1984-02-21

GOVERNMENT ORDERS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Thursday, February 16, consideration of the motion of Mr. Lalonde that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the Government; and the amendment of Mr. Crosbie p. 1445; and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Riis p. 1448.
Mr. Charles Mayer (Portage-Marquette):: Mr. Speaker, any budget is important and, therefore, any budget debate is important. I believe this Budget is particularly so, Mr. Speaker, because it indicates the Government's intentions in a pre-election period. One would have thought that with the kind of country we have, the opportunities, the natural resources, and the kind of people, the Budget would be a chance for the Government to show some direction, leadership and hope for the future of this country. We did not really see any of that in this Budget.
It is interesting to note, and rather sad, that the lack of response to the new Budget sits well with the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde). I quote from an article in The Globe and Mail of February 17:
Finance Minister Marc Lalonde says his new budget is not having any effect on the Canadian economy-and that that makes him happy.
I find that an incredible statement. What it indicates, Mr. Speaker, is that it does not bother him that there is a million and a half people unemployed and that the unemployment rate for young people is 20 per cent. When we have this kind of economy, it is sad for a Finance Minister to come forward with a Budget which shows no response to the plight of the economic community in this country, and to say that suits him fine has to be literally a disgrace, Mr. Speaker.
I see the former Minister of Transport is in the House. He is a very fine gentleman for whom I have a lot of respect. I am sure he has the respect of all Hon. Members. I see him shaking his head, but I am sure, as an economist, he would have to agree with me when I ask the question: Given the kind of situation we have in the country today, if the Minister of Finance must come forward with a Budget which actually does nothing, why would he come forward with a Budget at all? I
suppose it is politics. It is almost axiomatic that you must put the best light on everything. Had the Minister of Finance been responsible for the sinking of the Titanic, I wonder if he would have responded by saying: "I am glad to see that the law of gravity still works". I feel that is the kind of attitude of this Government.
I do not like being critical all the time, Mr. Speaker, but I will make one other point which concerns me and the farming community. That is the way Section 31 of the Income Tax Act is applied, the so-called hobby farmers section. This affects the people who work off the farm and use the income earned against expenses incurred on the farm. They are allowed to deduct $5,000 of their income against expenses incurred on the farm. That has been causing a lot of problems in the farming community. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) has been concerned about this. He spoke recently at the annual meeting of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture in Edmonton and this is what he is quoted as saying regarding Section 31. He said: "It should either be drastically changed or preferably wiped off the books. I think the law is obsolete". A lot of us would agree with that. However, this man happens to be in Cabinet and we wonder, if he agrees with us that this section needs to be changed and says it is obsolete, why can he not do something about it? He happens to be in the Cabinet. He said: "I would rather see part-time farmers than absentee landlords". I agree with him totally, no question about that. But what does he do? Nothing. He reminds me, Mr. Speaker, of an old gomer bull in a pasture. There is a lot of ranting and raring and roaring and pawing the ground, but when it comes to getting the job done he is absolutely useless. That is what a lot of us realize when we look at what is in the Budget for agriculture, and it makes us sad.
Let me point out a few things I think were useful in the Budget and try to put them in context. There are some good things relating to simplifying paper work for small business. No question that that needs to be done. Unfortunately, we need more than simply a study. What are we getting here? More paper work. Surely we are entitled to have some action rather than just 75 or 80 pages of additional paper. We are not so much unhappy with some of the things in the Budget; it is the fact that they are all going to be studied.
However, a step in the right direction is the fact that the Government recognized the problems with capital gains taxes on farm land. Unfortunately, I am not so sure it goes far enough, but it is something worthwhile. There are some useful things on pension reform in the Budget, but again it is simply going to be studied.

February 21, 1984
The Budget-Mr. Mayer
For the rest of my time, Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about Canadian agriculture, a very important sector of the Canadian economy. I will give you some figures which will hopefully point out the validity of what I just said. If you include all the various sectors of agriculture, it accounts for one-sixth of all the economic activity in the country and 18 per cent of the work force. If you break it down further, a little over 4 per cent of Canada's population is engaged directly in farming. That gives you an idea of how efficient Canadian agriculture has become over the past number of years.
In nine of the ten provinces agriculture ranks in the top three contributors to gross provincial product. In 1982, the last year for which figures are complete and available, agricultural exports were approximately $9.5 billion, including over $6 billion from the sale of grain. At least 50 cents out of each dollar of Canadian farm income comes from exports. If you break out the prairie provinces, something like 60 per cent of grains produced on the Prairies are exported.
To break it down further, in Saskatchewan almost 80 per cent of the farm income is from cash crops, most of which are exported. If you understand simple figures, Mr. Speaker, that should tell you agriculture is a very important part of the economy. Yet there is hardly anything of any substance in the Budget with regard to agriculture. I have to wonder why. Is it because our present Minister of Agriculture does not understand, care or have any clout in Cabinet? The simple fact is that nothing is happening as far as agriculture in the Budget is concerned. That does not mean there are no problems in agriculture. Agriculture is facing basically the same kind of problems as far as economic activity is concerned as any other part of the economy.
I would like to point out another example which disturbs a lot of us. Over the past summer there was a major economic initiative as far as agriculture is concerned in Bill C-155, commonly known as the Crow Bill. Yet it was largely carried by the Department of Transport. The Department of Agriculture had very little input into what went on. I find that incredible in terms of the importance the Bill had with regard to Canadian agriculture.
I see the former Minister of Transport shaking his head. I have to disagree with him. I sat on the committee all summer. I think I missed two or three out of 66 committee meetings. The evidence presented by the Department of Agriculture was very minimal as far as I could see. I find that very sad because Bill C-155 is going to have major effects on agriculture. It was in fact an agricultural initiative. A case could be made, Mr. Speaker, that it could almost have been a Bill shepherded through the House by the Minister of Agriculture. Yet as far as we who attended the committee meetings could see, there was very little input from the Department of Agriculture. It is a sad state of affairs.


Mr. Pepin:: There is a difference between the preparation of a Bill and its passage through the House and committee.


Charles James Mayer: I would like to make some points about some of the things the Government could have put in the Budget which would not have cost a lot of dollars. The Government likes to berate the Opposition, saying that we want to have increased Government programs and at the same time cut down on the deficit. That is sometimes the case. However, I would like to point out some areas in which the Government could have moved which would not have cost the Treasury very many dollars, and in some cases no dollars at all.
Before I do that, I would like to make one brief point. The Government berates the Opposition, saying that the cutting we would do would be in the area of social programming. That is not the case at all. One of the best social programs you can have in the country is simply a job. People that have jobs are not in need of a lot of social programs. From my experience with people who have been unfortunate enough not to have jobs, I believe they would much sooner have a job than rely on government for social assistance. Anything that this Government can do to create jobs in the country by implication negates the need for social programs. If we are ever given a chance to form the Government of the country, Mr. Speaker, one of our first emphases will be on jobs. One of the best ways to attack the need for social assistance in the country is to provide people with jobs.
I would like to return to what the Government could have done with regard to agriculture. I pointed out that a large portion of Canadian farm income is earned through exports. That means that if we are going to become competitive we have to have input prices very similar to the United States, which is our biggest competitor. The U.S. is our very close neighbour and ally, but it is also our competitor when it comes to world markets for agricultural products. For almost six years the border has been closed to the importation of farm chemicals. It is my understanding that there is still quite a difference in price between farm chemicals available across the line in the United States and the ones in Canada.
The Government could have considered opening the borders to give Canadian farmers access to less expensive chemicals. This cannot be done now in the spring of the year when a lot of people in the farm chemical business have laid in supplies which are more expensive than similar American products. However, there is a time of the year-I suggest the fall or the early new year-when the Government could consider opening up the border and it would not cost it anything as far as expenditures are concerned. I am told that the reason the border was closed in the first place was to allow Canadian manufacturers and suppliers to gear up production so they could compete with suppliers from other parts of the world. Surely six years is long enough. I had the opportunity to talk to some people in the farm chemical business. They agree that it would help everyone if there was an open border to farm chemicals.
Let me talk about farm fuel because we have heard several concerns raised about its high cost. Although it is difficult to
February 21, 1984

determine the exact figure, approximately 25 per cent to 30 per cent of the cost of farm fuel in this country is associated with federal tax. This is a high cost to farmers. When one considers the overall amount of fuel used in a farming operation, approximately 25 per cent of total farm costs are associated with energy. This shows how significant energy costs are to such an operation. This is an area where the federal Government takes an excessive amount of tax.
Government members opposite will say that if the taxation is reduced the deficit will increase. Let me point out that farmers and fishermen are allowed a seven cents per gallon or one and a half cents per litre rebate. They pay the tax and then apply for the rebate. If the Minister of Finance was serious about doing something, he could have implemented a system whereby, instead of applying for the rebate, farmers and fishermen could swear a type of affidavit indicating that the fuel they purchased would be used only for those purposes that would permit a refund. While this would not have amounted to a net reduction in the amount of tax that farmers pay, it would have removed that seven cents a gallon tax when they bought their fuel initially.
Farmers and fishermen find it very annoying and cumbersome to apply for refunds. This procedure is typical of how the Revenue Department is operating currently. I have had occasion in our farming operation to have conversations with auditors and others in the Revenue Department. They want all kinds of invoices and additional information that I do not believe is necessary. Many people simply give up and do not apply for the refund, which means that there is taxation by default.
If the Government had taken its Budget seriously it could have considered not collecting the seven cents a gallon initially and doing away with the refund. It would save the Government money in administration and save farmers some initial costs. When there are problems with bankruptcies and fuel dealers having to collect their bills, this would be seven cents a gallon less that they would have to worry about collecting. This would have been beneficial to everyone but it makes too much common sense to the Government to consider it.
The Hon. Member for Willowdale (Mr. Peterson) is shouting something at me from the back row. If he would listen I think he would agree that what I say makes common sense. I hope he would talk to his Minister of Finance and his Parliamentary Secretary, who are not here, unfortunately, to see if they would consider some of these ideas. If they did so perhaps people would have more respect for the Government. It makes common sense in terms of how the Government administers its affairs and would cut down on the amount of paper work for the Revenue Department. It would decrease the amount of the contact between the Department of Revenue and taxpayers. It would help farmers and fishermen in terms of their initial outlay.
Let me talk about the agri-bond concept. Financing is a very important part of agriculture today. I believe there is room for the Farm Credit Corporation to operate similar to how CMHC used to operate. It could act as a re-insurer, as a go
The Budget-Miss Begin
between the buyer and the seller, take 1 per cent or 2 per cent as a mark-up, and guarantee the loan. That would significantly help in finding capital to put new farmers on the land.
I could also talk about advance payments legislation. We have encouraged the Government for some time to increase the amount of advanced payments available under legislation. In many ways it costs the Government a minimal amount of money. It is a program that has worked well and it would put cash into the farmers' hands sooner than normal.
In conclusion, I would simply urge the Government to proceed as quickly as possible with the red meat stabilization program in this country. Four provinces have agreed to it in principle. In fact, many people are saying that the federal Government has lost its leadership in this area. If the Government were to show some interest and pursue this program, I believe the balkanization that is taking place in the red meat industry in this country could be stopped by having a national, uniform program for stabilization from coast to coast. Unfortunately, as a result of the lack of direction shown by the Government, its Budget does not take that into account. The Budget is very unfortunate for a country that has so much potential and a promising future. I will have no trouble at all in not supporting the Budget and voting against it.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: A ten-minute period is now allowed for comments or questions relating to the Hon. Member's speech. Debate. The Hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin).


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, job creation was a major concern of the Hon. Members who spoke previously, as it was in the Budget, and rightly so, since it is the main concern of all Canadians.

Besides job creation and in parallel, I think it is very urgent for Canadians to start addressing, not just debating, the question of pensions. We do so as well in the Budget.
Let me explain, if I may. First, public pensions. I think it is important for everyone in Canada to know once and for all, although some other improvements are possible, that the basis for public pensions in Canada is now established to my great pleasure by the Government in this Budget of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde). It means single pensioners, three-quarters of them being women, who receive the supplement, even if they receive a small part of the supplement, are people in need. We do not like to say it and we do not even like to admit it, but they are really people in need. That replaces the much smaller, wealthier group which the provinces would be paying for. When a person reaches 65 years of age one becomes a pensioner. If that person is in need, he or she gets help through the federal Government and through what is called the supplement.

February 21, 1984
The Budget-Miss Begin
All single pensioners under the supplement will now receive $50 more per month from now until Christmas on top of the three cost of living increases which they will receive every three months as usual. That boost will bring pensioners up over a decent line of income in order to protect them once and for all. In other words, we will have two increases of $25 more a month. The first one will be in July and the other one in December, on top of the usual indexation to the cost of living. That money will go to roughly 750,000 Canadian pensioners, single, alone, most of whom are women. Since it will lift the level of income over which people qualify for help, it will bring in about 25,000 new pensioners who will start to qualify for some modest supplement to help them fill the gap in their other income. I think this is extremely good news.
On top of that, I will introduce in the Elouse in the spring this year, in the same Bill probably, something to help immigrant seniors. We changed pensions for immigrants in 1977 to make things more equitable. Before it was all or nothing for them. We observed that we may face some disparities in the future. We now have a fair system. By this new amendment we will make it not only fair but practical. All immigrant seniors, even if they are in Canada for a short period of time only, can be assured by this Budget that now they will be on the same basis as all Canadian pensioners. That is what this Bill I will be introducing will do. I think it is very good news and is why I was able to state at the beginning of my speech that I think public pensions will be okay in Canada for a long time to come. They are indexed to the cost of living and will continue to keep their real value. That is very good news as well.
Also we announced in the Budget and in summary booklets, as well as in the technical explanation, that we want to see pension reform started in Canada. What do we mean by that? I think it is the key dossier. We are now talking about medicare. I do not want to presume but we will pass-and the Parties have promised it-the new Canada Health Act. Therefore Canadians will not be required to pay extras when they are sick, must go to a doctor or to hospital. That will be so for years to come, for decades to come.
But what is the next important issue which we in Canada will have to discuss, to address and to solve in the area of social affairs? I would submit that it would be the dossier on private pension plans. There are people in the galleries who are from Ottawa and perhaps other parts of Canada. There are people listening to the debate in the House of Commons. They hear what the politicians are discussing. Some of these people are employed by companies, be they public or private, municipal governments, small private companies or large multinationals. They are people either with or without pension plans. They may be people with good pension plans or bad ones.
The reality in Canada today which we have to face is that 55 per cent of Canadian workers or the majority-and I am just talking about workers on payrolls-do not have company pension plans; they do not have private pension plans. If they were unable-and I guess that includes the majority of
Canadians-to build little private pension plans for themselves, to put some savings aside or to buy homes, at age 65 they will experience a sudden drop in income of at least $10,000 on average. They have been paid better wages, they reach the age of retirement and their income will drop very abruptly to that of the public pension.
We are lucky to have a universal public pension. Only two countries in the world have it-Sweden and Canada. Once public pensions are fixed and are good for everyone, it is important to ensure that the vast majority of Canadians, the middle class, do not lose through a sudden disruption in income the good standard of living which they have been able to build for themselves over the years. That is what the Government is addressing in the Budget which the Minister of Finance presented on Wednesday of last week.
We are addressing pension reform. We have only started. We could have been bolder, but as Canadians agree we should try to develop jobs first and then slowly build in good pensions for the future. We have started first with the Canada Pension Plan because it is our direct responsibility. At the same time we will negotiate with the provinces in order that they confirm their agreement. I understand they have given indications to that effect. We propose that better pension rights should be given to homemakers or survivors at home. This means that we propose compulsory credit sharing on marriage breakdown, unless both spouses agree to forgo that right. Otherwise it will become the rule of the game. When both people have reached age 65, the credits will be automatically split between them and those who remarry will not lose their survivor's benefits. That is excellent news for women in particular as well as for many Canadians.
Then we will propose a series of amendments-and I think this will be done by the Minister of Finance later this spring- to a federal piece of legislation called the Pension Benefit Standards Act. This is not the time to get into the technicalities; they will be discussed with all Hon. Members in due time, when the Bill is presented. However, in a nutshell the amendments to this federal legislation will make ideal, if I may say, the pensions of Canadians whose jobs fall under the federal Government. For example, I am referring to people in banks, in transportation companies, in broadcasting and communications companies, et cetera.
These pensions will be ideal because we will make it mandatory that they have perfect portability when people change jobs. They will have survivor's benefit pensions at 60 per cent of the pension of the working spouse and they will have a measure of protection against inflation, vesting after two years of work. It belongs to the worker and follows the worker through various jobs in his working life.
Then there will be the division of pension credits on marriage breakdown in order to be more fair to the two spouses who, after all, helped build the pension. And, at long last, we will eliminate the infamous sex discrimination in the actuarial tables. In other words, we will have unisex tables to calculate the benefits of women so that they will be identical to those offered to working men.
February 21, 1984

I admit that this is both very good and very limited. It gives to people working under federal jurisdiction ideal pensions. This is our job and our responsibility as the federal Government. We will honour it and do it. But how can we equip millions of other Canadian workers who do not have private pensions in the first place with pensions? That is the biggest challenge of the eighties. I think it is fair to say-and I see Hon. Members on both sides of the House nodding in approval-that this will be the major challenge in the social welfare field for years to come. It will not be done overnight.
We have offered all people of Canada a course of action. We will make-and again it is directly under our jurisdiction-the federal tax system the best possible and most attractive one for Canadians to have opportunity to build for themselves private pension plans. They usually do this through RRSPs. We are now heating about them all over the place because everyone is advertising that they should be purchased before the end of February. We will make them even more attractive, and the Minister of Finance will table a Bill later this spring which will create another possible plan, RPAs. These plans will be locked in. This means that the funds cannot be withdrawn before retirement. They are locked-in bank accounts which produce interest and give tax benefits- let us call it by its name-to attract people into building their own pension plans.
Will that be enough? I do not think it will but we have to start on that route. It will probably not be enough because we will have to see-and I cannot prejudge the future-if the backbone of the Canadian economy, namely small businesses, pick it up. One feature which will make it very attractive is that another person will be able to contribute in the name of a worker. This means a small private company can choose to open RRSP-RPAS in the names of its employees. We will have to see if it works and if it is picked up by Canadians. Then we will judge how to proceed for all other Canadians workers who do not have a pension.
How do we have a company pension for everybody? How did it happen in other countries? It is difficult to use the United States as a comparison because the situation there is a bit like Canada with the majority of workers not having a pension in the first place. At age 65 they receive a public pension from the state, which is a bit unsatisfactory. People are not ready for a major disruption in their income, nor do they want it. How do we ensure that we get to the situation where the Europeans are, for example?

Mr. Speaker, since 1979 I have asked a lot of questions about pensions, a subject I deal with constantly as Minister of National Health and Welfare. It is a fact that European countries have had proper pension funds since the last World War. After experiencing the horrors of two world wars, the unions-Europeans being more extensively unionized than Canadian workers-immediately decided that pensions would be their first priority in negotiations with employers. Pension
The Budget-Miss Begin
funds were set up for all workers in all European countries. Once this had become general practice and 90 per cent of the workers, as was the case in France, had company pensions, the Government decided to make pensions compulsory by law. As a result, the 10 per cent who did not have a pension fund got one right away, so that everyone was covered by private pension plans. I do not think we can take the same approach in Canada, since in this country, the majority of workers are not unionized and because-and I am not saying this to criticize, because the unions fully support the development of pension plans-our unions did not see pension plans as their first priority in the bargaining process. I think it is fair to say they worked hard to get very good cost-of-living indexing. In other words, they opted for immediate returns instead of longer term gain. We have now reached the point that, as a country, we have to ask ourselves what we are going to do. The issue must be discussed with the provinces who play a key role, and together we must decide what the best approach is and how many years it will take to provide all Canadian workers with a good pension.

How are we going to do that? I think it is fair to say that people usually talk only about two avenues, even though there are more than two. There are groups that say they are all for the private sector, let the private sector do it. We will see. The private sector is getting one more chance with these good tax offers. They can start developing plans for their employees, particularly those in small business. Otherwise, it will have to be mandatory for all Canadians, of course with the agreement of the provinces which have the jurisdiction.
We could go the route of the CPP or anything else around the CPP. Over the years we could double or enormously increase the CPP. The great advantage is that it will provide benefits a few years after the law is passed. If you go the private sector route, you have to wait for the plans to mature, which involves a time frame of 25 to 30 years. Canadians must know that. There is nothing good or bad about one over the other. However, people need good private pension plans.
There is another route I would offer Canadians for consideration. Where a company has a good pension, that company could get the approval of government and carry on with it. Only those who do not have a private pension plan would have to go the route of an enlarged CPP or whatever.
I see that my time is up. I would simply like to bring the pension reform in the Budget to the attention of Canadians because we cannot do like I'autruche, la tete dans le sable. We must face that challenge and find and answer a la Canadienne for all of us.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Miss MacDonald:: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin). It concerns the measures that she has been speaking about on pension reform. I have in my hand the Throne Speech of April

February 21, 1984
The Budget-Miss Begirt
14, 1980, four years ago. It says this at page 5 of Hansard for that year:
Work must begin immediately to design better methods of providing flexible, portable, and secure pensions both in the private and public sectors. To start this process, my Government will soon release a major study on the Canadian pension system.
That was four years ago; four years in which people have not seen that system come forward; four years in which the Minister and her colleagues promised to begin that work immediately. Why have we had to wait until this time in the life of a government to see even the most modest, as the Minister admitted, restrictive and limited measures with regard to pension reform? Why after four years of neglect is the Minister able to stand there and say this is what we are going to do? Why the four-year wait?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, the answer is extremely simple. Let me rapidly explain to the Hon. Member. There are two main reasons. First, I again assumed this portfolio on March 3,
1980	after we once more formed the Government. In March,
1981	we had the first national conference on pension reform. That was organized with all the parties, including all governments, the private sector, volunteers, seniors and the academes. That was a fantastic realization. It brought into the open the problem which experts had been studying behind the scenes.
In December, 1982 we brought forward the green paper, co-signed by the Minister of Finance and myself, launching a parliamentary task force to make a study and recommendations. The report was received just a few months ago, two months ago, I believe, and the first measure appeared in the Budget. That is the first concrete measure that will change people's lives.
There are two things the Hon. Member does not understand. I do not think there is anything wrong with my saying that there is massive private interest in that dossier, in the vicinity of $60 billion. That is what we are talking about. I do not know if the Hon. Member, who was not long in government, knows what that means. How do you move an elephant of $60 billion and more with private interests when we want to provide equitable coverage for everyone? That is part of the problem-it is as simple as that-with the huge lobby that ordinary Canadians workers do not easily have to countermatch.
The other problem is the recession. How can the Hon. Member ask us to jump on the pension bandwagon when Canadians need jobs first? The answer is very easy. We are working without interruption and at the same time at a wise pace doing the work to achieve pension reform and the work that is needed to pick it up faster when the recession is fully behind us.


Mr. Friesen:: Mr. Speaker, the Minister mentioned the proposal in the Throne Speech for vesting a pension plan after two years. I assume that the Government has done actuarial studies to show the viability of that proposal and, if so, I hope
she will table them at the earliest possible time so that we can understand how sound the proposal is. Attractive as it may be, let us see how financially sound it is.
The Minister also mentioned pensions for immigrants. I take it they will be paid for out of the Consolidated Revenue Account. There is a group of immigrants who have been waiting for reform in their pension scheme under the agreement with the United Kingdom, and those Canadian citizens who have been pensioned in the U.K. but whose pensions have not kept up because of the inflationary difference between the U.K. and Canada. Those people are suffering as a result.
If it is the intention of the Government to pay pensions out of general revenue for a group of people in Canada who have not qualified previously, and since there does not seem to be the possibility for an early agreement with the United Kingdom on this matter, if the Government can do this for one group of people, why can it not update the pension agreement and pay for it out of general revenue?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) who spoke earlier should see in the comments of her colleague, the Hon. Member for Surrey-White Rock-North Delta (Mr. Friesen), exactly the kind of representation we receive on pension reform. I feel like saying to the Hon. Member, just let me ask him one question in return: Is he for or against pension reform?
When people start asking is it sound, and have we done the actuarial work, we all know what that means; it means that they do not believe in it. They want all the tables to prove that it is sound to give a pension to every Canadian worker. We are not sure that it is sound. Of course, we have a good pension. For the others, however, we are not sure it is sound because if it were sound it would have been done. With reasoning like that, 55 per cent of Canadian workers still do not have a pension.
I have not said it is an insurance, as the Hon. Member remarked. I said that we are going to open up even more tax opportunities for Canadians to pick it up. That is the last chance of the private sector to do its homework and take its responsibilities. It probably went with all the good big pension plans and made good profits. It is a business and that is fine, but it should do its job and be more inventive and show a bit of imagination for Canadians in other kinds of companies, such as small business which is the backbone of our economy.
The Hon. Member referred to pensions for immigrants but from the way he spoke I think he is not familiar with the way this works. He should know that immigrants to Canada get a pension according to the number of years they have been here, with a basic 10 years. That goes to British or any other immigrants. The only thing that will be improved is that those who would be below the poverty line because they do not have enough years will be assured of the minimum that any Canadian receives. In other words, although that has nothing to do with the British pension, it will go to British pensioners if they are very, very poor.
February 21, 1984

The British pension system is a dossier on which 1 have been working for six years without much success yet. Both the Labour government and Conservative government in Great Britain up to now have not agreed to index their pensions. I think they owe it to the British pensioners wherever they are in life or geographically because they have already paid for it through income taxes. Every chance that I have or that Hon. Members have-and I must say that has been done very well in Canada-to press upon Great Britain the urgency of giving their own pensioners indexation of their own pensions is appreciated and much needed. I am confident that we will succeed and that some unblocking of the dossier will take place.
1 think pressure is needed to make the British Government understand that this is not a privilege but a right, in the sense that these British pensioners living in Canada have paid for an indexed pension. Therefore where is the indexation of their pension?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order! The Hon. Member for Laval.
1 must point out that there is only about one minute left for questions and comments.


Mr. Roy:: Mr. Speaker, I shall be very brief. I am particularly concerned about the portability of pension plans within the private sector. I would like to ask the Minister how the portability of pension plans within the private sector was received by employers at the hearings conducted by the Committee throughout the province. What was the attitude towards the portability of pension plans in the private sector?


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, although I do not have a summary of the hearings before me, I can inform the Member for Laval that generally speaking, this is the point the private sector has the least trouble with, namely, portability when a person changes jobs and has vested interests, because the two go together. In English this is called portability investing, and according to our model, it would be after about two years. Right now, the rule in the private sector is that after ten years if the person is 45 years old or over, that person will recover what he paid into a pension fund. Now we want this to be the rule after two years.


Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, in discussing the Budget I cannot help but go back to the Budget afternoon when I thought, as I listened to the presentation, how disappointing the document was. Over the course of the last year I had identified in my mind where the serious problems of Canada's economy lay. You will recall that on numerous occasions my colleagues and I raised the questions of unemployment, the difficulties of people whose incomes were not sufficient to meet their needs, the problems of those who had been on unemployment insurance but who no longer qualified for it. We tried to put before the House the bleak and dismal future that many of those people faced. It did not matter whether they were workers who had devoted 10, 15, 20 and sometimes 30 or more years to a job; they were facing the loss of it and, in the process, found themselves without income
The Budget-Mr. Deans
because they had exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits. They found themselves without income because they had exhausted their unemployment insurance benefits. They found themselves in the situation where, even if the spouse was working, it was often a part-time job at the minimum wage. The amount earned was insufficient to allow them to maintain their residence and provide for their family in the way they had not only become accustomed to but which would allow them to meet their obligations.
We expected that the Government would recognize that problem, which is a very serious one. In bringing forward its proposals for the fiscal management of the country and in its response to the serious problems of the country, we expected that the Government would at least have come to grips with the difficulties that those people face. It was not so. It was not there. There was nothing to give those people any hope.
On two or three occasions, the latest one yesterday afternoon, the Minister admitted that there was no likelihood of the economy being able to produce the number of jobs necessary for the 1.5 million people who are now unemployed. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) made it quite clear yesterday and last week, and in the weeks preceding the Budget, that he did not expect that the public or private economy would be able to create in sufficient numbers the job opportunities to meet the needs of the youth who were coming out of the educational system with high hopes. There will be no opportunity for these young people to utilize the education that they worked so hard to attain.
We in this Party thought that perhaps there would be some suggestion in the Budget which would address the shortfall, those people who stand between the number of jobs which can legitimately be created and the number of people who are unemployed, and that shortfall would undoubtedly be up in the hundreds of thousands. But there was nothing for them. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, that I was very disappointed on Budget day; then I became angry, and by the time I raised my question with the Minister of Finance yesterday. I was back to the point of feeling total frustration in trying to get through to the Government what its responsibilities really are.
I pointed out yesterday that some 50 per cent to 60 per cent of all construction workers in the Hamilton area are now unemployed. The unemployment rate among electrical workers is 70 per cent. The unemployment rate for steelworkers, the backbone of the community I represent and of the surrounding communities, is 20 per cent. These people do not have the money for additional payments into RRSPs. They do not have an income which allows them to sock away some money for their old age. They do not have a job which will enable them to meet their day-to-day commitments, let alone to put away some money for the future in some kind of tax relief scheme.
These people do not qualify for a reduction in their federal income tax-from the 45 per cent level to a 15 per cent level-

February 21, 1984
The Budget-Mr. Deans
which was given to doctors, lawyers, accountants and consultants. These people expect to pay their tax, whether or not they have an income. Their spouses, perhaps earning $80 to $100 a week, will be taxed at the personal income tax rate for that particular class of individual. Yet the Government, failing to recognize the tremendous problems which those people face, has the audacity to come into the House of Commons and propose that those who already have sufficient income, those who already live high off the hog, those who can afford to pay their mortgages and provide for their families, should be given further tax breaks. But those who are unemployed, who no longer qualify for unemployment insurance benefits, those who find themselves, faced with an inadequate income base, not able to meet their commitments, will be expected to continue to pay their tax. For them there was absolutely nothing in this Budget which will ease the burden of pain which they carry around with them on a daily basis.
There was a pittance in the Budget for youth employment. It was an amount which would provide jobs-if the jobs can be provided-for 10,000 young people. That is 10,000 people out of the 400,000 people who fall into that category, who are looking for work. One cannot help but feel a sense of frustration and anger when one sees the Government's reactions to the legitimate problems of people. It has money for the oil companies; they received $190 million immediately in tax relief. But there was no money for those with no income who still had commitments. There was money in the way of tax relief for the professional class, but there was no money for those who have used up their unemployment insurance benefits, who can no longer pay their mortgage commitments and who have no future to look forward to. There was money in tax relief for those whose incomes were in the $50,000, $60,000 and $70,000 a year bracket by way of more openings for RRSPs, but there was no money for the people who were unemployed through no fault of their own, who are unemployed primarily as a result of this Government's economic policies in the past two or three years. There is no money for the unemployed, those who are without the prospect of a job, who no longer qualify for unemployment insurance benefits and who find themselves losing everything they have worked for.
This Government is out of touch. One cannot help but ask, if the Government is going to allow hundreds of millions of tax dollars, perhaps billions of tax dollars, not to be collected as a result of the changes which were made in this Budget, and if the cost of government continues to increase, who then is going to be asked to carry the additional tax burden? When the tax rate for doctors, lawyers, accountants and consultants is reduced from 45 per cent average to 15 per cent average, someone else has to pay the difference, and it will not be the
2,000	people who earned $50,000 or more last year and who did not pay one single, solitary cent in tax. Neither will it be the 287 people who each earned over a quarter of a million dollars last year and did not pay a single, solitary cent in tax.
The people who will be asked to pick up the tax burden so that the already well off can be better off will be the people
who go out and punch a clock at seven in the morning, work eight hours every day and have their tax deducted at source. They do not have the opportunity to write off any of these loophole benefits which this Government produces and provides. Those people, Mr. Speaker, who earn the minimum wage will still have to pay their taxes. They will not have the money to buy an RRSP. They will not have the opportunity to take advantage of deductions in their tax rate, as will the professional classes which this Government is cosying up to at the moment. I recognize that farmers and certain fishermen will benefit and that is fine, because in the main those people's earnings are considerably below what one might reasonably expect in a country such as ours.
A doctor in 1982 had a net income of $50,000; his federal tax payable was $12,220, his provincial tax payable was $5,886, for a combined tax burden of $18,086. In 1985, given that he now qualifies, for some unknown reason, as a result of this Budget, for a small business tax rate, and given that in 1985 he is able to put an additional $4,500 into an RRSP, the same doctor earning $50,000 a year will pay a federal tax of $6,825, a provincial tax of $4,550 in the Province of Ontario, for a combined tax of $11,375.
Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that the tax saving for that one doctor is almost equivalent to the total UIC payment for a full year for one unemployed person. That tells you something about the priorities of this Government. If this Government has sufficient revenue to be able to give these kinds of tax breaks to those individuals, then, by God, it has the revenue to give some kind of relief to those who are unemployed.
Some Hon. Members; Hear, hear!


Ian Deans: This same Government in its Budget, out of the kindness of its heart-should we ever find where its heart is- gives pensioners an additional $600 a year. Doctors get almost $7,000 a year in tax relief and they do not really need it. Lawyers get almost $7,000 a year in tax relief. All these consultants who troop around the Parliament Buildings on a regular basis get tax relief of $7,000 a year. Accountants get tax relief of $7,000 a year on already inflated incomes. But all we can afford for a pensioner is a $600 a year increase. The unemployed, who are hurting the most, get nothing. Not one red cent. That tells you something about this Government.


Mr. Riis:: They get a tax increase.


Ian Deans: As my colleague says, there is a tax increase in store for them. The Government will raise $1 billion more this year through personal income taxes. That is not going to worry the doctors or the lawyers; they are getting a good break.
I often wonder just what the relationship is between that particular tax arrangement worked out carefully behind scenes, in the dead of night, and the Canada Health Act. On my way in this morning I read a billboard which said that your health may be in jeopardy as a result of the Canada Health Act. If that is not a threat, I do not know what is. I cannot
February 21, 1984

help wondering if the doctors took into account the significant pay increase they just got on Wednesday afternoon last.


Jean-Luc Pepin: You answered your own question.


Ian Deans: Maybe the message did not filter down quickly enough, but that will ease the pain for them. Presumably they will not have to extra-bill; they have already been able to dig into the taxpayers' pocket through this move by the Government. That is wrong and the Hon. Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans) knows it is wrong. That is not the way to provide equity. That is not the way to assure there will be growth from the bottom up, to guarantee that people will be given an opportunity not only to provide for themselves but a chance to work.
What else happens? It is not only the doctors, the lawyers, consultants or accountants; oh no, we have even given Eaton's a break. Eaton's really need a tax break. I could tell they were in dire straits. There they were just limping along from million to million; all of a sudden we decide they need a tax break too. Where the hell is the tax break for people? No tax break for people; another billion or more in taxes this year that the average family will have to pay. Where is the guarantee that the next tax break for Eaton's and others like them will also be passed on to the consumer? No, there are never provisions to guarantee that.
I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is a sad, sad state of affairs we are confronted with now. I feel totally frustrated by the way this Government has gone about its business in trying to do what should be done, if it is trying at all.
I listened to the lead-off speakers for the two Parties, and my colleague who made much the same argument I am making here this afternoon. The Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) rose and told jokes. He and the Hon. Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) continuously say they are not going to tell the public what they would be because, if they did, the public would not vote for them. The Hon. Member for St. John's East (Mr. McGrath) says that we need more money for jobs, and he is right. Then we have the Hon. Member for St. John's West saying we have got to cut the Budget, and he is wrong. That shows you the conflict that must be going on, and that worries me. That is why we cannot change things or make an impact on the Liberals, because there are two conflicting messages coming from the Conservative Party.


Charles James Mayer: Read the polls; the message is getting out.


Ian Deans: The polls do not reflect what is happening here.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order. I regret to interrupt the Hon. Member but his time has elapsed. Questions or comments?


Mr. Thacker:: Mr. Speaker, it is just incredible to listen to the NDP. Everyone knows they brought on the election in 1979 because they felt they were going to get more seats, but all they did was bring the Liberals back in.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!
The Budget-Mr. Deans


Mr. Fisher:: Good guys, those NDPers.


Blaine Allen Thacker: The very people they purport to represent have really been grievously injured since 1980 as a result. We know the trend line of the national debt has been going up. The most critical part is that the percentage of tax revenues just to service the debt, that is the interest, goes only to people with enough wealth to lend to their own Government with no risk or responsibility. Where would the Hon. Member draw the line as to the percentage of tax revenue that goes to service the debt? It started at about 10 per cent and now it is up over 30 per cent. Does he see it going to 50 per cent, 60 per cent, 70 per cent? Where would he draw the line?


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, I think we made it quite clear that a significant part of the debt resulted from the very high interest rates which developed during the early part of the 1980s. We stood here in the House of Commons and demanded legislative action to bring interest rates down while the Conservative Party were saying all across the country that high interest rates were a necessity.


Charles James Mayer: That is not true. Be fair.


Ian Deans: I am going to be absolutely fair. I am always fair.


Charles James Mayer: Sometimes less than others; that is the problem.


Ian Deans: The hon. Member from Etobicoke, then the Conservative Party finance critic, was in Montreal at the time interest rates were about 20 per cent.


Blaine Allen Thacker: We are dealing with that now.


Ian Deans: The Hon. Member stood, I believe, before the Montreal Board of Trade and said that high interest rates were necessary. He supported the Government's high interest rate policy and he was prepared to live with the consequences.
I say to the Hon. Member who asked me the question that if the Conservatives had taken our advice, if we had taken the steps necessary to bring interest rates down, and if they had supported us in our efforts to do just that, we would have had fewer families lose their homes, fewer people lose their businesses, fewer farmers lose their farms, and we would have had a lower cost of servicing the debt than we now have.
For the Member to rise and ask such a question shows he has not done his homework. I suggest he go back to the records of the House of Commons and look with care at what his own Party has been advocating. On the one hand the Hon. Member for St. John's West has been arguing continuously for slashing, cutting and reducing expenditures. He is supported almost without exception by the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington), whose sole goal is to reduce the size of the Public Service, notwithstanding that that may cause great hardship.
On the other side of the coin the Hon. Member for St. John's East, whom I respect, is demanding more expenditures

February 21, 1984
The Budget-Mr. Deans
to take place on a regular basis. We used to have the Hon. Member for Nepean-Carleton, God rest his soul, continuously defending the value of the Public Service. Anyone listening to the question and my response would realize that the conflicts within the Conservative Party make it virtually impossible for any kind of rational policy development.
The answer to the Hon. Member's question is simply this.


Charles James Mayer: Now we are going to get the answer.


Ian Deans: If the Hon. Member and his colleagues had supported our attempts to hold interest rates down, we would not be faced with the situation we are now faced with.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) had forced interest rates in Canada down artificially, the value of the Canadian dollar would have dropped. The very people the Hon. Member purports to represent suffer when the Canadian dollar drops to 60 cents or 65 cents. The cost of imports goes up enormously when the Canadian dollar drops. So this is just hogwash.
The Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain cannot get around the fact that today over 30 per cent of tax revenue goes to service the debt. This means the wealthy become fabulously wealthy and the middle class is eaten away. 1 would like him to tell me where he would draw the line. Would it be at 30 per cent, 50 per cent, 60 per cent or 15 per cent?


Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, there must be some problem with the acoustics here. We are not far apart geographically. Distance does not seem to be the problem; it must be perception. I would like to suggest again that the reason it costs 30 per cent to service the debt is because of the Liberal-Conservative alliance on fiscal policy.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Deans: If the House of Commons had supported-


Charles James Mayer: Be fair.


Ian Deans: I am being fair as always.


Charles James Mayer: You did not listen to what I said this morning.


Ian Deans: No, but I have listened to you often. I only have to hear your speech once. Mr. Speaker, you know as well as I that if the Conservatives had had their Members here to join with us in those numerous occasions when defeating the Government would have been possible, we could have gotten rid of this motley crew. More importantly, if they had decided to vote with us on those important items we might have had an impact on the fiscal and monetary policy of the Government. Even more importantly than that, if they had supported us in our job creation programs, all of which would have been of considerable value to the future growth of the country, we would have had more people working and paying tax and therefore have had more revenue for the Government. It would have had to borrow less. We would therefore would not be in the situation we are now in.
It is because the spokesman for the Conservative Party continuously supported the Liberal thrust at every single turn that we have a deficit today in the order of $29 billion. It is because the Liberals and Tories together did not understand the impact of the high interest rate policy and therefore supported it over many months and drove people into unemployment that we are faced with the deficit. It costs us $1 billion a month to maintain the unemployment insurance program.
If we could have had Conservative support for our measures, such as building homes for people, we could have created
280,000	man-years of work. The Tories said we could not afford it. When we were proposing to go on with the auto task force report and create 80,000 jobs in Canada over the next five years, I heard not one single whisper of support from the Conservative Party. When we were talking about completing the east-west pipeline and creating self-sufficiency in the country, at the same time putting people back to work in the steel and construction industry, there was not one whisper of support from the Conservative Party.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Silence, just silence.


Ian Deans: When we were saying we had to come to grips with the lack of an agricultural implement industry, a forest industry and mining implement industry, we heard not one single word of support from the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party has been one of the major contributing factors to the problems that confront the majority of people in the country. When they suddenly start crying about the state of the economy, it makes us realize they are not telling the truth.


Hon. Bud Cullen (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, when one hears the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) espousing his theory of economics, one begins to wonder whether James Laxer was right after all that they are still back in the sixties. I have had occasion to travel to some countries that have socialist governments. It is true they do provide a great deal. In Canada the NDP neglect to mention that they take something like 56 to 60 per cent of the GNP to provide everything everybody in a particular country demands. That would never have made Canada great. We would have been sitting on our duffs not doing anything but saying the Government will provide. That is the difference in the philosophy of the Conservatives and Liberals as opposed to the socialists in the corner. Canadians are a people of the free enterprise intellect. They want to have an opportunity to develop, and this is the greatest country in the world. As the former Minister of Immigration, I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that there are 800,000 to 900,000 people a year clamouring to get into this country. We must be doing something right despite all the socialist rhetoric we have heard this morning.
There is not only $150 million directed to unemployment in Canada, there is $3.5 billion. The Hon. Member wants to ignore previous Budgets and Throne Speech debates and focus on this amount of money which is directed primarily to youth unemployment. The amount of $150 million is hardly piddling.
February 21, 1984

I think the Hon. Member better read Mr. Laxer again. Frankly, I do not agree with Mr. Laxer either, but I think he is a little closer to the seventies than the present rump of the New Democratic Party which we have here.
The Hon. Member decries the fact that we make funding and tax concessions available to large corporations. Who works for these large corporations? It is the ordinary person who is making a salary, building on a pension and has a steady job which will be more secure as a result of the concessions made to corporations. I welcome the moves made by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) rather than decrying the fact that as the Hon. Member would suggest, not as much was done. In fact, much more was done.
When I hear the Hon. Member saying he wants to be fair, I think that is fair, I think that is fair as compared to good and excellent. He may have reached fair, but his speech certainly did not reach good and was a long way from an excellent critique of the Budget. I thought we would have something in more positive vein from the Hon. Member, something that we could listen to and maybe even adopt. We have not been shy about adopting good ideas in the past. We have the Conservatives so worried that they will not come out with any policies. They are afraid that if they find a good one we might take it over, and so we have no policy from them.
The economy in Canada is in recovery, Mr. Speaker. We have come through a great recession. Fortunately, neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals listened to what the socialist hordes were telling us about interest rates. If we had, the Hon. Member for Lethbridge-Foothills (Mr. Thacker) is correct in what he said about the Canadian dollar. Heaven knows where the Canadian dollar would have stopped. He talked about 65 cents or 60 cents. If we had given in and allowed our money to flow out of the country because of higher interest rates in the United States, I suggest we would have seen an increase in the cost of the product and fewer companies able to compete. That would have meant significant layoffs. Canadians would be trying to buy imported goods with a 40-cent, 50-cent or 60-cent dollar. We certainly did not accede to the request of the NDP and I am happy that the Conservatives did not either.
Presently we have an inflation rate that is approximately 5 per cent. Who were we told was being hurt the most when inflation was at 16 per cent? It was the ordinary Canadian. The best thing we did for the ordinary Canadian was to get the inflation rate down to the level it is today. They are the people who are helped the most by this invidious factor of inflation. We have done a great deal for the ordinary Canadian.
The fact that unemployment is rising because fewer people are working is something that is of real concern to every Member of the House. It is encouraging now to see a slight reduction in the unemployment rate and in fact there are
400,000	more people working today than were working last year. I suggest that 1984 will see an even greater increase than
The Budget-Mr. Cullen
400,000	more jobs. I think it is encouraging to the unemployed person to see that there are jobs available.
There is almost a backhand form of compliment in that there is greater participation in the labour force. People are coming back into the labour force because they have confidence and are building confidence in the economy. As a result of the increased participation rate it is very difficult to get the unemployment rate down overnight. The Minister of Finance was quite correct when he said that no government, whatever the political stripe and the best intentions, can get that unemployment rate down overnight and then try to overheat the economy by throwing money at it, as the New Democrats would have us do. I think we are moving in the right direction at the right time.
I think this Budget is appropriate for the circumstances. We are not in a circumstance in which the recovery is on us and we are moving toward a greater growth in the GNP. We are on the road to an economic recovery in Canada. When we reach that stage more money will be available for social programs, for senior citizens and those on the guaranteed income supplement.
We chose a priority. We said that there will be a raise for those in need. There will be an increase of $50 a month to people who are drawing the guaranteed income supplement. I think that is to be welcomed.
I hear the socialists saying that nothing is being done for the unemployed. With a casual wave of the hand they wipe out $8 billion that was spent last year to help unemployed Canadians. They have talked about Canadians whose unemployment benefits have run out. Let us not forget that many of those people had those benefits at a time when they needed them and are back at work. Unfortunately, there are Canadians whose benefits have expired and we must find training programs and other projects to help them get back into the labour force. Since a great deal is being done there should be confidence among the unemployed. The economy is at a stage where there are 400,000 more jobs than last year and I suspect there will be many more this year.
It is fascinating to watch the Budget process. The Opposition Parties have automatically made up their minds to oppose all or some of the items in the Budget. The Government Party Members place their confidence and faith in the Minister of Finance that he will bring down a budget that they can not only defend but promote. That confidence was not misplaced, either in April or in this particular Budget. The Minister of Finance has been fiscally responsible. The Budget is one designed for a Canadian economy in recovery. It is interesting to see that some critics consider it so good that they are calling it a pre-election Budget. That is what I would call praise.
It is not a stand-pat Budget. The moves in the immediate and short term are geared to the economy as it is today, recognizing that we have come through a difficult recession period.
The Budget provides the action and what we are receiving now is the reaction, some of it of a knee-jerk variety by the

February 21, 1984
The Budget-Mr. Cullen
Opposition Parties and some of our critics in the media. It was interesting to see how our old antagonist, Diane Cohen, could hardly wait to get her 60 seconds on CBC immediately after the Budget, without really having time to digest all of the documents during the time of the lock-up. We have come to accept that there are certain critics who will appear on television or write articles damning the Budget out of hand. Sure enough, Diane did not let us down this time. There she was, with all the froth that she could muster.
I have already indicated that we have been told we are not doing enough for the unemployed. I pointed out that $3.5 billion directed at that particular target is certainly a significant figure and that the $8 billion that is made available through the unemployment insurance fund is hardly ignoring the unemployed.
One of the greater incentives I have seen in this Budget is the gain-sharing for a stronger economy. I believe that members from both sides of the House have suggested from time to time that there should be more gain-sharing, where the person who is working on the floor or working in the plant can understand the requirements of a business in order for it to succeed. By putting them on the board of directors or being placed in this gain-sharing operation they will have a greater interest in the corporation for which they work.
Let me quote from a segment of the Throne Speech because I think labour and the Canadian public should be aware of this philosophy:
Labour has been and should continue to be a full partner in the process of economic recovery. Workers deserve a fair share of the recovery benefits and an equal voice in the resolution of issues like technological change and productivity improvement-greater productivity results from a combination of progressive management, ingenious technology and high employee morale. It is the main long-term guarantor of increased real wages for Canadians.
Employees, therefore, sharing in profit-participation plans is a splendid move and I approve of it. I hope that Mr. McDermott would some day bury his NDP bias and serve only one master. Presently he is trying to serve the NDP and the labour movement. He is not an ignorant man but a man with great talent. I suggest, with respect, that he concentrate on the labour movement and focus his talents and abilities on protecting his real constituency, the members of the Canadian Labour Congress and the workers he aspires to represent. He would be doing better. He must deal with Liberal governments from time to time, for which he has apparently little regard. While he has a little more regard for the Tories, he rather damns them with faint praise. I am not sure that I would want to be in that particular bailiwick.
In the section dealing with small business, the proposals for tax simplification will of itself relieve small business of a huge paper burden and I say we should pursue this because unnecessary paper work and record keeping hits at productivity.
The cumulative deduction account has been abolished. There is no question in anyone's mind that it was placed there initially to do a specific job, which was to prevent inappropriate use being made of the small business tax provisions. But I think, in the final analysis, that the Minister of Finance has
recognized that it was an inappropriate move and I credit him for removing it. I should point out that this is no small improvement because 300,000 small businesses will be relieved of this particular chore.
These and other proposed changes will allow the Government to reduce two-thirds of the existing legislation dealing specifically with the taxation of small business. It is the right move at the right time.
One of the areas that has been a constant irritant to senior citizens is the necessity to make quarterly payments because income tax is not being deducted at source. It is an irritant because our senior citizens are of a generation which paid their taxes and their debts. Not being aware of this particular requirement has found many of them having to pay not only interest but a penalty. To their chagrin and annoyance, this requirement is placed upon a generation of people who honoured contracts. It is a generation that I suspect has very little in the way of indebtedness today. The increase of the $50 per month is the GIS was, of course, welcome news to everyone.
In the broader international field, the Aid-Trade Fund move is first-class. It is one area where we can combine aid to the Third World countries with the opportunity for Canadian businesses to become involved in worthwhile and yet revenue-producing operations.
The home owner protection plan is a realistic approach to the problems faced by people who may be met with prohibitive costs as a result of high interest rates occurring just when they are about to renew their mortgage. It will also help those who are securing or are about to buy their first home and place their first mortgage. It will give them some indication that they will be protected from any sudden increases in interest rates. It is appropriate in the circumstances and fortunately we are not faced with the prohibitive cost of the ill-fated but not lamented Tory plan.
Can you tell me how much time I have remaining, Mr. Speaker?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: You have until 12.47 p.m. to complete your remarks.


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: He has seven more minutes.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: and helps to maintain our system of voluntary compliance and confidentiality.
It is ironic, I suppose, that people who are sending these messages in brown envelopes place the Minister in the position of defending those who are releasing documents to the detriment of the Department and to the detriment of their fellow employees. I welcomed the sensible initiative of the Minister in securing a task force surveillance of the workings of the Department of National Revenue and calling for a report on this particular subject. I know that most people who work for the Department of National Revenue are proud of their position and recognize that they are hardly the most popular people in the world, even going back to biblical times.
In the vast majority of cases you will see approaches made by the Department to a delinquent taxpayer, and only after all of these initial moves, sometimes five or six, are made does the audit section set deadlines and terms, probably in the interest of catching the taxpayer's attention. For my own part, I have had great co-operation from the director in London, Ontario. We have had some difficulties where, if the facts were as indicated in the media, one overzealous employee went too far, and for that reason I have asked the Minister to have the task force examine that kind of an approach. As a lawyer, I find it is often better to listen to both sides of the issue rather than one. I think the task force idea is a correct move in the right direction.
There seemed to be some suggestion, for example, in the particular case I am referring to in Sarnia and London, that it was appropriate to have a demand letter and to indicate the amount of taxes due and owing. I cannot see that as being other than an infringement of a taxpayer's civil rights. In any event, the proper way is to have it examined by the task force to determine what has been done, whether it is appropriate, whether it was done pursuant to the present law, and then to make recommendations about whether the present law should be changed.
I am pleased with the awarding of $1,000 costs against the Department. I think this is a good first step. This is an award in the event the taxpayer is successful in his appeal, and hopefully in future budgets this amount will be increased so that the Department will be on notice that if it does lose a particular lawsuit, it could be in the position of having to pay a significant part, if not all, of the costs of a successful claimant.
Changes made, for example, calling for security rather than cash, again in my view are a giant step forward to equity in dealing with tax appeals.
I commend the Minister for opening up the Budget process, having not only pre-Budget but post-Budget consultations, and then following the post-Budget consultations and before his next Budget is brought in to go back to these groups and to ask them for their recommendations. There are some items, by their very nature, that must be of a secretive nature, but I think there is a good deal to be gained by proper consultation and discussion before Budgets are brought down.
The Budget-Mr. Cullen
We had Ministers in the past trying various methods. Walter Gordon brought in three people from the business sector. Unhappily, in that case the emphasis was not on the fact he was trying to get from the business sector more information in bringing down a budget that would be more appropriate for the times; the focus at the time and the criticism was on the three people who were brought in. Had they been cleared? Did they have a conflict of interest? Had they taken a particular oath?
Then I sat through the Benson white paper situation where all the suggestions and recommendations that might have been adopted were put into a white paper, not to be in there for adoption but to be looked at and discussed. From that could have been culled what could have been a good budget presentation. Unfortunately, the focus was; "Your Government is going to do this; your Government is going to do that". Nothing could be further from the truth. Both the Minister of Finance in the Conservative Government and Ministers of Finance in Our Government, when they have come out with ideas on deindexing and how that might be applied, unfortunately have been attacked for introducing measures against the ordinary Canadian despite the fact that protections could be built in. I think we lose a lot when we do not have this kind of debate, because then governments are either forced to back off completely from something that may not be appropriate or they will move in such a direction without the benefit of a good and legitimate debate.
As I said at the beginning, there is a wish on the part of Government members, obviously when a budget is brought forward, that it is a budget that we will be able to support, defend and promote. I say in this instance that the Minister of Finance has excelled on all three requirements.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I would like to address a couple of questions to the Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. Cullen), who has my respect and the respect of Members in this House for his common sense approach to many of the issues. However, I am afraid in his speech he fell into the trap of being a party to those he accused of pursuing a blind and thoughtless position vis-a-vis the Budget.
In effect, he was saying that the Opposition had a knee-jerk reaction, was totally critical and almost had its speeches ready before the Budget was brought down. On the other hand, the Hon. Member stood in his place and said he is unequivocal in his support for this Budget. I find that hard to believe.
Just to make his life a little more pleasant, I want him to know that I am prepared to be complimentary as far as this Budget is concerned as a member of the Opposition. I found the Budget was good and original. Unfortunately, what was good was not original and what was original was not good. Any ideas that were good were matters brought forward by way of suggestions by our Party's spokespeople.
The Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton was Minister of Employment and Immigration at one time and has knowledge of the responsibilities of that Ministry. He knows when he was Minister that I questioned him with respect to the use of social

February 21, 1984
The Budget-Mr. Cullen
insurance numbers. He talked about attitudes in the Department of National Revenue and in various Departments. What does the Hon. Member think of the recent disclosure with respect to the use and distribution of lists by the Unemployment Insurance Commission to school authorities and school boards? What about the public disclosure of confidential social insurance numbers by officials of the Department of Employment and Immigration? I know when the Hon. Member was Minister he undertook to ensure the confidentiality of the social insurance numbers and of the information on the records of that Department. I assume he will be as distressed as I am with respect to this incident, which shows there are no safeguards.
While the Minister may dismiss this allegation as being an isolated incident, what does he think should be done in that Department to ensure there will be no recurrence of the disclosure of confidential information, particularly as it relates to the young unemployed in communities across this country?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: First, Mr. Speaker, I dissociate myself from the Hon. Member's comment that what was original was not good and what was good was not original. I will say to him that there are a lot of good ideas and I am happy to hear that he supports this Budget, at least in principle. He probably will not vote that way on second reading of some of the Bills.
This Government brings forth its ideas for debate. The Toronto Star is not very impressed with the Hon. Member's finance critic. We read "Whom is Crosbie kidding?", and the article suggests all of the things he is going to cut and things he is going to do. People are beginning to wonder when we will have some programs. It is not right for the Hon. Member to say that his finance critics are really putting ideas on the table which the Progressive Conservative Party has. I have not heard too many yet.
The Conservatives are opposed to the size of the deficit, and so am I. I would like to find a way to bring it down as quickly as we can without disrupting the economy. That is something upon which we have to focus.
In so far as social insurance numbers are concerned, I do not think they should be used for anything other than for what they were intended in the first place, which was to identify people under the unemployment insurance scheme and for tax purposes. Whether this is an isolated incident or whether there are 50 or 60 such incidents across the country, it is wrong and should be stopped. To the credit of the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts), he indicated that when it was first brought to his attention he told them they were to cease and desist in this particular approach. It is wrong, and he hopes, as I do, that it is an isolated incident. Isolated or not, it should be stopped cold turkey.


Blaine Allen Thacker: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the same question of the Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. Cullen) as I asked the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans). Today the amount of tax revenue which goes to
service the debt is over 30 per cent. I think it is close to 35 per cent of revenue. That is another way of saying that people with enough money to lend to their government can do so without any risk. Therefore the rich become fabulously rich and it chips away at the middle-income class. A few years ago it was as low as 10 per cent and 20 per cent.
Given those facts, could the Hon. Member indicate where he feels that this upward trend has to stop, level off or drop back? There is no doubt that it has been rising over the last few years.


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: In part the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain indicated that, having come through a recession and the high interest rate cycle, obviously the deficit is much higher now than anyone would like to see it. I consider it at the present time, whether it is $31 billion or $29 billion, to be probably barely manageable. I hope it will not go any higher; however, I think there are some cycles involved. In other words, if 12,000 Inco employees who were drawing unemployment insurance are now gainfully employed and back at work, they will not be drawing upon UI and will be paying income tax. As a result there is an improvement in the economy which will have the impact of bringing down the deficit. I would like to see that happen.
As a former Minister of Employment and Immigration, I conducted a study and endeavoured to get more funding into particular areas which I thought were appropriate. In 1945 the percentage of the GNP related to the deficit was actually higher than it is today. When I say it is barely manageable, I think I am correct in that.
Naturally I would like to see the deficit reduced. Most of us would like to see our mortgages paid off, no money owing on our cars or on the furniture in our homes. Thank God a social economic net was in place over the last four years. Given that fact and weighing it against the size of the present deficit, I can live with it; but we have to make every effort possible to bring down the deficit as quickly as we can without being disruptive.
My problem is how we go about it and where we cut. We are not talking about cutting old age pensions or the guaranteed income supplement. It may be in the area of unemployment insurance where we are now paying 60 per cent rather than 66 and two-thirds. Perhaps that should be dropped a little and we could save a bit in that area. However, I think we all owe it to find some areas where we could make significant cuts in order to bring down the deficit. Of course, a strong economy will work faster than anything because people will be working, paying their way and paying their income tax, and we will be able to afford that which we have in place. Hopefully single women over age 55 will be helped. I think they are the forgotten people. If I had a focus, it would be on single women over 55 years of age. They should be helped the next time we have funding available to make such a social move.


Nelson Andrew Riis: Mr. Speaker, I have a double-barrelled question for the Hon. Member. It concerns his comment that the Budget would certainly assist Canadians and get the recovery
February 21, 1984

under way. Could he explain how, by giving a special tax break to lawyers, he feels the economy or the recovery will be assisted and how the fact that the Government has increased average personal income taxes by $200 to $300 per family will help?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: I believe the April Budget indicated where that money would be spent and what kinds of things it would be used for. It was to be used for the benefit of ordinary, average Canadians, by putting into place nets which have to be there to help people when the economy runs into a snag, such as the recession we have experienced over the last three or four years. The people who are hurt most by that are those in the income category about which the Hon. Member talks.
In so far as providing benefits to lawyers, etcetera, perhaps it is appropriate at long last and has not come too soon. We do not have any problem recognizing that a hockey player with talent and brilliant skills can make between $300,000 and $500,000 over the years and that there should be some tax break for him, whether he incorporates himself or whatever he does. I say that is appropriate; I am not knocking it. However, lawyers and accountants are usually not in that particular position, so we made a concession to them.
It seems significant when we talk about the salaries to which the Hon. Member referred that I have a letter on my desk today which indicates that the average lawyer in downtown Regina makes $35,000 a year. It is not as though they are all making vast sums of money, but it does give them an opportunity. The Hon. Member uses the example of a lawyer who makes $200,000 or $300,000. I never made anything like that in the small community in which I live.


Nelson Andrew Riis: How does it help the economy?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: We have to recognize that just as athletes train and put a lot of time into developing their skills so that they can become professionals, doctors and lawyers require postsecondary education and beyond. Not only that, they are constantly in a position where they are required to upgrade their skills. There should be some recognition of this. Quite often doctors do not graduate until they are 30 years of age. Often they work their way through school. From the time they are 18 years or 19 years of age until they are 30 years to 32 years of age, they are not making money. In fact, they are paying out money. We have to recognize that professionals in this country should also be rewarded for that kind of sacrifice.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I will call it one o'clock in just a moment, but before I do so I want to indicate briefly that I will be responding to some of the statements made earlier today by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin). One thing she said in dealing with the subject of pension reform was that there were a number of elephants which had held back any progress in this field in the last four years. She cited among other things the business community. I say to her that the major elephant which blocked progress in this vital field of
pension reform in the past four years, and once again in this Budget, is the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde).
Also I say to the Hon. Member for Sarnia-Lambton (Mr. Cullen), who has just spoke so eloquently about the need for something to be done for single women over the age of 55 that while he and his Government condone various tax breaks to people in higher income brackets, they had the choice to set the priority as to whether it should be that group who have been so well served by this Budget, people between the ages of 55 years and 65 years, or, as the task force on pension reform recommended, single elderly persons between the ages of 60 years and 65 years who should have had something done for them in this Budget but were completely ignored. That is the tragedy of this Budget.
May I call it one o'clock?


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


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.


Mr. Joe Reid (St. Catharines):: Mr. Speaker, Revenue Canada has just published a nice glossy booklet at taxpayers' expense entitled "Inside Taxation" emphasizing, as it would, the integrity and fairness of that Department. It is still a nickel and dime outfit. Aside from the general harassment of waitresses who are caught in the gratuity squeeze, a Niagara College student took advantage of the inquiry service of that Department and tells this story.
For two years he had tried to earn a living as a commission salesman. The market was slow. He used his own car. He paid for the coffee. He was in effect selling all the time, but finally his money ran out and so he started back to school on student loans and grants. After his first full year as a student, he had questions about his return, so he called the taxation office. You guessed it. He ended up being reassessed for the years 1981 and 1982. They need vouchers, who, where, and what. They want a daily mileage record, and what geographical area he covered.

February 21, 1984
The Income Tax Department, its assessors and collectors are spending your money in their quest for tax dollars, knowing there is not any there to be found, only to force this community college student into bankruptcy before he even finishes school, and no recovery will be made either for taxes or the student loans. In the interest of treating all taxpayers fairly and equitably, chalk up-


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



AEROSPACE INDUSTRY


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, the Avro Arrow was destroyed by the Diefenbaker Government 25 years ago. In Mississauga, shock waves of industrial collapse and unemployment followed this incredibly shortsighted policy. Today, thanks to a partnership between business and Liberal Governments, the aerospace industry in Malton and Mississauga has been restored.
At McDonnell-Douglas we have built every set of wings flying on DC-9s and DC-10s across the globe. We have helped with de Havilland's Dash 7s and 8s, world leaders in STOL aircraft. At Spar Aerospace we designed the space arm for the U.S. space shuttle. DAF Indal has just become the first Canadian company to win a prestigious U.S. Navy Award for its top quality work on helicopter equipment. Orenda Engines has a new generation of jet engine repair technology to use on the CF-18s. We helped to put a man on the moon in 1969, and today we have got a brand new industry with LTA ships.
Mississauga's experience is repeated across Canada. Liberal Governments have helped to rebuild an industry where the Tories brought only mindless destruction 25 sad years ago.



BILINGUALISM


Mr. Geoff Scott (Hamilton-Wentworth):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to your attention a matter that is of great concern to me, as it should be to all Members of this House. I am referring to the elimination of services in French at the Canada Employment Centre on Hamilton Mountain.
I have received several complaints from francophones in the area, which are very valid ones. The authorities have looked into the matter. The problem was that if there was only one bilingual employee in the Mountain office and that person happened to be ill or had to attend a meeting, there would be no one to deal with francophone clients.
It was decided that the best solution would be to designate four or five bilingual positions at the CEC office downtown, on Rebecca Street, and two bilingual positions in Burlington.
Mr. Speaker, I feel this is totally unacceptable. Only 6 or 7 per cent of the population in Hamilton-Wentworth is Frenchspeaking, but at least two-thirds of this group lives on Hamilton Mountain, which means the majority. I would ask the Minister of Manpower and Immigration to reinstate bilingual services on Hamilton Mountain.



INDIAN AFFAIRS


Mr. Andre Maltais (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, last weekend in Fort Chimo, which is in my riding, I had an opportunity to meet local Inuit leaders as well as the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, who happened to be there on Sunday. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the House, and especially Cabinet, to lend a receptive ear to a request formulated by the Inuit of Fort Chimo, about relocating the people of the village of Killinic as soon as possible. Killinic is about 300 miles north of Fort Chimo. These people speak only Inuktituk, and their village was closed in 1977. They were then relocated in a number of villages along Ungava Bay, and they have practically no rights under the James Bay Agreement, Mr. Speaker. Therefore, even if they are few in number, about sixty, I think the Canadian Government has a duty to be fair, in principle and in practice, to all its citizens, and the Killinic Inuit should be relocated in their former village, with all the usual services their situation requires.
These proposals were submitted to me on the weekend in Fort Chimo, and I promised I would raise the matter in the House. I hope the Ministers will be very receptive when the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development raises the matter in Cabinet.


An Hon. Member:: Hear, hear!



SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT


Mr. David Orlikow (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, last week the Minister of Communications (Mr. Fox) announced a supposed increase in the funding for the Social Sciences Research and Humanities Council. I say supposed increase, because the Minister in fact ended the funding for Canadian studies. Therefore, what the Social Sciences Research and Humanities Council faces is a reduction of more than $1
February 21, 1984

million in its funding. The Government has been increasing its funding for graduate studies in science and technology. For that it should be commended, but it seems to be doing that by cutting back on assistance for social sciences.
We face a large number of very serious problems which have to be considered and studied, such as aging, unemployment, and the impact of microtechnology on employment. All of these need to be studied by people who have been trained in these fields. The Minister is saying we have to cut back on the number of graduate students who will be assisted in social sciences.
In the 1950s and 1960s when our universities were expanding, we did not have the trained people in Canada so we imported from other countries. By the 1990s many of our professors will retire, we will again have shortages and have to import people because of the shortsighted policies of the Government. I call on the Government to rethink its policy and to increase its funding for the social sciences.



TOURISM


Mr. Tom McMillan (Hillsborough):: Mr. Speaker, each year Canada's deficit with other countries in the tourist trade is some $2 billion, causing a massive loss of Canadian jobs and capital. At a time when the Canadian Government is stressing that hospitality is the key to capturing a larger share of tourism, some Canadian customs officials-not all, maybe not most, but some-are undermining the industry by being inhospitable at border crossings.
A case in point concerns Barry Pitegoff, Director of Marketing Research for the Florida Division of Tourism, who entered Canada to address the annual meeting of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada this week in Charlottetown. Mr. Pitegoff was detained, his visiting rights were severely restricted, and he was made to feel unwelcome by customs officials, for no apparent reason.
I urge the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts) and the Minister of State for Tourism (Mr. Smith) to collaborate on a program to sensitize customs officials to their role as goodwill ambassadors for Canada at border crossings. The first impression visitors have of our country should not be that which Mr. Pitegoff received. Instead, it should be one of welcome and eagerness to please, so that those visitors will return to Canada again and again.



EDUCATION


Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, in a study ten years ago
by Magnami of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 1,005 first-year university students in eastern Canada were interviewed with the aim of correlating political knowledge with their socio-economic status, their gender, their perceived social class, and their political attitudinal variable.
Some disturbing observations were made. It was found that high socio-economic status males who defined themselves as upper class were more represented in the high political knowledge category, while women in a similar situation had very little political knowledge. Women who considered themselves as revolutionaries demonstrated a higher level of political knowledge than other youths, whereas men who defined themselves as revolutionaries fell into the category of politically uninformed individuals.
Another worrisome observation was that the young people who are expected to be the best educated in the country were very uninformed about the political authorities and organizations that are controlling their everyday life. Only half could answer correctly more than 25 per cent of the questions, and of these only 10 per cent could answer more than 11 of the 25 items-items which had been recently given wide representation in local media.
The suggestion was made that most of the youth in the sample studied would go to the voting booth and vote for the party or individual that impressed them most recently in terms of political propaganda. The study concluded that the outcome of national elections is decided more by political sloganeering and the emotional use of media, than by carefully reasoned solutions to socio-economic problems.


Mr. Speaker:: I hesitate to interrupt the Hon. Member, but his time has expired.



FEDERAL-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS SIGNING OF AGREEMENT ON SUBSIDIES FOR MUNICIPALITIES

Hon. Roch La Salle (Joliette):: Mr. Speaker, for the third time I would like to emphasize the importance of signing an agreement between Quebec and Ottawa on grants earmarked for municipalities. Mr. Speaker, we are well aware of the fact, and all my Quebec colleagues regret, that as a result of the absence of such an agreement, the municipalities cannot receive these grants.
It seems that an agreement between Quebec and Ottawa is now possible, and has been since January 23 of this year. The Minister responsible announced last week he was waiting for the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) to arrive, to discuss the signing of the agreement.
Mr. Speaker, allow me, on behalf of 1,200 municipalities in Quebec, to ask the Right Hon. Prime Minister of Canada and

February 21, 1984
the Ministers from Quebec to urge the Minister responsible to sign this agreement, which would be in the best interests of the Canadian economy. There are projects involved that would promote job creation, and apparently, this agreement could be signed without prejudice to federal and provincial jurisdictions.
Mr. Speaker, I shall if 1 may urge my Quebec colleagues once again to recognize the importance of this question and to realize that the 1,200 Quebec municipalities would applaud the signing of this agreement. I therefore trust that Cabinet, which is to examine this question, perhaps today or later this week, will give the affirmative response we have been waiting for in Quebec.



PROVINCIAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday the B.C. Social Credit Government announced a vindictive Budget that slashes essential social services, ignores the more than 200,000 jobless British Columbians, and greatly increases income taxes. At the same time as the Government cuts health services and grants to post-secondary education, it is giving a tax bonanza to big business. Mr. Speaker, this is the "tough, mean and nasty" budgetary policy suggested by the federal wing of the B.C. Socreds, the federal Conservative Party.
The Tory Member for Etobicoke Centre (Mr. Wilson) said recently about these Reaganite economic policies that it is something they would be doing if they were in government, something they will do when they are in power again. The Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) said that obviously Bennett is going the right way. B.C. Tory MPs have remained shamefully silent on the Socred attack on economic and human rights.
People of British Columbia, be warned. You have been given a taste of federal Conservative policies by the B.C. Social Credit Government. Never forget the words of the official Tory finance critic, the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie), who said that you have to be tough, mean and nasty, and do all kinds of unpleasant things, and that that is why he is not going to outline what their budget measures would be, now.
For the sake of our children, the poor, the elderly, the sick, the unemployed, and the powerless in our society-


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member's time has expired. The Hon. Member for Prince George-Peace River (Mr. Oberle).



MINES AND MINING


Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, in the wake of last week's Budget the prime resource sectors of our economy are heaving a sigh of relief. They did not get any help, but at least there were no unpleasant surprises.
One group that is not happy is Canada's mining sector. Desperate for measures which will help it fight back against lagging markets and increased competition, the mining sector looked forward to the Budget with some hope. Unfortunately, the steps the Government should take to help our mining community are not sexy, like high-cost, high-profile projects in urban areas. They are, instead, adjustments to our tax system to encourage investment, to reduce non-profit taxes which are strangling the industry, and to put in place a northern benefits system and package which will help Canadians cope with the higher costs of working and living in our North.
None of these measures were included in the Budget. In fact, nothing that could be seen as helpful to this massive and vital industry, which operates at 50 per cent capacity, was included in the Budget. This begs serious and painful questions. Can it be that the Government has given up on mining and considers mining a sunset industry? Is it the newly appointed Minister's mandate to help the industry regain its strength, or to preside over its demise?
The mining industry is a vital part of the backbone of our economy. Every region of the country is affected by its present weakness. When the Liberals demonstrate their indifference to it, they are demonstrating their incompetence as economic managers.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Miss Pat Carney (Vancouver Centre):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources I should like to address my question to the Minister of Finance. The Japanese, who loaned Dome Canada and Dome Petroleum $400 million for oil and gas exploration in the Beaufort Sea, are cancelling further participation in the project, according to an announcement in the Japanese Diet.
The Canadian taxpayer has invested $486 million in Dome through PIP grants. In view of the Japanese withdrawal, what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the Canadian taxpayers' investment in the Beaufort is secure and is not at risk?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources should be in the
February 21, 1984

House very shortly, and his Parliamentary Secretary is in the House, I believe.


Mr. Speaker:: Does the Hon. Member for Vancouver Centre want to defer?


Pat Carney: No, Mr. Speaker. I should like to point out that the PIP grants were a subject matter introduced by the Minister of Finance, so he should be able to support his own legislation.


PETROLEUM INCENTIVES PROGRAM GRANTS PAID TO DOME CANADA
Pat Carney: Mr. Speaker, Dome Canada says it has invested $910 million in the Beaufort in the years 1982-83, but only $35 million was funded by the company. The bulk of the rest of the $910 million was funded by the federal Government and the Canadian taxpayer. If the company will not put up more of its money to explore for oil and gas, how can the Government justify giving Dome more money in PIP payments than any other company in the oil patch?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources has arrived in the House and I am sure that the Hon. Member will be happy to ask him questions.
I should like to point out to her, however, that the PIP grants are used for exploration purposes. The money has been spent on research for oil and gas resources in Canada's offshore and northern Territories. The money has been spent in Canada by a Canadian controlled company, to find oil and natural gas in this country. The money has not been wasted; it has been used for that particular purpose.
As to her second point, I remind her that the PIP grants replaced the previous system which was even more generous and in some instances allowed some companies to get extremely large compensation; as a matter of fact, some would argue even more than they were actually putting in. What we have done is institute a system which favours Canadian owned and controlled companies which the Leader of the Opposition wants to do away with, which the Leader of the Opposition has said he would remove in order to treat the multinationals in the same way as Canadian companies. We have said that we are going to favour Canadian companies, and this is what we have done and will continue to do.


Mr. Dick:: You lie.


Mr. McDermid:: When did he say that?


CANADIAN OWNERSHIP CHARGE
Pat Carney: Mr. Speaker, although the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources is now in the House, I feel that my third supplementary is more properly directed to the Minister of Finance.
Oral Questions
Through the Canadian Ownership Charge on gasoline, Canadians have built up a $500 million safety net specifically earmarked for refinancing Dome Petroleum which, as the Minister knows, has not yet signed a deal with its banks. In last week's Budget the Minister of Finance said it was unlikely that Dome would require federal assistance and that the $500 million earmarked for Dome was lumped in with general revenue. How can the Minister justify withdrawing the safety net which was specifically earmarked for Dome's use in an emergency situation, which it may now face?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, we have provided a fund to help Dome, if it is needed. I said in my Budget that it was unlikely that the company would need it because it has taken steps to refinance itself purely through private arrangements. However, we have an agreement with Dome and with the banks involved in financing Dome, which would provide for a safety net. If it is required, obviously we will live up to that agreement. However, at the present time the Dome corporation has indicated that it was not interested in this particular arrangement which was arrived at and that it was working at arriving at another arrangement, without government support and participation, which we welcome.


TRANSFER OF CANADIAN OWNERSHIP FUND INTO GENERAL REVENUE
Hon. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. When the Canadian Ownership Charge was instituted in 1980 in the Budget of that year, the Government said that the Charge would go into a separate fund, the Canadian Ownership Fund, and I quote, "And this would in no way affect the Government's deficit." However, in the Minister's Budget of less than a week ago, the Minister has not only taken $500 million from the fund earmarked for Dome, but he has abolished the fund and put all of the proceeds for this year, $840 million, into general revenue in order to reduce his deficit. How is that justified in view of the purposes of this fund? How can the Minister take the risk?
How can he say, as he said, "It is very unlikely that Dome Petroleum will require federal assistance", when just six days later it is becoming evident that Dome Petroleum will very likely require federal assistance, and the $500 million is gone, taken by the Minister to reduce the deficit artificially?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I have just indicated to the previous speaker that in the view of the Dome corporation, it was not going to need the support which had been provided for in a previous agreement arrived at a couple of years ago. We have acted, and we are still acting on that basis. As I stated, it is unlikely that the support provided for will be required and, if it were to be required, obviously the Government would live by the agreement which we arrived at before.

February 21, 1984
Oral Questions
As far as the use of the funds is concerned, the Hon. Member will remember that in the Budget of last year I indicated that the purpose of the Canadian ownership tax would be broadened to cover the general area of energy self-sufficiency. The funds are going to be used for the purpose of ensuring energy self-sufficiency in this country, particularly in the area of oil and gas. We have made tremendous progress in the last three years in that regard, and we want to ensure that we will continue to make progress. This is the purpose for which that tax will be used.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, this is a continuance of a tissue of deception. The Minister has launched a smash and grab raid, unauthorized by this House of Commons, on that fund.


SIZE OF GOVERNMENT DEFICIT
John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the Minister shows in his Budget statement of six days ago that the Budget deficit will be S31.5 billion. To get it down to $31.5 billion, he has taken $500 million which was allocated in that fund for Dome. If the Minister has to pay the $500 million out to Dome, the deficit will go up to $32 billion. Will the Minister tell the House what the deficit is for the year which ends at the end of March? When is he going to stop deceiving, misconstruing, and deluding the people of Canada? When will we get honest counsel and honest accounting?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the deficit for this year is forecast to be $31.5 billion. The Hon. Member asks me what the deficit will be at the end of March. I will be able to give him the exact figure as soon as it is computed at the end of March, or later on. He will remember that the deficit figures last year varied considerably, depending not only on the expenditures which the Government incurred in March, but also on the receipts which came from corporate and personal income tax during the month of March. I do not know exactly what those figures will be-


John Carnell Crosbie: There is $500 million.


Marc Lalonde: -but I will be very happy to provide my friend with the exact figure as soon as it is available. At the present time it is forecast to be $31.5 billion-


John Carnell Crosbie: And it could be anything.


Marc Lalonde: In the meantime I am still waiting for the Hon. Member to tell the Canadian people what the mean, nasty things are he would do-


John Carnell Crosbie: You are a mean, nasty thing I would eliminate.


Marc Lalonde: -to them if that Party were in office.


John Carnell Crosbie: Five hundred million dollars you have stolen from that fund.


THE ECONOMY
Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. Figures released today show that in Ontario, the richest province in Canada, 17 per cent of all children, or close to 400,000, are living in poverty. Across the country, we are told, children as young as five are lining up at soup kitchens, sometimes without their parents, just to get enough to eat. Their parents have no hope of getting jobs. Does the Minister think that it is fair or tolerable that children are the main victims of the recession? Why has he ignored their plight, the plight of low-income families? Why, instead, has he chosen to give some $675 million in tax breaks to people who can afford to put $15,000 a year into a savings plan?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, again I refer the Hon. Member to the Budget of last year, as well as to my announcement this year, that all the family allowances and tax credits are going to be fully indexed starting on January 1, 1985. The Hon. Member will remember that last year I appreciably increased the tax credit for families. In addition, I have to remind the hon. lady that the Provinces have a significant responsibility in that regard, as well in terms of Children's Aid and the various programs which are under provincial responsibility, particularly, social assistance.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, the Minister, who was a former Minister of Health and Welfare, should know what happens to children who are brought up in poverty. He brags about a safety net. These children are not safe; they are at risk. Poverty begets poverty. He should know that. He does know it. He does not want to admit it.


TAX REFORMS RECOMMENDED BY NATIONAL ANTI-POVERTY ORGANIZATION
Margaret Anne Mitchell: Would the Minister tell the House why, when he was preparing his Budget, he did not adopt the family benefit tax reforms which were recommended by the National Anti-Poverty Organization, which would not have cost him another cent, so that the money could be converted to increase family allowances for children? Tax credits at the end of the year are not useful to poor people. It is a monthly family allowance they need. The Minister could have increased this if he had paid any attention to the NAPO recommendations.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that poverty begets poverty. The Government has taken steps. Of all of the industrialized countries, including the socialist Governments which are referred to so often by my socialist friends opposite, the Canadian Government has been the only one which has not cut back on social security and on social programs.
February 21, 1984

The Hon. Member comes from British Columbia. She can make quite a comparison as well between the behaviour of her provincial Government and the behaviour of the Canadian Government during that period. I would like to remind the Hon. Member that we have not only maintained our support for people in need during this period of recession, but we have increased it, and in the last Budget we used the funds we had available to come to the assistance of those most in need. We did it last April by improving the tax credit for children. We have done it this year by coming to the assistance of single, retired citizens in need, and young people looking for work.
There are still many areas where improvement is possible, and this Government will continue to address these areas in order to ensure that Canada will continue to have one of the best social security systems in the world.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: Mr. Speaker, that is absolute b. s.-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Margaret Anne Mitchell: There is no way in this Budget-


Mr. Speaker:: With all due respect to the Hon. Member, I would invite her to withdraw that expression. It hardly contributes to the dignity of this place.


Margaret Anne Mitchell: I would be glad to say that it is absolute garbage, if that is better.
There is no question at all that this Budget helps the rich, not the poor, especially the poor children of Canada. The Minister knows we have almost one million more people living in poverty in 1983 then we had in 1981. Obviously that is because Canadians do not have jobs. Welfare rolls are going up; he has to pay for half of it, he should know that.


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Hon. Member is on her second supplementary. The Chair notes these are far ranging questions for Question Period. Will the Hon. Member ask her question?


REQUEST THAT MINISTER RESCIND TAX BREAK FOR CORPORATIONS
Margaret Anne Mitchell: Will the Minister rescind the $600 million tax break for corporations and put the money into direct job creation for the unemployed, particularly for those with young children?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I was not offended by the reference of the Hon. Member; I was assured that, by using the language she did, she was referring to herself as a "benevolent socialist".


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Marc Lalonde: The Hon. Member says the last Budget did not help the poor. I would like her to say that to the 750,000
Oral Questions
single, retired citizens, three quarters of whom are women living in poverty, who are going to see their GIS increased by $50 a month this year.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Chris Speyer (Cambridge):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Revenue. Yesterday we asked questions concerning the free lunch for auditors in Toronto. I would like to bring to the Minister's attention another contest last November and December. The contestants were the tax collectors in the Kitchener district tax office. The rules were that they received five points for collecting an account in excess of $1,000 plus one point per $1,000, four points if it was under $10,000, and the reward was one day off per month. In November the winners were a Mr. Keith Purves, and in December a Mr. Walter Perreault.
Games are being played here, and the word "games" was used in the memo of Mr. Stinchcombe in the Toronto incident. He called it a game. There is a game being played in Kitchener, a game being played on the plight of Canadian taxpayers who are in a state of distress.
The chief concern I have, Mr. Speaker, is that the Minister does not recognize what is happening in his own Department. Does he approve of games being played, such as the one I illustrated yesterday and the one I just brought to his attention? What disciplinary action was taken with Mr. Stinchcombe and with the supervisors who imposed quotas? What action is the Minister going to take today?


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I pointed out to the Hon. Member yesterday that in the matter involving Mr. Stinchcombe in Toronto, I had looked into the situation. I told him when this exercise had taken place and when it was stopped, and I also informed the Hon. Member that he was twisting the facts, as did the newspaper article, incidentally, when he was judging the way this local manager wanted to reward employees for outstanding performance. Today the Hon. Member, and that is what he is supposed to do, has now submitted another item. I would have appreciated being informed beforehand, in order to know the facts. I am wary of his way of changing the facts and especially the way he interprets them. I cannot, therefore, comment on a situation I have not had time to look into, especially when I do not know exactly what happened.


TORONTO SUPERVISOR'S ACTIONS
Chris Speyer: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Minister whether or not he approves of the methods used by

February 21, 1984
Oral Questions
Mr. Stinchcombe in Toronto? Does he approve of what Mr. Stinchcombe did?
[ Translation]


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I have already pointed out that Mr. Stinchcombe put a stop to this practice. Furthermore, I do not intend to pass judgment on a new case being brought to my attention, because I have not had time to look into the matter. Since as in the first case, the practice has been stopped, I would like to point out to the Hon. Member that we have a group of experts, the Woods Gordon group, that is conducting a study at the present time and looking into departmental practices, even those that have been stopped, including a practice aimed at rewarding people for outstanding performance. The study will cover those occurrences, and the group will then be in a position to submit an objective assessment.


REQUEST FOR REPEAL OF SECTION 31 OF INCOME TAX ACT
Mr. Lome Greenaway (Cariboo-Chilcotin):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance who admitted last week in the Budget speech that the application of Section 31 of the Income Tax Act is causing problems. Since 1978 a Canadian Bar Association joint committee on taxation and the Institute of Canadian Chartered Accountants have advocated repeal of Section 31, saying it is ambiguous, poorly drafted, and that the issue is clearly addressed under Section 248 of the Act. Canadians are suffering because of inconsistent and arbitrary application of Section 31 by Revenue Canada. The Minister often tells this House that he always seeks advice before bringing down a Budget. Why did he not take the advice of Canada's lawyers and chartered accountants on Section 31?


Marc Lalonde: Before tabling my Budget, Mr. Speaker, I did meet with a group of representatives of the two organizations mentioned by the Hon. Member. We discussed this question and it was generally agreed that the implementation and interpretation of Section 31 referred to by the Hon. Member do create difficulties. Everyone agreed that there is a real problem which must be addressed and that we must avoid extending preferential treatment to so-called hobby farmers to the detriment of full-time farmers, in the sense that if too many farms are bought by people whose principal occupation is not farming, this will have a speculative impact on the price of agricultural land and harm full-time farmers. It is a real problem with which we must come to grips, and that is why I said I will establish an advisory committee of farm organizations and other groups to look closely into that situation before making changes which will not be harmful to full-time farmers, namely those whose sole occupation is farming and who want their children to take over their operations.


Lorne Everett Greenaway: Mr. Speaker, that is the same kind of action we got with the fishermen in Newfoundland two years ago when this Government appointed a one-man commission, a Mr. William Rowe, to report on their problems. His report was never published or acted upon. That is the kind of action we get from over there; nothing but smoke.


REQUEST FOR MORATORIUM ON PROSECUTIONS
Lorne Everett Greenaway: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is directed to the Minister of National Revenue who knows the problems Section 31 is causing. There are cases before the courts, and we now have a consulting group to be appointed. The Minister of Agriculture said just a few weeks ago that the Section should be drastically changed, or preferably wiped off the books. That is what the impotent old bull said to the people of Canada. Will the Minister call a moratorium on these cases until the consulting body has reported, so that when Section 31 is repealed or amended these people who are caught in limbo will not suffer?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the hon. gentleman that we have had a number of consultative groups doing work on the Budgets over the last two years I introduced, which have produced excellent reports and have been put into effect. This has taken place with regard to the taxation of charities and foundations. This has taken place with regard to research and development, investment tax credits, and the Indexed Securities Investment Plan. All of this has taken place in the last year. It has led to action by the Government which has been beneficial to all concerned. I intend to proceed with the process of consultation with and participation of those most involved, and with action which will have the support of all concerned.


BILINGUALISM
Mr. Rod Murphy (Churchill):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Last fall all Parties in the House united to pass a resolution encouraging the Manitoba Government in its initiative to protect the rights of the French-speaking minority in that province. The Conservative Party in that province has prevented the Legislature from meeting to pass the necessary legislation and the constitutional amendment necessary to protect those rights. Earlier today the Leader of the Conservative Party in Manitoba proposed a subamendment which would restrict the constitutional amendment to validating the laws which have been passed only in English over the last hundred years. That amendment by the Conservative Party in Manitoba would not protect the existing
February 21, 1984

rights of the French-speaking minority in that Province. What is the Prime Minister's position on that proposal?


Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the position of the Government, and I believe that of all Members of the House, certainly all Leaders of the Parties in the House, as stated in the resolution of last October, was to affirm our intention to support the spirit of an agreement which had been reached last May with the Government of Manitoba and the Franco-Manitobains. That is still the position of the Government.
I do not know of this latest amendment. If it is like the amendment put forward last December by the Leader of the Conservative Opposition, which would have had the effect of striking out Section 23(1) I believe, giving rights to Frenchspeaking Canadians, then obviously it would not be acceptable to the Government nor, I take it, to the Leader of the Opposition. I will wait to see what new proposal has been made, Mr. Speaker.
We have hesitated to intervene in the Manitoba situation because I believe it was the intention of the parties there to have a made-in-Manitoba solution to their problem. We have to keep in mind that any constitutional amendment would come before this House ultimately. I can say unequivocally that this Party would not support any amendment which went against the spirit of last May's resolution, which was not supported by the Franco-Manitobains.


POSITION OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Rodney Edward Murphy: Mr. Speaker, the proposal made by the Conservative Party in Manitoba is to take away Section 23(1) which prevents future Manitoba Legislatures from extinguishing already existing rights. We in this Party reject that. Will the Prime Minister say that he, as the Leader of the Government of Canada, also rejects that proposal?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, if that is the intent of the amendment it seems to me it is a repetition of the attempt made before Christmas. I repeat that we would reject such an amendment unequivocally. If such an amended resolution were to come before the House, we certainly could not support it. I would like the Government and opposition Parties in Manitoba to know that.
I hate to make a proposal which I am sure will be judged to be a political interference, but I think it might be useful if the Leaders of the three Parties were to meet again to discuss whether we should re-assert our position which very firmly is not backing down from the agreement of last May. If that is helpful to the Government and people of Manitoba, I would certainly be prepared to entertain a repeat of the resolution we had in the last Session. I hope that would be the case with the Leader of the Opposition.
Oral Questions INDUSTRY


PETROCHEMICAL TASK FORCE REPORT
Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. The petrochemical task force under the chairmanship of Mr. Bolger and Mr. Reimer reported to the Minister and his colleague, the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion, a little over a week ago. Will the Ministers be meeting with these particular members of the task force? They have been meeting with the caucuses of the various Parties in the House. Will the Ministers be meeting with the members of the task force? Is the Minister in a position to tell us today how soon he anticipates being able to make a response to that particular task force report?


Hon. Jean Chretien (Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, I do not know when I will be able to make a report on a solution to this very complex problem. The other Minister and myself intend to meet with the members of the task force very soon.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. Bill Domm (Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, yesterday I drew to the attention of the House the illegal use of the social insurance numbers of the unemployed of Peterborough. Since that time I have had an opportunity to examine the list. I am saddened to report that the Supervisor of Investigations and Controls within the Ministry of Employment and Immigration has published the list of all the legitimate unemployed. This means there is very little protection for the innocent and legitimately unemployed in the federal riding of Peterborough when the social insurance numbers become public information.
The Minister of Employment and Immigration announced to the House that yesterday was the first he had heard of this situation. Would he now stand and confirm that what he said was correct?


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I am not exactly sure which words the Hon. Member is asking me to confirm. I will stand in the House and say that, as a result of the information brought to my attention yesterday, in consequence and following his question in the House, I have asked for a report from my officials, and have received that report. I am told that these events, which I very much regret, were an isolated incident. They were contrary to the policies of my Department and may very well have been in contravention of the Privacy Act. I regret very much that they happened. It was a result of administrative error. As far as I am able to determine, it was an isolated case. I have ensured that instructions have been issued to try to prevent the recurrence of such an event.

February 21, 1984
Oral Questions


DISCLOSURE OF SOCIAL INSURANCE NUMBERS
William Henry (Bill) Domm: Mr. Speaker, the Director General of Employment and Immigration confirmed to the media yesterday that he was knowledgeable of the situation and had ordered a stop to it yesterday. Is this no different from the situation within Revenue Canada in which the Minister is not aware of what is going on in his Department in that you, as Minister of Employment and Immigration, are not aware of what is going on in your Department?
On behalf of the unemployed in Canada, whose names are on computer printout lists which indicate that Big Brother is watching them, I ask the Minister to issue a directive immediately to all Ministers on the government side of the House to instruct their officials not to disclose the social insurance numbers of any citizens in Canada.


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is asking me to issue directives and orders to all of my Cabinet colleagues. While I am not temperamentally averse to such an idea, it is not within my area of responsibility to do so. I have acted promptly in relation to my responsibilities. Once this situation was brought to my attention the proper steps were taken to investigate it and ensure that such a matter was not repeated. If, as the Hon. Member asserts, the Director General of the region was already aware of the situation and had taken steps to remedy the situation, that official is to be congratulated and not pilloried.


PROSECUTIONS INQUIRY
Hon. Allan Lawrence (Durham-Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, I too have had constituents whose personal confidential information has been published by the Department. That information has been sent to officials of the Board of Education, to principals, teachers, and staff members. Would the Minister ascertain and report back to the House if prosecutions will take place in respect of the publication of this personal and confidential information, which I suggest is not only contrary to the Privacy Act but as well may contravene other statutes of this country?


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker,
I will certainly take the Hon. Member's request under advisement.


VETERANS AFFAIRS
Hon. Allan B. McKinnon (Victoria):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Veterans Affairs. Is he aware that the Canadian Pension Commission has been taking an extremely hardnosed attitude toward applications for
exceptional incapacity allowance? Out of 17 applications by the War Amps of Canada, 17 were turned down by the Entitlement Board. Upon review by the Review Board, 16 of the 17 were accepted.
Has the Minister seen to it that the Review Board will be commended for this and that the Entitlement Board will be made aware that their negative decisions have been overruled entirely by the Review Board, and they should start playing from the same music?


Hon. W. Bennett Campbell (Minister of Veterans Affairs):: Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the concern which has been expressed by the War Amps with respect to the cases before the Entitlement Board for exceptional incapacity allowances. I have consulted with the Executive Director of the War Amps, Mr. Chadderton. He is presently out of town but he will be meeting with me just as soon as he returns, to discuss his concerns in those areas.


Allan Bruce McKinnon: It is a question of how much time gets lost in these needless appeals.


DELAY IN PROCESSING PENSION APPLICATIONS
Allan Bruce McKinnon: Mr. Speaker, in answer to a question in committee, the Chairman of the Pension Commission gave us some details on the length of time it takes to get a pension these days. Between the time a case is ready and the time a case is heard by the Entitlement Board, there is a delay of 190 days on average. After the Entitlement Board-this was the case with these War Amps-if an appeal is made to the Review Board there is another average delay of 277 days. Seeing that the final decision comes only 619 days after the first request, could the Minister tell us of any steps he has taken to ensure that this unconscionable delay will be stopped?


W. Bennett Campbell: Mr. Speaker, it has always been my interest to see the cases of veterans dealt with as quickly as possible. But I am sure the Hon. Member also appreciates that, while we are using average times, there are cases which are lengthy in preparation because of the need to secure the necessary documentation to ensure that the individual veteran has the best possible chance of success when the case is heard.
Of course, there is the question of scheduling Entitlement Boards or Assessment Boards in the area closest to where a veteran lives. Certainly it is my interest and my effort to ensure that all cases are dealt with in the shortest possible period of time while respecting the necessary preparatory work to ensure that a veteran's case, when heard, has the greatest possibility of success.
February 21, 1984


WITHDRAWAL OF JAPANESE PARTICIPATION IN BEAUFORT SEA EXPLORATION
Mr. Ray Skelly (Comox-Powell River):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. It concerns the pullout by the Japanese from the Dome Petroleum project in the Beaufort Sea. In the last two years we, as Canadians, have committed SI.73 billion in PIP grants to the Beaufort, and one-half billion dollars through a bailout contingency fund, bringing the total investment in that company to roughly S2.3 billion. The Japanese withdrew support on the grounds that they were not going to strike oil in the Beaufort. Could the Minister give us the assurance that the Government will not spend one more dime until-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. I must ask that a display in front of an Hon. Member's desk be removed from the House.


Some Hon. Members:: Remove.


Mr. Speaker:: If the Hon. Minister proposes to table something, there is an appropriate time to do so. This is not it.


Raymond John Skelly: The proposal of the Government to spend $2.3 billion in funding Dome Petroleum to drill dry holes in the Arctic is very questionable. Certainly the Japanese have now left $400 million on the bottom of the Beaufort Sea, and left Dome Petroleum high and dry with the statement that it will not strike oil in the Beaufort. Yet the Government will continue for another two years to pump money down that dry hole.
Can the Minister give us the assurance that the Government will not spend one more dime on Dome Petroleum until it verifies the facts that the Japanese have laid out, that "there ain't any oil down there"?


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, the Japanese made a deal with Dome Petroleum to invest $400 million in exploration in the Beaufort Sea. Of course, the money has been invested in Dome, and it has drilled with it. They have decided not to proceed with further investment, but there was no such plan. They made an investment of $400 million and decided it was enough for them to invest in the North.
However, there are many other corporations that are anxious to invest in northern Canada. We sign agreements with corporations regularly. Of course, when you drill, no one can tell you ahead of time if you will find oil, gas, or anything. That is the name of the game.
There is oil in the Beaufort Sea. The question now is that we do not know if there is enough to produce commercially. Over the years there have been many finds of oil in the Beaufort Sea but, because of the difficulty of the climate and the region, we need great quantities to make it commercial. We have not arrived at that level yet. In order to achieve self-sufficiency and security of supply, it is very important to look everywhere in Canada where there is the potential for oil and gas.
Oral Questions


REQUEST FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO DOME PETROLEUM CORPORATION
Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, the Minister is refusing to come to grips with the fact that the Japanese have assessed the data and said there is no oil. That is why they left. Dome is $4.2 billion in debt. It owns mines, shipyards, and conventional petroleum reserves. If that company collapses it will leave a tremendous black hole in the Canadian economy from which it will be very difficult to recover. It may take a chartered bank with it.
I ask the Minister to stop fooling around and get serious with the House. We need a public inquiry into the operation of Dome Petroleum immediately, as well as a commitment that not one more dime of public money will be spent on that company until there is an assessment of the facts.


Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member does not have his facts very straight. Dome is not the only company drilling in the North. There are Imperial, Esso, Gulf Canada, and many other Canadian companies. There are PanArctic Oil, Shell, and Petro-Canada. Many corporations are signing agreements. We have signed many new agreements this year with companies that want to keep drilling in the North.
You cannot find oil and gas if you do not drill. It is exactly on that basis that people are still drilling in the North. If we were to follow the policies of the Tories and the NDP, the drilling would stop in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The Hon. Member should talk with the provincial Governments there to see if it is a waste of money to ensure that we find some oil and gas offshore, just like in the North.


FINANCE
Hon. Michael Wilson (Etobicoke Centre):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. In the past 16 years there have only been two years under Liberal government when government spending did not rise in excess, and sometimes well in excess, of the rate of growth of the economy. Yet in his Budget last week his projections show spending next year to increase at a rate of 2.7 per cent less than the national income. In the next year it will be 4.0 per cent less; the year after 3.5 per cent less, and the year after that, 2.3 per cent.
Could the Minister tell the House what change in government policy or disciplines have been made to make these spending estimates believable? Can he tell us why we should believe him, particularly when in the last year-the year of six and five and economic growth-government spending increased 3.7 per cent faster than the rate of growth in the economy?

February 21, 1984
Oral Questions


Marc Lalonde: First, for the very good reason that last year the rate of growth was appreciably lower than it will be this year as an average over the year. Second, the Hon. Member is aware of the policy of restraint which the Government has announced and followed. As the recovery is going to transform itself into a significant expansion of the economy, there will be less need for the large expenditures that we have incurred in order to alleviate the effect of the recession. As the Hon. Member also knows, there will be opportunities for some increase in revenues. As far as the growth of expenditure is concerned, the President of the Treasury Board will be tabling the Estimates today. The Hon. Member will have an opportunity to look at them in detail, and he will have to reach his own conclusion and come to his own judgment.
The Hon. Member will know that last year we performed better than most of the forecasts that I had put forward. As far as our policy is concerned, it has been stated quite clearly and is the one we intend to pursue.


Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, this business about a government restraint or a policy restraint is more and more of a bad joke every day. All we are seeing is more deception and more delusion.


SIZE OF GOVERN MENT DEFICITS
Michael Holcombe Wilson: Mr. Speaker, last year the Government estimated government spending for next year, 1984-85, to increase by 5.8 per cent. Now, one year later, the estimate has increased 8.3 per cent. Should we expect the same sort of increase in all these future projections of spending? If we do, the increase in the budget deficit on average will be $8 billion a year. If that is not the case, what concrete steps is the Government introducing that will make these projections come true? Otherwise I say the Minister is cooking the books and misleading the Canadian people.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member better make up his mind. On the first question he was arguing that the expenditures for this year were going to be 2.7 per cent lower than the rate of growth of the economy in nominal terms. Now he is complaining that it will be over what we forecast it would grow last year. Either he wants to rejoice or he wants to cry. But let him make up his mind.
In effect, what we have done for 1984-1985 is to ensure that the total growth of government expenditures will be lower than the total growth of the economy, thereby leaving more room for the private sector and for individual citizens. The share of the Gross National Product being taken by Government is not going to expand in 1984 as a result of increasing expenditures by the federal Government above the growth of the economy. We will make sure that our total expenditures will be lower than the growth of the economy.



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


John (Moody) Roberts: Mr. Speaker, in accordance with Standing Order 46(2), I wish to table two copies of a comprehensive list of over 50,000 projects approved for funding under the Government of Canada's Job Stimulus Program, including the list of Special Employment Initiatives Projects.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: I would draw to the attention of the Hon. Minister that Beauchesne's Fifth Edition, Citation 333, provides:
Speakers have consistently ruled that it is improper to produce exhibits of any sort in the Chamber.
With all due respect to the Minister, the Speaker would have been much happier had there been no red ribbons attached to what is not supposed to be an exhibit.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Mr. Speaker:: This is not to be regarded as a precedent.


Hon. Erik Nielsen (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Paragraph (4) of the same Standing Order which enabled the Minister to launch his showboat requires the Minister, in tabling that document, to designate the standing committee to which the pile of material is to be referred. I would invite the Minister to comply with Standing Order 46(4) and to designate that committee now.
[ Translation]


Mr. Speaker:: Order! The President of the Privy Council, on the same Point of Order.


Hon. Yvon Pinard (President of the Privy Council):: Mr. Speaker, regarding this Point of Order, it certainly takes a fantastic amount of mental gymnastics to reach the conclusion that what we have here is a report, return or other paper laid before the House in accordance with an Act of Parliament.
The Minister tabled these papers pursuant to S.O. 46(2). This has no connection with reports, returns or other papers tabled in accordance with an Act of the Parliament of Canada, and in the circumstances, paragraph (4) cannot possibly apply.
I think the Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) has been trying ... I can see him smiling! He is very clever, but I think we should not be misled by this invitation, because it is pretty obvious that the Minister did not act pursuant to 46(4). He did not table "a report of his department" in accordance with an Act of Parliament. He tabled "papers" dealing with the administrative responsibilities of the Government, as set forth in S.O. 46(2).
February 21, 1984


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. President of the Privy Council mentioned earlier the number of the Standing Order involved. Could he perhaps repeat it for the Speaker of the House?


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, when the Minister rose in the House, he tabled the papers under S.O. 46(2), and in his point of order, the Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) referred to
S.O.	46(4). I shall refrain from repeating the difference between the two Standing Orders by reading the text. As the saying goes in Latin: patet.


Mr. Speaker:: The President of the Privy Council has indicated that the tabling was in accordance with Standing Order 46(2) and not Standing Order 46(4). In the circumstances, if it is tabled, as it appears to have been, by the Minister in accordance with Standing Order 46(2), there is no automatic requirement that it be referred to a committee.


Erik Nielsen: Mr. Speaker, I am certain that the Minister would want to see an examination before the standing committee of that load which he dumped in his efforts to launch his leadership campaign. Perhaps he might request unanimous consent now to refer that heap to the relevant standing committee so we can give it the scrutiny it deserves.


Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Official Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) has a political staff, very well paid, that could do the work the Hon. Member is asking a committee to do. That may be a change from inquiring into the Prime Minister's private life.


Mr. Speaker:: I take it there is not unanimous consent.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order with respect to the display we have had from the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts) in tabling these documents. It is a new point of order.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The Chair has dealt with the matter. The Chair accepted it but pointed out that it was not to be a precedent and that the use of red ribbon for the tabling of documents should be avoided in the House. It was a difficult enough decision.


John Horton McDermid: It has a lot to do with the performance of the Government. It is always in the red.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


MAIN ESTIMATES, 1984-85
[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Governor General transmitting Estimates for the financial year ending March 31, 1985, was presented by Hon. Herb Gray (President of the Treasury Board) and read by Mr. Speaker to the House.
Main Estimates, 1984-85
Hon. Herb Gray (President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I would also like to table in support of the Estimates Part I, the Government's expenditure plan, and on behalf of my colleagues Part III, consisting of 65 departmental expenditure plans.


Mr. Speaker:: Order! The President of the Privy Council (Mr. Pinard).


REFERENCE TO STANDING COMMITTEE
Yvon Pinard: Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the provisions of Standing Order 63, I move, seconded by the Hon. Minister of National Health and Welfare (Mrs. Begin):
That the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1985, laid on the Table of the House today, be referred to several Standing Committees as follows:
Considering that the allocation of the Main Estimates to the various Committees is detailed and that the list is quite long, if the House agrees, I would ask that it be printed in Hansard as if it had been read, according to common practice.


Mr. Speaker:: The House has heard the suggestion of the Hon. President of the Privy Council. Is it agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
[Editor's Note: List referred to above is as follows:]
To the Standing Committee on Agriculture
Agriculture Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, L20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 and 60 External Affairs Votes 15 and 20 To the Standing Committee on Communications and Culture
Communications Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, L20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85 and 90
Secretary of State Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 45 To the Standing Committee on External Affairs and National Defence External Affairs Votes 1, 5, 35, 40, L45, L50, L55, 60 and 65 National Defence Votes 1,5, 10 and 15 To the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs External Affairs Votes 10, 25 and 30 Finance Votes 1,5, 10, 15, L20, 30 and 35 National Revenue Votes 1,5, 10 and 15 Privy Council Vote 20
Regional Industrial Expansion Votes 1,5, 15, 20, L25, 50 and 55 To the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry Environment Votes 1,5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 Fisheries and Oceans Votes 1, 5 and 10 To the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs Consumer and Corporate Affairs Votes 1, 5, 10 and 15 National Health and Welfare Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 and 55
Social Development Vote 1
To the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Indian Affairs and Northern Development Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, L50, L55 and L60
To the Standing Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs Justice Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45 and 50
1590

February 21, 1984
Main Estimates, 1984-85
Solicitor General Votes 1,5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 To the Standing Committee on Labour, Manpower and Immigration Employment and Immigration Votes 1,5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 Labour Votes 1,5, 10 and 20
To the Standing Committee on Management and Members' Services Parliament Vote 5
To the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates Finance Vote 25 Governor General Vote 1 Labour Vote 15 Parliament Votes 1 and 10 Privy Council Votes 1, 5, 15 and 25
Science and Technology Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 Secretary of State Vote 40 Supply and Services Votes 1, 5 and 10 Treasury Board Votes 1,5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 To the Standing Committee on National Resources and Public Works
Energy, Mines and Resources Votes 1,5, 10, 15, 20, 25, L30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65 and 70
Public Works Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75,80,85,90, 95, L100, 105, 110, 115 and L120 To the Standing Committee on Northern Pipelines Economic and Regional Development Vote 5 To the Standing Committee on Privileges and Elections Privy Council Vote 10
To the Standing Committee on Regional Development Economic and Regional Development Vote 1 Regional Industrial Expansion Votes 10, L30, 35, 40 and 45 To the Standing Committee on Transport
Transport Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, L60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100, 105, 110, LI 15, 120 and 125 To the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs
Veterans affairs Votes 1,5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30


Mr. Speaker:: Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?


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


EXPLANATORY STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT OF TREASURY BOARD
Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the documents I have just tabled provide the details of the Government's expenditure plan for 1984-85. Last Wednesday, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) presented in his Budget the basic outlines of an updated expenditure plan for the next year through 1987-88. The documents tabled today elaborate on this overall plan for 1984-85 and on the policies, programs and activities underlying them. In particular, Part II and the related Part III documents, which together are generally known as the Main Estimates, provide detailed information on the major portion of the plan, that portion for which we are now seeking authorization from Parliament. Along with the Budget presented last week, the documents will provide a framework for conducting the business of government during the next year.

Mr. Speaker, the detailed plans in the Main Estimates for which we are seeking parliamentary authorization are the result of the government's intensive review of departmental programs over the last few months. They take into account the assumptions about economic conditions that were presented last week by my colleague, the minister of Finance.

Before touching upon some of the highlights of the detailed expenditure plans for next year, I would like to comment briefly on the documents themselves which are presented again this year as a group of volumes-Part I, the Government expenditure plan itself; Part II, the Main Estimates proper or the blue book; and Part III, departmental expenditure plans. [Translation]
In its fourth annual edition, Part I is becoming firmly established in parliamentary tradition, providing us with an overview of federal government spending. It deals with the broad policy areas to which resources will be allocated by the Government, and is aimed at facilitating an overall understanding of government expenditures.

While the focus of this overview is on 1984-85, information is provided on the full multi-year expenditure plan through to 1987-88 presented in last week's Budget. This represents a return to the practice of previous years from the single-year focus of last year's Part I, which was in that form because it was presented before the Budget of April, 1983 which contained this multi-year information.
I have tabled on behalf of my colleagues 65 volumes of Part III for 1984-85, adding 18 new plans to the 47 tabled last year. Next year, when Part III will be complete, departmental expenditure plans will be available for all Departments and agencies. These documents are prepared by individual Departments and agencies with guidance from the Office of the Comptroller General. They contain a wealth of information on government programs; most important, they outline what the Government expects to achieve with the money it plans to spend once the Estimates are approved. The blue book, Part II, supports the items which are expected to be included in the Appropriation Act for the Main Estimates.
I would now like to comment upon the details of the Government's expenditure plan contained in the documents just tabled. Members will, of course, be familiar with the basic outlines of the updated multi-year expenditure plan set out in Part I, since they were presented to Parliament only last week by the Minister of Finance. They will recall that he forecast for 1984-85 planned total outlays of $98.2 billion, an increase of 8.3 per cent over his revised forecast of $90.6 billion for 1983-84. I would draw to the attention of the House the fact that this is the lowest rate of growth of total outlays in six years. I would also note that the Minister of Finance has projected in his Budget even lower rates of growth for total outlays for the next three years. These lower rates of growth
February 21, 1984

reflect both our current economic recovery, which is removing pressures from some of our major income support programs, and more optimistic forecasts for inflation.
Within our total outlays, total planned expenditures of $98.2 billion for 1984-85, we are at this time seeking authorization from Parliament to spend amounts totalling $96.5 billion which are detailed in the Main Estimates; that is to say, the blue book and the related Part III documents. This total is
10.4	per cent higher than the 1983-84 Main Estimates total. This represents a substantial decrease compared with last year's 17.9 per cent increase over the 1982-83 Main Estimates. [Translation]
Mr. Speaker, beyond the expenditure total for which details are provided in the Main Estimates, our overall Expenditure Plan also includes $3.1 billion in reserves which are allocated across various policy sectors or envelopes, and a special reserve of $800 million to cover any necessary adjustments to current forecasts for statutory programs. The envelope reserves serve two purposes. The first is to cover the costs of planned initiatives that have not been included in the Main Estimates, that is to say the increases to the Youth Opportunity Fund and the Guaranteed Income Supplement for single pensioners announced in the Budget, as well as other initiatives on which final decisions have not yet been taken by Cabinet. The second is to cover cost adjustments to existing programs that could not be anticipated at the time the Main Estimates were being prepared. In either instance, parliamentary approval will, of course, be sought through Supplementary Estimates or other legislation.

Our planned total outlays of $98.2 billion are exclusive of, are net of, two items which total $2.2 billion. The first of these is to account for forecast repayments on loans issued in previous years. The second is an adjustment to account for the fact that some authorized expenditures will not be made and will lapse since Departments and agencies cannot legally spend more money than Parliament authorizes and in fact always spend less.
I would now like to direct the attention of the House again to the $96.5 billion in expenditures provided for in the Main Estimates. I would first note that $2 billion of this total is for loans, investments and advances. Of the remaining amount, eight items account for two-thirds of the $8.9 billion increase over 1983-84 Main Estimates. National Defence expenditures are up $927 million to meet Canada's commitment to NATO to increase the real growth of defence expenditures by 3 per cent annually. A large part of these funds will be devoted to the re-equipment and modernization of the Canadian Forces, including the CF-18 fighter aircraft and Canadian-built patrol frigate programs. These activities will also provide stimulus to key sectors of the Canadian economy.
Second, there are the transfers to the provinces under the Established Programs Financing arrangements which support
Main Estimates, 1984-85
the financing of health care and post-secondary education. These are up by $886 million compared to last year's Main Estimates. Of course, apart from and not included in last year's Main Estimates are the special payments of more than $500 million announced by the Government in December, resulting from revisions to the national income and expenditure accounts by Statistics Canada.
Transfers to the provinces under the Canada Assistance Plan are up by $556 million. Payments under the Petroleum Incentives Program, made primarily to Canadian oil companies to support oil and gas exploration and development, show an increase of $450 million. Payments under this program contribute to the overall level of economic activity, particularly in the natural resource sector. Also, the Old Age Security payments, guaranteed income supplement and spouses' allowances are up by a total of $430 million.
In addition to this amount, more funds will be required as a result of the announcement in last week's Budget of the substantial increase in the guaranteed income supplement for single pensioners. Parliament will be asked to approve this increase through legislation soon to be introduced by the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin).
There are also transfers to the provinces, primarily in the form of equalization payments, which are up by $339 million. There are two payments to Canada Post, one for $350 million pursuant to the Canada Post Corporation Act to cover operating requirements and one for $170 million to provide for capital costs associated with the mailing of certain Canadian publications. These are included in this year's Main Estimates. The payments have until now been presented in supplementary estimates.
Public debt charges account for $1.8 billion of the increase. This increase will result from higher debt levels that are partially offset by lower average interest rates on the outstanding debt. The Minister of Finance pointed out last week that the deficits leading to higher debt levels have come from additional expenditures to assist individual Canadians and to promote job creation and economic activity generally, through the difficult period of the recession and the beginning stages of recovery. With recovery well under way and investment activity on the increase, the Minister of Finance last week reiterated the Government's commitment to bring the deficit down, but in a phased manner that does not damage our economic prospects.

Mr. Speaker, I would remind Hon. Members that the Estimates documents and related press material contain a wealth of information on these and many other changes. Therefore, I now would like to describe how the continuing economic recovery, and this government's initiatives in support of that recovery, have very profoundly affected today's Main Estimates and the government's Expenditure Plan.

I want to deal briefly with four areas in particular: Special Recovery Capital Projects, unemployment insurance, Estab-

February 21, 1984
Main Estimates, 1984-85
lished Programs Financing and the guaranteed income supplement.
1 mentioned earlier that eight items account for two-thirds of the year-over-year increase in budgetary Main Estimates. Of the remaining $3 billion increase this year, about one-third is for Special Recovery Capital Projects. These are aimed at accelerating federal spending on economic infrastructure projects to facilitate Canada's economic recovery. These are part of the Special Recovery Program announced in the April, 1983 Budget and which the Minister of Finance pointed to again last week as a key link in the Government's efforts toward establishing partnership in the establishing of jobs through a healthy and growing economy. Excluding national defence spending and expenditures on these Special Recovery Capital Projects, the operating and capital expenditures of Departments and agencies are increasing in the order of only 7 per cent.
Last year, as we were just beginning to recover from the recession, we faced a very sharp increase in the Government's contribution to unemployment insurance. I am pleased to note that, based on economic forecasts, this year's Main Estimates figure of $2.7 billion is $227 million less than last year's Main Estimates forecast figure, a reflection of our improving economic circumstances and of improvements in the level of employment in particular.
Under the Established Programs Financing arrangements, the federal Government defrays approximately half the cost of financing hospital insurance and medicare and slightly more than half the cost of financing post-secondary education. This contribution takes the form of cash payments to the provinces and of the value of the potential to exact taxes which is turned over to them by the federal Government. An increase in the value of this tax portion is automatically offset by a decrease in the federal Government's cash contributions under the formula set out in the Act.
The total to which the provinces are entitled for 1984-85 is expected now to increase by 8.4 per cent over the current forecast for 1983-84, exclusive of adjustments for prior years. However, the value of the tax portion is expected to increase by more than 13 per cent, so that the cash portion need only grow by 4 per cent. This is indeed a welcome sign of increasing economic health and is a direct analogue of the healthier growth in budgetary revenues indicated in the fiscal plan tabled last week by the Minister of Finance.
I also wish to review briefly forecast expenditures under major income support programs for the elderly, as reflected in the Main Estimates. Old Age Security payments are made to all Canadians over the age of 65. The guaranteed income supplement is paid to those Canadians receiving Old Age Security who qualify on the basis of an income test. These payments are normally indexed to the growth in the consumer price index. Under our six and five program, however, the indexation of Old Age Security payments was limited to 6 per cent in 1983 and 5 per cent in 1984.
This limitation did not apply to the guaranteed income supplement, which indeed not only continued to be fully
indexed but was modified to compensate its recipients should there be any loss of income resulting from the limit placed on the indexation of Old Age Security. Last year's forecast of expenditures for the guaranteed income supplement assumed indexation rates for inflation in excess of the six and five limit and also included a provision to offset the capping of indexation for eligible Old Age Security recipients.
We should all be pleased that the assumptions about inflation turned out to be higher than the rates actually achieved through the efforts of all of us working together to reduce inflation. This means, of course, that all the funds set aside for the reasons I have just explained were not needed; but more importantly, it illustrates in a tangible way the success we have had in reducing inflation through our co-operative efforts. These factors also explain why the 1984-85 Main Estimates forecast of expenditures for the guaranteed income supplement is actually lower than the 1983-84 Main Estimates forecast. [Translation]
I would also note that for the first time in many years, expenditures related to major transfer programs like unemployment insurance are growing more slowly than total spending this year. Again, this is largely due to improving economic conditions.

Before completing my remark, I would like to speak briefly about the size of the public service as measured by the number of person-years under the direct control of the Treasury Board. The Main Estimates documents before the House indicate a 1984-85 total of 260,370 person-years for Departments and agencies whose personnel requirements are controlled by the Treasury Board. This represents an increase of only 1 per cent over the comparable 1983-84 Main Estimates level of 257,678. This latter number, I would remind Members, includes the reduction in authorized levels made by the Treasury Board just prior to the tabling of the Main Estimates last February but which, as a result, did not show in last year's blue book.
The limited increases in authorized person-years reflect the commitment of this Government to continuing restraint in the growth of the Public Service, and to ongoing efforts to achieve improved productivity in the delivery of services to the public.
If we analyse the areas where the larger increases occur, the Government's interest in maintaining and increasing services to the public becomes apparent. The person-year level of Revenue Canada Taxation will increase by 1,044 over 1983-84 to provide enhanced services to the public. The additional personnel will be allocated entirely to four activities: about 17 per cent to handling telephone and over-the-counter inquiries from the public for tax information, 53 per cent for processing tax returns, 15 per cent for tax adjustments requested by taxpayers, and 15 per cent for dealing with formal appeals of assessment registered by taxpayers. These additional resources will be allocated to all regions of the country. No additional person-years have been approved for audit, enforcement, collection or administration. As a complement to these increases
February 21, 1984

in human resources, financial resources are being made available to improve telephone and computer facilities so that services can be provided more rapidly and more effectively to the public.
The Correctional Services program has had its authorized level increased by 666, primarily because of growth in the number of penitentiary inmates. The Department of Transport levels are up by 403, largely to provide for regulatory activities related to air safety and to meet staffing requirements for the Canadian Coast Guard fleet. While maintaining and even increasing services to the public generally, it has still been possible to reduce person-year resources in some areas; the number of authorized person-years is down for 22 departments and agencies. For example, authorized levels for the RCMP have been reduced by 175 person-years because of decreased demand for police services from provinces and municipalities. While some of the decrease of 158 person-years shown for the Department of Veterans Affairs reflects the phasing out of temporary requirements related to the relocation to Charlottetown, a part of the reduction is being made possible by the installation of a modern, computerized benefit delivery system.
The documents tabled today reflect some of the ongoing benefits already being gained through programs related to improving the productivity of government operations. I am referring in particular to the IMPAC program, which deals with improving management practices and controls. This program, which is being gradually extended across the Government, is already providing annual recurring savings of $122 million. The documents cannot at this early stage, however, reflect the positive results we expect to flow from the four point plan of new initiatives aimed at further improving productivity in the operation of the federal public sector which I announced a few weeks ago.

Mr. Speaker, the Expenditure Plan documents that I have tabled also illustrate the achievements and efforts related to building a strong and growing economy to which my colleague, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde), drew our attention in his Budget statement last week. You will recall that he pointed to the significant reduction in inflation that has been achieved; the measures taken to secure economic recovery; the record on economic growth, employment and inflation over the last ten months, which has been consistently better than forecast in his previous Budget; and the need for a strategy of continued effort aimed at creating jobs through partnership with the private sector.

On its side of the partnership the Government is making a major contribution through such initiatives as the $1 billion Youth Opportunity Fund, which was announced in the Speech from the Throne and to which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) added $150 million in his Budget of last week. In all, funds already allocated to Special Recovery Capital Projects and to the direct support of employment, including job training, will total over $3.5 billion in 1984-85.
Main Estimates, 1984-85
I will conclude by saying that I am pleased to table these documents relating to our detailed expenditure plan for next year. I believe they illustrate graphically our success in managing and planning our expenditures in this still difficult economic period, although it is one of growing economic recovery. They also reflect the well founded optimism this Government shares with the private sector that Canada will continue its progress toward a healthy and growing economy.


Hon. Ron Huntington (Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, we have had two major statements of policy from the Government, the budget speech on February 15 and now the tabling of the Main Estimates for 1984-85 by the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray).
Pray, Mr. Speaker, that the rhetoric in these two documents will deliver 10 per cent of the optimism it expresses about bringing the Canadian economy around to a condition of full employment or at least from 3 per cent to 7 per cent unemployment, and pray that the rhetoric will become fact. I have to say to you, Mr. Speaker, and to others who are listening-


Mr. Frith:: Nobody is listening.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: That is absolutely true. No one on the government side of the House listens to anything at any time. The House of Commons, both at Westminster and in this country, was born out of violence, debate, sword lengths and so on. The manner in which the President of the Treasury Board handled his Estimates today is a great improvement over what we have had in the last three or four years. At one time our colleague, the Hon. Member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens), almost had to join the Press Gallery in order to get to a briefing session before the Estimates were tabled. Today we were told by the President of the Treasury Board that we have 67 documents that you and I, Mr. Speaker, did a lot to bring about in our days as members of the Public Accounts Committee. There are 67 documents in Part III, the Main Estimates, which are a considerable size, and then we have Part I. All of that is coming to pass as some of us in the thirtieth Parliament had hoped. I congratulate the President of the Treasury Board on the furthering of the effort that started with a parliamentary committee. I congratulate him on the courtesy he extended to the Official Opposition and the other Party in opposition for a briefing which began at 12 noon today on this matter. I do not want to go beyond that in thanks and congratulations, however; that is about as good as I am going to go in the department.
The total estimate of expenditures announced in the speech today is $96.5 billion. The forecast expenditure shows a 10.4 per cent increase in a comparison of the 1984-85 Estimates with the 1983-84 Estimates. The rhetoric will say that this increase has been brought down to 8.3 per cent when the 1983-84 supplements are included. That is correct, after the adjustments are made.
In the 1979 Crosbie Budget there was a prediction that in 1983-84 we would spend $77.7 billion; the Liberal forecast is for the spending of $90.65 billion, which is 16 per cent higher

February 21, 1984
Main Estimates, 1984-85
than the projection by the same staff in 1979. We have a forecast to prediction problem in all governments, not just ours. It is a problem we are all going to have to live with. The system is too complicated and the factors of input are so complicated that there is a very high percentage of error in the projections. That is something we must all recognize and wrestle with.
In November, 1981, the spending projections for the 198485 year were $93.9 billion; in fact they turned out to be $4.3 billion more. It is interesting that in the rhetoric we have heard from the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) and from the President of the Treasury Board, the Government claims that it cannot control most spending because it is non-discretionary.


Mr. Lang:: That's right.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: That is right, is it? Let us listen to the next line, then. When we compare discretionary spending in these Estimates against non-discretionary spending, we see that the discretionary spending goes up 13.2 per cent and the non-discretionary goes up 8.8 per cent. So there is something wrong with the rhetoric of the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board. The facts show that it is not so.


Peter Joseph Lang: The Special Recovery Program.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: The Special Recovery Program? There is always something, Mr. Speaker. These Estimates signal, Sir, a total disregard for the hardship presently faced by Canadians. Let us measure the gap between what the Government says and what it actually does. I suggest that the Government should not be judged in the narrow sense of output, in terms of the services it provides or does not provide. Government should be judged according to the outcome and how well it overcomes the circumstances which shape the results. On the basis of today's Estimates, Sir, last week's Budget and the promises made to entice voters mean little. Government only proposes to throw more and more money at the nation's problems.
Every time we turn a radio on or watch TV we hear something about a make-work program. We heard again today about a $150 million Youth Opportunity Fund. Why would this $150 million be delivered to Canada Works? If it were delivered to Career Access, two and a half times more jobs per dollar would be created than under these Canada Works programs. Why can we not rearrange some of this spending whereby we would get the optimum multiplier in terms of relieving the pressure on the people who are seeking work? Today we Find out that in the Economic Development Ministry 33 person-years have been added. This envelope ministry has now taken on the responsibilities of a line department. It has taken on the responsibilities of a line department because it is now operating the Gaspe and the lower St. Lawrence Special Recovery Capital Projects. I am surprised to see that in this set of documents. Why has the responsibility not been left to the line departments? Why must this politically sensitive central agency function beyond and outside of its mandate? I believe we should have a reply to that.
Too little money did not move Canada from sixth place to twenty-second place among industrial nations in one year, Mr. Speaker. Our ailments in efficiency, which have reduced us to fifteenth place among industrialized nations, will not be cured with more money. The productivity performance of Canada is dismal, and we are now going to have another commission or set up another bureau to study our productivity problems when most of us know exactly what the problem is.
On the industrial scene, the pace of improvement is the slowest of that of any major industrialized nation. Those figures come for the Euromoney study, Sir. In 1982, productivity in Canada declined by 2.8 per cent. Yet we find the Minister of State for Economic Development (Mr. Johnston) now moving into highly politicized areas instead of really planning what has to happen down the road in terms of major fundamental corrections to our system. We talk about productivity. We set up a bureau to study it. At the same time we have seen a doubling in the number of notices of objections received by Revenue Canada since 1979. In 1984-85 it expects to process over 56,400 objections. How can one talk about productivity, Sir, when we have a tax collector who is doing all he can to destroy the entrepreneurial private sector with this kind of intervention. If we are going to talk about productivity, we must get the political rhetoric out of it. We must address the fundamental problems which this Government has caused in the private sector, the same private sector on which it is now relying to save us all from a worse recession. Revenue Canada will require 6 per cent more staff in district offices and in its head office just to handle this new workload which it has created for itself. This is going to increase its personnel costs by 10.2 per cent at the same time that the Government talks about productivity.
At page 15290 of Hansard of February, 1982, the then President of the Treasury Board said that the improved presentation of the Estimates to Parliament would help Members of Parliament to ensure that taxes paid by Canadians would be used for the benefit of all Canadians. One cannot object to that kind of rhetoric, Sir. He said that this was a fundamental and democratic responsibility. But the Estimates which have been tabled today are in the shadow of an enormous porkbar-rel out of which huge sums of money are flowing to the benefit and advantage of Liberal candidates in the next election. We heard rhetoric back in 1982 and we receive a set of Estimates today in the shadow of behaviour which I do not believe I have seen in my lifetime in this country.
I agree, Sir, with the Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) who indicated last night on The Journal that he had reservations about the priorities and conduct of his colleagues who are preparing to lead the Liberal Party. But the Minister of Transport, who has been headlined in the paper as one certainly able to lasso loot, Sir, while we are talking about austerity and care of public funds hands out chronicles of his achievements. He publishes them. There was $1.3 million that went to the Max Bell Athletic Complex at the University of Manitoba. However, that Minister allowed $31,000 of that money to go to a consultant in the United States when the best consultants
February 21, 1984

in the world on that subject matter are right here in Canada. There was $10.2 million for a maintenance hangar for Air Canada in Winnipeg; a $32 million facelift for the Winnipeg airport; $4 million went for a vocational training centre; $50,000 was spent to avert lay-offs of two individuals at the symphony; $115,000 went to the blind to learn computer programming; $55,000 was given to the Fort Garry Women's Centre; $8 million went to CMHC; $100,000 went to Canada Ports for an audit contract in Winnipeg. The Canada Ports audit is now being conducted out of Winnipeg. There was $90,000 spent for experimental buses for the aged. All that was spent in his constituency.


Peter Joseph Lang: More.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: I hear them calling for more over there, Mr. Speaker. I want to tell you, Sir, that that kind of behaviour is irresponsible when one keeps talking about equity and fairness in the Canadian system. It is not equity and fairness; it is grab what you can. The headline says, Sir, "Lloyd lassos federal loot". There never was a guy who could throw a lasso like that Hon. Minister.
At page 23101 of Hansard of last year, the President of the Treasury Board said that the federal Government must be able to adapt to the circumstances and have the flexibility to review and revise its programs so as to promote economic recovery. Where, Sir, in the documents which the President of the Treasury Board tabled today is the inflation rate? The Government brags about the fact that it has gone down to 5.3 per cent. It was under 5 per cent two months ago. It is now up to 5.3 per cent. But where is the inflation rate reflected in reduced government expenditures, Sir? Why is the largest Borrowing Authority Bill presented to Parliament crowding out the availability of capital to private borrowers? The Government wants to borrow $29.5 billion. That Bill just came in the last day of last week. How can the private sector accept the job-creation challenge the Liberal Government has given it before interest rates come down and we have some degree of stability? While we have all this rhetoric, we also have the Minister of Finance advertising non-callable 21 year bonds, that is until the year 2005, at 12 per cent. The projection for interest rates in the United States as a result of their recovery is dropping year by year to the point where 91 day Treasury bills are expected to be 5 per cent in the year 1989. Yet here we are going through to the year 2005 at 12 per cent and sucking all the money we can out of the private sector. At the same time we expect that private sector to deliver the recovery and put Canadians back to work. It is an exercise in conflict, Sir. You can hardly believe what is going on.
As both you and I know, Mr. Speaker, bankruptcies have doubled this year compared with the first seven months of 1979. Some 6,122 businesses went bankrupt in the first seven months of 1983. Yet the Government expects the private sector to invest in new and more modern plants to increase productivity, create jobs and allow us to be competitive once again in world markets. It is not realistic when compared with
Main Estimates, 1984-85
what is happening in Asia and the U.S. We are completely out of touch.
Since taking office in 1980, Government expenditures have increased 13 per cent in 1980-81, 17.6 per cent in 1981-82, 17.8 per cent in 1982-83, approximately 12 per cent in 198384, and now, comparing the Main Estimates, 10.4 per cent between 1983-84 and 1984-85, which can be corrected down to
8.4	per cent. The Government is very proud of its 8.4 per cent but it does not hear the warnings from knowledgeable people.
Through you, Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak as directly as I can to the President of the Treasury Board. I have been told by very responsible researchers in world economics that we will not have a recovery in Canada until we start to see our primary resources, such as zinc, copper, steel, molybdenum and lead, along with wood and food, start moving out to world markets. We have priced ourselves out of world markets, and there are so many political rigidities in our system which we are terrified to touch that we are going to have great trouble getting back on track in the next decade. I hear the rhetoric from the Minister of Finance and the President of the Treasury Board, but if we are going to be realistic and face the real problems of the real world instead of this wonderland in Ottawa, Sir, we have to change these attitudes and get down on our knees and address some very fundamental factors. If we cannot put people to work and paying taxes, where is the future? It is not in the rhetoric of the Minister of Finance and of the President of the Treasury Board.
The challenges which lie ahead for whatever Party forms the next government are truly brutal. If we are going to save the social programs and everything else we are so proud of in this country, we will have to become very realistic. People are absolutely aghast at the practices of Revenue Canada, the way they are treating taxpayers and making retroactive reassessments. We all have problems, not just the Government. Private individuals are having real problems, too.
Then we have this matter of Government advertising and the waste involved, which develops a real anger in people. For instance, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (Mr. De Bane) is spending $2 million to promote the eating of fish. If he could spend that money promoting the quality of fish harvesting, processing and packaging, it would be of lasting benefit down the road. It is very interesting that in this set of Estimates advertising is no longer shown. Last year it was shown in the Supply and Services revolving fund. But the Government removed it and again started playing this shell game with the figures. Information as an object of expenditure in the 1983-84 Main Estimates was $244.6 million. The 1983-84 update was $269.1 million, a difference of $24.5 million in advertising. The Estimates for 1984-85 show total information expenditures of $266.2 million. On the surface that is a reduction from last year's revised $266 million, but on the basis of a comparison of main estimates, it is up 9 per cent. However, if you include the advertising normally reported in the main estimates and the supplementary estimates, if you include the Crown corporations, I am told unofficially that it is over $1 billion. If the President of the Treasury Board has information

February 21, 1984
Main Estimates, 1984-85
to refute that claim, Sir, I would like him to deliver it to us in the Elouse of Commons.
We have a lot of problems, Sir, and I have many other examples.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: I hesitate to interrupt the Hon. Member but he has been given equal time with the Minister. He could be allowed to continue with the unanimous consent of the House. Is that agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Minister and my colleagues. I note that under the office of the Co-ordinator for the Status of Women, the scientific and professional personnel authorized person-years have been cut from ten to six. These are the people who put together the real facts and issues, and they have been cut back, but the overall person-years are up by seven. Here they cut an essential element from ten to six, a saving of four person-years, and yet the overall person-years are up by seven. The Estimates indicate that the increase is mainly due to the expansion of the public information functions. This is more advertising for the operations of the Secretary of State's office. If you will refer to fact sheet No. 4 in the documents tabled today, you will find that the information budget rises from $33,000 to $252,000 this year in the sector and the salaries and wages are up 20.9 per cent. In that area, where they get real value for money, they cut.
I cannot conclude without mentioning the condition of Mirabel, that monument to the East, that mecca of productivity and efficiency. Through the Estimates we are told that Mirabel is to lose $48.2 million in the year ahead. This loss will be up from $43.9 million, the actual loss experienced this year. May I remind you, Sir, that in 1982-83 the loss of only $29.2 million on that marvellous installation.
At the beginning of my comments I complimented the President of the Treasury Board on two things. I complimented him on the courtesy he extended to his colleagues in the House of Commons by giving us a briefing period before the tabling of the Estimates. I sincerely thank him for that. The other thing I thank him for is that he has continued to work on the reform of the Estimates with some energy, push and drive in laying the foundation of which the Speaker of the House of Commons, when he was co-chairman of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, along with myself, worked so hard. If we examine the summary tables and the gobal figures in Part I of the Estimates and the Main Estimates we can see that none of this is going to work unless we pay attention to the Special Committee on Standing Orders and Procedure which was struck and worked for 18 to 20 months and brought down a series of 10 reports. We cannot think that the building of bureaucracies is going to remove from us, the elected representatives of the people, the responsibility of holding the federal Government to account. We in the Opposition are responsible for holding the Government to political account for political misdemeanour and misbehaviour. We in the House
are also responsible for holding the bureaucracy to account when it is not delivering full value for money in the management of the resources voted to serve the objectives that the Government brings down.
I urge Hon. Members to read and reread Chapter 2 of the Auditor General's report. If we are going to serve the people of the country properly and address the rigidities that we have to address, before we can really turn this country around and have a private sector that can start employing people again we will have to accept report No. 7 and allow the House of Commons the muscle, material and organization to hold the Government to account. I do not care whether the Government is them or us. We have also got to learn to hold the bureaucracy, the managers of the system, to value for money accountability in terms of the way they manage the resource in service of the political objectives and programs laid down by the Government in power.
That is the challenge we have here. There is no political will among Members in the House of Commons to bring it about. We all think we get here by being big spenders. That is all we are. We shovel money, promises and rhetoric out and will not face the essential rigidities that we have built into our system. Until we do, through the committee structure in report No. 7, I think we are in for very serious times indeed. It is time for Members in the House of Commons to show leadership, hold the Government to better account and hold the bureaucracy to account under value for money principles.
I thank my colleagues in the House for having allowed me these few minutes to continue my remarks.


Mr. Doug Anguish (The Battlefords-Meadow Lake):: Mr. Speaker, in commencing the few words I have to say about the tabling of the Estimates and the documents which were tabled today in the House by the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray), I would like to agree with the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington) that there has been a great deal of change in the Estimates since I arrived here about four years ago. When I first arrived in Ottawa all we had to go through in the Estimates was the blue book. Now we have added other parts to the Estimates. There is a government expenditure plan and departmental expenditure plans which are very helpful. There is still a great deal of difficulty in gleaning the information one actually needs to make comparisons from year to year in the Estimates and tie it to the public accounts of Canada. I will go on to say more about that later.
One of the first things which struck me as I attended the briefing session today, which started at twelve o'clock, was the number of person-years which were increased in some of the departments and agencies. The largest increase in person-years of employment within the federal Government occurred in Revenue Canada Taxation. There are 1,044 increased person-years, supposedly for the benefit of the Canadian taxpayer. I wonder whether there is a direct correlation with one of the other highest increases in person-years of employment. In Correctional Services there is an increase of 662 person-years of employment. I certainly hope there is not a direct correla-
February 21, 1984

tion and that we will find Revenue Canada being even more strict with the Canadian taxpayers.
As in the Budget, Mr. Speaker, these Estimates do not deal with the unemployment and job security of Canadians. I am a little distressed by that. The Minister is very proud of the fact that the unemployment insurance contributions by the federal Government will decrease from $2.8 billion last year to $2.6 billion this year. The Budget is a more recent document than these Estimates because of the way they are prepared. The Budget says that the decrease is actually down to $2.7 billion.
You must look at this very carefully, Mr. Speaker. This does not mean that unemployment is going down in Canada. In fact it means, as I will try to point out, that the problem of unemployment is being transferred from the federal Government to the provincial governments across the country. If you compare the unemployment insurance contributions by the federal Government to the Canadian Assistance Plan, you will find that the contributions which the federal Government makes to that will go up by 17.7 per cent or, in terms of dollars, a $556 million increase that the federal Government will have to pay in Canada Assistance Plan payments to the provincial governments. It should be remembered that this is a cost shared program. It only reflects half the real cost of people who are unemployed in the country and have gone beyond receiving unemployment to the point of dependency on welfare without much prospect of obtaining jobs in the future.
The Minister is actually saying that the program of unemployment insurance, which is a 100 per cent federal responsibility, is going down. But actually it is not, because when you compare that to the cost-shared program of the Canada Assistance Plan, which goes to welfare payments which the provinces distribute, it actually means that unemployment is much worse in the country. We cannot rely on statistics alone. We have to look at the real unemployment problem in the country. That means that more and more people are not only unemployed, but have lost hope for employment and are reduced to the bleak prospect of having to receive welfare to keep food on their tables and shelter over their heads.
These Estimates refer to the $600 million for job creation for youth. By the Government's own admission, that program would employ about 40,000 young people. The fact remains that there are some 540,000 young people unemployed in the country today. That amount will hardly put a dent in it at all.
When I talked about the Estimates being clearer than I have seen them in the four years I have been here, I must note that it is still quite difficult to determine the actual information in terms of the estimates and expenditures of the Government. Let me give one example. Again, it concerns the pressing problem of job security and unemployment for many Canadians. The Minister seems quite proud of the fact that there is an increase of $134 million for direct job creation, particularly for Canada Works and career access programs. However, these facts require closer study because the Government, in its background papers, has compared the 1983-84 Estimates with
Main Estimates, 1984-85
the 1984-85 Estimates which have just been tabled in the House. While that comparison shows that there is $ 134 million more for contributions toward direct job creation, a closer examination reveals otherwise. One year's estimates cannot simply be compared with the next year's estimates, because there are other items such as supplementary estimates and additional money being injected into particular programs. Therefore, in the contributions for direct job creation in this country there is actually a decrease from the forecast expenditure for 1983-84. When the amount is compared to the 1984-85 Estimates, there is actually a decrease of some $219 million in contributions for direct job creation. While the Government says one thing, the actual facts dictate that something else is going on.
What is happening? Is the Government hiding the fact that it had to spend more money in job creation last year? I think not, because I would have applauded it if it had put more into job creation in this country. I rather suspect that the Government is accepting the fact that it is not willing to do anything for the millions of unemployed people in Canada.
The amount forecast to be spent in the 1983-84 Estimates is around $854 million. The Government is not increasing that amount in this Budget but decreasing it. This year's Estimates show only $634 million. It is a shame that the Government will not at least meet the level of spending on job creation that it spent the previous year. It does not speak very highly of the Government, and Canadians will certainly judge it when they go to the polls at the next election.
The Government can create employment in this country by other means than give-aways to big corporate entities in this country, as I think will likely happen. The Member for Comox-Powell River (Mr. Skelly) is more knowledgeable in this area than I am as he is our energy critic. However, the Petroleum Incentives Program is being increased by some $450 million in the 1984-85 Estimates. My concern with this program is that it has no cost control, no job-creation guarantees or performance guarantees. It is another example of the Government's lack of wisdom in offering the larger and sometimes multinational corporations in this country money in the hope that it will trickle down to those who are unemployed and at the bottom of the economic ladder.
I suggest that the Government would be more prudent to use the money that is being given away under the Petroleum Incentives Program for such things as renewable resources and conservation. These two areas are much more labour intensive than the Petroleum Incentives Program which is capital intensive and does not provide any assurance of job creation in this country.
When talking about the money spent on unemployment, the Minister said that it is "a reflection of our improving economic circumstances and the improvement of our level of employment in particular". Nowhere in the Estimates does it show that the economy for the unemployed and those who are in fear of losing their jobs will get any better. As the Leader of the NDP has pointed out, while there is a recovery, it is unfair because those at the upper end of our economic scale, such as

February 21, 1984
Main Estimates, 1984-85
the banks and big corporations, have done quite well while those at the lower end of the socio-economic scale must pay the price. These Estimates make that clear and do nothing to reverse that situation.
We see that Established Programs Financing is being increased by 8 per cent. While the Government often says that it is keeping pace with the times in terms of the money it is contributing to medicare and post-secondary education, it is not so. One need only look at the Bill which was recently passed that put the six and five program into effect on funding to post-secondary level education. It really means that there will be a decrease in excess of $100 million to post-secondary education in this country.
The Government has changed revenue guarantees so that there are no longer revenue guarantees in this country. Almost all of the provinces criticized the federal Government for not keeping pace with Established Programs Financing and, based on the facts, I would have to agree with those provinces. The Government is not doing its share in Established Programs Financing.
There are areas to which the Government has paid lip service. A small item in the Estimates but still very important is the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. It was given a 4 per cent increase when the Government promised great rewards for working Canadians through the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. In fact, there will even be a loss of nine person-years of employment there.
The Department of Employment and Immigration should be dealing with the overall problem of unemployment and job opportunities in the country. While I applaud the Department and the federal Government for establishing the Ministry of Youth and the Youth Opportunity Fund, I hope further steps will be taken once they are firmly established. We cannot be too critical of a ministry at this time because it does not appear in the 1984-85 Estimates. I assume supplementary estimates will be introduced for the approval of expenditures for the new Youth Ministry.
At the same time that the Government is at least paying lip service to the unemployed youth of this country, it seems to me that it has almost forgotten about natives. The Government does not even survey natives in the unemployment statistics. The 17 reserves in my riding of The Battlefords-Meadow Lake are not reflected in Canada's unemployment statistics. Nothing significant has been done to increase their standard of living in over 100 years since treaties have been signed. Their situation has probably become even worse. I encourage the Government to devise more constructive programs in terms of the settlement of land entitlement and the building of an economic base for native people in Canada.
Another area about which I am somewhat distressed is the unemployment of women. Women and natives seem to be forgotten. While the Government has placed an emphasis on youth employment, it has forgotten about those other two sectors.
I wish to say a few words about the Special Capital Recovery Projects program which has been espoused by the Government for creating jobs and economic opportunities in this country. I believe it is deceiving because the fact is that the Special Capital Recovery Projects program is destroying jobs, as various government departments and agencies now show in these Estimates. Let us take the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, for example. It is receiving an increase of some $75.7 million for higher salaries and for operating capital expenditures. Also under the Special Recovery Capital Projects, it is getting almost $20 million for the purchase of "high technology equipment". As a result, there will be a loss of about 150 person-years of employment resulting from reorganization. I want to ask the President of the Treasury Board whether he is going to assure Canadians that that $20 million is being spent under the Special Recovery Capital Projects in the CBC and whether that money is going to Canadian producers of high technology, and that the CBC will not again take away Canadian jobs by buying foreign high-tech.
I would like to say that when we look at areas that are vitally important to Canadians at present we find some erosion. I understand the Government is limited in terms of what it can do because of the high deficits. In fact, the Hon. Member for Hamilton Mountain (Mr. Deans) mentioned to me in conversation today that if this Government would stop its corporate give-aways and if it would stop the breaks which large corporations do not really need, we could likely save about $10 billion in these Estimates, money which could be put or redirected into employment creation measures.
Let us look at the Department of the Environment. I think its priority would be in terms of protecting our environment from the ravages of industry and neglect by much of the Canadian population. There is one area that has shown a decrease in the Department of the Environment, a decrease of $2.5 million for the toxic chemicals management program. That is a shame, especially when you think of people who live around the Love Canal and those who have to worry about chemical factories and plants. This is a vitally important program. At a time when the Government should be increasing its watch over the environment because of the way we have allowed the environment to be devastated, why is the Government taking away $2.5 million from this most vital program to Canadians?
There is another area on which I want to comment. We have just had a preliminary look through the Estimates. I looked at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. That Corporation should be the impetus for building better and more housing right across this land. But what do I see? I see a decrease of $124 million due to the termination of the Canadian Home Ownership Stimulation Plan, a decrease in phasing out neighbourhood improvement programs, community service contributions, loans, investment and advances, including reduced activity in the Canada Rental Supply Plan and a revised cash flow for other plans. If some of the money could be directed into these programs, it would not only help
February 21, 1984

Canadians to get the housing they require but it would also be a spur to the creation of many jobs from the forest industry to the construction material area. Many more jobs would be created by putting more money into the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to direct that Corporation to build more houses on the basis of need.
Before my time runs out, I want to speak about the Department of Transport. Through Bill C-155, the statutory Crow rate was abolished. We in the New Democratic Party believe that the Crow rate should be reinstated. That program took away from the grain producers in the prairie provinces in western Canada a potential of about $1 billion a year. In the background papers we find an increase of $11 million for western transportation in industrial development initiatives. Behind that we see in brackets "Crow". It is not a very fair deal, Mr. Speaker, when you take from the producers of the western prairie provinces $1 billion and in return show an increase of $11 million for western transportation. That does not seem to be a very fair deal.
At the same time let us look at air strips, which come under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transport, specifically in northern Quebec and Labrador. There will be money for that purpose under the Special Recovery Capital Projects program channelled through the Department of Transport for some $5 million. That seems unfair, too. Do we take away from the transportation system in western Canada in terms of rail transport and augment air transport in other parts of the country? I applaud the Government for improving transportation services in parts of northern Canada, but I do not think it should be at the cost of transportation to Canadians in other vital sectors of our economy, such as in agriculture and in the prairie provinces.
I hope that the Special Recovery Capital Projects program is not all allocated in these Estimates. I hope there is still some room for negotiation with this Government. However, I do see a great deal of that money already allocated in the 1984-85 Estimates. On much of this I do not think that Members of Parliament have had a chance to give input or opinion. I hope the Government will consult with Members of Parliament in the Opposition because I think we understand at least our own constituencies much better than someone else who does not represent the West. We represent western Canada in this particular case, Mr. Speaker. I would value the chance to give opinions on the development of transportation as well as on other vital sectors of our economy in the West.
I see my time is running out. I understand there will be time for questions. I look forward to the opportunity to ask questions of the President of the Treasury Board along with members of the New Democratic Party. I look forward to receiving an explanation to some of the things that we think are lacking in the 1984-85 Estimates.


Mr. Speaker:: Order, please. The rule of thumb the Chair will follow at this point will be to recognize a question period approximately equal to that of the original statement made by the President of the Treasury Board. The Chair will give priority in questions, in reply to the Hon. Member for The
Main Estimates, 1984-85
Battlefords-Meadow Lake (Mr. Anguish), to Hon. Members who have not had an opportunity to make comments.


Mr. Blenkarn:: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray). Could he explain why no appropriation had been made in the Estimates for any deficits that might come as a result of the Government's ownership of Canadair and de Havilland? Or is it the view of the Government that we are going to sell sufficient Challenger jets to cover the interest costs on $1.4 billion owed by Canadair and sufficient aircraft to more than carry and pay the requirements of the debt of some $460 million owed by de Havilland?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister responsible for the two companies has already indicated that some additional financial support from the federal Government will be required. It is the intention of the Government to request parliamentary approval for this support in the final Supplementary Estimates (C) which, once they are approved by Cabinet, will be tabled, hopefully, before too long.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, the Minister will know that in his Estimates tabled today there is a provision for Supplementary Estimates (C) in the amount of $2,475 billion. When will they be tabled? Is it the Minister's view that the appropriations in those Supplementary Estimates (C) will handle all the requirements of Canadair and de Havilland so that there will be no requirement for any estimate for Canadair and de Havilland in the 1984-85 Estimates?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I will be able to answer that question once Cabinet finishes its consideration of items to go in the final Supplementary Estimates (C). It is my understanding that there will be a number of items in Supplementary Estimates (C) which will not be devoted only to Canadair and de Havilland. With respect to the degree to which these Supplementary Estimates will cover financial requirements for Canadair and de Havilland, I think we will have to go into that once we have the Supplementary Estimates and the responsible Minister before the relevant committee. I hope and expect, for that matter, that it will be possible to table the final Supplementary Estimates in the next few weeks. As I said, this is being considered at the level of Cabinet at the present time.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, the Estimates reflect spendings on the Petroleum Incentives Program, which ranged in 1982-83 from $1,808 billion to a projected $1,634 billion in 1983-84 and $1.6 billion in 1984-85. The Minister mentioned that those are among some of the largest expenditures in the Estimates. The total value of that program until 1984-85 will be $5,042 billion, about half of which appears to have been invested in the Beaufort Sea area. The Japanese Government has indicated that it was removing itself from this particular operation in the Beaufort Sea because there was no chance of striking oil in the area, and the Estimates indicate that we have invested an enormous amount of money, about $2.2 billion, and will continue to do so. Certainly there are numerous other projects

February 21, 1984
Main Estimates, 1984-85
related to that company's involvement, such as the LNG one at Prince Rupert which there is talk about cancelling.
Given the fact that the Japanese, based on data which they have from Dome Petroleum, have reached the conclusion that there is no oil to be found there, will the Government continue to comply with program criteria in order to have authority to spend these enormous amounts of dollars that are now being spent in a manner which does not or should not comply with program criteria?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, this program is not limited to assistance to Dome Petroleum for its exploration and development activities in the Beaufort Sea. It also goes to support exploration and development in the Sable Island area, offshore of Nova Scotia.


Mr. Forrestall:: And, you hope, to ship building.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: It goes to support exploration and development activities offshore of Newfoundland. It goes to support exploration and development activities throughout Canada, to companies which meet the criteria. By the way, these are primarily Canadian companies.
As my hon. friend on the other side of the House points out, money spent under this program for exploration and development goes indirectly toward supporting activities by other sectors such as the Canadian shipbuilding sector for supply vessels, rigs and those sorts of things. Even with respect to the Beaufort Sea, we are not talking only about Dome. We are talking about other companies like Esso, Gulf and Petro-Canada. Therefore, I do not think it would be fair to suggest that, whatever is the situation with respect to Dome, this particular program is not as valuable and useful as I think it is for the Canadian economy. Certainly, as I understand the program, money is spent as exploration and development work is carried out. If there are companies which do less exploration and development work, obviously they receive less funds from the program. This is something which I am sure the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Chretien) would be very pleased to explore in detail with my hon. friend when he appears before the relevant parliamentary committee which will be studying the Estimates.
I would say that the program has proven itself and will continue to prove itself to be a very valuable way of assisting the overall development of the Canadian economy, particularly the resource sectors, by encouraging exploration and development primarily of Canadian companies. I do not know why my hon. friend has become so conservative that he seems to be opposing exploration activities by Canadian companies.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister mentioned that it was one of the eight largest expenditures in the Budget. I wish my colleague in the Conservative Party would recognize that it is his Party which is holding up legislation that might in fact improve shipbuilding.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Nonsense, absolute nonsense.


Raymond John Skelly: We all know that an enormous amount of shipbuilding has gone offshore. I challenge the Minister to name a rig working in the Beaufort Sea which was built in Canada. Be that as it may, I return to the fact that there is no time to explore this with the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Chretien). There is barely enough time for the House to explore the question. I believe, as do many other people, that the country will be damaged if in fact the company with which we are dealing today and which is taking roughly half these expenditures goes down the drain.
With the announcement of the Japanese today, and in view of the fact that Dome owes roughly $4.2 billion to the Canadian and American consortium of banks and that Citicorp which is owed $1.4 billion is demanding payment now, it could easily be that the company would fold up before the House or the committee has had a chance to consider it. It is important for many aspects of the Canadian economy, for many industries and suppliers, that we should deal with it now. It would be very helpful if the Minister could indicate whether or not the Government intends to continue spending those horrendous amounts of PIP dollars. Does the Government intend to put up the $500 million to bail out Dome? Just exactly what are we bailing it out for, when the Japanese say that there is no oil at the bottom of the Beaufort Sea, when they are prepared to walk away and leave a half billion dollar investment and to shut down an LNG project on the West Coast because they do not believe Dome has the financial strength to invest in the program and bring it to completion? What is going through the minds of the other creditors of Dome, the Canadian and American banks? If they call Dome and it goes into insolvency, what happens to Canada? What happens to the Davie shipyard? What happens to the mines and the conventional activities of Dome? The question is so serious that it is the time to deal with it now. It is time the Minister told the House whether they are complying with program requirements to take up additional billions of dollars. If they are not, perhaps we should look hard at ways of spending those additional dollars in ways which would be more helpful to Canadians, perhaps along the lines of the Japanese. It is a cut bait and run situation.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: I am delighted to note the calls of the Hon. Member for a massive rescue operation for Dome. His hon. friend, in responding to my statement on the Estimates, complained about alleged excessive support for big companies. My hon. friend seems to be calling for a massive move to rescue a big company. I would be happy to bring his representations to the attention of the Minister of Finance and to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.
Of course we hope there will be consideration, if necessary, of such a step for which my hon. friend is calling. He is an unusual friend of big business, nevertheless we have to take his comments seriously as an Hon. Member of the House and bring them to the attention of the appropriate Ministers. However, I want to stress that the Petroleum Incentives Program grants are not limited to Dome. They are available to companies operating offshore in the Atlantic, in other frontier
February 21, 1984

areas and throughout Canada. The expenditure of money by the Government will have to be based upon the approval of these Estimates by Parliament and, more than that, following upon the terms and conditions of legislation adopted by the House. As far as 1 am aware, the Department has a considerable staff whose job it is to ensure that the terms and conditions are being met. If my hon. friend has any facts to indicate the opposite, certainly the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and I would be very happy to have that information.
In any event, if the firms in question are not meeting the eligibility requirements for this money, then, even if it is provided for in the Estimates, it will not be spent, and there will be a lapse in these funds and this will be reflected in the Financial situation at the end of the fiscal year. In conclusion, even though it comes from a most unlikely source, this anguished plea for the immediate rescue of a very large business, I will bring it promptly to the attention of the Minister of Finance and of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.


Raymond John Skelly: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Minister should stop misleading the House. He knows that we called for not one more-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Hon. Member is engaging in debate, and a fairly lengthy one. The Chair will recognize the Hon. Member for Mississauga South and the Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, last year the Minister had a central reserve in the Estimates of $900 million. This year he has reduced the central reserve to $800 million, even though he has dramatically increased the estimated expenditure by over 10.4 per cent. Why is the central reserve reduced when the total amount proposed to be spent is dramatically higher? The normal practice was to have a central reserve in excess of 1 per cent of the spending. This is now down to .8 per cent of anticipated spending. Is this just to pretend that budget figures will not be as much in the hole as they will in fact turn out to be?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, the proposal for the size of the central reserve is based on a careful assessment by officials of its possible use to fund programs pending the necessity of dealing with them in supplementary estimates and the other usual purposes. I thought my hon. friend would welcome this type of effort at restraint. I will check this with my officials in the light of his comments. Certainly if there are grounds for having a higher central reserve, I will be happy to bring this proposal to the attention of the Minister of Finance and Cabinet.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, the Minister will know that including the central reserve last year, he had a reserve against program envelopes of $2.4 billion, for a total reserve including the central reserve of $3.3 billion. He has thus far broken out $5,763 billion in his Estimates. In other words, he did not have
Main Estimates, 1984-85
enough reserves last year by $2.4 billion, yet this year he reduces his reserves and pretends that he will not have any supps and that he will not break those reserve limits. Why will the Minister not come clean with the House right now? Realizing that supplementary estimates have invariably spent $5 billion to $6 billion, why will he not make those kinds of reserves in this budget and in his estimates when he prepares them in the first place? Let's not keep kidding people.


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, as far as I am aware, the envelope figures in question have been sufficient to accommodate supplementary estimates. Obviously if the Minister of Finance provides a revised fiscal framework and adjusts the envelopes, that is something that has to be considered subsequent to the tabling of main estimates. Unlike last year when the Main Estimates preceded the Budget, in this case we have a return to the more traditional approach where the Budget presented by the Minister of Finance has preceded the tabling of Main Estimates. I am glad my hon. friend has noted that obviously our total outlay and the framework it represents has to have room in it for supplementary estimates. That is why we have a figure for envelope reserves. As far as I am aware, we have not presented to the House in the past since setting up this envelope system, and it is an action which has been shared with the preceding government, offered supplementary estimates in excess of the fiscal framework stipulated by the Minister of Finance. I will certainly note his point. As far as I am aware, we have been consistent with the concept of the envelope system, including having supplementary estimates presented to the House when required which fit in within the envelope reserve figure.
I want to add, with respect to the Hon. Member's interesting question about the central reserve, that it does reflect a point I made in my statement, that is, that the Main Estimates do reflect a more optimistic view which the Government shares with the private sector about the state of the economy. The size of the central reserve as a result reflects that, anticipating there will not be some of the same kinds of demands on it as was the case last year when the economy was just beginning to enter into the phase of recovery.


Mr. Speaker:: At this point the Chair has certain difficulties. The Hon. Member for The Battlefords-Meadow Lake seeks to be recognized, but he did have 23 minutes of comment. There are other Hon. Members who have not had an opportunity. If the Hon. Member wants to ask a question at this time, will he please be brief.


Douglas Keith Anguish: Mr. Speaker, yes, I will be brief. I have always viewed comments and questions as two different matters. My question to the President of the Treasury Board concerns job creation. It is a very unfair comparison in the papers accompanying the Estimates to compare the 1983-84 Estimates to the 1984-85 Estimates. As we are well aware that there are no public accounts yet for the 1983-84 fiscal year, but there are forecast expenditures, what the Government expects to spend in 1983-84. Will the Minister please tell us in terms of percentage and actual dollars how much more money

February 21, 1984
Main Estimates, 1984-85
is estimated to be spent in the 1984-85 fiscal year than the actual forecast of expenditures for 1983-84?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I understand my hon. friend's question. I gather he is talking about the issue of job creation. He is raising a very useful point. I might say in passing that when he suggests it is unfair to compare main estimates to main estimates, I recall the Hon. Member for Mississauga South making a very big point last year that we were allegedly not basing our comparison on main estimates to main estimates. I suppose it all depends on what approach one thinks will make a certain point. It is certainly valid to compare main estimates to main estimates. It is also valid as part of the overall study of the issue to compare total forecast expenditure with what is in these estimates. I am sorry I am not able to calculate a percentage in my head on the spot, but if one takes the figures in the Estimates that I just tabled for job creation and add to that $150 million additional from the Budget for the Youth Opportunity Fund and the close to $1 billion to be spent this coming fiscal year for the Special Recovery Capital Projects, one will certainly have a figure for assistance for the creation of jobs through fairly direct activity by the federal Government which will exceed by a respectable amount, to say the least, what is forecast with respect to 1983-84.


J. Michael Forrestall: Mr. Speaker, a short while ago the Minister alluded to the fact that the PIP grants, the structure and the system, encourage and lend support to the Canadian shipbuilding industry. The Minister might want to correct that. Recently a Newfoundland company ordered two fairly large and quite expensive offshore anchor and supply rigs from a company in Korea. It did so because it becomes a cost, and cost is part of the formula under which PIP picks it up. In the preparation of the Estimates, did the President of the Treasury Board consider the impact of the PIP grants as presently constituted on the Canadian shipbuilding industry? Did he consider their impact on temporary input of foreign vessels for offshore work, particularly on the East Coast? Was that impact fully considered by his officials and officials in the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Energy? On reflection, the Minister might want to agree that PIP grants, as constituted with respect to construction of offshore vessels and rigs with respect to temporary import duties or full duties that are paid on foreign registered ships operating in Canadian waters, are in fact detrimental and not as he suggested?


Herbert Eser (Herb) Gray: Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend has raised a useful point. One of the reasons I made the comment in answer to a question raised by a colleague earlier was that I thought he was encouraging me to link the operation of the PIP grants to the Canadian shipbuilding industry in a favourable way. In fact he is saying that I misunderstood his comment whispered across the floor of the House. If that is so, I will be happy to look into the matter further.
It is my impression that there is more money being spent in Canada for goods, materials and equipment than would otherwise be the case if there were no PIP grants and the resulting encouragement of exploration and development by oil companies. I think that could certainly be demonstrated.
With respect to the vessels that my hon. friend has said would be constructed in Korea, I would be interested in knowing what degree of Canadian content there is in these vessels, machinery, equipment and so on. I would not be surprised if, even though the vessels are built in Korea and the hulls are made there, there would not be some respectable degree of Canadian equipment.
I think I am right in my overall assertion that a lot more is being spent in Canada, not only for salaries and wages for Canadian workers, but also for machinery, equipment and other things than would be the case if we did not have the PIP program with the resulting favourable effect on exploration and development of oil and gas in Canadian territorial waters and on land in Canada.
I will be happy to examine my hon. friend's question further because he raises an interesting point. I should like to observe, however, that if there is a problem, it would seem to me that the solution lies not so much in the structure of the PIP program but in the operation of our temporary duty system, rules for coasting vessels and that sort of thing.


Mr. Speaker:: At this point the Chair has a certain difficulty. The initial statement of the Minister was 23 minutes, the Official Opposition commentary took 30 minutes, and the New Democratic Party took 23 minutes. Then we had 24 minutes of questions and answers.
The Chair is in the hands of the House. This is the normal time limit that the Chair has observed on statements by Ministers, which, incidentally, are becoming more and more rare in the House and I am pleased to see the Hon. Minister use this route to reveal information to the House. The Chair would like at this point to terminate the question and answer period according to the rule of thumb that has been observed to this point, and proceed to other items of routine business.


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. 86, 352, 394, 447, 492 and 526.


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


Hon. Ed Lumley (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: The reply for the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion is as follows:
February 21, 1984

A total of 162 persons are engaged in public relations, media relations or publicity. This figure encompasses officers and support personnel from both our headquarters and regional offices providing information on departmental programs and services as they relate to regional industrial assistance and tourism.


Mr. St. Germain: Since April 1980, under the Industrial Incentives Program for the Montreal Special Area, what was the total expenditure by the government?


Edward C. Lumley: The reply for the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion from April 1, 1980 to December 31, 1983 is as follows: $112,407,107.


Mr. Howie: What was the cost of providing additional staff and refurbishing offices for the six new judges provided by the amendment to the Federal Court Act?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Since no accommodations have been found to date to locate the six new judges, the actual cost incurred up to the present time is $20,141.70, representing $18,600 for secretaries' salaries and $1,541.70 to locate judges in temporary offices in the library of the Supreme Court.
On the other hand, the total costs approved by Treasury Board for secretaries' salaries, telephones, rental, stationery and supplies, furniture and fixtures amounts to in 1983-84, $347,000; 1984-85, $166,104.
The total cost approved for the fit-up and rental cost of six new judges' chambers and work area, storage, secretarial and law clerks offices, reception area and small library amounts to in 1983-84, $380,500; 1984-85, $259,500.
It is to be noted that these costs are decreasing between 1983-84 and 1984-85 since there will be no capital investments after the first year.


Mr. Howie: To the knowledge of the Government are the Maritime Provinces overlooked in the national description of foods displayed and served in restaurants at the Canadian Pavilion in the Epcot Centre at Disney World, Florida and, if so, for what reason?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs):: The "Canadian Pavilion" at Epcot Centre, Disney World, is solely and totally a creation of Disney World. This matter therefore does not fall within the administrative responsibility of the Government of Canada.
Order Paper Questions


Mr. Howie: To the knowledge of the Government, what total amount was spent, to date, by Canada for development of the Canadian Pavilion in the Epcot Centre at Disney World, Florida?


Allan Joseph MacEachen: No moneys were spent by the Canadian Government for the development of the Canadian Pavilion in the Epcot Centre at Disney World, Florida. The Canadian Pavilion is solely and totally a creation of Disney World. See reply to question No. 447 answered this day.


Mr. Huntington: 1.	Did the Canada Council place two advertisements, one in French and one in English, in the January issue of Cinema Canada and, if so (a) for what reason (b) how much did each 125 x 18mm advertisement cost?
2.	Is it a Council policy to place French language advertisements in English language publications?
3.	How much will Canada Council spend on advertising this Fiscal year?


Hon. Francis Fox (Minister of Communications):: 1 am
advised by the Canada Council as follows:
1.	Yes, indirectly, through the Academy of Canadian Cinema (a) to invite applications in the Council's "Short Film Showcase" program, which is administered through the Academy, (b) $265.
2.	The policy is to advertise in both languages, and to use the publication or publications most likely to reach the target audience. In this instance, Cinema Canada is the only regular monthly publication reaching the target audience which accepts advertisements.
3.	Estimated approximately $135,000 for all advertisements for competitions, exhibitions, staff recruitment and all other purposes.


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


Mr. McGrath:: Mr. Speaker, could the Parliamentary Secretary tell us when question No. 480 will be answered, which was placed on the Order Paper on January 24. It concerned the breakdown by constituency of moneys spent under the Special Employment Initiatives Program.


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, I will certainly look into it. It was my understanding that today the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Roberts) tabled the entire list of all job-creation programs in response not only to this question but to others. I will check with the Minister and see if it was his intention that that was to act as a reply to the Hon. Member. Certainly, if it was not, I will check with the Minister and see if we cannot get that specific information for him.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, for the information of the Parliamentary Secretary, I examined the returns tabled today

February 21, 1984
The Budget-Miss MacDonald by the Minister of Employment and Immigration. There is a breakdown for the Special Employment Initiatives Program by province, town, village, hamlet and city but not by constituency. It is going to take weeks and weeks to figure it out by constituency. We cannot really get a true picture of whether the program was impartially and objectively administered or whether it was used as a politically partisan porkbarrel. That question cannot be answered precisely until we have a constituency breakdown, and we did not get it today.


John Leslie Evans: Mr. Speaker, I shall certainly check into that. I should alert the Hon. Member that according to Beauchesne's and the Standing Orders, any information that is publicly available in any other place is not appropriate for a question on the Order Paper.


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. Lalonde that this House approves in general the budgetary policy of the Government and the amendment of Mr. Crosbie, (page 1445) and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Riis (page 1448).
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, we have seen the Government raise the art of deception to new levels in recent days but I do not suppose it ever surpassed its efforts as it did the other day when the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) brought down his Budget. He called this document a program of action. As far as most Canadians are concerned, I can tell him that it is a non-event, a non-starter that is going nowhere, a vehicle that ran out of steam before it ever got started.
How can one consider that the Budget is anything but a non-event? Does it do anything at all for the unemployed? The answer is no. Does it do anything for the national debt? Again the answer is no. Does it do anything for the deficit, for research and development or for investment? To all of these vital questions which lie at the very heart of any endeavour to achieve economic recovery in the country, the answer again and again is no.
I believe that this so-called Budget is little more than an apology to the people of Canada by the Government for the admission of failure, which it surely is. It is an apology for the
Government's inability to exercise either Fiscal responsibility or moral authority at a critical time in the country's history.
If you read it you will see that it apologizes to small business for the hopeless mess it made of the tax system. It apologizes to taxpayers for the abuses it has permitted in the Department of National Revenue. It continues to apologize to the oil and gas industry for the massive damage the National Energy Program has done to that industry. That program was introduced by the Minister of Finance in a previous existence. This morning the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) stood in her place and apologized because the supposed pension reforms were so very limited, as well she might. However, as with many apologies, the Minister's Budget presentation is also self-serving. Mitigating circumstances are presented as virtues and promises to do better in the future and heralded as if they were already a fait accompli. "We will have 5 per cent growth this year," the Minister declares. "We will reduce unemployment to 7.5 per cent by 1988. The deficit will fall next year or perhaps the year after or the year after that". However, Sir, what I would like to ask the Minister is, what do all these brave forecasts and future expectations give Canadians today? What good does talking about tomorrow do for someone who has lost his or her job more than a year ago and has no more hope of finding a job today than he or she did then? What good is $150 million in youth employment funds when it works out to $5 per person per week? What good is mortgage insurance to those thousands who have already lost their homes?
For our part, we welcome mortgage insurance. It was, after all, the cornerstone of the Budget which was introduced by my colleague, the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie), back in 1979. That, Mr. Speaker, was the only innovative, responsive and responsible Budget to be presented to this House in a good many years, and what happened to it? It was rejected by the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party combined. This Party offered mortgage insurance more than four years ago when it would really have helped thousands of Canadians to keep their homes through the recession. This Government has had four years since then in which to introduce such insurance, but it only brings it out now when, according to the Minister of Finance the danger is over. Why that lengthy wait?
This non-budget, this non-event, must be judged a failure by any standard. The Minister had the opportunity to take decisive action, to give Canadians concrete proposals, and he fluffed it, he blew it, and nowhere is his failure more apparent than in his response to the question of pension reform. Four years ago, Mr. Speaker, this Government announced that pension reform was to be one of its key priorities. For three years we waited and waited. Finally, we received the green paper which was released by the Minister of National Health and Welfare and subsequently this House authorized a parliamentary task force to hold hearings and make recommendations on pension reform. Now, in the last weeks and months of a Parliament which has already surpassed the normal time
February 21, 1984

period of any legitimate Parliament, in the final weeks and months of the term of this body, the Minister of Finance has taken the first faltering steps toward the implementation of reform and, as usual, he has missed the mark once again. Fie declared in the House last Wednesday when he was presenting his Budget measure, "The Government will never turn its back on those who spend their working lives helping to build this country and who now need help themselves". Never turn its back on that group of people? Never, Mr. Speaker? Then why is it that we have right now in this country more than 600,000 Canadians over the age of 65 who are living in poverty? The $50 a month increase in the guaranteed income supplement will be welcome, make no mistake, even if its recipients have to wait another 10 months before they get the total amount. Why do they have to wait 10 months? That has not been explained, and was not explained this morning by the Minister of National Health and Welfare when she spoke. However, I would say to you, Sir, that a $50 increase is not a solution to the problem of poverty or of pension reform.
The parliamentary task force recommended an immediate increase-not an increase 10 months down the road-of $102 a month for those most in need. The $50 proposed increase will still leave single pensioners who rely entirely on the old age pension and the guaranteed income supplement almost $2,000 below the poverty line in any medium-sized city across this country.
Certainly, anyone in this House would agree with the proposals to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act to ensure that survivor benefits will no longer be cut off if the recipient remarries. We all agree with having pension credits split equally between spouses on marriage breakdown and at age 65. Those proposals are not contentious. They have been around for a long time. Hon. Members on all sides of the House have been advocating that something be done about them. They could have been introduced many budgets ago if the Minister of Finance had wanted to do so, but he did not. However, he has finally come forward with them now. His only claim to merit in bringing in these proposals is that he has seen fit not to overlook them once again. But where the Minister cannot lay any claim to merit of any kind, Sir, is in virtually all of the other proposals with regard to pension reform. These proposals fly in the face of not only the task force recommendation but particularly the recommendations by the many women's groups and organizations which appeared before the parliamentary task force.
One of the witnesses before that parliamentary task force was, of course, the Minister of National Health and Welfare. She came before the task force on March 17, 1983, almost a year ago, Mr. Speaker. The evidence which she gave presumably reflected not only her own opinion, but surely that of her Department, the Government, and the Cabinet of which she is a member. Last March she said, and I quote:
1 believe coverage is the key issue of pension reform. I really mean extension of coverage to all workers, and that is on a universal basis. That is what I mean.
The Budget-Miss MacDonald
She went on:
You see, the majority of working Canadians do not belong to private pension plans. Only 54 per cent of men and 38 per cent of women in paid employment are protected by a private pension plan. These are cold, hard facts.
Those are the words of the Minister, Mr. Speaker, "Cold, hard facts". I would say to her that they are made all the colder by her colleague, the Minister of Finance. This Budget does nothing, absolutely nothing, to further the key issue which the Minister declared, which, as we all know, is the issue of coverage. The Minister may well schedule discussions with her provincial counterparts at a later date-who knows when-to explore the introduction of the homemaker's pension under the Canada-Quebec Pension Plan. I am very aware that it is an item which needs to have the approval of two-thirds of the provinces with two-thirds of the population. However, it is not enough, Sir, for the federal Government to simply put it on the agenda. The federal Government has to become the advocate of that plan. A commitment to discussion, Sir? Discussions on this issue have been going on since 1970 when it was a recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women. A commitment to discussion surely is not enough for the millions of Canadian women who work in the home and contribute as much as those in the paid labour force to the wellbeing of our society. They want to be sure that the Minister of National Health and Welfare, and her colleague, the Minister of Finance, will be fighting on their behalf to have the Canada-Quebec Pension Plan extended to homemakers. But there is absolutely nothing which gives that guarantee.
The insistence of women on this particular issue was very well documented by the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. On January 16 of this year, prior to the Budget proposals, they wrote to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) and sent me and other members of the Parliamentary Task Force a copy of the letter. In it they said:
Thousands of women have expressed to us their dislike of the present treatment of homemakers in the Canada-Quebec Pension Plan, and of the inadequacy of the green paper recommendations in that regard. Most women are full or part-time homemakers want to be recognized as workers and be entitled to pensions in their own right. They do not trust widows pensions that are based on their husband's income and that disappear if the marriage ends in divorce. Therefore, we strongly urge you to support the task force's proposals which will grant homemakers direct coverage under the Canada Quebec Pension Plan.
That, Sir, came from the largest umbrella organization covering women's groups in this country. The right to pension coverage for the people of whom they are speaking, the homemakers, was not addressed. A few simple words in the Budget was all it would have taken to give encouragement to these people that the Government recognizes their work and their achievements in their own right. Let me suggest to the Minister of Finance what those words might have been. He might have said: We fully support the full concept of homemakers pensions and we want to do all we can to introduce them. That is all it would have taken, but it was not done.
There is another major part of the pension proposals I want to address, Mr. Speaker. I know my time is limited, but it concerns the way in which the Government has gone about

February 21, 1984
The Budget-Miss MacDonald
addressing RRSPs. Increasing the limits of RRSPs will surely not help the 46 per cent of male and 62 per cent of female workers in the paid labour force who presently have no private coverage. It may help those who can afford to put $10,000 a year in such plans and I am sure it will be welcomed by those who are earning in excess of $55,000 a year. But what about the 94 per cent of Canadian wage earners who do not earn $55,000? In particular, what about the great majority of Canadians who earn less than $30,500 a year and who will not benefit by one penny from this $300 million exercise in largesse by the Minister? They are ignored and forgotten, Sir. There is not even an indication of a concept in this Budget to provide the means of private pension coverage to the many Canadians who earn between $10,000 and $30,000 a year. But that is an issue which the parliamentary task force did address. It put forward a very simple proposal for a straightforward 40 per cent tax credit which would have allowed many of these workers, particularly women, to achieve private pension plans.
This Budget and the pension proposals in it show that the Government has its priorities all wrong. It provides an extra $300 million in benefits for those who already have pension coverage, while at the same time completely ignoring homemakers as well as low and middle income workers who have no pension coverage other than the Canada Pension Plan. It particularly ignores the plight of the many thousands, mostly women, who find themselves in the lost age bracket between 60 and 65 who have little or no income, have lost their spouses, yet are ineligible for pension. The $300 million the Minister is giving to those with incomes in excess of $55,000 a year would more than provide pensions for that group of persons. But the Minister would not turn his attention to those people and neither would the Minister of National Health and Welfare.


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald), who always has a very strident voice and is very self-righteous when it comes to pensions, and keeps making very serious mistakes, the cause for which I do not understand. Does she know that all of the big new expenditure in the Budget goes to single pensioners, most of them women, and that it will not be taxed back at 100 per cent as the task force of which the Hon. Member was a member wanted to do, and with which I must say I have to disagree? Does she know that when she very loudly recommends that single pensioners get an additional $102 or something around there, as recommended by the task force on which she sat, she would give a little more to a very small number of pensioners on GIS provided they are in total, absolute poverty and do not have an additional penny other than the OAS and the supplement? Through her proposal, which she is pushing again despite all the explanations I have given to her and other members of the committee, every recipient of the GIS will lose $1 for any dollar of other income. Some of them are facing the ridiculous situation where, because of all the provincial top-up programs, they will lose $1.50 for every dollar they have managed to put aside from other sources of revenue.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I have never felt it necessary to comment on the Minister's voice or any other personal characteristic. I do not consider that to be parliamentary.


Monique Bégin: Would you answer the question?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Yes, I know what the parliamentary task force recommended. It was $102 for those who were most in need. I say to the Minister that until she and her Government are prepared to address the issue of pension reform for those who have no opportunity to enter pension programs-and I am talking about 2.7 million women who are now full-time homemakers-until she is prepared to make plans so that low income people in the work force are provided with the incentive and tax credit to get into private pension plans, we are going to have a continuing number of people over the age of 65 who will be living in poverty. That is the issue she and her colleagues ducked.


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, I did not get an answer to my question, which was very simple. Why did the Member just now recommend once more that all pensioners-we are talking about today, not about some ideal future we are trying to get to-who receive partial GIS be penalized dollar for dollar? I do not understand that and I would like an answer.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, obviously the Minister can only think of the future as being ideal.


Monique Bégin: No, the present.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Some of us want to see steps taken right now, today, so that people do not live in poverty in the future. Can the Minister get that through her head?


Monique Bégin: Why not answer the question?


Flora Isabel MacDonald: On the question of those who would have received $102 a month under the parliamentary task force proposal, that would have benefited the people who are living today in the worst poverty in this country, and benefited them most. What she will not do is to recognize that what her plan does is to leave so many, many pensioners in this country today almost $2,000 below the poverty line. That is what her plan does. That is what she seems to be prepared to do rather than correct it.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) was muttering something about unparliamentary language. I must tell you she is the quickest one off the mark to make personal comments.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order, order. We had better stay away from the personal remarks and stick to questions and answers.


Charles James Mayer: Poor little fellow.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, we have a problem here-


Charles James Mayer: Yes, we are looking at it.
February 21, 1984


Douglas Glenn Fisher: -with policy priorities and credibility from the Tories. I would like to ask the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands about her policies and priorities and where they fit in the general credibility of the Tory Party.
As I look across the aisle today, and as Canadians look at the Tory Party, we see the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) in the ascendancy. We see the Hon. Member for York-Peel (Mr. Stevens) is still a very strong voice. The Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) is a strong voice. All of them are arguing cut, cut, cut. They are saying the deficit is terrible, the Canadian people cannot carry these heavy burdens, etc. They know the expenditures which are vulnerable are the expenditures on people. The services we provide to people are the things they are going to cut.
What services and priorities would a "mean, nasty, tough-minded" Minister of Finance in the Tory Party cut? I would like to hear some priorities among people rather than the usual propaganda we get from the other side.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased to be asked this question. I can tell the Hon. Member that there are three priorities in the social field that this Party and its Leader have stated. We only wish the Government would wake up to them.
One happens to be jobs for people who are unemployed so they can begin to get back their self dignity and begin to be contributing and productive members in the economy and pay revenues into the Government.
Another social program which we have said would receive much more attention than the limited Bill which the Minister has put forward, is the reform of the health care system in the country. This is vitally needed by people who cannot get into hospitals and by hospitals for which there is no capital funding.
The third issue, which we have been addressing continually, is in the field of pension reform. We have been asking for it for the last four years throughout the life of the Government. We raised questions three years ago, two years ago and a year ago with the Minister of Finance. We asked where the funding was for the people over the age of 65 living below the poverty line. Every time that question was raised, the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Health and Welfare got up in the House, and said, "We will do it when the resources permit". Two years ago they told the elderly of the country they could not have any increase. They could put it into Canadair, Petro-Canada or Petrofina or any other thing, but could not give it to the elderly people of the country. Now, just before an election, they have suddenly discovered they can do something. The elderly people know that the priorities of this Party have long been to improve their position.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: That is the end of the period for questions and comments. The Hon. Member for Sudbury (Mr. Frith) on debate.


Douglas Cockburn Frith: Mr. Speaker, before I begin I will say that I am going to turn some of my remarks in the latter part of my speech to the issues raised by the Member for
The Budget-Mr. Frith
Kingston and the Islands (Miss MacDonald) vis-a-vis the Government's commitment to pension reform, and I would like to answer some of the questions she has raised.
First, I would like to begin where the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands left off. She said that the priority of her Party is today's elderly. The only way in which I can determine what kind of commitment the Conservative Party actually has to the elderly in the country is to go back to the 1979 Budget for which it was responsible. At the time, the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands said that that was one of the better budgets introduced in the country in years. Looking back at that 1979 Budget to discover what moneys were allocated for the guaranteed income supplement, I see the answer is, zero. The only year in which we can judge the treatment of the elderly people in this nation by the Conservative Party is 1979. Not one extra dollar in that Budget was allocated for the guaranteed income supplement.
The Member for Kingston and the Islands knows that part of the election platform of the Liberal Party in 1980 was a commitment to increase the guaranteed income supplement by $35. I would like to remind the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands that that commitment was met within the first six months of the Government's taking office. Since that time, through this Budget, we have allocated a further $460 million to the poorest in our society. I am not sure the Member for Kingston and the Islands has any idea what her colleague, the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie), has in mind for the elderly in the country.
The Hon. Member for St. John's West has consistently asked what the priorities of the Government are. A budget is a number of things, but in essence it is a blueprint which outlines the government's commitment to certain sectors of our population and economy. When one looks at the Budget which was tabled last week we see that the Government wants to increase the moneys being made available for today's elderly by $460 million. We recognize that we have a tremendous unemployment problem in the country, largely with the youth. We have allocated $150 million in addition to the $500 million that was allocated in the 1983-84 Budget. This was specifically designed to alleviate the problems of the unemployed youth in the country.
Yet when the Hon. Member for St. John's West commented on behalf of his Party about the priorities of the Government, he focused on the fact that we had done nothing to alleviate the problem of the federal deficit. All his remarks were based on reducing the size of the deficit. If in fact 75 per cent of our moneys go out in transfer payments and on the public debt, that leaves only 25 per cent on which I assume he is going to do some drastic cutting. I do not know what the Hon. Member for St. John's West means when he says he wants to have a substantial reduction in the size of the federal deficit. I assume it must mean $5 billion to $7 billion. Let us examine some ways in which we could reduce the size of the deficit by that amount. Is it going to occur in the $10.4 billion that is spent on pensions for the elderly? I doubt that very much. Is it the position of the Conservative Party that it is going to cut into

February 21, 1984
The Budget-Mr. Frith
the pensions of the elderly? Is it going to cut off the $2.3 billion in family allowance? Is that the position of the Conservative Party? Is it going to cut into the equalization payments from the federal Government to the provinces? The Conservatives say they want to put more money into medicare and the care of the elderly. If I understood the Conservative defence critic and foreign affairs critic properly, the Conservatives' position is that they want even more money in the Budget to deal with increased moneys spent on defence. If I am not mistaken, the Finance critic for the Conservative Party has said he would favour a removal of the Canadian ownership special charge, which brought in some $700 million in the last fiscal year.
Clearly, when I listen to the Conservative Party, I have difficulty in understanding exactly what their policies are. If the Tories want a reduction in the deficit, they had better start telling the Canadian people where they will make the cuts. I suggest that they should realize that as a Party they are afraid to tell the Canadian people what those cuts would be. They are afraid of the repercussions if they told the elderly that they wanted to cut back on pensions. They are afraid to tell Canadians that there will be less money for medicare. They are afraid to tell the Canadian public that there will be less money for post-secondary education. Those are the answers Canadians are looking for, but not from us because we have clearly stated that we are on theside of the elderly and on the side of the poor and that we intend to maintain our commitments to the provinces.
That is not the position of the Conservative Party. In this year that precedes the next general election, I suggest that Canadians should have an idea of the policies that the Conservative Party will favour before Canadians make a decision.
The Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands asked about the federal commitment to pension reform. She said that evidently our commitment is not as strong as our words and that we are finally getting around to pension reform in our budget document. She suggested that the Conservative Party asked for that type of pension reform two years ago and that in effect there already was a commitment to the need for pension reform in the nation. The Hon. Member must know, having been a member of the special task force on pension reform that there was no consensus. That is precisely why the federal Government led to the formation of a parliamentary task force in order to travel throughout the country to determine where the consensus was before we could act.
I noticed that the Member for Kingston and the Islands suggested that the improvements to the Canada Pension Plan are long overdue. While I agree with her, I would point out to her that federal Conservative policy cannot be separated from provincial Conservative policy. In that respect the party that I would blame the most for blocking some of the needed improvements to the Canada Pension Plan is the Conservative Party. It was not the federal Government. I recall two years
ago when the Minister of National Health and Welfare (Miss Begin) attended a joint conference with her provincial counterparts at which she suggested an immediate doubling of Canada Pension Plan disability payments. We were told at the time by the Treasurer of Ontario that he was totally opposed to any increase in the amount of Canada Pension Plan disability payments that were going to be made.
The Member for Kingston and the Islands knows full well that any changes to the Canada Pension Plan require approval of two-thirds of the provinces representing two-thirds of the population. In effect, Ontario has a veto power, because of the size of its population, on changes to the Canada Pension Plan. The Conservative Party of Ontario effectively used that veto power to stop the child drop-out provision in this country which we have been advocating for years. The Tories opposed it. We have been advocating the doubling of the Canada Pension Plan disability payment, and the Tories of Ontario have opposed it.
If we want to find a Party in this country which is inhibiting or blocking pension reform, I suggest that she look to her own Province of Ontario and begin to talk to the Conservatives at Queen's Park to have them come on side with the federal Liberals. We might then get pension reform much quicker.
I want to deal with equality and the fact that the Budget pays a great deal of attention to a comprehensive lifetime limit. I am not sure if the Member for Kingston and the Islands represents the points of view of her Party, but with respect to the increases in the amounts of money that will be allowed for tax deductible purposes, that is the increase in the Registered Retirement Savings Plan which is an integral part of pension reform in this country, that concept of a comprehensive lifetime limit introduces a degree of flexibility in the pension system that was never there before. It introduces a degree of equality in the system which was never there before.
She knows full well that the tax treatment with respect to pension plans for several groups in our society has not been equal. Surely the Member is not suggesting that she will defend on behalf of her Party the exclusion of equality for small business people in this country, and for farmers who desperately need that equality. This provision for equality of tax treatment improves that situation. It improves tax assistance for the self-employed in this country. These are all people for whom she has a great deal of concern.
The comprehensive lifetime limit provides equality to those people who, of their own volition, have no access to a private pension plan in their own name, and it also introduces a degree of equality to those people which has not been in the system until now. Surely she is not turning her back on the farmers of this country who have been pleading for better tax treatment on capital gains for the sales of their farms.
This Budget of the Minister of Finance will, in effect, remove any taxes payable by a farmer on the first $240,000 on the sale of the farm. Surely she is not opposed to that. We on this side of the House recognize that the small business people in this country are the engine for growth in our economy. Why should they not have the same access to tax assistance and the
February 21, 1984

ability to plan for their future retirement years as we have given to people who have defined benefit plans? Surely she is not arguing that point.
What is her view with respect to self-employed professionals in this country? I know members of the NDP questioned that treatment in some of their remarks. Simply because someone is a lawyer, doctor, dentist or pharmacist, why should they be taxed differently from anyone else in the country? For once we have introduced a tax measure in this Budget that deals fairly with those groups, of which there are many. Frankly, 1 would favour giving even more small breaks to the small business people. We have given $150 million in tax deductions to them in this Budget.
If the Hon. Member recognizes, as we do, that we must give breaks to small business in order to create jobs and make a dent in the high unemployment rates in this country, she will not argue against those tax measures which we have introduced in the Budget.
The comprehensive tax limit introduces for the first time into retirement planning the greatest degree of flexibility possible in any pension system in the western industrialized countries. We are saying that young people in Canada who are raising a family, paying a mortgage but do not have sufficient funds to put aside for retirement purposes will no longer be penalized as they were in the previous system. According to that system, if one could not afford to put money aside for an RRSP, there was no provision for carry-forward. Under the new system, that will be possible for the first time. When a person is finished with his responsibility of caring for a family and paying a mortgage, perhaps when he reaches the age of 50, he will be allowed to have total flexibility in putting aside the carry-forward provision. He can put aside money on his own to better plan for his retirement and put less demand on the state when he hits the age of 65.
If there has been any advocate of pension reform in this country, it has been the Liberal Party. We have established royal commissions on pension reform. We have asked for a national pensions conference, which was not asked for by the Party of the Member for Kingston and the Islands during its short term in office. For them to suggest that there was consensus in this country on the direction of pension reform is doing a disservice to the actual degree of consensus that we did have in the early 1980s on pension reform.
I hope the Member for Kingston and the Islands will support the Budget measures and convince her colleagues not to delay the legislation we are asking for. If we bring in legislation to deal with the Federal Standards Benefits Act, surely there will not be any opposition to the idea of better vesting, a better degree of portability, of two-year vesting or better survivors' benefits. I expect that we should be able to get very quick legislative action with respect to opening the Federal Standards Benefits Act.
I think it is fair to say that the pension issue itself and the report by the parliamentary task force was a very beneficial and unique experience for all members of the committee, regardless of political affiliation. I suggest that the two Oppo-
The Budget-Mr. Frith
sition Parties should pay compliments for the degree of response that was given by the Minister of Finance in his Budget to the recommendations in our report and, in particular to the swiftness of that response. Clearly he recognized that we had a political consensus in the country. I point out 8 of 9 members of that task force signed that report. The only dissenting opinion was given by the New Democratic Party. I would expect, with that degree of consensus, that we can get on with the job of reforming the pension system. For once rather than waiting for the Province of Ontario and other provinces to act, we have decided as a Government to lead by example. Therefore, the opening up of the Federal Standards Benefits Act and the opening up probably of the Public Service Superannuation Act will be a requirement. Surely when we open up the Income Tax Act to reflect the changes outlined in the Budget of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) we will not have any blocking tactics by the Progressive Conservative Party. I hope not. With respect to the commitment by the Hon. Member's Party, I hope that, as the spokesman for her Party, she represents her Party's viewpoints and that the Conservative Party is advocating the inclusion of homemakers in the Canada Pension Plan.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: More than your Party is.


Douglas Cockburn Frith: Certainly if you are doing that, you will make it a lot easier for the present Minister of National Health and Welfare to set up negotiations with her provincial counterparts. Let me point out to the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands that we now have another treasurer in the Province of Ontario, unfortunately, still a Conservative treasurer. But he has not learned from the experiences of his predecessor, the Hon. Frank Miller, the Member for Muskoka. In a speech just six days ago to the Pension Plan Management Association, he said he was not in favour of two-year vesting; he wants only five years. He is not in favour of including homemakers in the Canada Pension Plan. I would hope that if anyone is advocating the inclusion of homemakers in the Canada Pension Plan, the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands after this evening's vote will get on the phone and phone Larry Grossman to tell him that it is a policy area which the federal Conservative Party wants implemented and ask him to stop the opposition to it. If that is the position of the federal Party, I hope that she can convince her provincial counterparts of the need for that kind of inclusion. I wish her luck. We did not have much luck, as I mentioned before. The disabled of this country should realize that because of the veto power in Ontario under the Canada Pension Plan the poorest of the poor, the neediest and the disabled, are deprived of disability benefits. This is the case because Frank Miller for five years has flogged a doubling of the Canada Pension Plan disability.
I ask you as Members of Parliament, what is your greatest problem in your constituencies? I expect you to say it is the people between the ages of 45 and 64 who, through misfortune, have found themselves having to rely solely on Canada Pension Plan disability payments to survive. I think we all

February 21, 1984
The Budget-Mr. Frith
recognize that the level of CPP disability is so dismally poor that it is one area on which we should be moving rather quickly. What have we ever had from the Province of Ontario? Nothing but blocking of our recommendations to double the Canada Pension Plan disability. I suggested that the federal Government will lead by exampleincrease productive investments in those sectors of the economy which will be the backbone of any future economic prosperity."
Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment to the amendment?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


An Hon. Member:: Some example.


Some Hon. Members:: No.


Douglas Cockburn Frith: There are a lot of things that we are going to be doing for Canadian women that will significantly improve their lot. Better survivor benefits will be introduced. For the first time we are going to mandate a minimum degree of inflation protection. That is something not even the Conservative Government of Ontario advocated until three days ago. I suggest that had it not been for the Minister of Finance and his commitment to pension reform in this Budget, we would not even have the degree of debate and consensus that has developed, such as was demonstrated by the Hon. Larry Grossman in the Province of Ontario who, probably by some fluke, decided on Sunday night to give a speech on pension reform, not knowing that pension reform was going to be an integral part of this Budget. At least we forced the Treasurer of Ontario to a commitment and a degree of commitment to pension reform that until now has not existed in the Province of Ontario. I am glad at least he has gone that far.
Last but not least I want to talk about that degree of inflation protection that we will give to Canadian workers in the private pension plan field. Surely, the Hon. Member for Kingston and the Islands knows that of all the representations we had from across the country the one workers wanted most of all was to have some degree of inflation protection built into the private pension plan system to reflect better the emerging world in which we live and with which we have to cope and deal on a day to day basis.
If the Conservative Party will allow quick passage of all the things we have included in pension reform in this Budget, it will make a much better tomorrow for Canadian workers than we have had until now.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order, please. It being 5.45 p.m., it is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 64(6), to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the amendment to the amendment. [English]
The question is on the amendment to the amendment. Mr. Riis, seconded by Mr. Deans, moves:
That the amendment be amended by changing the period at the end thereof to a comma, and by adding immediately thereafter the following words:
"and this House condemns the government for continuing the Liberal-Conservative policies that have produced record numbers of unemployed, widespread poverty among our elderly, and burdensome taxation for middle and low income Canadians; and this House further condemns the government for failing to introduce in this budget a fair recovery programme that would end unproductive tax concessions to corporations, rescind the $1.4 billion in consumer tax increases announced in the last budget, provide for mechanisms to deal fairly with job displacement resulting from technological change, and


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: All those in favour of the amendment to the amendment, will please say yea.


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: All those opposed, will please say nay.


Some Hon. Members:: Nay.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: In my opinion, the nays have it.
And more than five Members having risen:


Mr. Speaker:: I declare the amendment to the amendment lost.
It being 6.22 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at two o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At 6.22 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Wednesday, February 22, 1984