?

April 16, 1984
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Céline Hervieux-Payette: Mr. Speaker, I might simply point out to my colleague that, when we talk about training, we mean education, and that happens to fall under provincial jurisdiction. Having worked in the provincial Department of Labour, I can state categorically that we did not have to take any orders from the federal Government when I was a provincial employee. That is why, I suggest, we cannot talk about consultation and cooperation without the provinces being party to it. But that is a far cry from imposing our views on training, Mr. Speaker, and I think we would be rather naive to think that we have to show the provinces how to train young people and pinpoint priorities. I think they know them just as well as we do. As to upgrading our occupational training legislation, I happened to be with the provincial Government when discussions were begun concerning changes, since I was with the Government in 1977-78. It is a process which has been carried out through federal-provincial conferences.
I must tell my colleague that I do not think the provinces were against increased training funds. On the contrary, they are making a commendable effort to equip their school systems with computers and all necessary facilities. I should say that we want to do a lot more than just criticizing the provinces, we want to sit down with them and combine our efforts. That is precisely what we are doing to anticipate labour needs in the way of high technology training.
The conferences and seminars scheduled for this spring call for full participation by the provinces, the unions and the employers, and it is with them that we will make an inventory of their needs. However, it is not an easy task, and very few organizations can predict with any degree of accuracy which categories of skilled workers will experience shortages in the coming years. I have been following this file for many years and I know it is not easy. All participants concerned are now trying to find a solution which will probably not be perfect since no one can claim to know the labour market inside out. Still, I think that the initiative of the federal Government in that field can meet the needs.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The Hon. Member for Edmonton West (Mr. Lambert) on a short question.


Mr. Lambert:: Mr. Speaker, we have had 10 years of experience of band-aid programs in the wintertime and in the summertime which involve rather large amounts of money. They seem to satisfy the political psyches of some parts of the country, particularly the region from which the Hon. Minister comes; as long as the Government can say it is spending money people seem to be satisfied. Whether anything is done is another question. Since we are talking about formation, my first question to the Hon. Minister is: A formation for what?

Frankly, there ought to be a national goal with respect to formation, and that should flow from an agreement between the federal Government and the Provinces whose responsibility it is.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The Minister of State (Youth) is allowed a rather brief answer.


Céline Hervieux-Payette: Mr. Speaker, my colleague is referring perhaps to the master agreements on economic development which are now being concluded with various provinces under the direction of the Hon. Donald J. Johnston. In my opinion, the planning of economic developments must, of course, be carried out through those departments and, with regard to human resources, we respond to the demand.
I should add just the same, for the information of my colleague, that training will be provided at the provincial level. I do not think that the Government of Canada should set up another Department of Education. And with respect to job creation, I would like to see for myself the full employment policy of the Tories. It has been a long time coming. They keep talking of lowering the deficit, but I think that further training would be unnecessary, because there would not be any jobs left.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: On a point of order, the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes).


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I recognize that the 10-minute period for question is probably up. Since the Minister of State for Youth (Mrs. Hervieux-Payette) is the only Minister present today, there might be a predisposition on the part of Hon. Members to continue the question period for the purpose of edifying them as to government programs.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: That is highly unusual and would certainly require the unanimous consent of the House. Is there unanimous consent?


Jean-Guy Dubois: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: There is not unanimous consent. On a point of order, the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada (Mr. MacBain).


Mr. MacBain:: Mr. Speaker, I am advised that the House is disposed to returning to the tabling of documents, by unanimous consent, to permit me to file in both official languages this year's annual report of the Department of Justice.


Marcel Joseph Aimé Lambert: Why did you not do it at the proper time?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Does the House give its unanimous consent?
April 16, 1984


Mr. Jarvis:: Mr. Speaker, the usual discussions have taken place and on behalf of my Party I give that unanimous consent.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Is there unanimous consent to revert to the tabling of documents?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


John Horton McDermid: The NDP agree too.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Arthur Allister MacBain: Mr. Speaker, I take the blame for not doing this at the proper time as someone asked. On behalf of the Minister of Justice (Mr. MacGuigan), I would like to table in both official languages two copies of the first annual report of the Department of Justice.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Hawkes:
That this House condemns the Government for its failure to work cooperatively with the provinces, business, labour, voluntary organizations and the educational community to provide adequate training and retraining opportunities that would enable Canadian workers to feel confident about their ability to deal with the challenges of rapid technological change.
Mr. Robert Wenman (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of State for Youth (Mrs. Hervieux-Payette) has just spoken. I awaited with great anticipation some of her answers. I must say that I was very disappointed to hear more of what we have heard for the last 20 years.


John Horton McDermid: Perhaps she did not even have the question.


Robert Lloyd Wenman: That is right, perhaps she did not even have the question. When referring to technology she asked, "Where have Members of the House of Commons been?" We have already felt the impact on our side of the House. She has, we have, the whole country has, as have 1.5 million unemployed Canadians. We have all felt the impact. It is the impact of the neglect of the Government over the last 20 years. That is what
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the impact is, that is what the neglect is, and that is the opinion of the public.
A good portion of those 1.5 million Canadian people are facing middle-age redundancy, and 500,000 young people do not even have an opportunity to face redundancy because they cannot find jobs in the workplace. However, they do face redundancy because their education has already proven to be inadequate and the possibility or probability for training or upgrading is closed to them. The Government has felt the impact, but why did it not do something about it? What did it do when it felt the impact?
Enrolment levels have increased of late. In other words, the youth of the country and those faced with redundancy are seeking ways through the educational system to obtain hopefully, retraining or a usefulness in the productive system. What does the federal Government do? It cuts back. The provinces will have less money for education because the Government brought in a Bill to reduce funding to educational institutions in Canada. Over the protests of the combined Opposition Parties, it forced the Bill through the House of Commons. There will not be more money to meet the training needs of these people next year, so that they will be equipped for the new technologies and new challenges. In fact there will be less. Of over $10 billion spent on unemployment last year, only 2.57 per cent went for training. I thought the Minister felt the impact. If so, how come only 2.57 per cent went for training?
One out of every five of those young people about which the Minister was speaking is today unemployed. They account for about 40 per cent of the total number of people unemployed in Canada. Of this 40 per cent, 73 per cent are at an educational level which does not exceed high school. We have read many reports about functional illiteracy. This Government two years ago, when facing this problem, showed great foresight and cut out all spending on training for basic literacy just to put these people back into the work force. We now have the impact.
I am disappointed, Mr. Speaker, in the Minister of State for Youth. She became defensive and described all the programs which Government had in place. But she did not listen to some of her own colleagues. We had a more honest and direct representation from the Hon. Member for Laurier (Mr. Berger). He indicated there had been a major drop during the last decade in the amount of moneys set aside for adult education and training. He saw this from the Government side of the House of Commons. He was a small voice back in the corner and the Government could not hear him. I hope that Hon. Member will hear our motion today, Mr. Speaker. I hope he will hear us address the basic problems, bringing forward some of the solutions which will, in fact, lead us into a better 1990 and beyond.
We should look at the solutions to this problems mentioned by the Minister. She announced that we were going to have a series of new meetings and workshops, city by city. That is commendable. She said we were going to have a new centre to study productivity. That is commendable. She said we were
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going to have a national advisory panel on the subject. That is also commendable. She stood there and listed report upon report of things which could be accomplished, reports which are now sitting gathering dust on someone's shelf.
What the people of my riding want the Minister to know, and what the million and a half unemployed people in Canada want the Minister to know is that they cannot eat a report, Mr. Speaker. They cannot pay their mortgages with a conference. Students cannot pay their tuition fees with another meeting, with another conference or with another report. What we need, Mr. Speaker, is not more and more dollars spent on researching the problem. What we, in fact, need is action. We need action which is on the major economical ill which is facing the country.
I believe most of us have now identified that Canada's recovery is predicated on its capacity to increase its productivity. We must increase our productivity both in quantity and in quality on a per man, per hour basis. Once we increase that productivity, it is no good to store it in a granary somewhere, or in a warehouse somewhere, it has to be sold. It has to be sold on international markets.
Through that increase in productivity, through that trading and selling in international markets, jobs will be found, Mr. Speaker. But that is where jobs are also being lost. For every 1 per cent drop in international trade, we lose the equivalent of $6.5 billion, and that is not new trade which we cannot get, but trade which we used to have. Our share of world trade has dropped by 33 per cent, two and a half points. And that is where the jobs are lost and where the jobs must be found.
In our industrial, educational and job retraining strategies, we must recognize that that is where we must head. The orchestrated restriction to the flow of trade to Canada is threatening to wrap a tourniquet around Canada's lifeblood. The low level of research and development and the lack of retraining response to technological change has led to stagnation in our economy and to the high levels of unemployment which we all are experiencing and suffering.
The Minister is right, in that the post-industrial society has arrived and it is breaking all around us like a tidal wave. Canada has a nationwide need for retraining, innovation and research and development if we are to catch that wave towards prosperity. The challenge facing Canada is to apply new technology without massive job displacement and economic dislocation. Without the opportunity to meet and solve the challenges of that new technology, the work force will actively resist change. Therefore, we will have to work towards that change with new attitudes, new opportunities and new specific ideas.
The Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes), who has already spoken, did not just talk about reports. He has made his report and has suggested from his report specific lines of action. This comprehensive study on the problem of technological change for manpower and retraining is the first breath of fresh air this House of Commons has felt for a long time. It is that kind of breath of fresh air which is going to carry us forward into the next Government of Canada. If the
implementation of new technology means inevitably that some jobs will be lost, then those persons who are displaced must be adequately retrained so that they are full participants in the economic community.
Our Party has found that one of the main obstacles to solving the problem of technology lies in the vague wording of the Canada Labour Code, in particular, Sections 149 to 153. If you want an example, Mr. Speaker, of something which causes problems, which creates a tone of concern between labour and management, a lack of understanding, clarity and direction, it is the vague wording of the Canada Labour Code. The present Code does not satisfactorily address the problem of technological change today, much less the more comprehensive changes which will be required in the future. The present Code requires that the employer, who seeks to effect a technological change which affects the terms and conditions of security of employment of a significant number of employees, must give 90 days notice to the bargaining agent prior to the change.
I am not the first one, Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House to bring this problem to your attention. As I speak today, I want to recognize that this has been brought to your attention before by the Hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Jarvis), and I pay special tribute to him today for his distinguished parliamentary career. Hon. Members of the House will miss him. We wish him success. I hope that we will take the advice which he gave us as recently as a few months ago. He did address this problem but the Minister did not comment. Perhaps she should have talked specifically about what she can do now. She said she would listen to ideas from this side of the House but she did not listen to the Hon. Member for Perth. Perhaps she will listen today. We will try again.
This 90-day clause is of concern to us. The definition of technological change cannot possibly cover all types of changes in the way work is carried out as a result of new technology. However, the definition itself of technological change must be made more explicit. This section requires redress because the burden of proof lies on the employee to prove that the employer is introducing new technology and that it has an impact on his employment. The employee's task is virtually impossible if the employer does not provide the information on the change.
Phrases like "substantially and adversely affect" and "significant number of employees", are so vague that they do not allow the affected party to determine if notification is necessary. These phrases must be made explicit to avoid possible disputes that arise out of confusion because the definitions have not been clear. The opting out provisions of this section are unsatisfactory because they remove the compulsion to reopen bargaining. If an employer signs a collective agreement which gives notice of technological change prior to the conclusion of the last agreement, or has provisions which allow for the settlement of matters pertaining to technological change, or contains provisions to assist employees to adjust to the effects of changes, or if the agreement specifies that statutory provisions do not apply, then the employer does not have to
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bargain with his employees. The problem is that both parties may not have had sufficient information on the impact of the change when the agreement was signed. Opting out also means that there is no mechanism for redress should a dispute arise.
As both I and the Hon. Member for Perth said, the 90 day notice period is simply too short to allow for negotiation of adequate adjustment policies or retraining agreements. Employers are not required to provide well detailed information of impending changes. A minor change like this sends out a signal to management and labour that we want to add clarity. From that we can add a tone of leadership which we can all co-ordinate to create this better environment we all know must be found in industrial relations.
Apart from the obvious negligence of the present Government in providing for adequate retraining programs, it is becoming increasingly apparent that our young people are not receiving the kinds of training they need in today's world. Canada suffers from a critical shortage of skilled workers in many sectors of the economy. Yet, in spite of those shortages, 1.5 million people are unemployed. Although international comparisons indicate that Canada has one of the world's best educated work forces, we are less well equipped educationally than some of our major competitors and the over-all trend is indeed discouraging.
For example, in our universities there are 200 vacancies in our management faculties, 200 in engineering, and 600 in computer science. We are graduating fewer Ph.D.s now in mathematics, engineering, agriculture and biological sciences than we did in 1974. Where is the direction, Mr. Speaker? Where is the leadership? In disciplines critical to our competitive future we are going backwards, not forwards.
The OECD estimates that between 25 per cent and 30 per cent of Canada's work force is functionally illiterate. The application of new technology will require higher levels of skill than our work force presently has. Clearly, with such a large functionally illiterate work place, the general knowledge will have to be increased before they can in fact develop the opportunities to participate in any new technological society to come.
We sit here and debate. We pile words upon words. It is like another report. I feel almost guilty doing it because I know that of the people in this House and those listening to us today there is not one person whose family is not touched by the impact of the technological society. There is not one person who does not know of someone who is unemployed, someone who has dropped out of school in grade 11, grade 12, is unemployed now and unemployed forever. He is cast from our society. I just wanted to end with the plight of that person listening today, Mr. Speaker. I urge the Government that now is the time for action, now is the time for programs. We are fed up with studies. We are ready to build a new country. I was going to detail the recommendations of the studies by the Hon. Member for Calgary West, but they are now public and available. We will send them wherever we have to. To him we offer congratulations, and we look forward to getting on with the job. There is new hope for that young person out there. It
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will not take long, it will be just a matter of months until there is a new Government with a new vision.


Mr. Miller:: I have listened with interest to the debate. Many of the things said by the Official Opposition and my colleagues in the NDP are things which I think most Canadians are anxiously awaiting to see from Government, whether it be federal or provincial. The Hon. Member who has just spoken and I both represent ridings in the Province of British Columbia. We all know that our forest industry is in some very serious trouble because of a declining timber base and world competition. The B.C. Government is cutting back in the forest service by 500 employees at a time when there is a critical unemployment rate in B.C. and more people are coming out of colleges and universities with forest training and looking for employment opportunities.
Would the Hon. Member consider it a failure on the part of the provincial and federal Governments to come up with an agreement on funding for education, and also a lack of a forestry agreement? I understand the federal Government was prepared to offer $37 million to British Columbia for reforestation and silviculture and that it was rejected. Could the Hon. Member comment on why we are not getting that co-operation from the Social Credit Government in British Columbia at a time when young people need employment, our forests need reforestation, and a large number of unemployed workers could be in those woods creating jobs now and in future?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order, please. I find it somewhat difficult to relate the question to the speech of the Hon. Member. Perhaps Members could keep that in mind. Questions and comments are supposed to be related to the speech.


Robert Lloyd Wenman: Mr. Speaker, I do not want to defend or attack other Governments outside of this House, but let me just say it was relevant because I made the point that the federal Liberal Government of Canada cut off all training programs two years ago for those who were functionally illiterate. This same federal Government has cut back on funding for education to all the provinces. It does not matter whether it is British Columbia, Alberta or Manitoba. What are the provincial Governments going to do to provide these programs when the Government of Canada is saying we are giving you less and less and less in these areas, which are its responsibility? The attitude is wrong, and the greatest wrong comes from the leadership process in this House. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the Government are supposed to set a tone of non-confrontation, a tone of co-operation. They are supposed to find and develop new and real programs which filter all the way down the line. It is a long cycle but it starts here; let us keep the buck right where it belongs, in this House of Commons.


Jean-Guy Dubois: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague who referred to skills and young people whether he is aware of

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the Skill Growth Fund set up under the National Training Act. Could he tell us whether he is for or against the program specifically designed to assist young people? Is he aware of the program in the first place?


Robert Lloyd Wenman: The Hon. Member is aware that about three years ago in the House of Commons I first proposed that
25.000	unemployed young people be drawn into the reserves of Canada for the summer to have their skills upgraded and so forth. About six months after that a backbench Liberal got up his courage and took the idea that I had suggested in committee. He came in the House and said that is what the Government should do. The Government comes up with a program for
5.000	rather than for 25,000. When you have 500,000 unemployed, a program for 25,000 is relatively meaningless.
When the Hon. Member asks whether I know of programs, I can tell him that I know of bureaucracy piled upon bureaucracy trying to create jobs. We spend more money there than we do in the actual programs. I know of slush funds of Ministers on the other side that make my young people second class citizens. I know about those programs. They are too little too late and do not nearly begin to address the broader programs which have been addressed by the Member for Calgary West in his report. The Hon. Member should read that; then he would have some answers.


Frederick James (Jim) Hawkes: Mr. Speaker, would the Member like to comment on the fact that the Main Estimates tell us that the Government only intends to use $250 million out of $10 billion or $11 billion of unemployment insurance funds to support people during training? At the same time under the Special Employment Initiatives Program it spent $300 million to re-elect Liberals and less than that to support people in training with unemployment insurance funds. Would the Hon. Member like to comment on whether he thinks that is right?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: A brief comment, the Hon. Member for Fraser Valley West (Mr. Wenman).


Robert Lloyd Wenman: Mr. Speaker, the question answers itself when you look at that percentage. I mentioned it in my speech, it has been mentioned in the question, and it is worth mentioning again. If you were a Government and really wanted to do something for people you would hopefully say that it is not good enough to leave them sitting on unemployment insurance. Hopefully you would not dole out the money to them from a fund of $10 million and tell them to sit there and collect their unemployment insurance. Hopefully you would spend 2.5 per cent of it to help the people get back to work by retraining them for jobs. The Government will not even do that. It will not allow people to collect unemployment insurance while attending a retraining program. If a person elects to take the retraining program the Government will not pay him enough to live on.
What can a 22 or 23 year old with a grade 11 or grade 12 education and almost no experience in the workplace do? The programs do not exist. The programs need to exist and the emphasis needs to exist. That is what the report that the Hon. Member for Calgary West prepared said. He said that the shortage of highly qualified teaching manpower can be alleviated by increasing funding to granting councils and private sector scholarships. We need private sector scholarships. Give that young person some money and let him get into the school.
He said that the availability of information is the key barrier to job mobility. Use of modern means of communication will enable us to provide information on job opportunities. That young person does not even know how to go and look for the job. He does not know what jobs are available. We are going to have to tell him. Those are the kinds of things that $10 billion should have been used for. It should have been used for so many things. It should have been used for an advertising campaign to make the public aware of the problems and solutions. We must get our society going and get with it. Young people must get training and jobs in order to create productivity. That productivity is sold in international markets. That gets our share of world trade back, and there are our jobs. It is difficult and it is simple, but it sure is hard to get that message across to the other side.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: That is the conclusion of the 10 minute period for questions and comments. For debate, the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan (Mr. McRae).


Mr. Paul E. McRae (Thunder Bay-Atikokan):: Mr. Speaker, I was listening on two occasions last week when the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) was on The Journal and on the program The House. On The Journal he seemed to be indicating that they have all the problems solved and when they come to power there will be a great deal more confidence by Canadians in the country and in the world. Therefore jobs will automatically flow and there will be some incentives. Then we will have a big training program and everything will be solved.
I just could not believe that Canadian people are so ill informed that they would believe this. I do not think they will believe that the problems which are facing most of the industrial nations in the world will no longer face Canada because we will have a Government in which the world has the greatest confidence. I do not think people will believe that with some incentives and training everything will be fine, they will all have productive jobs and that this is the answer to the problem. I am not suggesting that some of these things are not needed. However, the utter simplicity of it baffled me. The people who were interviewing the Leader of the Opposition were having a great deal of difficulty believing what they were hearing as well.
I read 15 or 20 pages of the task force report on retraining. I think there is a good deal of merit in the report. I do not think it contains anything unusual or new. Its merit is in restating
April 16, 1984

some ideas which must be restated from time to time. I do not see anything basic in the report. I can accept the fact that all people on public assistance should have the opportunity for retraining. I can accept the idea that UIC funds should be devoted more and more to this and other purposes along this line. We on this side have been working on this for a number of years. I think there have been a lot of things done with the UIC dollar, including training.
The point of the matter is that the idea is not new. It is good to bring it up again and again to give it more emphasis, but I do not see that anything great is going to happen because of this report. It is not a new idea that we should be able to predict what kind of jobs are going to be available for people coming into the labour market and what kind of training is going to be required to equip people for these jobs. The Government itself set up a group called the Canadian Occupation Projections System, or COPS, with the idea of attempting to make these projections so that training programs can be organized correctly.
I have been wrestling with this problem for close to 30 years, both in this House and in the field of education before I came to this House. After 10 years of misinforming students I learned that this was not an easy question to deal with. We were always looking into the future and trying to get the best advice we could from our educational authorities, the provinces, and the federal Government, about the kinds of occupations that students could go into when they left school.
As soon as an operation becomes rather large, with many people employed in a specific area, such as when there was a great sudden demand for people in social work, there is a bulge in the system, and many are trained for this specific field but they find there are no jobs. This experience has led me, as a school administrator, to carefully consider the type of training to give students a chance to fit into the working community upon completion of that stage of their education. I came to the conclusion that it was a mistake to lead students or those returning to the educational system into a narrow occupational field, because very often the jobs in that particular field may not be available.
I have great concern that the emphasis in the last two years on high tech training to narrow, spin-off fields related to computer science could be carried to the extreme. However, I believe a general knowledge of computer science is important in order to be able to adapt when a particular computer field becomes crowded. When I see the number of students involved in the spin-off technologies of computer science, I question whether we are repeating what took place many years ago when far too many people were trained in the field of social welfare. While these people were eventually needed, they were employed elsewhere by the time the jobs were available. We should concern ourselves with general training rather than specifics. This report does make some suggestions in this respect, although I think many of us have already seen and acted on many of those suggestions.
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We must also take into account the basic training that people need in order to fit into a world where they must be able to adapt or be retrained. We are told that some people may have to retrain three or four times in a lifetime. Thus, we should be concerned that people have the basic skills for this training and retraining. These discussions have not taken place in the House or among governments.
There have been some recommendations. First we must acknowledge that people must have a basic skill in such things as the English language and mathematics by the time they have completed Grade 11 or 12. In addition to these very important basic sills, one must include some general information about computer science, electronics and other components of the new world of high technology. I submit that people should not be trained at that point in their education to become specialists in a highly developed field, but be able to cope and understand the implications of the computer without necessarily becoming experts.
I fear that we may have already developed far too many specialists in certain branches of computer science. However, the era of high technology is something with which we must live. It is a new field that has added a dimension to our working world and many other aspects of our society. I believe we must have a good grasp of the fundamentals of this technology without being involved in specialization.
I am always concerned that people who are trained for a very highly developed field will have to start from the beginning if that field becomes obsolete or replaced. That should not be necessary. We should be able to train our students at a level which makes it relatively simple to move to a different field of which they have a basic knowledge.
There are many young people who, for various reasons, have not completed high school. There are good reasons why some people should not be taking secondary school at the time it is available to them. However, I find it is very common that these same people wish to complete their high school education later on when they feel they are ready to do so. We, as a Government, have attempted to encourage this.
The report discusses functional illiteracy. It is hard to believe that many people come under this category, as functional illiterates. Rather than condemn people for not completing high school when they had a chance, we should be ensuring the opportunity for them to return and complete the education that they missed. There are many reasons why people are wise to leave school at a particular point, and that is why I am disturbed that in the last two or three years governments at all levels have shown reluctance to deal with this particular kind of program.
While the report makes good suggestions with respect to functional illiterates, that term denotes one group of people, yet there are those who are relatively functional illiterates but do not fit into that category. They too must be trained to a point where they can move into more specific fields.
While much discussion has concerned training, it is only one solution, and perhaps may not even be a major solution for 1.5

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million Canadians who do not fit into the labour force. While there is no question that the serious problem of training must be addressed, I had the impression, when listening to the Leader of the Opposition, that this was the answer; if there was confidence, incentives and training, everyone would be working and the problem would be solved. I do not see that happening. I envisage, and suggest, putting more money toward imaginative programs for training and retraining people. They should be prepared for the broad variety of experiences they will likely have in their lifetime.
I look back to the month of February. It was a typical kind of month in terms of jobs and employment. We had growth in jobs and in the number of people being employed. It was something in the order of 0.5 per cent, or, at the rate of 6 per cent a year. This is a very , very rapid rate of growth in jobs. If that could be sustained over a long period of time, we would be creating a large number of jobs. In round figures, it would be something like 60,000 jobs in that month. At the same time we had 0.5 per cent monthly or 6 per cent on an annual basis growth in jobs, we had a little over 7 per cent growth in the number of people in the labour force. Even with a 6 per cent growth in the rate of the creation of jobs we had an increase in the employment rate simply because more people were coming on the labour market than there were jobs being created. I suspect, and most people who think about this will say, that this will be continuous, particularly with the onset of more and more high technology. High technology will not create jobs. It will reduce the number of jobs available.


John Horton McDermid: Nonsense.


Paul Edmund McRae: One can expect over a period of time that growth in productivity will be attained by investment in high technology. But this will not satisfy the need for those people who want to work. I think we will find that high technology will replace many individuals. Therefore, some other alternative has to be considered.
I do not hear very much talk about things like renewing our forests and things of that kind which are tremendously important. Here we have a resource that exports in the range of $20 billion a year, more than agriculture, fisheries, and mining combined. We have not as a nation looked upon renewal of this resource, which is vital. In British Columbia if the resource is not renewed very shortly, we will not have an industry there. In Thunder Bay and throughout northwestern Ontario we have a situation which is very serious. In terms of the jobs that will have to be created to renew that force, these areas are labour intensive. It seems to me that is one of the areas at which we should be looking very seriously in terms of creating jobs.
I know the federal Government is in the process of putting together an agreement with the Province of Ontario and with the other provinces. I know the sums will be considerable, but even so, I do not think that will be great enough.
I know that my time is running out, but I would like to talk about the whole idea of work-sharing. I think the labour movement is pointing the way. We will have to start sharing work, perhaps by working shorter hours or taking early retirements. There may be many other ways in which work might be redistributed. I would like to discuss this at a later point.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: There follows a ten minute period for questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Richmond-South Delta (Mr. Siddon).


Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in the remarks of the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan (Mr. McRae). He expresses a general attitude that we see emanating from the Government side consistently when the question of technology is discussed, the notion that technology is just not going to be enough to pull the country out of this massive economic crisis we are facing where over 500,000 young people do not have any reason to hope for a long-term permanent career. I am disappointed that that is the notion. One would feel there are other alternatives to achieving economic prosperity and to restoring employment.
The Hon. Member said this question of retraining is a serious problem and has to be dealt with. In that statement he expressed his view that there were certain limitations on the recommendations that came forward in the task force report prepared by this Party. What specific solutions does he see? Other than keeping pace with the explosion of technological development in the world, does he see any other option for employing people other than to restore our forests? Frankly, if he does not see technology as the number one means of up-grading our industry, restoring productivity and keeping abreast with the competitive challenge facing us in international markets, then I think he is sadly mistaken. His ideas are what is leading this country down the tube to ruin.


Paul Edmund McRae: Mr. Speaker, I suggest the forestry field is one field that we might look at. I am sure there are others that I do not have time to get into. My feeling about the approach you take is that there are some good ideas but they are not very basic. They deal with techniques on training, preparing teachers, and a lot of areas of this kind. They do not deal with what is an overall basic approach to an educational system which will provide the basis for retraining. Retraining becomes very difficult if you have very highly skilled individuals who have spent a lot of years in a very technical field and that technical field disappears. They have to go back to basics again. But if they have a good general background it is not so hard to retrain in another field. I think that is one of the major areas where I would suggest this. I do not know of any expert who can say that we as Canadians can continue to export, export, and export high technology because everybody else will be doing the same kind of thing. I am not convinced, and I do not know of anyone or of any authority who is saying that there is an unlimited high tech field. The technology itself, the roboti-zation of things, is not basically an attempt to reduce the need for labour, and that is a good thing. It means in my books that, therefore, fewer and fewer people will be producing. Conse-
April 16, 1984

quently, distributing that productive effort becomes much more important in terms of bringing many people into it. I do not see and I do not know of any authority-


The Acting Speaker (Mir. Herbert):: Order, please. I must remind Hon. Members again that questions and answers should be relatively short in order to allow everyone to participate. The Hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Jarvis).


William Herbert Jarvis: Mr. Speaker, I have one comment and two questions that I think I can put quite succinctly. I would not want the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan (Mr. McRae) to underestimate the importance of confidence in terms of job creation. I am sure his riding is no different than mine. Two and a half or three and a half years ago, because of high interest rates, massive amounts of money went into that form of investment rather than into job creation spending, such as the purchase of motor vehicles, trucks and so on. That is one simple example of job creation or the lack of job creation because of lack of spending confidence.
My first question deals with what neither of us like to call functional illiteracy, but nevertheless that is the word used for it. Is the Hon. Member aware of the pilot programs in the United States run by volunteer agencies where retired teachers are recruited to assist in this type of program? If it can be done through the volunteer sector at less cost to the Government, it is something that I very much want to support. As an educator the Hon. Member may be aware of that. I have only been exposed to it through a couple of television programs.
The most important point is that the Hon. Member talks about the good general background, the academic training and up-grading from say grade nine to grade twelve or whatever. My experience has been that those seats purchased by Canada Manpower at various community colleges for academic training have been significantly less successful in terms of job procurement for those students than the narrow technical training. There is a welder's school in my riding. I disagree that someone trained in a very narrow field, as the Hon. Member puts it, has to go back and start over when that job becomes redundant. It is not a good approach to take because, first, that person has gone through the discipline of retraining. He has at least been exposed to an academic atmosphere. Second, he has at least had a job and is becoming aware that once one has a job, it is not secure until age 65 because in the eighties and into the next century all of us will have to go through processes of retraining. This will likely occur at numerous intervals during our working career.
Therefore, I have some serious difficulty with his approach of the good general background. I would far sooner put the carrot out and say to a prospective employee, if he is willing to go back to night school and get up to the Grade 12 or 13 level, he will have the first leg up on technical training with which we as a Government may assist him.


Paul Edmund McRae: Mr. Speaker, I have had some experience in this field. Work is being done in the voluntary sector in dealing
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with functional illiteracy. It is one area which is very successful. I am not sure that I agree with the Hon. Member's basic problem. One difficulty with those who come into a particular technical field of trade, particularly in the high technology fields where some basic background is required, is that one has to learn how to function in terms of mathematics, for example. One has to be able to read and understand directions.
I am not one of the critics of colleges. I find that where the colleges are doing this the students are having greater success. I do not have any empirical data on which to base this. However, I believe if those individuals had to be retrained in another field there would be some advantage because of this. The quality of life can be embellished by this.
If you just talk about something that leads you to a $7 or $8 an hour job, it becomes very dangerous. There are things that flow from this. I would not want to see this kind of general background lost, even at the retraining stage. I do not believe it is enough to train someone for a specific job and leave it at that.
When those who are not functionally illiterate, but not very literate, drop out, it is usually because they have a large gap in areas such as mathematics. That has to be attended to if that individual is to function in other areas. It is sad for those who drop out. They do not drop out because they are unable to continue, but for all kinds of other reasons. We found that in the schools-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order. I regret to interrupt the hon. gentleman but this puts an end to the question period.



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 45, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: The Hon. Member for Winnipeg-Assiniboine (Mr. McKenzie)-Canada Post Corporation-Request for cancellation of Consumers Distributing project, (b) Request that project results be released publicly; the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald)-Immigration- Replacement of court reporters with recording devices in immigration offices; (b) Quality of transcripts produced from tape recordings; the Hon. Member for York North (Mr. Gamble)-Income Tax Act-Taking of taxpayers' statements under oath-Minister's position.

April 16, 1984
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GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Hawkes:
That this House condemns the Government for its failure to work cooperatively with the provinces, business, labour, voluntary organizations and the educational community to provide adequate training and retraining opportunities that would enable Canadian workers to feel confident about their ability to deal with the challenges of rapid technological change.
Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, we are debating a motion today brought forward by the Official Opposition condemning the Government for its failure to establish adequate training programs in consultation with labour, programs which would fit Canadian workers to fill the jobs that will be created as a result of the introduction of new technology. We can support the motion, although to suggest that simply by a better system of training we will meet the problems of unemployment is oversimplifying the problem.
Let us look at the situation as it is today. At the present time there are 1.5 million Canadians unemployed, 40 per cent of whom are young people. There are probably another 200,000 or 300,000 unemployed who have not been counted because they are no longer looking for work; they have given up looking for work. Statistics Canada calls them the discouraged workers. The 1.5 million unemployed represents over 11 per cent of the labour force in Canada.
In 1969, a year after this Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) took office, only 4.4 per cent of the labour force was unemployed. According to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) this 1.5 million unemployed will continue to grow for the next number of years. In his Budget forecast, he predicted that unemployment would stay at the double-digit rate of 10 per cent or more for the next four or five years.
If one can believe what one reads, hears and sees, we are in the beginning of a second industrial revolution. The technological changes which have been brought about by the microchip and computer have begun to have marked effects on employment in this and every other industrialized country. The effects are just beginning. As the computer and microchip take over, there will be tremendous change. In the manufacturing industry, the robot, microchip and computer are taking over. Thousands of workers are being displaced, and not just the unskilled worker.
This raises the question of what even the best training system would do. Thousands of the most skilled workers we have known up to today are being thrown on the unemployment scrap heap. Machinists, tool and die makers, molders, are having their job done better, more efficiently and cheaper by the computer and microchip. I am sure there is not a Member of Parliament who has not seen what the new technology can do in their offices with the word processors, xerox machines and so on. Much more work can be turned out with the same number of employees, or even with fewer employees. In large insurance and trust company offices and in the offices
of all of the major industries and businesses which employ hundreds and thousands of people, it has been predicated by people who are knowledgeable and expert that hundreds of thousands of jobs will disappear. I have seen estimates which indicate that 40 per cent or more of these jobs filled almost exclusively by women will disappear in the next 10 or 15 years.
There has been an easy acceptance by many people in the Government and industry and, unfortunately in my view, by many academics that the era of high technology is coming and we cannot stop it. No one that I know of would want to stop it, but we are being told that it should be welcomed and that it will cause little if any dislocation. I am one of those who worry that the second industrial revolution which we seem to be entering will create as much havoc for the people of this country and every other industrialized country as created by the first industrial revolution. That revolution led to tremendous increases in productivity, but threw hundreds of thousands of people onto the scrap heap. In some cases, it took generations before these people were able to do productive work and live decent and comfortable lives.
If we are moving into a new industrial revolution, we must ask ourselves some very serious and fundamental questions. Let me pose three such questions about which we must think. First, how many new jobs will be created, and will as many new jobs be created in the new high technology industries as exist now in the traditional manufacturing industries? There is no indication that there will be as many workers employed in the new high technology industries as have been employed in the steel industries, the auto industry and the other industries in which so many of our people and the people of other countries have worked.
Second, we must ask ourselves where the new jobs will be located. It seems to me that if high technology industries do develop in Canada, it is likely they will be based in cities like Ottawa, where such a large proportion of the population is employed with the Government, and in cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. We must ask ourselves what will happen to the workers in the steel industry, for example. Will the steel industry in Canada suffer the same fate as the steel industries in the United States, France and Britain suffered? Even if productivity in that industry is higher than it was 10 years ago, employment has been reduced because of the use of new technology.
With the advent of new technology, what will happen to workers in Hamilton, Sault Ste. Marie and Sydney? What will happen to the farm machinery workers who live in Brantford? These are questions which must be addressed. If the old industries disappear, what will take their places in cities in which people have worked in the older mature industries for so many years?
Last, what wages or salaries will be paid to the people who will be working in the new high technology industries? Some studies have been done in the United States which indicate that in the new high technology industries the average wage is
April 16, 1984

$5,000 per year less than the average wage earned in the older manufacturing industries. That will have profound effects not only on the workers who will earn smaller wages but on all Canadians, because the purchasing power of the people who work in the new industries will be much less if we in Canada follow the same pattern as the United States.
The questions to which I referred are questions which must be addressed and understood, questions for which we must find answers. The Government has ignored these kinds of questions up until now and gives no indication that it will ever look at them seriously. From the Official Opposion, we get a motion which, if we can take it seriously, would seem to indicate that the only problem members of the Conservative Party see with the new technological takeover is that we have not trained people well enough. Of course we have not trained people well enough. Even if we had done so up until now, and even if we do so in the future, the fundamental problems which will be created by the introduction and wise use of new technologies will not be answered simply by providing training programs.
A famous American economist and Nobel prize winner, Wassily Leontief, when discussing the effects of new technology, said that he is afraid and predicts that the failure to redistribute the gains of automation and new technologies could condemn society to a paradoxical condition of rising productivity and rising destitution. There is no question that the new technology will permit and encourage a much greater level of productivity. However, hundreds of thousands of workers will be displaced and will have no jobs. As well, the people working in the new high technology areas will have to live with the lower wages paid. We in the New Democratic Party accept and support the motion which is before us today. Our training systems simply have not been good enough and are not good enough.
Let me take a moment to say that I was disturbed by the remarks of the Hon. Member for Thunder Bay-Atikokan (Mr. McRae). He spoke very briefly about illiteracy while ignoring the fact that if there is one area in which the federal Government has failed and ignored, it is the area of illiteracy. Looking at the training funds provided by the Department of Employment and Immigration over the last 10 or more years, one finds that less attention is paid and less money is allocated to training programs for basic skills education. The Hon. Member spoke about the millions of people who are functionally illiterate, but his Government, through its Department of Employment and Immigration, had ignored and thrown them on the scrap heap. The Government has refused to deal with this through training programs.
Let me make some very specific suggestions which we in the New Democratic Party believe need to be looked at in order to really face up to the problems of new technology.
We cannot deal with these questions without the fullest possible consultation among governments, federal and provincial, labour and management. We will not attain co-operation for any program if the people most directly affected have not
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been consulted, such as the many young Canadians who do not have jobs or those who have had jobs and still have jobs but will be displaced by new technologies.
If we are serious about trying to deal with the new technologies, the first step which any government must take is toward real, meaningful and continuing discussions, consultations and planning on the part of labour, management, educational institutions and governments, federal and provincial.
What we have seen on the part of the Government has been ad hoc, hit and miss programs, in which the Government unilaterally, or sometimes in consultation with an industry group, brings in new programs such as ILAP. There are so many programs one could use every letter of the alphabet just to list them. That is one example of how the federal Government has completely failed.
The Government ought to look at making the Canada Pension Plan much more flexible. Workers, by increasing their contributions by a relatively small amount, should be able to opt for working part time at age 60 or 61. Perhaps they could work two or three days a week and receive the balance of their income, that is what they would obtain if they were working full time, from the pension plan. That could open up jobs for thousands of young Canadians who are now unable to find employment.
A similar idea would be to allow young parents of minor children to spend five years working part time but receiving full-time pay. It would be a good social policy. It would allow such parents to remain at home during the formative years of child rearing. At the same time it would provide additional employment for others in the workplace.
We need to look at what is happening in the economy at the present time. There has been a tremendous increase in the number of part-time workers. According to the statistics, in 1983 there were 400,000 fewer full-time jobs and an increase in part-time jobs of some 200,000. In the past 30 years, part-time employment has jumped from 4 per cent of the total work force to 16 per cent of all jobs in the economy. The new technologies will encourage and permit vast expansion in part-time work. With the shift to part-time work come the problems of the incomes of working people dropping. More and more part-time jobs are unorganzed, poorly-paid service jobs. People are being pushed out of the industrial sector of society by machines.
Both the Liberal Government and the Conservative Opposition stand on the same side of the fence. They put technology before people. If the companies benefit, those benefits should be shared by ordinary Canadians. That is the only acceptable policy. The policy of working with people and co-operating with business, labour and the provinces to develop programs which will put people first and machines second, will meet the needs of Canadians.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Questions or comments? The Hon. Member for Richmond-South Delta (Mr. Siddon).

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Thomas Edward Siddon: Mr. Speaker, I would like to pose a question to the Hon. Member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow). I find a lot of reason for pessimism in the presentation of the Hon. Member. He talked about worry, fear and somehow increasing the opportunity for employment without increasing the national well-being. He talked about work sharing and part-time work as if there were some magic pie in the sky banker who could finance it. He knows full well that if we do not increase our national productivity, we will not be competitive around the world. Canadians have lost 750,000 jobs in the last 10 years because our share of world trade in primary resource-based products has declined. The doomsayers have been around since the time of the industrial revolution, and I think we are hearing too much from them again.
There is hardly anyone in the country today who is not employed in a technologically-related job of one sort or another. It is not so much high technology or electronics that is of concern, it is the application of the technology to provide meaningful, long-term work for Canadians. Technology and its application are revolutionizing the world.
I am rather perplexed as to how the Hon. Member feels we should continue to enjoy the level of prosperity which he seems to take for granted when the country and the Government are near bankruptcy. How does he expect us to provide meaningful full-time jobs for Canadians unless we move into the technological era without fear or trepidation?


David Orlikow: Mr. Speaker, I do not think the Hon. Member would find one sentence or paragraph in my remarks which would lead anyone to the conclusion that I oppose technological change or that I think we can somehow prevent it from taking place. We have to think about the results or the consequences of technological change. It is little comfort to steelworkers who have worked for 25 years, who have earned a good living and helped build the country, to be told that that industry can now produce as much or more steel with half the workforce of the past.
As I said, as we move into the technological revolution, we have to think of how the people who have been displaced will be able to work, produce, earn a living and live decent, comfortable lives. That is the point. Members of Parliament and everyone else must consider that problem. That is all I said. I did not suggest, nor would I ever suggest that we can or should stop this process. I have simply said that if it is to come about, it should be done with consideration for the people who will be adversely affected.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Are there any more questions? On debate, the Hon. Member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Howie).


Hon. J. Robert Howie (York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, whatever the specific detail of the present program structure, it is clear that the combination of government employment programs and the responses of the private and public sectors have not set in motion a sustained employment process in the have-not provinces of Canada.
The Atlantic provinces lead our nation in the human tragedy of more people seeking employment on a per capita basis than any other region of Canada. The hardship, frustration, disillusion created by lack of work and an inability to find employment are difficult to describe. However, possibly the most tragic dimension is the feeling of helplessness on the part of the head of the family who is unable to clothe, feed, house and educate his children properly. The impact on his children is a genuine cause for concern on the part of thinking Canadians everywhere.
The ugly tenacles of unemployment strike at single parent families, two parent families, widows, widowers, children, working mothers and working fathers. There are no exceptions to this human tragedy. There are a million and a half Canadians looking for work and another 300,000 who are not included in those statistics. Behind every such statistic is a human being worthy of the best efforts this Parliament can make in resolving this horrendous problem.
Recently in Saint John, New Brunswick, a new hotel opened offering 150 jobs. Two thousand people lined the streets of Saint John to apply for those jobs. In my constituency of York-Sunbury, because of educational, government, military and health institutions, we have a better employment rate than many parts of New Brunswick, if not all parts of that province. We also have 8,244 people collecting unemployment insurance benefits at the Fredericton office. These are active files on the roles today. The Youth Summer Employment Program which, like Career Access, is a good program, will employ 198 young people this summer. That figure will probably be increased by one-third because of the recent announcement by the Minister of State for Youth (Mrs. Hervieux-Payette).
Being an educational centre, my constituency has over 5,000 young people, many of whom will be looking for work in our community. I support every job-creation program which the federal Government announces to the very best of my ability, and I applaud every job which is created. However, I tell you frankly, Mr. Speaker, that with a slender private sector economy there are just not enough jobs to go around. Where hundreds of jobs are provided, thousands are needed.
We have to rejuvenate our country, offer hope instead of despair and rekindle the initiatives, energy and knowledge of our people. We must encourage the new technology to rebuild our competitive position, generate the resources to finance our economy and expand our international trade. We have the means to build a new Canada, a Canada of which we can all be proud, a Canada we can all feel part of, where we are happy and secure and in which we can have confidence for the future. There must be a massive commitment in co-operation with labour, management, and government at all levels, to the development of the most thoughtful and generous manpower retraining program which a civilized society has ever put together. More specifically, there are basic themes which form elements of that description. Development policies must contemplate a concentration on people and productivity as well as
April 16, 1984

on hardware and facilities. The key to the future is adaptation and innovation, product and process development and in techniques of management and marketing. We must promote a more effective role for smaller enterprises. We must recognize that the general level of skills in our population is inextricably linked to our rate of economic growth.
We have pursued the enhanced training of people in institutions but we have not always given appropriate attention to the need to relate certain kinds of training to the actual requirements of the work place. We need a very substantial emphasis on on-the-job training, not only in the conventional trades where this is already happening, but also in almost every other facet of enterprise. We must remember that training on the job uses industry as a carrier, and with the slender manufacturing base in the maritime provinces it does not address the need to the same extent as it does elsewhere in our country. This underlines the importance of institutional training and training in small businesses in the maritime provinces, and underlines also the tragedy of the fact that now that Bill C-12 is passed, each of the maritime provinces receives less money for educational training than it would have received if Bill C-12 had not been passed.
An altered view of the role of educational institutions to increase their relevance to community and economic development requirements is important. For example, an increase in emphasis on continuing adult education, and a design of business administration programs which have a greater small business orientation, are possible directions. Here I would like to commend the Hon. Member for Laurier (Mr. Berger) on his observations on the major drop during the last decade in money set aside for adult education and training.
A major theme which is essential is the need to adapt to changing conditions. We need new programs to encourage innovation in business such as a better transfer of information between the patent and licensing office in the business community in order to promote new technology. We need grants to industry and trade associations to promote and cost-share the running of management training seminars. Among other things, these seminars would familiarize business men and women with existing government programs. We need incentives to increase the supply of risk capital in underdeveloped areas. We need an expanded and altered mandate for research and further incentives to encourage process redesign and innovation. We need a stronger marketing orientation in the program structure specifically aimed at more effective penetration of local, regional, national and international markets. We need an improvement of incentive programs, enriching location grants for target industries and allowing tax holidays for companies locating in underdeveloped regions. We need an altered view of competition and of the role of the smaller enterprises.
Small production units are characteristic of the maritime provinces, and good export performance, effective research and development are often absent and require economies of scale. We need to achieve such economies but without, at the same time, destroying the distinctive positive qualities of smaller
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enterprises, effective employment generation, adaptability and responsiveness. We have to supplement our heavy emphasis on natural resources, at least in part, by an emphasis on people's skills and productivity.
Although we have perceived the need to move beyond the traditional industries, we have not always moved into better production in marketing techniques, more sophisticated higher quality versions of existing products, new products related to our existing basic skills or material expertise in marketing channels. We gain little when our agricultural products are shipping outside New Brunswick to be purchased back later as canned vegetables, meats or jellies, with good jobs going to other areas. We gain little when our forest products are shipped abroad to be purchased later as furniture and building materials. Deck hardware, navigational aids and fishing gear are purchased but not always manufactured in New Brunswick. More of these products should be manufactured in that province and more jobs should be created for the people of New Brunswick.
Building on our competitive advantages of resources, location and market access, we have done a great deal. The Japanese, however, have taught us that we can be successful without an abundance of material resources when people and organizations work together, particularly in the information economy. In order for people to receive the benefit of new technologies and advancement, it is essential that policies be developed in advance to enable the new technology to improve and expand the economy in order that more jobs can be created to offset the current trend of seeing jobs lost through mechanization.
Although federal initiatives, like the Skills Growth Fund program, provide an opportunity to offer advanced technological training, the difficulty remains that in a province like New Brunswick, and other small provinces, it is difficult to avoid coping with a continually changing list of nationally designated occupations, to the extent that we often have very little lead time between when occupations are newly designated and when training in those occupations must be delivered.
The relationship between technological change, employment maintenance and human resource planning is highly complex. In the case of New Brunswick, this complexity is further heightened by the lack of information which enables us to define with reasonable accuracy the economic sectors and activities in which technological applications should be actively encouraged, and to forecast the accompanying human resource needs. Clearly, the province's small population and economic base dictates that resources should be focused wherever our natural advantages would give our industries an optimal chance for success, and this focus should extend far beyond the technological field per se.
Against this background, the fundamental need for New Brunswick, the maritime provinces and Newfoundland, at this point is for quality information upon which we can base our training or retraining responses to technological change, and the financial resources to program effectively those responses.

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On another aspect of this problem, there are two buzz words in Japan today that no self respecting small city mayor dares ignore: technopolis and teletopia. The words sound grand and futuristic but the idea behind them is simple. Japan's government wants to take high technology rapidly to the underdeveloped corners of the country and is designating a string of outlying model cities as a way of getting it there. Some will essentially be high tech industrial parks and research centres. Others will be fitted with advanced communication systems linking businesses, homes and government offices.
The technologies envisioned for the revamped communities are generally no more advanced than those found in North America today, and despite the space age titles, designated communities are not expected to become pioneering examples of urban design. What is expected is that promotion of high technology in communities off the beaten path will encourage Japan's unified entry into a new era of advanced industry and communications. Industries are to include electronics, biotechnology, software development and robotics. These will also include interactive video systems, high speed computer communications, expanded use of fibre optic cable and teleconferencing.
Communities like those in New Brunswick and the other Maritime Provinces will be allowed to offer special tax breaks and low interest loans to high tech companies locating in their industrial parks. The first group is scheduled for completion in 1987 when upgrading roads and airports, new housing and facilities for research staff and a core of high tech industries are to be in place. This is indeed good planning, and we should take a page out of the Japanese book, and take it now. It requires a conscious decision of government to bring it about and that decision should be taken now.
Finally, I feel we should significantly expand wage subsidy programs such as the career access program. We should institute a program of refundable employer tax credits. We also have to provide training and retraining in high technology skills in order to avail ourselves of the jobs that do exist. We have to work with universities, industry and labour, to ensure that Canadians are not victimized by technological change. We have to act long before the changes take place.
We have to greatly improve information exchanges through which people become aware of job opportunities. Too many young people graduate from training programs and cannot find work, not because their skills are not in demand, but because they cannot make contact with the employer who needs them. We have to remedy this defect. We have to institute programs specifically designed to address the chronic unemployment which tragically plagues certain regions of Canada like the Maritimes.
In the Province of Newfoundland 37 per cent of young people, that is 37 per cent of persons between 15 and 24, who were seeking work are without jobs. In New Brunswick and Nova Scotia the figure is 27 per cent, and in Prince Edward Island, 26 per cent. Wage subsidies and refundable employment tax credits are good incentives but may not always be of
maximum benefit in these regions because of the slender industrial economy. Therefore, in these areas we should also institute programs of community based entrepreneurial development. We have to assist individuals and groups wishing to start new enterprises to raise capital, cut through red tape, indentify markets, train workers and establish constructive working relationships with local workers, educators and financial institutions. We have to offer what has been denied over half a million young unemployed Canadians and a million adults-a future.


Mr. Gilles Marceau (Jonquiere):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to take part in this discussion, I feel that I am fulfilling my first and foremost duty as a parliamentarian.
Can there be a more serious problem or a greater tragedy than that of a man or a woman who cannot earn a decent living or make a contribution to his or her family and to society? On the other hand, is there a more difficult problem to solve than that of reducing the current unemployment levels?
I have been listening since this morning to all those who have taken part in this debate and I have a feeling that we are all convinced of the seriousness of the situation and worried by the lack of any genuine solution to the problem. I am giving all the Members, wherever they may be sitting in this House, the benefit of the doubt, and I know they realize that, faced with such a serious problem which has reached proportions that can only be termed as tragic, what is most important is to call on the goodwill of everyone in this House and every group in our society, including the employers, the unions, the voluntary organizations, as well as the provincial, federal and municipal governments. People tend too easily to apportion our collective responsibility where unemployment is concerned. This is probably the basic reason why ideological, partisan and jurisdictional walls prevent us from doing anything and this is a failure we must all admit in the face of the increasing number of unemployed. I would like to invite my colleagues in this House, where we often have more work than we can handle, to make a collective effort to co-operate and face this increasingly serious problem of unemployment.
Mr. Speaker, one thing I do appreciate today is to be among my friends and former co-members of the task force on job opportunities for the eighties. I know the sponsor of today's motion, my colleague and friend, the Hon. Member for Calgary West (Mr. Hawkes). I am sure his intentions are good, but I would have liked him to be less radical in the wording of his motion. If the Hon. Member for Calgary West had simply said that the Government should do more to co-operate with voluntary organizations, business, labour and the educational community to provide adequate training and retraining opportunities that would enable Canadian workers to have confidence in their ability to deal with the challenges of fast technological changes, if these simple words had been used to
April 16, 1984

ask for the co-operation of both sides of the House, I would have been happy to support the motion. However, I still agree with the thrust of the motion, which calls for this co-operation which I mentioned earlier, this co-operation which is the only way to bring about the decrease in unemployment that we all want.
Of course, this debate provides us with a golden opportunity, Mr. Speaker, as we are given a chance to refer to the amount of $ 1.2 billion that the Canadian Government is allocating this year to the important area of occupational training under its new National Training Program.
Naturally, nothing is perfect, especially when technological changes are causing an upheaval in the industrial sector. It is precisely for the purpose of discussing possible improvements to this program and other initiatives developed in co-operation with the Provinces that the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts) has announced right here in this House that he intends to have further discussions with his provincial counterparts in June or July of this year.
On the other hand, Mr. Speaker, this very interesting debate also concerns, rather strangely in my opinion, what the Official Opposition considered last week as an occupational training program, which they did not however call official and whose costs they certainly did not reveal. According to the Members opposite, this program would bring about a phenomenal increase in the number of jobs for reasons which remain totally unexplained except in the sense that it calls for a change of Government.
Yet, Mr. Speaker, I think that, on both sides of the House we all know that a change of Government does not constitute a solution in the eyes of the public. The polls show that, no matter which party is in power, the current serious unemployment problems would still exist. These problems exist because of the international juncture, the conditions prevailing in the United States, and the situations locally and regionally.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to appeal to my friends opposite, some of whose comments I have found very offensive. When my friends opposite ask for the elimination of some job-creation programs such as Canada Works or summer programs, I am ready to give them the benefit of the doubt. However I would like them to understand that in remote areas such as ours, particularly in these difficult times, the only solution is job-creation programs providing temporary work. Of course, they are not permanent jobs, but they give needy families the support and assistance which would otherwise be denied to them.
My friends opposite are inclined to plan their programs and their action for large cities. Big cities certainly play an essential role in the future of a country such as ours. However, I would like to remind all members of this House that in dynamic areas such as the one I have the honour to represent
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and in several others if not throughout the country, we usually find the vitality, the inventiveness, the spontaneity, the devotion and the labour necessary to keep and preserve a country as great as ours.
I make this appeal, Mr. Speaker, because I know that not only the members opposite but also some government members often take this attitude which I find disturbing when they feel that the answer to a problem is solely to be found in urban centres. I do not deny their importance and value but I think that they can only provide a partial answer.
When we find Canadians at work throughout the land, from coast to coast, our country will then be thriving, having recovered its strength and vigour. I am sure that it will recover in the years to come for in spite of our present problems. I have confidence in our future.
Mr. Speaker, in this program that is put forward by our friends in the Official Opposition, a program which they had the opportunity to discuss and refine over a weekend, I find that there are, on the one hand, some aspects which are already in force and on the other hand, some other aspects which seem unfeasible to me. For example, Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservative Party has suggested that we provide for the creation of education savings plans, contributions to which would be tax-deductible as is the case for Registered Home Ownership Savings Plans. This kind of proposal obviously benefits higher income earners. In fact, the National Training Program already entitles people in training to direct financial aid equal to tuition fees. In my view, this is a completely different and more satisfactory method than the one recommended by Official Opposition members.
Let me give another example, Mr. Speaker. The Progressive Conservative Party has recommended the federal Government give loan guarantees to people in need in order to enable them to benefit from training and other educational programs. Yet, lowest income earners are not even required to pay registration fees for these institutional training programs. They receive an allowance equal to tuition fees.
Mr. Speaker, the Progressive Conservative Party has also recommended that fiscal incentives be given to employers to compensate for the cost of training and retraining of their employees. Yet, the Industrial Training Program already provides for direct reimbursement to employers of most of their training costs as well as half the trainee's salary. Training costs are already tax-deductible at the present time. I could list a dozen other examples of this kind, which would confirm that some of the proposed solutions are already in place.
Will all due respect for my friends opposite other proposals seem unfeasible in my view.
I have noticed, with considerable pleasure, that several of the solutions listed in the Conservative program originated from the task force in which we had participated and which I have referred to. I know that the hon. member for Calgary

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West was a member of that task force, together with others, such as the hon. member for Winnipeg North (Mr. Orlikow) who made his comments a while ago. His contribution was very much appreciated, and so was the contribution of the hon. member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid) who also did an excellent job. Partisanship has its place on certain occasions of course, however I feel that in this instance we have put forward very interesting solutions which have resulted in 186 resolutions now partially implemented. And when the hon. member for Winnipeg North asked a while ago just how many resolutions had been implemented, I felt that was a very relevant question I should direct to the Minister of Employment and Immigration.
Getting back to other suggestions from the Opposition, already implemented in the training programs, Mr. Speaker, there was the idea of using the Unemployment Insurance Fund. That is now a reality, for $259 million from the Unemployment Insurance Fund will be used this year for training purposes. And that, not to mention the federal contribution to a Quebec pilot assistance project for young welfare recipients under the Begin-Marois agreement. Recently I had the opportunity to comment on this and emphasize the fact that we are contributing $58 million over a two-year period to cover at least 50 per cent of the costs involved in the Quebec program which aims at helping young welfare recipients who are able to work.
In the Opposition scheme many references are made to the tax cuts and special incentives for the purchase of equipment and improvement of training courses. This suggestion is already being implemented, Mr. Speaker, thanks to a properly operating formula. I am referring to the Skills Growth Fund through which we will pay directly for this year alone, $86 million to teaching and training institutions to up-date their equipment and training facilities and overcome the serious skill shortages resulting from technical and technological changes.
In that respect, Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from a special article on robotics by Mr. Lucien Piche published in the April issue of the Commerce magazine, which I have just received and had a quick look at. The author talks about the "handouts contributed to the CEGEPs by the federal government", and goes on to say, and I quote: "since the Canada-Quebec agreement on adult occupational training was concluded in 1982-83, the CEGEPs have been literally showered with grants. The Skills Growth Fund established by the federal Manpower Department in February 1983 has already agreed to some Quebec projects for a total of $36 millions." In the few seconds left to me, Mr. Speaker, I would simply point out that the Jonqui&re CEGEP had submitted a projet. As you know, those projects must also be approved by the Quebec government. However, due to the latter's inaction and obstruction, the Jonquiere CEGEP lost $2 millions because the Quebec government refused to give the go-ahead already given by Ottawa.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I hope that all Hon. Members will put partisanship aside and will turn with confidence to the
future, all working together to reduce, if not elimininate this tragic problem of unemployment all across Canada.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Are there questions or remarks?


Jean-Guy Dubois: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to what my colleague had to say about the Skill Growth Fund.
On the basis of the motion now before us, I would like first to ask him a question about his region. About the Jonqui&re CEGEP, can he tell us in fact, in what field did the CEGEP in the riding which he has represented in this House for several years now, want to specialize? And is it not one of the programs launched by the federal Government through the Ministry of Employment and Immigration to encourage people to further their schooling in that high technology field and to make sure that educational institutions offer students courses preparing them for the labour market where new technologies are in demand?
I know that for some time now there is in his riding a new pulp and paper mill, which belongs to a company from the Eastern Townships; high technology has surely some importance in the project. The Papier Cascade company bought a plant in his region and he talks to us about the CEGEP. Can he tell us in fact if, contrary to what the opposition says, the federal Government, through the Skills Growth Fund in the case of the Jonquiere CEGEP, would have not agreed, had an agreement with the Quebec Government been secured, to a request for a job creation program in high technology because in his riding as well, they are trying to overcome unemployment and to improve their economic situation?


Gilles Marceau: Mr. Speaker, I wish to thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his excellent question, and commend him for his work as Parliamentary Secretary.
I would like to suggest that I am quite pleased indeed that he touched on the matter of Papier Cascade taking over a plant in our area. The Lemaire brothers, as they are called, are Quebec leaders, people with entrepreneurship, and I am very happy with this takeover. The Canadian Government contributed $1,250,000, and I think this bodes well for the future.
In answer to the Hon. Member, I must state that what the Jonquiere CEGEP proposed was a training capacity increase in the area of computer assisted design and manufacture.
That proposal had been developed over many months. It enhanced the Jonquiere CEGEP, which is playing a major role in that area on the regional level.
This was an opportunity for people in Jonquiere, especially the CEGEP people, with the help and assistance of local firms, which brings us back to the motion now before us-local people as I said, whether Alcan or Price, to show they were interested in working very closely with the CEGEP to put in place those facilities so that our young, may get involved and work in keeping with technological change.
April 16, 1984

Therefore, this was an excellent opportunity for local heads of institutions of higher learning, and also young people to show that it is not only in larger cities that major projects can be launched. And the Government perhaps did more, by recognizing the needs of our regions and ensuring that in communities such as ours, people do not feel left behind. The Development Fund Progam would have made the implementation of this project possible.
Unfortunately, Quebec said no! It is our hope they will change their minds, because we are going to put forward another proposal. We will not let matters stand. We are going to try again, and it is our hope that Quebec will bear reason, at least for once.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order, please. It being 6 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings on the motion, pursuant to Section 62(11).



PROCEEDINGS ON ADJOURNMENT MOTION

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

Ms. Lynn McDonald (Broadview-Greenwood):: Mr. Speaker, on January 30 I asked a very straightforward question of the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts) regarding changes in staff and staff policy in immigration offices. What is proposed is that some very skilled court reporters who work in refugee and immigration hearings be replaced by transcribing machines from which the court records would subsequently be typed by typists at a considerably lower rate of pay.
There are two problems with this policy of the Government. One is that women will lose more skilled jobs at a higher rate of pay, and be replaced by machines and other employees at a lower rate of pay. The other is the quality of the work itself. Peoples' lives depend upon accurate records for immigration and refugee status hearings. The quality of product which comes by the use of machines without having a person there to check on the material has been found wanting. We know from other places, that the records are not adequate and have caused problems.
The Minister said he would look into the matter. The union is pursuing it. There has been a grievance on the question. The grievance has now gone through two stages and has been turned down. It seems the department is going ahead to replace these skilled women with machines and other employees at a lower rate of pay. We have not managed to stop that.
Adjournment Debate
I would like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that throughout all of this the department concerned has a policy on technological change. It has a personnel policy which would direct it in quite a different way. Let me quote from that policy:
The Canada Employment and Immigration Commission/Department recognizes that technological change, and technological improvements generally, offer great scope and the ideal opportunity for the organization to not only improve the quality of the services and programs it offers to the Canadian public, but also to extend the capabilities and opportunities available to its staff and, to the fullest extent possible, improve the quality of the Commission/Department's work environment for the benefit of all employees.
Yet, here we see some employees who will be clearly disadvantaged by these changes which are in process, and certainly the quality of the service will go down. Let me continue quoting from the policy:
In order to ensure that the maximum benefits to be derived from the application of technological change are earned and shared by all staff, the Commission/Department is fully committed to ensuring that the introduction of such changes in its work locations are both approached and accomplished in a manner which will minimize any possible adverse impact for employees whose work environment is to be affected.
Then it says there will be full consultation with representatives of the employees at all organization levels.
Further, the policy goes on to specify a number of principles which must be respected. It states that full and ongoing consultation to ensure the negative impact of the introduction of technological change on long-term employment is kept to an absolute minimum. Employees affected by the introduction of new technologies will be provided with an opportunity to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to enable them to take advantage of new jobs emerging from technological change. But here we have people being deskilled; not being trained to do more difficult and higher paid jobs, but being deskilled. That is the opposite to what the department talks about when it has its fine principles on paper.
Further, this same department has an affirmative action program. Here we have a lovely affirmation action program, but it is on paper. It talks in very fine language: "It is our intention through this program to eliminate employment barriers faced particularly by women and other groups." It talks about the need for a stronger commitment on the need of federal employees to eliminate discrimination or discriminatory employment practices and develop a work force that is representative of the work force of the public it serves. Yet while it talks about all this, it is going in precisely the opposite direction, deskilling jobs, seeing that women have fewer job opportunities than in the past.
One job opportunity that has become open at the same department is for immigration counsellors. The first job description for this would have screened out these very women who are losing their jobs through technological change. Fortunately the employment and immigration union of the Public Service Alliance of Canada fought this procedure and a new definition for the job search has been set up. These women will now have a chance to apply for these jobs. That is a very

April 16, 1984
Adjournment Debate
small victory indeed. The very fact that this had to be fought so that women would have an opportunity to apply for these better jobs shows the mentality of the Department.
Finally, other people will suffer as well as the employees. The records that come out of these tribunal hearings are enormously important. Refugee and immigrant status will depend on what is written down at these hearings. This is supposed to be a service to the public. It is absolutely vital. Where machines are being used in other places there are notations of "inaudible", "sic", misspellings and all kinds of problems that lawyers for the people concerned have noted with the record. I urge very strongly that this matter be reconsidered, that the deskilling end and that quality service be provided by the Department for the people so vitally concerned.


Jean-Guy Dubois: Mr. Speaker, I would like to elaborate on the answer given by the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts) to the Hon. Member for Broadview-Greenwood (Ms. McDonald) on January 30, 1984.
There are 19 court reporters in Toronto and 15 in Mississauga, all of them classified ST-COR-1. Under the Commission's global strategy to reduce by March 31, 1987 the backlog of enquiries and applications for refugee status, the Ontario region plans to install electronic recording equipment in all courtrooms and to hire typists to transcribe the recordings which now exceed present capacity. The executive director for the Ontario region met with union representatives on December 6, 1983, in order to get their views on technological change. Later, on December 16, he confirmed the following in writing to Mr. William Fisher, Regional Manager of the Employment and Immigration Union, and I quote:
As far as implementation of electronic recording in the immigration group is concerned, and in accordance with clause 9 of the ST collective agreement dealing with technological change, I am pleased to confirm the commitment I gave your Union at our meeting. Management put in use electronic recording equipment to process enquiries and assess applications for refugee status in order to reduce serious backlogs in the Ontario region and particularly in the immigration districts of Toronto and Mississauga. Additional resources have been allocated for the present fiscal year and other resources have been requested for 1984-85 and 1985-86 in order to help with recruiting clerk-typists and take care of the backlog before March 31, 1986. Court reporters working presently with the Department will still record enquiries using either head phones, a transcription machine or shorthand and will then type required texts. Classification level for court reporters will not change. They will keep their status of employees hired for indefinite period and will still get the pay rate applicable to court reporters in the ST category.
Grievances were filed following that decision and they are being dealt with according to established rules. Besides, a study is being made of means to give present reporters the benefit of some opportunities for promotion. In the meantime, it is believed that the union had ample opportunity to make its
opinion known on that matter and that the requirements of the ST's collective agreement regarding technological change were complied with. Those consultations were also held according to instructions pertaining to technological change in EIC and the policy relating to personnel. The training aspect has also been considered, because management has promised to make sure employees will be taught how to use more sophisticated typing and reproduction equipment when it becomes available.
In conclusion, as concerns the quality level of the work done with this equipment, the Quebec Region has been using it for several years now and no loss of transcription quality has been detected. So I hope this fully answers the Hon. Member's question.


CANADA POST CORPORATION-REQUEST FOR CANCELLATION OF CONSUMERS DISTRIBUTING PROJECT. (B) REQUEST THAT PROJECT RESULTS BE RELEASED PUBLICLY
A. Daniel McKenzie: Mr. Speaker, I directed a question to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) today in the absence of the Minister responsible for Canada Post. My question regarded the expansion of Canada Post service as it relates to Consumers Distributing, a direct invasion into the private sector. This invasion has been opposed by government Members as well as by members of the Conservative Party.
I would like to read into the record tonight some of the concerns of interested parties. We have received correspondence from Home Hardware in Souris, Manitoba. That letter reads:
Why should I, as an independent retailer, subsidize through my tax dollars a large company like Consumers (Distributing)?
The Canadian Retail Hardware Association which has member stores right across Canada points out the following in a letter of March 1, 1984:
The members of this association-over 2,000 hardware and home centre stores across Canada-will be significantly and adversely affected by this move. On their behalf, we register extreme displeasure and plead for an immediate review of the policy which has allowed such an "arrangement" to develop. Our concern is centered in three distinct areas:
1.	The entry of Canada Post into this area does not serve any demonstrated need of the Canadian public. There is then, no reasonable rationale for a Crown corporation to enter this area of free enterprise.
2.	The existence of Canada Post offices in virtually every community of Canada would immediately give one player in the competition game-Consumers Distributing Limited-access to all of these markets. The other players in the game in each of those markets is required to make significant community investment. The competitive balance will be upset. Legitimate retail businesses will suffer.
It is not the purpose of Government, Mr. Speaker, to be interfering in the private sector in the first place. I shall continue reading from the letter:
3.	Canada Post has monopoly power to provide normal postal service in Canada. The monopoly implies an obligation on Canada Post to provide the best postal service of which it is capable. It is clear that Canada Post needs to concentrate on improving its level of service in postal handling and delivery. This is the challenge which should preoccupy postal authorities.
April 16, 1984

I could not agree more.
A letter to the President of Canada Post from the Pembroke City Council was reported in the Pembroke Observer of March 20,1984, and reads as follows:
A meeting of the Pembroke and area Chamber of Commerce representing the interest of over 250 member businesses, was convened on March 9, 1984, to discuss concerns with regard to the pilot project recently undertaken by Canada Post and Consumers Distributing.
During the meeting it was decided that: whereas Canada Post was established and capitalized by the taxpayers of Canada,
Whereas! the traditional mandate of Canada Post is to operate an adequate mail delivery service,
Whereas we believe the aforementioned pilot project is not in keeping with this mandate and is in fact an unwarranted intrusion into the private sector,
Whereas we strongly believe this arrangement will result in a reduction in the quality of the postal service,
Therefore we must vehemently oppose this type of arrangement and request that it be discontinued immediately.
I believe that it should be discontinued immediately, Mr. Speaker.
In the March 20, 1984 edition of the Pembroke Observer the following letter to the President of Canada Post from MPP Sean Conway appeared:
I wish to express my strongest disapproval of the arrangement which Canada Post has struck with Consumers Distributing to participate in their mail order business. I do not think it proper for a Crown corporation to involve itself with a private company actively competing with local businesses. If Consumers Distributing wishes to establish in the Pembroke area, we would be pleased to welcome them as a free standing enterprise. If however, Consumers Distributing is to enter our market area as a subsidiary of Canada Post, then such an arrangement is unfair and unacceptable. Tax paying local businesses should not be forced into competition with a joint venture which they are, in fact, subsidizing.
Also the following was reported on CHRO News in Ottawa on March 20:
Today, when the agenda of the Chamber of Commerce meeting in Pembroke turned to Canada Post's experiment with Consumers Distributing one could feel a definite charge run through the rooms. These people, many of them small business operators, are angry. They feel that having Consumers Distributing in the post office is the same as government subsidized competition. The Chamber received five more letters today from business people and consumers opposed to the experiment and correspondence was produced from one of the Quebec communities involved in the Canada Post experiment. The Chamber's President stated "We've just received a letter from Noranda and I'm glad to say that it's not only ourselves in Smiths Falls in Ontario that are objecting but also the test areas in Quebec. They have circulated a petition in their area and we're hoping to do the same."
Some of the correspondence I have received as official spokesman of the Opposition of Canada Post has come from cities such as Pembroke and Smiths Falls, from Home Hardware, the Canadian Retail Hardware Association and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Other individuals have written from across Canada. Mr. Speaker, I am sure you are also receiving mail in opposition to this intrusion into the private sector.
A letter to the Canadian Retail Hardware Association from the Chairman of the Board of Canada Post indicated:
The advent of new technologies will compel the corporation to alter its services in the future. If the corporation is to become self-sufficient, it is necessary that we do more than solely deliver "traditional" forms of mail.
Adjournment Debate
They will be stopping the private sector from becoming self-sufficient. I suggest that the Government should force Canada Post to drop this proposal.


Mr. Normand Lapointe (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to clarify the matter raised by the Hon. Member and to disprove certain erroneous ideas about the services that have been tested by the Canada Post Corporation in co-operation with Consumers Distributing.
First, Mr. Speaker, let me state once again the three main objectives which the Parliament of Canada has set for the Canada Post Corporation. Here they are: the Corporation must enhance the postal services, bring labour relations into line, and attain financial self-sufficiency.
As you can see, Mr. Speaker, the legislation that established the Canada Post Corporation provides that it must become financially independent. Besides, what matters is that in several areas, emphasis is being laid on the need to keep up with the times and supply products and services best suited to the requirements of the Canadian people.
Canada Post Corporation is responsible for the operation of a postal service involving the collection, transmission and distribution of messages, courriers, monies and commodities without accountability. It is expected, of course, to adjust to the changing needs of the Canadian users.
The tentative services which were set up in co-operation with Consumers Distributing and its clients is only the harbinger of what will be common practice in the 21th century. That company realized that postal services have always been a good publicity medium and have always managed to dispatch direct postal orders, money orders or parcels efficiently. By developing new processes, the Corporation has been able to offer new services specifically designed to Consumers Distributing and generate new revenues.
Canada Post Corporation is not doing at all what the hon. member is suggesting. It did not move into the retail business. It does not buy, own, stock or sell commodities and it does not offer any warranty or install material. In other words, it does not do the retailer's job. It dispatches written material, monies and parcels and carries out activities which have always been the responsibility of the post office for the last two centuries.
If we are to consider Canada Post as a retailer-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order, please. I must interrupt the hon. Parliamentary Secretary as his time has expired.


INCOME TAX ACT-TAKING OF TAXPAYERS' STATEMENTS UNDER OATH-MINISTER'S POSITION
Mr. John Gamble (York North):: Mr. Speaker, on March 22, I asked the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Bussieres)

April 16, 1984
Adjournment Debate
a question to which I expected a reasonable reply. The question related to the application of Paragraph 231 (l)(c) of the Income Tax Act and the consequential effects of that particular paragraph upon the liberty of the subject. That paragraph permits officers of the Department of National Revenue, in the course of undertaking their investigation, to obtain from taxpayers statements, including statements under oath.
My observation was that, having regard to that provision, there was the real likelihood that a taxpayer who had, in fact, complied with that requirement under Paragraph 231 (l)(c) might later be prosecuted for tax evasion, having made a self-incriminating statement. The response of the Minister is found at page 2335 of Hansard.
In reading the response again, I suspect that never was there a better illustration of why we need these adjournment debates-because of the unsatisfactory nature of the response given to me. The Minister said, and I quote:
-perhaps the Hon. Member would care to examine various provisions of the Income Tax Act which are very specific and reflect the very nature of this legislation and the kind of tax system we have in Canada.
Well, of course, I did examine the provisions of the Income Tax Act. If I had not, I would not have raised the specific issue to the Minister which I did. I would have thought by now, having been in his post as long as he has, the Minister which he is responsible for administering. Yet that does not seem to be the case. He continued by saying:
If he does-
That refers to me.
-he will see that these provisions exist because of the nature of the legislation and the tax system we have in Canada.
It is because of that tax system that I raised that question. I suspect if we were to ask the people of Canada they would almost unanimously agree that the system itself is offensive and should be changed.
One of the offensive provisions is in the very section to which I made reference. I will not read the section, Mr. Speaker, because I briefly explained the intent and purpose of it, but let me read from the Act, under Part XV thereof, which is headed "Administration and Enforcement". The first subsection, 220(1) reads as follows:
The Minister shall administer and enforce this Act and control and supervise all persons employed to carry out or enforce this Act-
It is the Minister of National Revenue, Mr. Speaker, to which reference should be made with respect to administrative provisions, and not the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) who may be responsible for the generation of revenue in the country. Yet this Minister seems to be completely ignorant of the provisions of the very Act for which he is clearly responsible.
What are the implications of Section 231, and in particular, paragraph 231 (l)(c) which, as I indicated, obliges taxpayers to give statements under oath? If one looks further under Part XV one finds under subsection 238(2) the following:
Every person who has failed to comply with or contravened subsection-
And there are a number of subsections listed including subsection 231.
-is guilty of an offence and, in addition to any penalty otherwise provided, is liable on summary conviction to
(a)	a fine of not less than $200 and not exceeding $10,000, or
(b)	both the fine described in paragraph (a) and imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months.
Looking further, Mr. Speaker, at paragraph 239(c), for example, it reads:
Every person who has
(c)	made, or assented to or acquiesced in the making of, false or deceptive entries, or omitted, or assented to or acquiesced in the omission, to enter a material particular, in records or books of account of a taxpayer,-
is guilty of an offence and, in addition to any penalty otherwise provided, is liable on summary convictions to
(f)	a fine of not less than 25% and not more than double the amount of the tax that was sought to be evaded, or
(g)	both the fine described in paragraph (f) and imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years.
Then, Mr. Speaker, Section 239(2) says that every person who is charged with an offence described in the Section I just read may, at the election of the Attorney General of Canada, be prosecuted upon indictment and, if convicted, is, in addition to any penalty otherwise provided, liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years and not less than two months.
These are serious matters, Mr. Speaker, not to be taken lightly. We are dealing with the liberty of the individual. When I make reference specifically to an offensive provision in this Act, I do believe that it is appropriate for the Minister responsible for the administration of this Act to stand in his place and give a decent, honest answer. This Section clearly should be amended or repealed so that the liberty of the individual is preserved.


Arthur Allister MacBain: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for York North (Mr. Gamble) may or may not be aware that the Department of Justice is carefully reviewing the Income Tax Act, as well all other federal statutes to identify possible conflicts with the Charter of Rights. Given this Government's commitment to that Charter, the review is of the most searching kind. I can assure the Hon. Member that Section 231 of the Income Tax Act is included in the review, and I thank him for his interest.
I am well aware of the Hon. Member's expertise in the tax field, and his keen interest in the validity or otherwise of such sections as Section 231 of the Income Tax act is understandable. That having been said, it is not my intention this evening to throw any doubt whatsoever upon the constitutional validity of Section 231 of the Income Tax Act, or any other aspect of the said Act. My intervention this evening is merely to assure
April 16, 1984

the Hon. Member that the section he referred to will be subject to departmental review.


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

Tuesday, April 17, 1984