1984-02-17

STATEMENTS PURSUANT TO S.O. 21


Mr. F. Oberle (Prince George-Peace River):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to take this opportunity to bring to the attention of the House a matter causing most serious concern to many of my constituents and other Canadians living in northern Canada.
We in the North pity those who, for whatever reason, must live and work in the concrete jungles of the South. We even have a degree of compassion and understanding for those who, from time to time, defy their herd instinct to venture out in pursuit of the preservation of the balance of nature in the rest of Canada, their understanding of which comes from Farley Mowatt's storybooks.
Therefore, my concern is more over the treatment by the CBC of the events which occur when the cry goes out to save the seals or, more recently, to save the wolves. CBC French and English networks, in anticipation of a possible protest against the wolf hunt in northern British Columbia, arrived, ten persons strong, in Fort Nelson, well ahead of the five-person protest group, obviously not to report on the event but to stage it.
My constituents in Fort Nelson and Fort St. John are being used to manipulate public opinion against a government sponsored program to save other wildlife and domestic farm animals from an over abundant wolf population. Money appears to be no object. The reporters have no difficulty chartering helicopters and other aircraft to dramatize every move of the protesters.
Surely the Minister of Communications (Mr. Fox) will have to review the CBC's mandate, in view of the practice to engage in advocacy reporting of such events, to assure that both the national interest-


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


SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, the Committee of Parliamentarians, Scientists and Engineers, under the acronym COPSE, was set up in order to facilitate the interaction of parliamentarians with the scientific and engineering community. It has organized noon-hour information lunches on the second Tuesday of each month on issues of interest to scientists and parliamentarians. This mixed audience is spared as much as possible the "difficult to understand" technical jargon. Outstanding workers in the scientific field are invited speakers.
There are only a handful of parliamentarians who have a background in science, yet we live in an unprecedented age of information and technical change which, in a span of one generation, will have a revolutionary effect on Canadian society. Members of Parliament have an opportunity to make themselves aware of advances in science, medicine and technology which are changing the lifestyles, work habits and economic relationships of all Canadians. It is the task of Parliament to prepare the climate for such a change.
Until such time as a parliamentary standing committee on science and technology comes about, the monthly meetings of COPSE provide extremely worth-while forums for Members of Parliament to become knowledgeable on issues affecting the lives of all their constituents. I am concerned that so few Members of Parliament are supporting the COPSE initiative to help this nation assert itself in the age of technology and information.


PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE
Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, we have seen and read a great many revelations in the last few days concerning an operation in the Office of the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) designed to collect personal information on the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney), with the sole intention of seeking to discredit him. Unlike any other office in the country, the Prime Minister's Office has unlimited power to secure information.
We now learn about an official in the Prime Minister's Office being instructed to go to different government Departments to ask for and obtain confidential information, personal

February 17, 1984
and private, about the Leader of the Opposition. No Member of Parliament can or should have access to the confidential files of Departments of Government; no research office of other Parties can make that demand. What they have access to is in the public domain. What the Prime Minister's Office has access to is in the confidential domain. That is the difference.
We have seen the nature of that confidential material being raised by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) as a threat against the Leader of the Opposition. There has been no denial by the Prime Minister, or his key officials, that those activities were taking place. Neither is there any indication that they have been terminated.
What we are seeing in this concentrated effort to discredit the Leader of the Opposition is a betrayal of the function of the Prime Minister's Office, and it should cease immediately.


Mr. Speaker, I am particularly pleased with the provisions concerning immigrants.

Immigrant pensioners whose monthly pension benefits are below the monthly minimum payable to single pensioners will benefit tremendously. The immigrant pensioner who, as of 1977 has been receiving, or will receive partial OAS due to residency requirements, may now qualify for additional assistance. For example, if an immigrant pensioner qualifies only for half of the monthly OAS, he or she may now qualify for additional GIS support to bring them to the same acceptable minimum monthly pension given to all Canadians. The Budget increases the minimum single monthly pension to $600. This is a positive measure, Mr. Speaker, and we trust that some Members of this House will not forget to remind their constituents of such an important initiative.


NATIONAL PARKS
Mr. Laverne Lewycky (Dauphin-Swan River):: Mr. Speaker, attempts by the Town of Dauphin to obtain a long-term lease for the use of Lake Edwards in Riding Mountain National Park as a backup water supply source so far have proved fruitless. Negotiations between the Town of Dauphin and Parks Canada officials have been deadlocked since 1979.
Historically the Town of Dauphin has used Lake Edwards in Riding Mountain National Park as a water supply source long before a national park was established in the Riding Mountains.
Parks Canada wants to force the town to abandon the lake if it cannot document its current and projected need for the water from the lake, to its satisfaction. The problem has reached the stage where park officials have been restricting town maintenance crews' access to the dykes for repair work. This is a pressing problem which has dragged on far too long. I call upon the Minister to act personally to resolve this problem and guarantee Dauphin's future water supply.


PENSIONS
Mr. David Berger (Laurier):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to bring to the attention of Members in the House provisions in the Budget designed to increase pension benefits for thousands of Canadians and recent immigrants. As the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) explained, the $50 a month increase in GIS this year will help those pensioners who need help the most, namely, single pensioners and one-pensioner couples. About 750,000 pensioners, three quarters of whom are women, will benefit.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Mr. Stan Darling (Parry Sound-Muskoka):: Mr. Speaker, the worst of the Finance Minister's Budget concerns the unemployed. They will continue to be with us in virtually the same numbers through this year, 10.9 per cent, and on through next year 10.1 per cent, as well as today's jobless level of 11.2 per cent, and that, Mr. Speaker, is not the worst of it.
What about the unemployed youth of today? What do they have to look forward to in the near future from this Budget? What is $150 million going to do? It has become obvious that the new Minister of State for Youth (Mrs. Hervieux-Payette) and the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) have given up on creating jobs for our young people.
It hurts me deeply when I see that these young people feel that they are doomed to be a lost generation with no prospect of any kind of job. It is time they voted for change, and it is time the Government gave them a chance to do so.


POLITICAL PARTIES
Mr. Ian Waddell (Vancouver-Kingsway):: Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to your attention two instances of hypocrisy, a word that was used a lot in the House yesterday. I just heard the Hon. Member for Parry Sound-Muskoka (Mr. Darling) talk about the Conservatives being concerned about the unemployed and about youth.


Mr. Crosbie:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
February 17, 1984

Mir. Waddell: Listen to what the finance critic has been saying-the ex-Minister of Finance and the possible future Minister of Finance. He is still talking about-


Mr. Stevens:: Hear, hear!


John Carnell Crosbie: Hear, hear!


Mr. Nielsen:: Hear, hear!


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Ian Gardiner Waddell: They are pretty cocksure. He is talking about them having a mean Budget and doing mean and nasty things. I challenge the Members, the Canadian people, and the Members who are clapping, to catch Global TV News tonight where the present finance critic gives the real nature of the Conservative Party when he says once again, "If we told you what we would do we would never get elected." There is their real policy, and it is hypocrisy, Mr. Speaker.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Prime Minister, who is probably out searching titles, and in the absence of the Minister of Finance, I want to ask a question of the Acting Prime Minister. In the Budget brought down two days ago, at page 1 the Minister of Finance said, and I quote:
-my goal was to secure the recovery.
That was the goal of his April Budget.
That goal has also been met.
With 1,473,000 Canadians unemployed, with the unemployment rate this year projected to be 10.9 per cent, with Canadian industry operating at only 70 per cent of capacity, with the prime rate at 11 per cent; with inflation re-igniting, with non-residential construction projected to decline 2.7 per cent this year and residential construction to decline 1.3 per cent, with the Minister of Finance forecasting real average wages will not rise one cent or one iota, how can the Government pretend the recovery is secured? Who does it think it is fooling? How is the recovery now secured in light of those facts and projections?


Sinclair McKnight Stevens: Here is the Acting Prime Minister.


Hon. Roy MacLaren (Minister of State (Finance)):: Mr. Speaker, the problem with the Hon. Member's question is the old one of whether the bottle is half full or half empty. Of
Oral Questions
course there is a lot of work yet to be done. If the Hon. Member opposite does not recognize that, he is incapable of understanding the present state of our economy. The fact is we have achieved a substantial degree of economic recovery over the past 12 to 14 months.


An Hon. Member:: For whom?


Roy MacLaren: Interest rates have declined significantly. The job creation rate has increased.


Mr. Riis:: In Liberal ridings, yes.


Roy MacLaren: We have created some 400,000 additional jobs in our economy in the last 14 months.


Mr. Heap:: Five hundred thousand jobs lost.


Roy MacLaren: We have seen inflation drop substantially over the past year. We have seen the CPI decrease from something over 12 per cent to something in the neighbourhood of 5 per cent. That trend is continuing.
The purpose of last April's Budget was to put in place, both in the public and private sectors, policies which would stimulate that economic recovery. The purpose of this Budget, which carries on the trend set in motion by the April Budget, is to set the stage for real economic growth in our economy. The Hon. Member knows that. It is obvious to us all.


John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, the Budget speech did not say, "There is a lot of work yet to be done." It said, "My goal was to secure the recovery. That goal has been met." There is a vast difference. One is a complete distortion. The Minister of Finance did not say there was a lot of work yet to be done.


RATE OF INFLATION
John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Prime Minister who, I know, is very much interested in what happens to the Canadian people. In the Budget speech on Wednesday the Minister of Finance said, and I quote:
For 1984 as a whole, I expect inflation to average about 5 per cent-
Two days later Statistics Canada revealed a cost of living increase from January, 1983, to January, 1984, of 5.3 per cent, up from 4.5 per cent the previous month-the second month in a row it has gone up. If we remove food and energy from the index, the underlying rate of inflation has gone up for the first time in many months, which is a very serious indication. If we took the seasonally adjusted figure, the increase for this year, if it continued over the whole year, would be 9.6 per cent. How can the Prime Minister's Government expect its projections and estimates to be taken seriously when, just two days after the Budget comes down, the inflation forecast is shown to be erroneous? How can he expect interest rates to come down when inflation is already on the way up, and a Budget was brought in which does nothing to overcome it?

February 17, 1984
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Right Hon. P. E. Trudeau (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member must realize that this was an anticipated event. The increase in the price of food was predicted more than three or four weeks ago when frost hit foodstuffs in the United States, particularly the fruits and vegetables. We believe this is an anticipated and probably temporary phenomenon.


John Carnell Crosbie: Electoral frost is going to strike your Government whenever the election comes.


LEVEL OF UNEMPLOYMENT
John Carnell Crosbie: Mr. Speaker, there are 1,473,000 unemployed today. When the Prime Minister came to office in 1968 the number was 360,000; when he came back in March of 1980 it was 967,000; if he continues much longer there will be no one in Canada employed. When is the Prime Minister going to have a Budget brought in which will affect the unemployed? Does he realize his Minister has projected that there will be over 1,400,000 unemployed all this year on average, and even in 1988 there will be 1,100,000? When will the Prime Minister do something to retrieve the losses we have had under his administration?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member just has to look at the record of last year when something like 350,000 new jobs were created. That was because the Minister had a very thoughtful Budget last April, and we believe this Budget will have the same effect of creating jobs on a steady and permanent basis.


INTEREST RATES-DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE PROJECTIONS
Hon. Ron Huntington (Capilano):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my question to the Minister of State for Finance. He knows interest rates have a major impact on inflation. He knows the service charges on our national debt are up. He knows that StatsCanada reports the inflation rate is up to 5.3 per cent seasonally adjusted, and the seasonally adjusted month to month inflation rate is the highest since June of 1983. Even when the fruit, vegetable and energy factors which the Prime Minister speaks of are removed, there is a rise in the underlying inflation rate, the first since February of 1982. These new facts contradict the Budget rhetoric.
Will the Minister tell us what rate of interest the Department of Finance used in projecting debt charge calculations? Will he tell us if interest rates are to remain stable, if they are to go up or down, in light of these new facts StatsCanada has given us?


Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, as I understood it, the Member asks three different questions. Regarding the CPI, and excluding food and energy, which he has done, and rightly so, the all-item CPI did not increase during the month of January. It declined by .2 per
cent. Regarding his query about the interest rate basis we used in our calculations, we do not make that public. I think the Hon. Member is aware of that. When borrowing on the money market the Government does not wish to indicate to the market what it anticipates interest rates will be. That is a question better settled by the market itself. The forecasts are based on assumptions which are not made public. The third point has been dealt with quite adequately in the speech by the Minister of Finance when he says he does not expect interest rates to increase during the course of 1984.


SIZE OF GOVERNMENT DEBT CHARGES
Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, we are all
too well aware of the Minister of Finance's rhetoric. We had enough of it in his Budget address the other day and in interviews since. He infers that recovery is on the way; the external cost of funds to corporations is expected to decline; continued stability is at hand; six and five has worked; inflation is under control.


Mr. Rossi:: Hear, hear! More!


Arthur Ronald Huntington: And that progress on lower interest rates is encouraging. These are all quotations from his rhetoric. If this rhetoric is to be believed, Mr. Speaker, why have projected debt charges in the ten months since the last Budget increased by over $1 billion? Why will he not tell us? Why the silence on the interest rate used by the Department of Finance for its February, 1984, projections? The people of Canada are entitled to know that figure.


Roy MacLaren: Mr. Speaker, the Member opposite must be aware that interest rates in Canada have fallen substantially during the past 14 to 16 months. In June, 1982, for example, the bank rate was over 16.5 per cent. Today it is 10 per cent, and has remained unchanged for some time.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Answer the question. What rate did you use?


Roy MacLaren: I indicated to the Hon. Member that it is not the practice of the Government, either when his Party was in power, or this Party, to indicate such interest rates. I do not believe the Hon. Member would wish us to anticipate the reactions of markets to a number of diverse factors which affect interest rates. We need to make some assumptions for planning purposes, but it is not the policy of the Government, or any Government in office in Canada, to issue such statistics.
February 17, 1984


FINANCE
Hon. Edward Broadbent (Oshawa):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister. Yesterday I asked the Minister of Finance certain questions about the unfairness of the Budget as it affects pensioners and middle and low income Canadians. He replied with disarming candour, saying that is how the tax system works. Well, the Liberal tax system, I guess.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister questions about unfairness again today as it affects a certain bonanza that is being given to large corporations. As a result of the new Budget, Eaton's and Bata, which are hardly corner stores, are now going to qualify as small businesses. They will be able to be taxed at the small business tax rate of 15 per cent. As a result of tax increases imposed by the Minister of Finance's last Budget, average families will have to pay about $500 more per family. Is it the Government's idea of fairness that the $500 increase for the ordinary Canadian should make up for the thousands of dollars which are going to be lost to the tax system from companies like Bata and Eaton's?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I believe the Hon. Member is misconstruing the provision in the Budget regarding small business. The proposition is quite simple. It is to simplify the whole tax structure and not have artificial categories about small and larger businesses. The principle of taxing larger businesses at a different rate is maintained in the Budget. Eaton's obviously does not qualify as a small business. The first couple of hundred thousand dollars of its business are perhaps considered as small for simplification of tax purposes. However, everything above that is taxed at a different rate. The Hon. Member is miscontruing the meaning of the Budget. He would do well to reread the section.


John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I think the Prime Minister would do well to reread the Budget as well. He will find out what I have said is true.


TAX PROPOSALS AFFECTING PROFESSIONALS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, 1 would like to move on to another aspect of the unfairness as it pertains to the possibilities open to professional people such as doctors and lawyers. The Budget provision is that doctors, lawyers, and other professional people who may be earning $80,000 to $90,000 a year, can now re-establish themselves as companies. Does the Prime Minister consider it fair that professionals and other upper income people who are paying an effective tax rate of 50 per cent now because their income is in the $80,000 to $90,000 category, should be able to have their taxes reduced to about 15 per cent, which is the level an ordinary worker has to pay who has not open to himself the same privilege of reconstituting himself as a company? Is this the kind of fairness the Government believes in, that there should be a special hand-out in terms of redistribution of
Oral Questions
income to richer Canadians instead of moving toward justice for middle and low income Canadians?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance is proposing a way of treating professionals and other such people which has been used in the past, and to which he is returning now. We had another system for a period of time. I do not recall the Leader of the NDP having supported it in any vocal way.
I do recall when the former Minister of Finance, the present Secretary of State for External Affairs, had a budget in November, 1981, which was deliberately attempting to close what the Hon. Member has called loopholes, that he was not suported by that Leader of the NDP, nor by his colleagues. It is quite typical of the NDP that they will not support any progressive reform by the Government. They will merely continue to attack everything indiscriminately.


John Edward Broadbent: It is quite typical of the political style of the Prime Minister to shift in a sleazy way from a difficult question that he was supposed to answer, and provide irrelevant and misleading information. This Party supported the provisions in that Budget which would remove the loopholes that go to upper income Canadians. We opposed the other provisions that gave other benefits to people who did not deserve to get them. That should be clear.


TAX PROPOSAL AFFECTING LAWYERS
John Edward Broadbent: Mr. Speaker, I would like the Prime Minister to answer the question. Considering that we now have in our land more than 4 million Canadians living in poverty, that pensioners must pay tax on their income, and that unemployed men and women must pay tax on their unemployment insurance cheques, is it the Prime Minister's notion of fairness that we should reintroduce another kind of loophole in our tax system that would permit a lawyer who makes $80,000 a year to pay taxes at only 15 per cent? What hypocrisy! What injustice!


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member says that he supported that 1981 Budget. I recall that he voted against it.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Hon. Perrin Beatty (Wellington-Dufferin-Simcoe):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Revenue. He will recall that on several occasions over the course of the past several weeks he has specifically denied the existence of quotas for auditors in his Department. He has even gone so far as to issue a directive to every district office to say that quotas are to be stopped.

February 17, 1984
Oral Questions
Yet this week The Globe and Mail has turned up documentary evidence to prove that, notwithstanding the direct assurances given by the Minister, quotas are still in place in a number of district offices in his Department. Did his officials disobey a direct order from the Minister, or was he party to this pretty piece of deceit?
[ Translation]


Hon. Pierre Bussieres (Minister of National Revenue):: Mr. Speaker, I have asked the Hon. Member several times to consider the question of establishing standards for effectiveness and efficiency within the Department, how those standards are established and how they are applied. The Hon. Member has obstinately refused to consider this matter-I would say he has a mental block.
I would urge him to read some comments by his hon. colleague, who said that yes, performance indicators are necessary and yes, we must have efficiency and productivity at the departmental level, and that is the whole point of the performance indicator objectives we have, which are applied according to the nature of the various operations that take place within the Department. As long as the Hon. Member refuses to acknowledge that, as many of his colleagues have been urging, there must be efficiency within the Department, as long as he refuses to consider the basic problem of managing a department in terms of efficiency and productivity, he will never understand what departmental management is about.


SUDBURY OFFICE AUDITORS
Henry Perrin Beatty: Mr. Speaker, the basic problem here is not efficiency. The basic problem is truth and whether the Minister can be believed when he tells the House of Commons that there are no quotas within his Department. These documents from Sudbury demonstrate that auditors there are having quotas put on them of $350 per hour. Does the Minister deny that and, if not, why did he make the statement to the House of Commons that quotas have been stopped? Can we believe a word that the Minister says to us?
[ Translation]


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I think the Hon. Member has completely missed the point. He refuses to consider the fundamental issue, since he knows he will have to admit he is wrong and does not know anything about managing a department, and he knows he will have to accept the concept proposed by his Party, a concept accepted long ago by this Government, that each department needs effective management of human resources and that effective management of those resources must be adapted to the functions of each department. As long as the Hon. Member continues to let himself be blinded by partisan considerations, he will never understand what this issue is about.


&quot;HIT&quot; AUDITS
Mr. John McDermid (Brampton-Georgetown):: Mr. Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister of National Revenue. Is he aware of the term "hit" audits and, if so, are auditors rated in accordance with the percentage of "hit" audits collected in relation to the amount assessed? Is he aware that these are in addition to the quotas set for the auditors?


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is following the same line of thought as his colleague who, unfortunately, does not quite understand departmental management. He ought to know that, with respect to audits, the management policy is to obtain the best possible performance from our auditors. The management policy does leave room for flexibility since it takes into consideration the need for results as well as fairness and respect for the rights of taxpayers in auditing practices.


PERSONNEL ASSESSMENT RECORDS
John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, if the Minister is so adamant that quotas are not being set for auditors, will he inform the House today why personnel assessment records are being adjusted and put back in the files, that every auditor's personnel file is being checked and changed without the employee's prior knowledge? Will he explain that to the House of Commons, if in fact there are no quotas being set for these people?


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I would urge the Hon. Member to attend the sittings of the standing committees of the House which will be examining the estimates of the Department over the next few weeks.
If need be, we will give him detailed explanations on the manner in which the various personnel assessment records are reviewed within the Department. He will also have an opportunity to find out for himself why we have such assessment records and how we treat them. That should make him understand each factor used to establish those assessment records.


JUSTICE AND LEGAL AFFAIRS
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Justice and it concerns legal aid in British Columbia. No doubt the Minister is aware that the Government of British Columbia has cut back legal

aid, is charging user fees, and proposes to bring in legislation that will overturn a decision of its own Court of Appeal. Will the Minister confirm that his Department is presently negotiating an agreement with the Government of British Columbia with respect to federal funds for legal aid? Is he prepared to say that he is in favour of adequate and full legal aid, and against this kind of cutback in British Columbia?


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker,
1 am certainly prepared to agree with the Hon. Member that the fullest system of legal aid possible in every Province is the most desirable one. I think the Hon. Member will know that the normal pattern of these agreements is that there are, in return for federal funds, certain commitments which the Provinces make. Of course, they are obligated to fulfil those commitments.
It is true that we are negotiating a new agreement now. I can assure the Hon. Member that I am not looking at a form of agreement that would deprive the people of British Columbia of the kind of protections that they have had in the past as far as the federal conditions are concerned. However, there are, of course, many aspects to every legal aid system which are purely under provincial control and over which we would not have any right to exercise restraint.
We will do our best to negotiate the best kind of agreement with British Columbia. I think there still will be a problem to which British Columbians will want to address themselves, in light of the type of comments that the Attorney General of that province has been making recently, comments with which I do not agree at all.


CURTAILMENT OF SERVICE IN BRITISH COLUMBIA
Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, the Minister feels that way, and I share his comment. But if he feels we should have the fullest system of legal aid possible in British Columbia, then I want to ask the Minister why, in medicare, is the federal Government prepared to act and prepared to stop Provinces from user fees and so on? Why does the Minister not do the same thing with legal aid in British Columbia and not give money to the Province of British Columbia if it is going to act this way with respect to legal aid?


Mark R. MacGuigan: Mr. Speaker, I hardly need to explain to the Hon. Member all the differences between the two kinds of systems. We do not have medical care in Canada as an analogy with health care. The kind of recovery that lawyers get is a different proportion from that which doctors get, and so on. There are enormous numbers of differences between the two plans. We are making a general offer to all of the Provinces, not just to British Columbia, to renegotiate the legal aid agreements. I hope to be able to report to the House in due course on agreements that we are able to reach.
Oral Questions LABOUR RELATIONS


CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY-TREATMENT OF REDUNDANT WORKERS
Mr. Maurice Foster (Algoma):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Labour. Is the Minister prepared to use his good offices to bring companies, such as CPR, into the twentieth century with regard to its labour relations as they relate to technological change? For instance, three constituents of mine who have worked for the CPR for an average of 38 years, and whose jobs are becoming redundant as a result of technological change, are being offered the choice of uprooting their families and moving to another location, thus throwing three younger workers out of work, or forgoing their pensions for seven years. Is the Minister willing to take some action in this kind of case?


Hon. Andre Ouellet (Minister of Labour):: Mr. Speaker, at the request of the Hon. Member I will look into the matter and I will have some of my officials review the situation. If representation has to be made directly to the corporation, I will gladly do so.


INDUSTRY
Hon. George Hees (Northumberland):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


An Hon. Member:: Go easy on him, George.


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, as the prestigious European Management Forum based in Geneva, using figures supplied by the OECD, the United Nations, and the International Monetary Fund, reports that Canada's international rating in industrial competitiveness fell from fifth place in 1981 to eleventh place in 1983, and as this serious drop in competitiveness had a very real effect on creating the high unemployment we are experiencing today, can the Prime Minister advise the House just what steps his Government intends to take to correct this very serious situation?


Erik Nielsen: Call an election.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is asking questions about industrial ratings. I think if that same prestigious body took a look at ratings it would find the Hon. Member is not doing any better than the industrial ratings.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, Oh!


George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, that is the kind of answer in which the Prime Minister indulges these days, in that he obviously does not care one whit what happens to Canada's industrial competitiveness or productivity, both of which contribute to

February 17, 1984
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the very serious unemployment that has taken place during the time when this country has, unfortunately, had to subdue itself to his leadership as Prime Minister.


PRIME MINISTER'S POSITION
George Harris Hees: Mr. Speaker, as a supplementary let me ask the Prime Minister, as he will be leading his Party in the next election, does he not think it is about time he started taking seriously these very important matters about unemployment, and the job situation that affects about 1.4 million Canadians today.


Mr. Hnatyshyn:: I think Jean Chretien just fainted.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member were to participate at all in the Budget debate, and if he had read the Budget documents, he would realize that these preoccupations are front and centre in the Minister of Finance's Budget, except the Hon. Member seems to be more interested in reading Geneva documents, once again reading them but not understanding them, because when he refers to industrial rating, of course he specifically omits all the jobs created by our very vast resource basis.


George Harris Hees: Temporary jobs only. You know it, and I know it.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: He does not seem to realize that our vast resource basis is a source of great job creation. The Hon. Member shocks me when he talks about temporary jobs. Our resources, Mr. Speaker, are not temporary. It is the Hon. Member's understanding of events which is temporary and feeble.


NATIONAL DEFENCE
Mr. Jack Shields (Athabasca):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence. He will remember that on a recent visit to northeastern Alberta in discussions with people at Grand Centre he indicated at the request of people in the area that he would send a team of information officers throughout northeastern Alberta to outline the effect the Cruise missile testing would have on those people. The Minister will also know that teams went out on two or three-day notices. My phone has been ringing off the wall.
People want to know how the Cruise testing is going to affect them. They asked the Minister to send out the teams. The teams have gone out with only two days' notice which prevented many people who wanted the information from attending meetings. Is the Minister going to get those teams out there in a proper way, with proper notice?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of National Defence: Mr. Speaker, the teams went out. Notice was given very widely in the area. As a matter of interest the meetings were very, very well attended. There was a considerable amount of exchange between those who were at the meetings and the briefers. As a result of the interest there were considerable exchanges that gave rise to additional publicity and that publicity, of course, has increased the level of interest in the region. If there are needs for additional briefings or a need for additional information, I will be pleased to co-operate with the hon. gentleman in providing that information to his constituents.


NOTIFICATION OF MEETINGS
Jack Wendele Shields: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister of National Defence. I want to make it clear to the Minister that the people who are requesting the information have not yet made up their minds whether they are for or against the Cruise testing. They want to know how it is going to affect their lives. The people in Peace River were given three days' notice before their meeting was called, which virtually prevented everyone in the rural part of that area from attending the meeting. The people in High Prairie were given two days' notice. The people in Slave Lake did not even have a meeting. The people in Athabasca did not have a meeting. The Minister made a commitment that he would inform the people when the Cruise testing was going to take place. That has not been done. Will the Minister resolve this problem?


Hon.   J.-J. Blais@Minister of National Defence: Mr. Speaker, the position that I have taken in this matter is to try to provide as much information as possible. That is why I undertook to provide briefings in the hon. gentleman's region, and in any area where those briefings were requested. Our purpose is to provide information. If there is a need for additional information, we will be pleased to provide it. As I said originally, I will be pleased to co-operate with the hon. gentleman in providing that information.


EMPLOYMENT
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of the Minister of Employment and Immigration, maybe I will put my question to the Prime Minister. I see he has moved a bit to the right. Perhaps he can go back toward the centre and take the question.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: He has now found his seat, Mr. Speaker. I am sure the Prime Minister knows that many accusations have been made about the allocation of money for job creation under the Employment Creation and Grants and Contribu-
February 17, 1984

tions Program. In the interests of clearing up the confusion, can the Prime Minister now confirm that a list of projects under this program in Ontario has been completed? The list, I am told, is now under lock and key in a vault in Toronto. Could he confirm that? And in the interests of clearing up this issue, can the Prime Minister table this list in the House today?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, no, I cannot confirm it because I have not heard of any lock-up of lists in Toronto or elsewhere. I do know from having spoken to the Minister of Employment and Immigration yesterday that he is compiling all the documents which will permit him to give the Opposition all the information it wants on the various job-creation schemes that he has created under the funds allocated to him by the Budget.


ALLOCATION OF FUNDS TO CONSTITUENCIES
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, because of the very diligent workers in the PMO, perhaps the Prime Minister can confirm that the list that is now compiled in Toronto shows that $25 million was allocated to the Ontario region. Can he also confirm that fully 91 per cent of that money went to ridings represented by Liberal Members of Parliament?


Mr. Robinson (Burnaby):: Pork; pork.


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member is asking a question based on the results that he assumes will come from the documents that the Minister will table and make public. I do not know the results of them. If the Hon. Member has been snooping and has a lock and key, why does he not get the information himself and make it public? I do not have it. I am waiting for the Minister to make it public.


PENITENTIARIES
Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Solicitor General. It deals with another form of deterrent fee which he has imposed on behalf of the Government with regard to post-secondary education in our penitentiaries. The Minister will know that, as opposed to 52 per cent of inmates who are returned to prison after serving their terms, of those who have been involved in the postsecondary education process, only 14 per cent return to prison. What is the rationale for imposing this kind of deterrent fee to discourage inmates from participating in post-secondary education?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, as the Hon. Member knows, I am committed to post-secondary education in our penitentiaries. In fact the
Oral Questions
night before last I presented BA's to the first three Francophones ever to graduate from university while incarcerated in federal penitentiaries, and I am very proud of that. At the same time, unlike primary education and secondary education, university education is not available free of charge to citizens who have not committed crimes and are not in penitentiaries. They pay. They appreciate and benefit from university programs. They are willing to do so even under the circumstances of having to pay for it. I do not see any reason why inmates, who receive money from the Correctional Service of Canada while they are behind bars, should not pay a small part of that, as do people on the street, in order to offset the cost of their education.


Ramon John Hnatyshyn: It is obvious from the answer of the Solicitor General that he has given up on the rehabilitative function of our penitentiary system, that all he is concerned with is dollars and cents from the very small amount which inmates receive.


NATIONAL SECURITY
Ramon John Hnatyshyn: Mr. Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister. With respect to the whole question of security assessments the Minister has written to his colleagues in Cabinet requesting that they substantially reduce the requirements for the RCMP to carry out security assessments. You will know that the Chairman of the Canadian Human Rights Commission was very critical about the extent of security assessments carried out by the Government. What percentage does the Minister think is superfluous in terms of the security assessment work done by the federal Government? Second, is he doing anything with respect to reclassification of documents and responsibilities, which is the source of all the difficulty in this area?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: As the
Hon. Member indicated, Mr. Speaker, I have indeed asked each of my colleagues to look over the number of security classifications that their officials are requiring for promotions and hiring of individuals. I intend to follow up on that. To give now some estimate of the kind of results I hope to achieve is premature. I think we can make progress in reducing the amount of security clearance requirements in the Government.
In reply to the second question, the Hon. Member is right, the basic problem is that too many documents are being marked classified. My Ministry is working in co-operation with three other Departments of Government to develop tighter criteria for classification. It is a program I have described in public before. It is complicated. It will make very fundamental changes to a governmental process that, I suppose, has been in effect for centuries. I look forward to being able to make progress with that. I have not yet been able to complete my

February 17, 1984
Oral Questions
approval of the general approach that will be taken to classifications.
However, there is one very major reform that I have brought forward, and that is the proposal to reorganize the security service of the RCMP as a separate security intelligence agency, and to provide in the same legislation a right of appeal so that any individual who considers himself falsely identified as a security threat will be able to request a review of that. That is tremendous progress because it will be a check on excessive classifications and excessive requirements of security clearance. If the Hon. Member seriously wants that type of reform, I urge him to support progress of this legislation, because this legislation is a concrete way of reducing the amount of security clearance that the Government now requires.


NATIONAL REVENUE
Mr. Arnold Malone (Crowfoot):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of National Revenue. I would like to ask him about third party demands. I can appreciate that there will be occasions when a Government will want to make a third party demand on an individual's bank account. I have not done a national survey, but based on some banks in my constituency there has been a tremendous increase in the amount of third party demands since as recently as October or November of a year ago. Has there been a request from the Minister's office, or the Minister himself, to increase greatly the number of third party demands, and if so, why?
[ Translation]


Pierre Bussières: No,
Mr. Speaker.


RESCINDING OF THIRD PARTY DEMANDS
Arnold John Malone: Mr. Speaker, I compliment the Minister for giving an answer to the question. Bearing in mind that there is this extraordinary increase in third party demands, bearing in mind that the Minister just stated that he has not ordered more third party demands, and noting the tremendous difficulty it places on individual citizens, why is it that in the vast majority of cases those third party demands are rescinded by his Department, in other words, nullified, within 24 to 48 hours, when there was not cause in the first place? Can the Minister justify that extent of the abuse of the system when it is actually cancelled a few days later, especially in areas like mine with small towns where word ripples through the community and can destroy the reputation of an individual for a lifetime? Will he not decrease the number of third party demands on citizens?
[ Translation]


Pierre Bussières: Mr. Speaker, I think there is an explanation which the Hon. Member will understand quite easily about cases where third party demands must be withdrawn after a few days. I am aware of several cases where, immediately following third party demand, the taxpayer, who knew that he owed a certain amount, immediately paid off the amount of taxes due to the Department of Revenue. The Hon. Member shakes his head, but this is definitely what we have found.
However, I would like to point out to the Hon. Member that such action, which is extremely harsh, is taken only in cases where through his own fault, the taxpayer has not entered into any agreement with the Department of Revenue as to his plans for paying the taxes owed by him. It is the responsibility of the taxpayer to call on the district office, explain his financial situation and indicate how he plans to pay his tax debt. If he defaults on this responsibility, he is subject to the harsh provisions contained in the Act.
However, I would like to take this opportunity to remind Hon. Members that we are doing everything possible to find a common ground for negotiating an agreement or an arrangement with the taxpayers, taking into account the nature of their indebtedness as well as their financial situation and their ability to pay.


PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE
Hon. Paul J. Cosgrove (York-Scarborough):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. Earlier in the House today, Mr. Prime Minister, there was an unsubstantiated allegation by a member that officials in your office have directed officials of other Departments of the Government of Canada, or employees of the Government of Canada, to search into the private affairs of Members of this House. Will the Prime Minister please comment on such an allegation?


Pierre Elliott Trudeau: Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to the Hon. Member for permitting me to answer an allegation which has been made outside the House, apparently, but which has not been asked directly of me. I am happy to deny categorically that any such operation has taken place.
I would add that there is one circumstance under which members of the PMO did canvass all Ministers' offices for information concerning an allegation made by the Leader of the Opposition when he stated, I believe on September 19, that he had received from an unnamed Minister of the Government a letter congratulating him on his handling of the closing down of Iron Ore in Schefferville. Since the Leader of the Opposition had bragged about such a letter, we did canvass all
February 17, 1984

Ministers to see if they were the author of such a letter, and the answer of course was given by the Hon. Member for Yukon a short while later when he showed the letter to the House of Commons, and it appeared it had been written by the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. That is the occasion when we did canvass all Minister's offices. There is no other such occasion. For you, Flora.


ROYAL CANADIAN MOUNTED POLICE
Svend Johannes Robinson: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Solicitor General. As he knows, on a number of occasions I have urged the Minister to broaden the criteria for eligibility for pensions of widows and families of RCMP officers killed while on duty. The Minister ordered a study last fall which clearly demonstrated the inadequacy of existing pension plans and showed that the criteria were deficient.
What action does the Solicitor General intend to take to implement the strong recommendation of that study that we treat RCMP officers and their families with equity and fairness, and implement long overdue changes to their pension plan which would broaden the criteria and enable families to receive pensions in the event that an RCMP officer is killed in the line of duty, not just a violent death?


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Hon. Member has forgotten it, but in the last four years I have been Solicitor General I have introduced a substantial improvement in the pensions available for widows and children of RCMP officers slain while on duty, if the risk which resulted in their death was one of those special risks which they face when they go to work every day that other public servants and other members of the public do not face. I have told the Hon. Member that the criteria are broad, so that they will not only cover cases where they are victims of foul play or are killed by criminals in the course of escaping from crimes, but will reflect that when they go to work-and prison guards are eligible for the same benefits-they face special risks which the rest of us do not face. When those risks result in their death, society should recognize that. That is the basis of the policy, and that is the reason why widows and orphans whose fathers and husbands die in those special circumstances receive enhanced pension benefits.
_____________________________________1505
Introduction of Bills



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Mr. George Baker (Gander-Twillingate):: Mr. Speaker, as Chairman, I have the honour to present the first report of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Forestry in both official languages.
[Editor's Note: For above report, see today's Votes and Proceedings.)


PETITIONS
Mr. Vic Althouse (Humboldt-Lake Centre):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the honour to present a petition from residents of the Province of Ontario who wish to present a grievance. They humbly sheweth that the Pickering-Seaton area and the Pickering airport site were established as a unit through expropriation for an airport which was never built. Since this site could be used as a permanent Pickering agricultural reserve, they call upon the federal Government to negotiate the establishment of a permanent agricultural reserve on the Pickering lands to serve as a model of farm land preservation and to produce food for the nearby urban market.


Paul James Cosgrove: Mr. Speaker, I would like to present a petition also signed by residents of the Province of Ontario. It draws attention to the problems caused by drinking and driving. It is the second one I have lodged with the House. The petitioners respectfully urge Parliament to pass legislation which will increase the penalties for those found guilty of drinking and driving.


Daniel James Macdonnell Heap: for leave to introduce Bill C-219, an Act to amend the Immigration Act, 1976 (determination of refugee status).
He said: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this Bill is to alter the Immigration Act so that everyone within Canada who is claiming refugee status will have the right to an oral hearing

February 17, 1984
Order Paper Questions
[ Translation]


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. 343, 367 and 485.


Mr. Orlikow: 1.	What is the composition of the Board of Directors of the Export Development Corporation and what is the address and occupation of each individual?


Hon. Gerald Regan (Minister for International Trade):: Export Development Corporation states that:
2.	EDC's Board of Directors is composed of 15 directors. There are presently two vacancies on the Board. The names, addresses and occupations are as follows:
Name	Address	OccupationMr. J. A. Armstrong	1235 Bay Street, Suite 601, Toronto, Ontario. M5R3K4	Retired Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Imperial Oil LimitedMr. P. Berthiaume	3 Place du Commerce, Suite 320, He des Soeurs, Verdun, Quebec. H3E 1H7	President, Le Groupe BST Inc. et la Societe d'Automation TECNEX (1983) LteeMr. G. K. Bouey	234 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario. K1A0G9	Governor, Bank of CanadaMr. J. L. Bragg	Main Street, (P.O. Box 220), Oxford, Nova Scotia. BOM 1P0	President, Oxford Frozen Foods Ltd.Mrs. M. Y. Catley-Carlson	Place du Centre, 12th Floor, 200, Promenade du Portage, Hull, Quebec. H1A0G4	President, Canadian International Development AgencyMr. S. Cloutier	110 O'Connor Street, Ottawa, Ontario. K1P5T9	President & Chairman of the Board, Export Development CorporationMr. M. A. Cohen	Place Bell Canada, 27th Floor, 160 Elgin Street, Ottawa, Ontario. K1P0G5	Deputy Minister of FinanceMr. V. E. Daughney	777 Hornby Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 1S4	President, First City TrustMr. P. Goyette	266 St-Jacques Street, Suite 101, Montreal, Quebec. H2Y INI	President & Chief of Operations, Savings Bank of the City of the District of MontrealMr. M. D. MacDonald	10405 Jasper Avenue, Suite 1800, Edmonton, Alberta. T5J 3N4	Parlee, Irving, Henning, Mustard & Rodney, Barristers & SolicitorsMrs. S. Ostry	Lester B. Pearson Building, Tower A, 8th Floor, 125 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario. K1A0G2	Deputy Minister, International Trade & Co-ordinator, International Economic Relations, Department of External Affairs
before the Refugee Status Advisory Committee. This will not only give more accurate opportunity for judgment by the Committee, but it will remove hardship from applicants and save a great deal of staff time. Generally everyone should benefit.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
Roy MacLaren: for leave to introduce Bill C-21, an Act to provide borrowing authority.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the first time and ordered to be printed.
February 17, 1984
[Stage Direction]
Mr. W. J. Riva	1176 West Georgia Street,
Suite 1900,
Vancouver, B.C.
[Stage Direction]
Mr. W. R. Teschke	235 Queen Street,
11th Floor East,
Ottawa, Ontario. K1A0H5
Mr. St. Germain: 1.	With respect to the disposal of two west coast weather monitoring ships, Coast Guard Vessels Quadra and Vancouver, in decommissioning the ships what was the total cost of (a) stripping them down (b) storage or moorage (c) other preparations for sale?
2.	Did the Government of the People's Republic of China express an interest in purchasing the Quadra and Vancouver and, if so, what was the amount of their bid or offer, and on what date was it made?
3.	Did the Expo '86 Corporation express an interest in retaining either the Quadra or Vancouver and, if so, on what date (a) was that interest First expressed (b) did the Corporation confirm that it was not interested in either of the vessels?
4.	Were the Quadra and Vancouver sold and, if so, in each case (a) on what date (b) to whom (c) for what amount?


Mr. Paul-Andre Masse (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Supply and Services):: I am informed by Crown Assets Disposal Corporation as follows:
1.	(a) $188,375.20, (b) $408,755.00, (c) Nil.
2.	No written offer was received from the Republic of China, however, in the spring of 1981 the Corporation was approached by several Hong Kong firms claiming to represent Mainland China. They withdrew when they became aware of the intention of selling the Vancouver to the Expo '86 Corporation.
3.	(a) In December, 1981, interest was expressed by the Expo '86 Corporation in retaining the CCGS Vancouver, (b) Expo '86 Corporation withdrew their interest by letter dated August 31, 1982.
4.	Yes. (a) November 4, 1982 (b) McIntosh Steamships Ltd., Cayman Islands, British West Indies.
(c) CCGS Quadra-$295,000; CCGS Vancouver-$350,000


Mr. Howie: Since April 1, 1983, did the Department of Consumer and Corporate Affairs allocate any amount exceeding $1 million to Canada Post Corporation and, if so, what (a) amount (b) was the purpose of such payment?
Hon. Judy Erola (Minister of Consumer and Corporate
Affairs): No. (a) Not applicable, (b) Not applicable.


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


Mr. Speaker:: The questions enumerated by the Parliamentary Secretary have been answered. Shall the remaining questions be allowed to stand?
Lands Settlement Act
Vice Chairman of the Westar Mining Board,
Westar Mining Ltd.
Deputy Minister,
Department of Regional Economic Expansion


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Romeo LeBlanc (for Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development) moved: that Bill C-18, an Act to provide for the settlement of claims by Indian bands in British Columbia relating to certain lands cut off from their reserves, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development.


Mr. Andre Maltais (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development):: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to address the House on second reading of Bill C-18, an Act to provide for the settlement of claims by Indian bands in British Columbia relating to certain lands cut off from their reserves.
Mr. Speaker, this Bill concerns the settlement of a particular kind of land claims made by Indian bands in British Columbia. They are referred to as the cut-off lands claims.
Members from British Columbia will recall that twenty-two Indian bands in that province have for a long time been seeking to obtain the right to compensation for lands cut off from their reserves, without their consent, in 1920.
The primary objective of this Bill is to give the Indian bands concerned the power to enter into agreements with the Government of Canada and the Government of British Columbia in order to settle these claims. Mr. Speaker, this legislation will confirm existing agreements and give them force of law. It will also authorize the Governor in Council to enter into future agreements.
Mr. Speaker, I feel this Bill deserves to be approved by all Members of this House, and I wish to give my reasons for asking the House to support this legislation.
First of all, there are pressing reasons for bringing this Bill to your attention at this time. In fact, when an agreement was

February 17, 1984
Lands Settlement Act
signed nearly two years ago by the federal Government, the Government of British Columbia and the Penticton Band, it was understood that the necessary federal legislation would have to be passed by March 6, 1984. If that condition is not met, the Government of British Columbia will no longer be bound to give the band its share of financial compensation and transfer of land to the band will be delayed. However, the Government of British Columbia, pending adoption of federal legislation, has agreed to give back to the band nearly 5,000 hectares of reserve land and to pay the band $1.2 million. Mr. Speaker, that is why this Bill is now a priority. The Bill should have been submitted earlier for second reading, but when the draft legislation was tabled in the House last June, a number of bands asked for changes. Since everyone agreed on the nature of the amendments, the Bill was redrafted. The cut-off lands episode explains why the Indians doubted the good faith of the two governments concerned and the rationale of their policies and methods. Before and after British Columbia entered Confederation in 1871, some Crown land had been set aside for the Indian bands. From the outset, the federal Government and the government of the new province had differences of opinion regarding the size of the reserves. The province maintained that federal plans for establishing large reserves would adversely affect the establishment of new settlers and their activities. According to the province, the area taken up by mountains and forests would greatly reduce the amount of land suitable for settlement. To resolve this question, in 1912 the federal Government appointed Mr. J. A. McKenna as Special Commissioner, who was to meet a number of times with Sir Richard McBride, the Premier of British Columbia, and the result of these meetings was what became known as the McKenna-McBride Agreement.
Mr. Speaker, this Agreement provided for the creation of a Royal Commission of Inquiry. The Commission consisted of five members, and its mandate was to settle the reserve question by means of significant changes:
1.	To cut off from the reserves any land that did not really meet a specific need, with the consent of the Indians;
2.	To add lands to reserves that were too small;
3.	To create new Indian reserves as appropriate.
According to the Agreement, Mr. Speaker, the cut-off lands would be sold and the proceeds shared equally between both governments. The federal Government's share was to be used for the benefit of the bands concerned. The Commission held hearings throughout British Columbia.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps I may be allowed to read part of a speech made in June 1913 by the Chairman of the Commission to Indians on the Capilano Reserve:
If a reserve includes a portion of land that is in excess of the actual needs of the Indians living on the reserve, the Commission will determine the portion of land to be cut off. However, said portion may be withdrawn only with the consent of the Indians concerned.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is clear there was an obligation to consult members of the bands concerned before cutting off a single portion of land from the reserves. Because of these guarantees, which were repeated and put in writing many times, the band chiefs were co-operative and well disposed in their discussions with the Commission.
At a meeting of the Metlakatla Band in 1915, the Chief stated as follows:
We want the Indian reserve of Metlakatla to enjoy a measure of security. We do not agree with the young people who want lands to be cut off from our reserve. However, we do not, for the time being, wish to speak out publicly against this plan. We leave it to you to decide what is best for us, and we want to protect our reserve.
Mr. Speaker, the McKenna-McBride Commission submitted its report three years later, in 1916. However, immediately after the report was published, the British Columbia Legislative Assembly adopted the Indian Affairs Settlement Act, and in 1920, the Parliament of Canada passed the British Columbia Indian Lands Settlement Act. This Act, however, eliminated the need to obtain the consent of the bands.
That is what has caused discontent among the Indians of British Columbia for over 60 years. Mr. Speaker, the twenty-two bands concerned consider this a violation of the McKenna-McBride Agreement, since the lands were, in fact, cut off without their consent.
Since that time, their chiefs have never ceased to urge both governments to settle their claims and give back the lands. Finally, in 1969, although technically not responsible, the federal Government agreed to negotiate a settlement. Federal and provincial authorities started discussions, and in 1977, the two governments started tripartite negotiations with a committee representing the twenty-two bands.
At the beginning of 1981, Mr. Speaker, the committee decided it was unable to pursue negotiations for the time being. At this point, the individual bands, on the basis of general principles previously agreed to, started to negotiate directly with both levels of government. Among other things, it was agreed that where feasible, the lands originally cut off would be returned to the bands. The land claims cover over
12,000	hectares, but about 10 per cent of the cut-off lands will not be given back to the Indians.
The federal Government will pay compensation for lands that are now the property of a third party. The Province is already offering compensation for cut-off lands it wishes to keep for public use, as well as compensation for damages caused over the years on cut-off lands that are to be returned to the Indians.
Mr. Speaker, Hon. Members will probably be interested to hear some details of the agreements concluded to date with six of the bands, to improve their understanding of this Bill.
February 17, 1984

First, more than 4,900 hectares of land will be returned to the Penticton Band, the first one to reach a settlement. The Band will also receive about $13 million from the Government of Canada and $1.2 million from British Columbia.
The Osoyoos Band will receive $634,000 from the Government of Canada and nearly $360,000 from the Government of British Columbia. In addition, about 70 hectares of land will be returned to the Clinton Band, which will also receive $10,000 from the Province of British Columbia and $140,000 from the Government of Canada.
The Westbank Band will recover 22 hectares of land plus $7 million paid by the Government of Canada and about $1 million from the Government of British Columbia.
The Squamish Band will receive over 45 hectares of land, almost $1 million from the Canadian Government and more than one-half million dollars from British Columbia.
Finally, the Okanagan Band will receive 27 hectares of land, plus $1.4 million from the Government of Canada and $32,000 from British Columbia. This settlement has yet to be ratified by the Band.
Mr. Speaker, behind these figures there is a depth of feeling that cannot be quantified. At a signing ceremony attended by the Band Chiefs of the Westbank, Okanagan and Squamish bands, and the Attorney General of British Columbia, this is what Chief Mathias of the Squamish Band said, and I quote:
Now our people can once more walk the 115 acres of the Capilano Squamish reserve and face the sun with pride. This is a historic event.
Chief Mathias went on:
The struggle is almost over, and it warms my heart to see the Attorney General of British Columbia and the Minister of Indian Affairs of Canada signing an agreement with us on the matter of the cut-off lands.
Mr. Speaker, at this point I would like to emphasize the important role played by British Columbia. Without the good will and co-operation of this Province, the problem would never have been resolved.
Mr. Speaker, the Province has provided millions of dollars, but also and more important, it has provided for the transfer of
12,000	hectares of land which can now be returned to the descendants of the original population, once this legislation is passed. Agreements signed up to now have shown once again that the Government of British Columbia and the Government of Canada can work together to serve the native peoples of this Province. The work done by British Columbia is invaluable, and there will be further meetings with the Attorney General of the Province to sign other land claims settlements.
Among all the parties concerned, the band chiefs have had the most important role to play. Through patience, perseverance and determination, they have now been able to recover their lands.
Lands Settlement Act
I would like to say a few words about the urgent aspect of this Bill and the negotiations that followed the tabling of the draft legislation last June. In the course of negotiations between Canada, British Columbia and the Penticton Band, we all agreed to include a provision stipulating that special federal and provincial legislation would become effective within two years after the agreement was approved by the Band by means of a referendum. Mr. Speaker, the Penticton Band approved the agreement by referendum on March 6, 1982, and the Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia passed a Bill in July of that year concerning the cut-off Indian lands. The agreement concluded with the Penticton Band, and with many others, contains a provision that funds payable to the Band by the Province are to be held in trust for two years.
Mr. Speaker, I must point out that if the federal legislation is not enacted between now and March 6, 1984-within 15 days-the $1 million held in trust for the Penticton Band and the $200,000 in interests on that money will go to the province. As you recall, Mr. Speaker, I said earlier that more than
12,000	hectares of land will be returned to the 22 bands. Those lands cannot be returned to the province before this Bill is passed, which goes to show how urgent the adoption of this measure has become, Mr. Speaker.
Proposed legislation dealing with those agreements was tabled in the House on June 14, 1983. That decision was taken because a number of bands had made it clear that they would not sign any agreement nor even continue the negotiations before seeing a copy of the draft legislation. When the proposed legislation was tabled, some bands began to wonder whether the Bill might not have something to do with all sorts of claims. Such was not the purpose of the Bill which had been drafted so as to allow only for the settlement of claims concerning cut-off lands. We negotiated with the band spokesmen to allay their fears. The bands were particularly worried about an expression contained in the proposed legislation. It had to do with the status of reserve lands between 1871 and 1938 and read as follows:
-that the Province of British Columbia had designated for the use and benefit of Indians-
After lengthy consultations, Mr. Speaker, the expression was changed and now reads as follows:
-set aside for the use and benefit of Indians-
But the Indians had other worries, Mr. Speaker. Among others, one of their concerns was that the law might be interpreted to apply to lands other than cut-off lands. To meet that objection, we added a seventh clause, as follows:
Nothing in this Act affects any claims asserted by a band or the council of the band other than claims in respect of cut-off lands.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to tell the Hon. Member that, following these amendments, we received last December a letter from the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs informing us that all the bands but one had withdrawn their objections to this draft. We are now negotiating with the band

February 17, 1984
Lands Settlement Act
still objecting to the draft and we hope to reach an agreement in the near future.
Mr. Speaker, I believe that we now have a better proposal which has been accepted by all the parties involved, namely the Province of British Columbia, the Government of Canada, and more importantly, the bands and native associations.
Mr. Speaker, this legislation must be passed without delay because, as I have already mentioned, these agreements include a provision for prescription after two years. In the case of the Penticton Band, this two-year period will end this coming March 6. If the legislation is not passed at that time, the band will loose $1 million plus $200,000 in interests and will not recover its lands. The same applies to the other agreements which have been signed. We are getting close to the end of the prescription period, Mr. Speaker, and these bands are running the risk of losing similar amounts.
Their impatience is therefore quite understandable and legitimate.
As I was saying, a few days ago, we received a letter from the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs urging us to pass the legislation before the second anniversary of the Penticton agreement. The Chiefs believe that if this legislation is not passed, it will cause prejudice to the bands and the spirit of the negotiations will not be respected. I must add that this Bill, which allows us to make good some of the inequities which still affect 10,000 registered Indians who are also our fellow-citizens, deserves to be supported by everyone. In this way, those who live on these lands will be able to continue to work on building a better future.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to close by quoting comments made recently by Chief Murray Alexis at a signing ceremony. He said the following:
What I can already foresee is that relations will improve between our communities. Whatever our racial origins, whether we are of the first founding nations or of the newcomers, we may be able today to begin everything afresh and build this country together.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, for the welfare of the Indians of British Columbia, I ask that Bill C-18 be passed quickly so that finally justice may come to the native peoples of British Columbia.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, this is the first opportunity I have had as official spokesman for-


Some Hon. Members:: Questions.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order. According to the Standing Orders there is no question period after the first three speakers on second reading. The first three speakers are allowed 40 minutes and the Parliamentary Secretary has not
used all his time, but that does not mean there can be questions. There will be questions after the first three speakers.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I will try to start again. This is the first opportunity I have had to address the House as official spokesman for Her Majesty's loyal opposition on matters concerning the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. It is a pleasure for me to take part in the debate on Bill C-18, an Act to provide for the settlement of claims by Indian bands in British Columbia relating to certain lands cut off from their reserves.
Our Party supports this Bill, Mr. Speaker. We understand the urgency and we will not delay it unduly. As a matter of fact, our Party will assure that it receives all three readings and passage some time today. However, I am extremely disappointed that the Bill has been brought in so late and that the Parliamentary Secretary made it sound as though the Opposition was holding up the Bill. Nothing is further from the truth. The Government controls the timetable of the House. This Bill was just recently introduced to the House, and it is somewhat typical of the actions of this Government to bring Bills in at the last moment thus causing great unsettlement among the Indian bands who are going to derive some monetary benefits from these settlements. It could have been introduced and passed much earlier.
I might add that the Minister sees fit not to be here today, Mr. Speaker. He wrote me a letter explaining that he had other commitments. My concern is that the commitment is to the Liberal Party of the Northwest Territories, not to the 22 Indian bands of British Columbia affected by this very important legislation. I am very disappointed that he is fulfilling a political commitment to the Liberal Association of the Northwest Territories rather than fulfilling his parliamentary responsibility to be here to discuss this very important Bill.
I might say also that the briefing notes I received from the Department were all in Imperial measure, describing the lands as acreage. I noticed the Parliamentary Secretary went to metric. It will be very interesting to find out what standard they are using over there in the Ministry. This Government is so hep on the metric system, and the Parliamentary Secretary used it today, yet all the briefing notes refer to acreage. Therefore the House will pardon me if I discuss acreage today.
I think most of us understand that a little better in any event.
We are talking today about cut-off lands. We are not talking about original land claims, the comprehensive or specific claims presently being discussed throughout the country. We are talking about lands taken either by government survey, federal Orders in Council or just encroachment on Indian reserve lands which have been set up since around the 1860s. These lands were taken without consultation and without the permission of the Indian bands affected. There are 22 bands involved and, as the Parliamentary Secretary explained, 16 are being negotiated at the present time, five have been settled and one is under review. Although I should not speak for my friends to the left, both geographically and philosophically, I think it is fair to say that all three Parties want to correct the injustice committed here and restore to the native people in
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British Columbia that which is rightfully theirs. There is no question that the land belongs to the bands and that compensation must be made.
On January 29, Mr. Speaker, I had a very enjoyable visit to the Penticton band reserve. I had the pleasure of accompanying the Member of Parliament for that area, the Hon. Member for Okanagan-Similkameen (Mr. King), to Penticton.
I met with Chief Steward Phillip, Louise Eneas and Emory Gabriel. Because of my specific involvement with that particular band and the importance of this Bill to them, I would just like to relate my experience there in late January. They have coming to them from the British Columbia Government some $1 million, together with some $200,000 in interest which has built up over the past two years while the money was held in trust. They have also received in federal compensation some $13 million. They will realize a little over $14.6 million in compensation, together with 12,211 acres. Part of the 14,207 acres cut off is now the Penticton airport as well as a housing development.
This band, Mr. Speaker, has a beautiful reserve high in the hills overlooking Penticton in the Okanagan Valley. Under the leadership of Chief Stewart Phillip, they have wisely invested the moneys received to date. They just erected on their reserve 40 brand-new homes which members of the band will be paying for but which, of course, will be built with the help of the interest from the invested moneys. These homes are magnificent, some 1,000 or 1,100 square feet in area. The band is investing and spending the money in a responsible way and I gather they are very pleased with what has transpired. They were, naturally, very concerned that this Bill would not get through the House in time for them to receive the money the British Columbia Government holds for them. Of course, as 1 stated earlier today, we will allay those fears as we pass this legislation through the House in all three stages.
There are a number of matters which have not been solved as yet and negotiations are ongoing. I urge the federal Government to accelerate the tripartite negotiations which are going on. I realize that the British Columbia Government is involved as well. I have taken the liberty of speaking to the attorney general from British Columbia on this subject. He is anxious to carry out the negotiations, to ensure that this Bill is passed and the lands and moneys come to the Indians.
I would like to discuss the importance of Indian relations today in Canada. We are at a crossroads. I would be very concerned if the Government persisted in bringing in legislation, whether pertaining to self-government, compensation for comprehensive claims or whatever, and came running into the House with a sense of urgency with every Bill it might bring foward having to do with Indian affairs. The constitutional talks are going on right now. The Government has been using a ploy which I think is very unfair and which I would like to deny at this time. The Government is warning the aboriginal people of the country that if the Progressive Conservative Party gets elected as the Government of Canada the Indians
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will be in far worse shape than they are now because we will ignore their affairs. Nothing is further from the truth. I categorically deny that today. My colleagues and my Leader categorically deny that. Our interest is in our aboriginal people, as I hope everybody in the House is interested in our aboriginal people. Our interest is to do what is absolutely the best for them and, in consultation with them, arrive at solutions that make good sense and are in favour of the aboriginal people of this country.
I would urge Members from the Government side of the House not to spread these fears throughout the aboriginal community because that is very unfair. The aboriginal people will become pawns in a political game which is completely uncalled for. The non-partisanship should be very strong when dealing with our aboriginal people. I caution the Government against taking a tactic like that, which they have been doing and which I have had drawn to my attention from many quarters, including The Fifth Estate. I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to take the message to the Government that this Party supports aboriginal rights and the aboriginal people and will continue the process of carrying out what is best for them.
The constitutional talks which are going on right now are dragging a little bit. I attended all of them and found them interesting but rather frustrating. The federal Government is not in fact expressing a position but sitting back and listening to everyone else. This is a bit of a disappointment. I am hopeful that within the next couple of weeks at the First Ministers' conference regarding aboriginal rights on March 8 and 9 there will be something forthcoming that all the parties involved in the debate can sink their teeth into to begin a meaningful dialogue. I underline the word meaningful. This will be to the betterment of the aboriginal people.
I say to the Parliamentary Secretary, through you, Mr. Speaker, that her Marjesty's Loyal Opposition supports this Bill. We will assure that it gets through the three readings today. I was somewhat surprised that the Parliamentary Secretary did not take the opportunity to refer the Bill to the Committee of the Whole today as opposed to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development. However, I may have missed it and we may come across that a little later on in debate.
Many Members of Her Majesty's Official Opposition will be speaking on this Bill today because it concerns them and they do have interest in it. In no way, shape or form is that to be interpreted as holding this Bill up because we will proceed with it today.


Mr. Jim Manly (Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands):: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak on this very important Bill. It is an important Bill for the Indian people of British Columbia and for all British Columbians. I would first like to extend my congratulations to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) for the Bill and for the progress it symbolizes in correcting some longstanding injustice. It is not often I have an opportunity to

February 17, 1984
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congratulate the Minister and I am very glad to be able to give credit where credit is due.
Progress in land claim settlements across Canada has been painfully slow. This is especially true in British Columbia. It is much slower than I want to see. Presumably it is slower than what the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development would like to see, and certainly it is much slower than the Indian people would like to see. This Bill and the agreements which have led to it indicate some progress. I believe that the Minister deserves some credit for this. I believe that credit should also be given to the Government of British Columbia for finally making some progress on this one aspect of specific land claims.
Bill C-18 approves agreements involving the federal Government, the provincial Government of British Columbia and certain Indian bands in British Columbia which have had reserve lands taken from them as a result of the McKenna-McBride Commission, which held hearings between 1913 and 1916. Where agreements with the bands for compensation or return of lands have not yet been reached, the Bill provides for approval by the Governor in Council. Basically, Mr. Speaker, this Bill allows the federal Government to pay funds which have been negotiated with the Indian bands as part of the federal share of compensation.
It is important to note that the cut-off lands issue is separate from the related but larger issue of aboriginal land claims in British Columbia. It is time the Government of British Columbia recognized the validity of these claims and entered into serious negotiations. In this connection I would like to emphasize the importance of Clause 7 which was an important addition to the draft legislation tabled last June. Clause 7 provides:
Nothing in this Act affects any claims asserted by a band or the council of the band other than claims in respect of cut-off lands.
There were many Indian bands which were rather fearful of the agreements and earlier legislation which did not have this kind of clause. They were afraid that entering into an agreement of the cut-off lands would prejudice their case as far as the larger aboriginal claims which most of the Indian bands in British Columbia are asserting at the present time. Cut-off lands refer to those lands which had once been reserves and were cut off by various government actions. It is important to note that the McKenna-McBride Commission cut-offs were not the first and not the last of such cut-offs. They were the most blatant sign of high-handed government action that ignored the basic rights and wishes of the Indian people. It was also a very blatant indication of collusion between the provincial government and the federal Government at that time.
The history of Indian reserves in British Columbia has not been a happy one. At the beginning, the Indian people had all of the land. Aboriginal title in British Columbia is still something that they assert to the total area. They had well defined territories and there were clear divisions among the different Indian nations of British Columbia.
Settlement began on Vancouver Island under the auspices of the Hudson's Bay Company and the chief factor, Sir James Douglas. He later became Governor of the Crown colony of Vancouver Island, the sister colony of British Columbia, and finally the united colony of British Columbia. He negotiated some treaties with some of the Indian peoples around Victoria and Nanaimo. These treaties implicitly recognized the rights of Indian people to their land and they were, in a sense, negotiations for the use of resources to which the Indian people had valid claim.
Later, as governor of both Vancouver Island and British Columbia and then of the united colony, Governor Douglas ordered that reserves be set aside in accordance with the wishes of the Indian people themselves. That is, that the size of these reserves was not to be dictated by government but rather that the needs of the Indian people were to be met. These reserves were not to be reduced either by encroachment of settlers or by legislative action. In retrospect, Governor Douglas had a fairly generous policy.
However, in 1865, after the era of Governor Douglas had ended, Joseph Trutch became the new commissioner of lands and later became lieutenant-governor. Under his leadership a much different policy was adopted. The British Columbia Government refused to recognize aboriginal title and it reduced the size of the reserves that had been set up by Governor Douglas and which he said should not be encroached upon. It prohibited Indian people from buying land outside the reserve and discriminated against Indian people in the development or use of Crown land.
All of this was in spite of vigorous protests on the part of Indian people. Indian people in British Columbia have fought vigorously against government and non-governmental attempts to take away their rights. This is true of Indian people right across Canada. While the Indian movement is not simply something that has grown up in the last 10 or 15 years, the significance of the last few years has been the new sense of unity that is growing. It is still a fragile unity but Indian people have always tried to assert their rights.
Between 1876 and 1910 there was a federal-provincial Indian reserve commission. The job of that commission was to review the size of the reserves, some of which had been cut back by Mr. Trutch, and to establish new reserves in areas where they had not been set up. Sometimes reserves were enlarged and sometimes they were diminished.
The consultation that was supposed to take place with Indian bands was often very haphazard. After the commission had established new reserves, the very reactionary governments that existed in British Columbia at that time did not always recognize or approve these new reserves. This meant that the Indian people, even after they had a commission that recommended an enlarged reserve, could not always get the concurrence of the provincial government. There were continual hassles between the federal and provincial governments about the size of the reserve and the generosity of reserves.
February 17, 1984

Generally speaking, the reserves in British Columbia are only a fraction of the size of reserves in other parts of Canada.
Finally, an agreement was reached between the federal representative, Mr. McKenna, and the provincial premier, Sir Richard McBride, on September 24, 1912. They established a commission which was to tour throughout British Columbia and meet with Indian bands. According to Section 2 of the agreement that was reached on September 24, 1912, the commission had power to adjust the acreage of Indian reserves in British Columbia in the following manner:
(a)	At such places as the Commissioners are satisfied that more land is included in any particular Reserve as now defined than is reasonably required for the use of the Indians of that tribe or locality, the Reserve shall, with the consent of the Indians, as required by the Indian Act, be reduced to such acreage as the Commissioners think reasonably sufficient for the purposes of such Indians.
(b)	At any place at which the Commissioners shall determine that an insufficient quantity of land has been set aside for the use of Indians of that locality, the Commissioners shall fix the quantity that ought to be added for the use of such Indians. And they may set aside land for any Band of Indians for whom land has not already been reserved.
It is important to note in those terms of reference that any land that was to be reduced had to have the consent of the Indian people and that this was in accordance with the Indian Act itself.
As the commission travelled throughout British Columbia, the Indian people were assured that no action would be taken without their consent. But this assurance meant absolutely nothing. Some 36,000 acres were taken from 22 Bands absolutely without their consent and indeed over their strong and vigorous protests.
In 1920 the federal Government ratified this action by passing The British Columbia Indian Lands Settlement Act. Since Section 3 of that Act is instructive for our purposes this afternoon, I would like to read it:
For the purpose of adjusting, readjusting or confirming the reductions or cutoffs from reserves in accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission, the Governor in Council may order such reductions or cutoffs to be effected without surrenders of the same by the Indians, notwithstanding any provisions of the Indian Act to the contrary-
This is important when we get to Clause 4 of Bill C-18. Clause 4 reads:
4. Negotiations toward an agreement described in subsection 3(1), whether or not those negotiations result in such an agreement, do not constitute an admission by Her Majesty in right of Canada of the existence of any legal obligation of Her Majesty in right of Canada toward the band in question.
In other words, it was all done very legally. The Indian people were robbed of their lands by an Act that was passed by Parliament. That is legal as far as Bill C-18 is concerned and I suppose as far as the law of Canada is concerned, but it is not moral or just. Indian people have never accepted it. It has left a legacy of distrust so that when any of us, whether on the Liberal side or the Opposition side, speak to Indian people about legislation that might protect their rights, they are very rightly skeptical. The Indian Act contains many restrictions that have hampered their development over the years but also has built-in protection so that their lands could not be surrendered without their consent. The Indian people have seen how much that protection has meant once Parliament decided to
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take away that right. The 1920 Act simply removed their right to vote on a surrender of lands and took it from them.
In addition to the official cut-offs following the McKenna-McBride Commission, the Ditchburn-Clark Commission was to review the recommendations of McKenna-McBride. Again, the Indian people were robbed of additional lands and resources.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order. I regret to interrupt the Flon. Member but we have reached one o'clock. 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.
John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Might we seek the unanimous consent of the House to refer the Bill, when second reading is concluded, to the Committee of the Whole instead of to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development?


Mr. Collenette:: Mr. Speaker, this is the first chance I have had to congratulate you on your appointment as Acting Speaker. There have been consultations between the various Parties. I welcome the co-operation of the Hon. Member for Bramp-ton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid). It would be our disposition to have this Bill go to Committee of the Whole House and then be read a third time later this day.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Is there unanimous consent to proceed directly to a Committee of the Whole?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Perhaps the Chair could have something in writing as to exactly what the House wants to do. I can then give the Hon. Member the floor once again.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, I was seeking the unanimous consent of the House once second reading is over-there are still some speakers-for the Bill to go to a Committee of the Whole today and then have third reading, as opposed to what was stated initially this morning, namely, that the Bill go to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development. I am seeking unanimous consent, which the Minister has given and I believe my colleague from the New Democratic Party will give it as well.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Is there unanimous consent for the proposal made by the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid)?

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Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, at one o'clock I was referring to the McKenna-McBride Commission which had the job of reviewing the findings of the Ditchburn-Clark Commission. I pointed out that in additional cases Indian people had land taken away from them. In addition to St. Mary's No. 1, the McKenna-McBride Commission allotted 1,280 acres to be designated as Indian Reverve No. 1A. Ditchburn-Clark nullified this and the reserve was never confirmed.
With regard to the Kitimat Indian Band, the McBride Commission ordered a ten-acre reserve cut-off. Ditchburn-Clark amended this by recommending that it be considered a "disallowed application", not a cut-off. That means that the Kitimat people are not eligible under the terms of this Bill or the federal-provincial agreement to have a claim for the cut-offs. In addition, we have the situation of the Lower Kootenay Band. It had a temporary reserve granted, which was kind of a funny status, before the McKenna-McBride Commission appeared.
I referred earlier to Section 2(b) of the terms of reference of the McKenna-McBride Commission which had the power to recommend enlargement of reserves. They did this. They issued an interim report No. 80 recommending additional lands. The final report of the McKenna-McBride Commission completely ignored this and in fact cut off 2,370 acres from the Lower Kootenay Band, leaving it with only 365 acres.
The Lower Kootenay Band at present is accusing the McKenna-McBride Commission of a form of fraud. They have submitted a specific claim which does not come under the terms of the cut-off lands legislation. Nevertheless, we can get some idea of the way in which some of the commissioners operated not in the interest of the Indian people. I quote from page 28 of the Lower Columbia submission:
On May 13, 1915 Royal Commissioner D. M. MacDowell wrote to Guy Lowenberg in Creston "P.S. Confidentially I can tell you that in dealing with the Creston Reserves we have not neglected your reclamation interests, and no doubt when you are ready to begin work you will be able to ascertain this through the Prov. Govt."
The Ditchburn-Clark Commission continued the process of whittling away at Indian reserves. The final transfer of Indian reserves to the federal Government in trust was not completed until 1938 when Order in Council 1036 was passed. Even that Order in Council reserved to the provincial government the power to expropriate up to one-twentieth of the land of any Indian reserves for highways, pipelines, utility lines, railroads or what have you, without compensation. The McKenna-McBride cut-offs have to be seen in the context of a long history of stealing Indian land by the Governments of Canada and British Columbia.
The movement toward the settlement of the McKenna-McBride cut-offs began in 1969 when the federal Government agreed to negotiate. In 1975 the British Columbia Government under Premier Dave Barrett agreed to negotiate. I am pleased that it was an NDP Government in Canada that Finally began
the process, but it has to be acknowledged that even that government did not come easily to this position.
I remember a large demonstration in the early summer of 1975 where Indian people were presenting their case to the NDP Government. I remember people going to the NDP convention that year and making a very strong case. They made the case to the rank and file membership of the New Democratic Party and they adopted convention policy that eventually led to the Government's change of policy. That is a heartening example of democracy at work. The Indian people recognize that there is a great deal of goodwill out there if they can only be heard and have their case made.
I want to make a few remarks about the principles of settlement. The money for this settlement comes out of the public purse. There are situations where land was taken from Indian bands and sold to private interests, yet the money for the settlement comes from the public purse. There is no displacement of individual residents. This is important. It indicates that the Government has acted in their interests as well as in the interests of the Indian people in this settlement. It is an important principle to remember when we consider other settlements, especially those relating to offshore rights of fisheries that are involved in some of the aboriginal claims presently accepted for negotiation in British Columbia.
We want to see full justice for the Indian people. It has to be paid for by all the people of Canada rather than just narrow segments. That refers specifically to the fact that an increased Indian participation in the fishery should not be solely at the expense of other British Columbia fishermen. The money involved in this settlement is not an overgenerous sum when you consider the loss of land involved.
I want to emphasize that this money has to be in addition to other moneys that would normally go to Indian bands in British Columbia. There are very disturbing indications that as the Government moves toward what it calls Indian self-government and gives Indian bands greater control, it is cutting off some other very important services. For example, the Urban Native Society of Vancouver has been involved in training urban Indian people in Vancouver over the last 20 years. The funding it received from the federal Government is being cut off.
This shucking off of responsibility and claiming that the bands have the authority to act is not good enough. Conditions have to be improved on the reserves so that people are not squeezed out of them and into the crowded downtown cores of our cities. In the meantime, we have to continue providing some help for those who do go to our cities. Consider a report by the Vancouver Native Peace Liaison Committee which estimates there are some 6,000 native Indian people in Vancouver. The federal Government is doing nothing to help them.
The agreements which have been reached with Indian bands are not perfect. There are assertions in the agreements of provincial title without a recognition of aboriginal title. This is offensive to the Indian people. The present provincial government is playing a very negative role in reaching settlements in the larger aboriginal claims.
February 17, 1984

Before we get too self-congratulatory on what we have been able to achieve in the cut-off claims, perhaps we should place this once again in the larger context of aboriginal claims. I will conclude by quoting a statement by Mr. Charles Wesley, a band spokesman for the Kispaiox people, when he appeared before the McKenna-McBride Commission in April, 1915. He said, and I quote:
I wish to tell you that this reserve that you have just spoken about is something that we don't wish for, for this reason; We don't want a reserve. This country originally belonged to our ancestors ... and it is only quite recently that the Government sent men out here to measure this land immediately around us, and we were not notified of it when they did it; then the Provincial Government came in and sold the remaining land immediately around us. All the old camps up the Kispaiox river, where we used to gather our salmon, and our hunting camps, and where we used to pick berries, and what we most strenuously object to is that you insist upon us having this reserve. You have measured all these reserves and you say that that is yours-
We asked that the land which the Provincial Government had sold be returned or given back to us. The Bible is placed between us that we all act true-you gentlemen to speak the truth, the Interpreter to speak the truth, and I will speak the truth. We see it written . .. that the word of God is that a man is not to move another man's landmark. The land marked off for our ancestors was from mountain to mountain, and this is what the Government has picked up into small pieces. This is where our inheritances came from and where they were handed down from generation to generation, but now these have all been sold; therefore we ask that these be returned.
I am glad the Government has been able to negotiate with some of the bands for cut-off lands settlements and that the Government of British Columbia has participated in it. I welcome this Bill. I hope similar satisfactory agreements will be reached with other bands. I also urge upon the federal Government, and especially upon the provincial government, to get on with the act of negotiating and settling the larger and more basic aboriginal claims which Indian people have submitted and which, in the opinion of our Party, are very just.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!


Frank Oberle: Mr. Speaker, I want to take a few brief moments to add some comments to this debate. We on this side of the House have been very instrumental and active in helping to facilitate the discussions which are culminating here today, namely, the ratification by Parliament of the understanding reached among the Province of British Columbia, the Government of Canada and the Indian people affected by the B.C. cut-off lands question.
Some of my colleagues have already participated in this matter. Those who follow will talk about the history of this long outstanding question. The Province of British Columbia was never very satisfied with the conditions attached to the agreement to join Confederation, particularly with regard to Indian lands. If one researches the debates and the discussions in British Columbia from the time B.C. joined Confederation until the McKenna-McBride Commission was appointed, one will find that the debates with regard to this question were always acrimonious and bitter. Many people felt that the Indians were treated too generously and that the reserves, the land set aside for them, were in the way of development in the B.C. region. Of course, today all of us have a much more
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enlightened view about that, and it is today that we are attempting to redress some of the injustices of the past-the deliberate deceptions which we have perpetrated upon our Indian brothers and sisters, the injury of contracts into which we have entered with them, and the treaties and conventions which exist between us.
Basically the settlement is designed either to restore land affected by the cut-off provisions or, in cases where land has been alienated to the point where it can no longer be returned to Indian people, to have the two senior governments enter into an agreement and arrive at a formula whereby they would be compensated for that land either by an exchange or cash payments.
I would like to refer to one example of a particular cut-off question. It concerns the Penticton Band and an agreement which is one of the three or four that are fully negotiated. The reserve area involved was about 14,000 acres. The area alienated was 12,000 acres. There is a federal contribution of $13,217,000 and a provincial contribution of $1 million to this particular band. It is one of the larger ones, if not the largest. Not all of them are that significant, but this example gives an idea of how significant and serious the injustices have been which we have perpetrated upon the Indians of British Columbia in the past.
Of course, one has to understand that the situation in British Columbia is a unique one. There are treaties in B.C. Treaty No. 8 comes in from the east and takes in most, if not all, of the area east of the Rocky Mountains. The rest of the province is not covered by treaties, except for smaller ones in the lower mainland area. The remainder of the province has not been settled and treaties have not been negotiated. Some Indian people in the province claim that no settlements have ever been made, that no arrangements have ever been made, that indeed they have never selected any land and that all the land is up for negotiation.
Therefore we are pleased that it was possible to bring the three actors in this drama together and to arrive at an agreement, inadequate as it will obviously be, which will certainly put that question behind us. I am particularly pleased. I join with the Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly) in the assertion that, while this will put the cut-off land question behind us, it is certainly not to be seen as a solution to the larger, outstanding question of comprehensive claims and some specific claims which have yet to be settled in the province. I would prefer, as I always have, to have this long outstanding question dealt with in a very expeditious manner and as much as possible with the legitimate concerns, rights and aspirations of the Indian people in mind.
We are at a very critical time in our history as far as Indian people are concerned. We are at a crossroads. Much has happened over the last three or four years particularly, some of it brought on by the decision that we should have an entrenched Constitution and that we should patriate it. Of course, the question as to how our Indian people would be respected and recognized in the constitution had to be decided.

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The decision could not be made before the actual patriation and entrenchment took place.
Therefore, the partners in the scheme, the provincial and federal governments, decided that a series of constitutional conferences should be held designed to resolve this particular problem. One such conference will be held next month. It will be the second in a series of these conferences. Indian people are very much engaged in the process of deciding themselves just what kind of role they should be playing in the future of our Confederation.
If one studies history and the proclamations, treaties, contracts and conventions that have existed since 1763 when the first one was signed, one cannot help but be sympathetic to the view of some Indians and their leaders in the country. They still hold that, considering the past, an effective way will never be found to permit them to join society in a participatory way that would help them regain their self-respect and allow them to pursue their legitimate aspirations for themselves and future generations. Those Indian leaders say to their brothers and sisters that the answer to their problem would be self-government outside the framework of confederation and the existing institutions in the country.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, with seven colleagues I participated in a two-year study of Indian self-government. We came to the conclusion, which I should like to think is supported by the majority of Indian people in the country, that a partial answer to redressing some of the past injustices would be to encourage them to join Canada as full citizens and in a way that would permit them to establish a distinct form of self-government which could be brought into the framework of Confederation. I will spend whatever time I have to work on this objective.
The committee of which I was a member and the report of which I was co-author suggest a way to bring about a kind of self-government structure which could function within the framework of Confederation. It would permit Indian people to begin the long, tedious process of recapturing their past, recovering their self-respect, rebuilding their economy and recapturing the soul they lost when the land was taken from them, and to build their culture. It can easily be seen that this would require a form of self-government that would exceed the powers of municipal governments and in some cases even the powers of provincial governments. It would mean that the Indian people would take charge and accept the responsibility that goes along with managing one's own affairs, planning the future of one's children and assuming control of one's life. The rest of us would have to make the necessary accommodations to make that possible.
The Bill is a small step in the long, tedious process in this long journey which we must all take together to remove the incredible shame that hangs over all Canadian society for the treatment of our Indian people over the last 300 years. This is not a perfect solution, but for those that are affected by the cut-off land question it would redress the injustice that was
particularly associated with the work of the McKenna-McBride Commission and the collusion of the provincial and federal governments at that time.
I am proud to be associated with passage of the Bill and since we want it to pass all stages today I will end my remarks at this point.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Questions or comments? Debate.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have a few moments to put on record some of the problems that passage of Bill C-18 will leave with a good portion of my constituency. Let me preface my remarks by saying that I realize how long and hard these negotiations have been and what an hour this is for an injustice perpetrated in our history to be corrected.
In the riding of Capilano we have a very wealthy, very powerful, very skilled Indian band. Its leaders are as skilled in the art of politics as any group of people in the country. They are a source of pride to those of us who live around the Squamish Band reserve. They own properties through First Narrows on the north of Burrard Inlet all the way through to Lonsdale. They own very valuable real estate and are an extremely wealthy band, not only at present but potentially in the future.
The City of North Vancouver has no problem with the return of the cut-off land. I have spoken to the mayor and the council of the City of North Vancouver and they are happy that this is proceeding. The Corporation of the District of North Vancouver really has no problem other than the fact that we built our sewage plant on Indian cut-off lands and the District of North Vancouver, the Municipality of West Vancouver and the City of North Vancouver are subject to a whole new cost and arrangement for sewage flow. From correspondence I have had with the Corporation of the District of North Vancouver, I believe that the Greater Vancouver regional district and these municipalities have arranged something in the order of $70,000 initial lease rental on that plant. The surrounding municipalities and the Indian band and properties are very closely integrated in terms of service, bus, water, electricity, road access, building permits and all by-laws. There is now an interface that could cause some concern and anxiety to the municipalities.
The municipality in the riding of Capilano that has cause for anxiety as a result of the cut-off land settlement is the Municipality of West Vancouver. In that municipality 25.9 acres, that is the parcel titled Lot 5521, make up soccer fields, a pitch and putt golf course, the beach, the playground-it really makes up a regional park that serves the Greater Vancouver district. The Municipality of West Vancouver has spent much money and talent over the years in developing this park. In addition, there is a wildlife refuge and some very attractive ponds.
This complete recreation area, this open expanse, when classified or appraised and assessed as park land, comes out at a value of $3 million and, when classified and assessed for
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highest and best use in terms of high-rise development, comes out with a value of forty-odd million dollars. That kind of price differential has caused an element of friction between the Municipality of West Vancouver and the Indian band.
I can agree with the chiefs of the Indian bands-and I compliment them on their skills-when they say that they want the land returned, that they need to have it in their hands because it was taken from them by fraud. They want it in order to have the leverage to deal properly and more favourably with the Municipality of West Vancouver. Bill C-18 leaves a good part of the riding of Capilano with the prospect of a major set of negotiations in the future.
I want to see if, in my duties as a Member of Parliament, I can reduce the tensions of that interface as we come into the next few years. For instance, the municipality has a no sign bylaw. On the Indian lands, which surround the entrance to the Lions Gate bridge, one can imagine the value of neon signs, billboards and so on. So this kind of interface with the municipalities is a potential source of trouble. As well the municipalities provide the access, the services, much of the water and everything else for the Indian band, and it is because of this leverage, this teeter-totter of new bargaining position which the Squamish Indian Band has picked up, that we are going to have a most interesting period, particularly for those politicians who serve the Municipality of West Vancouver.
I will not relate the history, nor the justice which is being done in the passage of Bill C-18, Mr. Speaker. I believe the speakers on behalf of the Government and the critics from the Progressive Conservative Party and New Democratic Party have covered that aspect of the Bill. I am going to hold my few remarks to some of the problems and make a plea to both the Indian band in Capilano and the Municipality of West Vancouver to enter into high-level negotiations with the spirit of co-operation, rather than have a long, lengthy period of confrontation which will create tensions and unnecessary anxieties in the future.
Something else which complicates that situation in Capilano, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that back in 1972 an upstart candidate came along and decided to run against the Fisheries Minister of the Liberal Government. That Fisheries Minister had something like a majority of 28,800. Anyone who would consider running against that very talented, very well educated Rhodes scholar who served the Liberal Party, had to be nuts and had to be defeated. I did a pretty good job of cutting his majority down. My goodness, Mr. Speaker, what a cost the people of Canada have paid ever since.
During the 1972 election the Government was throwing money around as only Liberals can.


An Hon. Member:: As they do now.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: The year 1972 was the shade of things to come because this Minister of Fisheries decided that he would move all the West Coast environmental and fisheries offices
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into a location on the waterfront in First Narrows on the Indian reserve. And we have been paying an annual adjusted cost rental on that vacant property-which still has the same bullrushes and swamp grass it had in 1972-of $6.7 million to the Indian band for that political promise of the then Minister of Fisheries. We have been living with this for a long time, Mr. Speaker. About two or three years ago, the solicitor for the Indian band approached its Member of Parliament and asked if he would assist in having the federal Government co-ordinate all the potential public works projects for final development on that land which we have been paying so dearly for. We started into very quiet negotiations. I agreed automatically to keep it out of the political realm and see what would come to pass. Well, some three years have passed. A couple of Senators took the project over, I was no longer consulted and so nothing has happened. We do hear rumours that the fisheries station at Caulfield, which is also in my riding, is about to receive a magnificent permanent dwelling. The Department of Fisheries out there has a bricks and mortar complex, you must remember, Mr. Speaker, not protection of the species or the environment.
I suggest that instead of building that plant at Caulfield, it should be built on the very expensive land we have leased for the next 60 or 70 years. That is what the original agreement stated and the Indians are not going to accept anything less unless there are some major tradeoffs which would give them great advantage. Those Indians signed a lease with the federal Government which said that the Department of Fisheries and the Department of the Environment will locate structures on that land. The Indians agreed to this lease not just for the money, but because they saw it as an opportunity to attract other activities of a high standard and order to that centre so that the whole value of their surrounding lands would be enhanced.
We are very proud of the political and business acumen of the Indian leaders in my riding. They can outsmart us "honk-ies", or whatever one wants to call us, any time of the day. They have the time and patience which we do not. Money has been poured into the riding. Yet I feel the provincial government, in negotiating with the federal Government and with the Indian band, has really let the municipality and the residents of West Vancouver down because it did not consider the park land, the golf course and that whole recreational area. They are encumbered lands and those lands have now been returned to the Indian band. I suppose the Indians correctly and rightfully feel that the surrounding municipalities and residents have really been keeping the Indian lands as open space protection. We in West Vancouver do not know whether we are going to lose this beautiful park area, whether it is going to be covered with high-rise development or what.
I want to make a plea to these constituents and to the Indians, through the opportunity of this debate, to forget some of the things which have happened in the past. I believe officers of the municipality have been extremely rude and hard with Indian negotiators. I believe perhaps we in the outside municipality lack the negotiating skills which the Indian lead-

February 17, 1984
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ers have. Perhaps we can improve our approach to these negotiations. If we do not do this willingly, I believe we are going to be forced to do so just through the economic axe, which we have a tendency to understand. I would like to see the Indian band and the Municipality of West Vancouver find the right vehicle in which to tie all these things together, such as the Department of the Environment lease on the Indian lands. Instead of building a permanent fisheries research establishment at Caulfield, perhaps that should be considered as one of the tradeoffs. Perhaps a compromise has to be made in terms of high-rise development on Lot 5521 vis-a-vis some of it remaining open for parks. Certainly, the Indians must benefit from that openness and the beauty of that setting.
We are debating second reading of Bill C-18 today. This Bill is something we are all pleased to have happen. However, I must say that it does leave at least one of the ridings in Canada with some very major problems ahead of it. I would hope that a new spirit of negotiation can be started which will resolve with a minimum of disturbance and tension some of the problems left.
I cannot help but say I object most strenuously to Bills coming in at the last minute and being passed in this House through all stages on a Friday afternoon. I believe it is travesty of the purpose and function of this House and Members of Parliament. I want to remind you, Sir, that the same thing happened with Bill C-169. It passed all stages on a Friday afternoon and we trampled on some essential rights and freedoms. Each and every one of us in this House should be ashamed of doing so. We have not corrected that travesty because we got lazy, we got impatient, we had a deadline set on a Bill just as we have a deadline on this Bill. I have transcripts of meetings and negotiations between the municipalities and the provincial government going way back into last year, saying this Bill would be passed last fall. Yet here we are with a deadline of March 6 for this Bill and we are rushing through the speeches.
As a Member of Parliament I object most strenuously to that, and on behalf of my constituents I want to take this opportunity to apologize, because it was only this morning that I learned about this Bill coming forward today. That is probably my fault, I should have known about it yesterday. I also apologize for what I have done to the rights of free people in allowing Bill C-169 to pass through in a similar manner.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Questions and comments? Debate.


Mr. Vince Dantzer (Okanagan North):: Mr. Speaker, like the Members before me, I am very happy to have the opportunity to speak on Bill C-18. This is the first time a Bill has come before this House which affords me an opportunity to tell this House about some of the Indian bands in my constituency. The Bill affects one band directly and presents me with what I think is a golden opportunity. It speaks of lands in the Okanagan Valley, so I can tell the House what these lands are, where
they are, what they are like, what the temperature is there, and how much of a loss they were to the Indian bands. Some Members, and I hope that you are not one of them, Mr. Speaker, have not yet had the opportunity to visit the Okanagan Valley. I wish that everyone here, hopefully very soon, will have that opportunity. In the meantime I would like to give you an overall view of what is involved in these lands.
As I hope you know, the Okanagan is some 300 miles from the centre of "Lotus land", as some people call Vancouver.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: So is the Okanagan.


Vincent Martin Dantzer: That is God's country. It is also 300 miles from the City of Calgary, so it is in the very enviable position of being right at the centre of everything that is important in western Canada.
As you may well know, the lake starts at the American border and goes up some 70 miles to where it ends in the lands of the Okanagan Indian Band. Midway is the City of Kelowna, at the south end is the City of Penticton, and at the very north end is the City of Vernon. That lake is one of the most pristine and beautiful lakes in all of Canada. Many of these cut-off lands were taken directly next to the lake so they were very valuable indeed.
The climate in the Okanagan, as I hope everyone knows, is one of the most beautiful in the world. We have four distinct seasons: a gentle winter, nice spring, hot and dry summer, and a nice long fall. These conditions are ideal for growing the many crops we do. In fact, starting from the border up to Vernon and beyond is probably one of the best fruit-producing areas in all of Canada. We grow many crops there, many vegetables, and we also do a great deal of lumbering. These are the kinds of activities the Indian bands located in my constituency are involved in, and they do them exceedingly well.
We have industry there, non-polluting industries, and oddly enough manufacturing is a very high income producer in the Okanagan even though that area is now rather depressed.
Speaking of Okanagan Lake, I would be somewhat remiss if I failed to mention another very important aspect of that lake and to add perhaps a little light relief to this dry debate today. I suppose many of you have heard of the Loch Ness monster. I hope you have all heard of the friendly monster in the Okanagan.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Ogopogo.


Vincent Martin Dantzer: Right you are, Ogopogo. I want to invite you, Mr. Speaker, and all Members of this House to visit the Okanagan next summer, to fish, frolic and have fun, and while you are there to try and make $ 1 million by finding, identifying and securing Ogopogo. Recently the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce, in conjunction with a contract with Lloyds of London, offered $ 1 million to anyone who identifies-


James Douglas Manly: A point of order, Mr. Speaker. We are debating a very serious Bill affecting the Indian people of British
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Columbia. I do not think we need to hear a chamber of commerce announcement for the Okanagan, which is the second most beautiful part of British Columbia.


John Horton McDermid: Sit down, Manly. No one interrupted you.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order. The point is well taken. Having lectured us very ably on the geography of his area, the Hon. Member would be well advised to try and bring his remarks more in line with the subject.


Vincent Martin Dantzer: Mr. Speaker, I submit my remarks were in relation to the subject. I was talking about Ogopogo which brings tourists to the town, and it is a benefit to the Indians who live on the band reserve near and on the shores of that lake.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: They are all businessmen.


Vincent Martin Dantzer: They are all very good businessmen. In my constituency, Mr. Speaker, we have two Indian bands, one being the Spalluncheen Band. That band has some 320 members, its chief is Wayne Christian and the band manager is Graham Go. There are three reserves for this band: Salmon River reserve, the Enderby reserve and the Sicamous reserve. The band is primarily occupied with forestry, including logging, and agriculture, farming and livestock. It might be of interest to know that that band has built some 26 new homes on reserves over the past three years.
The band most closely connected with Bill C-18 is, of course, the Okanagan Indian Band. Its chief is Murray Alexis, and the Parliamentary Secretary in his closing remarks quoted Murray Alexis at the time he signed contracts approving of this particular Bill. There are five reserves in this band: the Okanagan Indian reserve where about 600 members of the band live. Since there are only 875 members in total, this is by far the largest reserve and it sits right at the top of Okanagan Lake. There is Otter Lake reserve, the Harris Lake reserve, the Priest Valley reserve and the Duke Lake Indian reserve which is near the town of Winfield. These reserves were established at the time of the Indian settlements at the turn of the century, especially at the north end of the lakes where rivers and creeks provided the only means of transportation.
The Okanagan Indian Band is known for its independence of spirit. These Indians know and value their land. They have established many industries and farm communities. They have established good orchards, small market gardens and are highly responsible and independent. We in the Okanagan are very proud and pleased that they are part of our community. One of the great statesmen of that period was Chief Nichola, an Indian chief renowned throughout British Columbia for his wisdom and his skills in agriculture. In recognition of his leadership, he lies buried in honour at the head of Okanagan Lake. Some 35 new homes were placed in that band last year. By and large I would say they are a model for Indian bands throughout British Columbia.
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I am very pleased to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-18. We in the Okanagan do not have the conflict which the Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington) is faced with in his community. I am very happy with that. I can see he does have some difficulties. I am sure if they in that community use the wisdom and prudence which the Member has displayed on many occasions in the House they will resolve their problems very adequately. The Okanagan Indian Band is one of the 22 Indian bands whose original reserves were reduced in size without Indian consent. Much of that has been detailed in the House this afternoon.
I will describe the events in the Okanagan. As a result of the McKenna-McBride Commission of 1916 an area comprising 51.82 hectares of land was cut away from Long Lake Indian Reserve No. 5. The House might like to know that Long Lake is not now the Okanagan Lake, although that is what it should be. It is now called Lake Kalamalka, the lake of many colours. We do not dump any sewage into Kalamalka Lake that I am aware of. I live on the lake and I drink the water as it comes from the lake, as does everyone else around the lake, and we are all very healthy. We have very pristine, potable water in the Okanagan. It is probably one of the few places in the world where there is such pure water.
That was very valuable land which the Okanagan Indian Band lost. In 1983 the Government of Canada finally agreed to pay compensation of $1.4 million to the band for lands cut off which are no longer available to be returned. Subject to ratification by the band, the Province of British Columbia will return some 27.4 hectares of land and will pay $32,500 in full compensation of that claim.
We have been asked by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) to pass this Bill speedily in order to enable the federal Government to meet its responsibility, and in order that the provincial Government meet its responsibility and act under the agreement. I would not normally pay much attention to the Minister's request that we hurry this Bill through. I received a letter from Chief Murray Alexis written June 23, 1983. It reads in part as follows:
We have reviewed the proposed legislation and have consulted our legal advisor to determine if the proposed legislation should be of concern to us. The Council has been advised that the legislation is in order and that it would be in the Band's best interest if it were passed without delay.
He goes on to say:
The Okanagan Band Council has been advised that the above-noted legislation will be considered and possibly passed by Parliament prior to the 30th of June, 1983.
To that end, we would request you to urge your fellow Members of Parliament to consider and pass this legislation prior to the recess of Parliament on the 30th of June.
As the previous speaker pointed out, it has taken a whole year for that legislation finally to come before this House, to be rushed through on a Friday afternoon. In this letter they are telling the bands that they could have done it a year ago. We are going to put this legislation through. I certainly agree with the comments of the previous speaker, the Member for

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Capilano. I hope that this kind of very important legislation will not be proceeded with in this manner in the future.
I think and hope that Bill C-18, will mark the beginning of the long process of curing and healing of the relationship between our native Indians and the rest of the country. It is very clear that in the case of the cut-off lands these lands were taken without the consent of the Indians. The cut-offs were taken in clear abrogation of explicit promises to British Columbian Indians not to reduce reserves without the consent of the bands concerned. The bands were denied the principle of equity which is normally associated with the taking of lands by Government. There is normally full compensation in cases where it is necessary to proceed by expropriation. The unbelievable extent to which promises were explicitly breached and principles of equity wilfully violated by the Government accords to these land claims a unique character which should have ensured a more expeditious solution in the past. I hope we can arrive more quickly at the solution to the other land claims which the aboriginals throughout the country now claim. I am sure that, with the right kind of attitude, particularly that expressed by the Member for Peace River (Mr. Cooper), we will.
Before I close, Mr. Speaker, I would like to quote from the report of the Special Committee on Indian Self-Government in Canada. It is a very good report and I would recommend it to all those in Canada who are interested. The report says in part:
The view of history held today by most non-Indian Canadians and the perspective held by most Indian people are almost mirror images. Indian people consider the "discoverers" and "explorers", in whose memory monuments are erected and postage stamps issued, to have been intruders in a land already well known to the nations that inhabited it. Indian people know their nations to have been productive, cultured, spiritual, intelligent civilizations comparable to those in Europe at the time of first contact. But they are portrayed instead as savages and pagans, unknowing of religion and needing instruction in simple tasks. Because only a one-sided, negative portrayal has been widely disseminated, non-Indian Canadians are poorly prepared to understand the perspective held by Indian people and to comprehend the background behind the distressing and unacceptable situation of Indian people in Canada today. This ofen leads to confrontation.
To that I say amen, and I hope that in the future we can better understand the problems we face in order to solve them more equitably.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I have a very brief comment. I agree with the Hon. Member who just spoke about the lateness of the date and the shortness of the debate. I regret both of those factors with regard to Bill C-18. However, I think it should be pointed out that while the legislation tabled in June 1983 was acceptable to some bands, and obviously to one of the bands in his riding, it was completely unacceptable to some of the other bands that were affected. I am not sure what the official position of the Conservative Party at that time was, but in our Party we indicated to the Minister that we were not prepared to deal with that Bill as quickly as he wished at that time. We wanted some changes made in the legislation. I am pleased to say that in Bill C-18 we have those changes. There are changes in the wording of the definition of cut-off lands and also the addition of Clause 7, which makes the Bill much
more acceptable to those bands which felt it was unacceptable before.


Vincent Martin Dantzer: Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party agreed that there should be further negotiations. But those are very simple amendments. It would take about a month to work those out, not a whole year. That is what we are complaining about.


Mr. Lome McCuish (Prince George-Bulkley Valley):: Mr. Speaker, as a postscript to the comments on the business of the House let me say that the Government has decided to throw in Bill C-18, an Act to provide for the settlement of claims by Indian bands in British Columbia relating to certain lands cut off from their reserves. I give credit to the Parliamentary Secretary for his fair and reasonable introduction to this Bill, but at the same time I must express my dismay and abhorrence at the fact that the Minister, who has delayed this Bill for so long and has so irritated the Indian people in British Columbia, has seen fit on this particular day to be on a political junket and subjected to the adulation of his supporters-both of them-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order. I must call the Hon. Member's attention to the fact that he is not supposed to make reference to the presence or absence of any other Hon. Member.


Robert Lorne McCuish: Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, this Bill has had a long and bitter history. The negotiations that led to this tripartite agreement have their roots back in the nineteenth century. British Columbia entered Confederation in 1871. The federal Government inherited the responsibility for the Indians and Indian lands. It is at this time that the federal-provincial disputes over Indian affairs arose.
The 13th article of the Terms of Union provided that:
(1)	The charge of the Indians and the trusteeship and management of the lands reserved for their use and benefit shall be assumed by the Dominion Government.
(2)	A policy as liberal as that hitherto pursued by the B.C. Government shall be continued by the Dominion Government after the Union.
(3)	To carry out such policy, tracts of land of such extent as it has hitherto been the practice of the B.C. Government to appropriate-
-for Indians-
-shall from time to time be conveyed by the local government to the Dominion Government in trust for the use and benefit of the Indians.
That was in 1871, and there has been a dispute for the last 111 years.
An important argument in this dispute was the difference between the two Governments about the basis of allotting acreage on reserves. The federal Government proposed 80 acres be allotted to each family. The province claimed that 10 acres per family was enough, and kept I. W. Powell from allotting acreage and surveying any additional reserves. It is important to realize the importance of that particular formula because our forefathers were dealing in acreage at a time when we know that the Indian people were involved in agrology,
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fishing and living off the land. Land has increased in value ten thousand-fold since that time.
The point I am making is that if we let this fact elude us, we will continue to delay legitimate Indian claims. At the time of the settlement, the increase in the value of the land would be a direct and additional heavy burden on the taxpayers of Canada. That is why it is a shame that the federal Government and the provincial Government in British Columbia have delayed settlement of these particular claims.
I referred to I. W. Powell. Mr. Powell said at the time of the First negotiations that, "If there has not been an Indian war, it is not because there has been no injustice to the Indians but because the Indians have not been sufficiently united". As my colleague and friend from Capilano has stated, there is indeed unity among the Indian bands in British Columbia at the present time. As he also said, they have both the time and the moxie to outclass us in negotiations. It is time that we respected that ability, that sincerity and that right which they do indeed have in these particular claims.
The impasse between the federal and provincial Governments continued through the late 1900s and into this century. In 1911, this dispute reached a head. Essentially, British Columbia never wanted to give the federal Government juris-dication over Indian lands. In 1911 there was an attempt to resolve the dispute by referring it to the Supreme Court of Canada. But at that juncture the Province of British Columbia backed down. The province in its own right then passed legislation giving itself the authority to "grant, convey, quit claim, sell or dispose of . . . on such terms as may be deemed advisable . . . the interest of the province . . . reversionary or otherwise ... in any Indian reserve or any portion thereof'. The unilateral attitude behind that legislation is a problem.
The province's law was a direct challenge to the federal Government and indeed to the Indian people. The result of these negotiations was the McKenna-McBridge Agreement in 1912. The history of that agreement has been well covered during this brief debate. Although I have researched it, I need not go through it again at this time.
According to the agreement which the commission had reached, legal title to the cut-off lands remained with the province, with the requirement that the province turn over to the bands 50 per cent of the proceeds realized from the sale or other disposition of the lands.
Obviously the bands involved felt that there was a breach of the McKenna-McBride Agreement because lands were cut off without their consent by reason of the provincial legislation. The grievance of the Indians over cut-off lands has persisted throughout the years. Both levels of Government were pressed for retribution for the cut-off lands.
In 1969 the federal Government agreed to negotiate a settlement of the grievance. Successive federal Ministers of Indian Affairs have publicly supported the need to redress Indian bands for cut-off lands. Negotiations between the two Governments and a committee representing the bands began in 1977.
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Today we are dealing with a long-standing claim by 22 Indian bands in British Columbia that had 33,400 acres of land taken from 34 reserves some 60 years old without their consent. It is for this reason that we are here today finally to receive this Bill for second and third reading and final passage. I am pleased to have had this opportunity to speak to Bill C-18. It is a good thing that we will shortly see the passage of this legislation, for without it the provincial Government will not be obliged to transfer lands or money to any of the 22 cut-off bands.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I was interested in the comments of the official critic, the Hon. Member for Brampton-George-town (Mr. McDermid) who said that Indians had nothing to fear from a Conservative Government, that the Conservatives would continue to respect their rights, and so on. But listening to the Hon. Member today, I wonder whether he still subscribes to the views he expressed in a letter he wrote almost a year ago on February 18, 1983 to Mr. Charles Wood, President of the Indian Association of Alberta. At that time the Hon. Member for Prince George-Bulkley Valley (Mr. McCu-ish) wrote:
I consider the Indians as one race among many which comprise the populace of Canada, Mr. Wood, and the White Paper concept referred to on pages 3 and 4 of your letter, calling for "termination of Indian Status and Rights" with the transition from Indian reserves to provincial municipalities would be the courageous and proper action for the Federal Government to take.
Does the Hon. Member still subscribe to those views?


Robert Lorne McCuish: Mr. Speaker, I still subscribe to those views, even more so. That does not detract at all from the position I take with respect to the cut-off claims. Those were agreements that were made but are not legislation. I respect them. I respect any agreement that has been made and agreed to among parties of three levels.
As far as my attitude toward the treatment of Indians is concerned and the basic philosophy of how we should treat this horrendous problem, it has not changed one bit. what we are doing now is a perfect demonstration of what happens in a purely socialist state when we put people in a reserve and say "Stay there and we will make you happy with food, water and clothing." That is what the Member has been advocating. I am saying, let us make Canadians out of Indians and we will have a proper country here.


James Douglas Manly: Mr. Speaker, I have a short supplementary question. I disagree completely with the Hon. Member's interpretation of socialism. I presume that he would disagree with the views expressed by the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) in an August 16, 1979 letter to Mr. Noel Starblanket, President of the National Indian Brotherhood. The Hon. Member wrote:
I certainly do not subscribe to your proposition that the Government of Canada should pay compensation to the Indian people for past wrongs.
I presume the Hon. Member would want to disagree with the Hon. Member for Mississauga South.

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Robert Lorne McCuish: The Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) has his views, I have mine, and my good friend on my far, far left has his. I respect those views. I will argue them, I will debate them, but I do not wish to be associated with his philosophy or that of the Hon. Member for Mississauga South.


Mr. Dave Nickerson (Western Arctic):: Mr. Speaker, being aware of the agreement among the Parties this afternoon that we will refer this matter, not to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development but, rather, to Committee of the Whole, and the further agreement that we will dispose of report stage and third reading this afternoon, I will try to make my remarks as brief as possible.
I want to reiterate the official position enunciated here this afternoon by the Conservative spokesman, the Hon. Member for Brampton-Georgetown (Mr. McDermid), that we on this side of the House will support this Bill. The issue goes back many, many years to the turn of the century. I think the first reference to it in the Bill before us is something that happened in 1912. We are pleased that, after a period of some 70 years, apparently justice is now to be done. Not only do we support this, but it was at the initiative of our spokesman that we agreed to use the process I first described this afternoon of dealing with this Bill in one day. I hope the Senate will deal with it equally expeditiously and that we can have this Bill passed into law and receive Royal Assent before the March 6 deadline.
You might like to contrast the position taken by the Progressive Conservative Party, Mr. Speaker, with that taken by the Liberal Party on this matter. The Liberal Party has been dragging its feet on this issue year after year after year. You only have to look at some of the notes that have been provided to us by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Maltais) to see the lack of progress that has been made on this issue year after year after year. Where, Sir, is the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro)? It is very seldom this Minister presents legislation before the House of Commons. We know this is something he should be doing. Time and time again the House of Commons as a whole has urged him to bring in amendments to the Indian Act, but so far he has refused to do so. And when one of the few Bills his Department manages to bring forward is to be debated, the Minister apparently finds more important things to do elsewhere. This afternoon it is very evident what importance the Minister attaches to this type of legislation when he refuses to attend the House of Commons.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order, please. I hate to interrupt the Hon. Member but I have already told the House that Members are not supposed to make reference to the presence or the absence in the House of an Hon. Member. The Hon. Member went around the subject in a certain fashion and I allowed his remark. I think, however, that he should stick to the rules of the House and try to wrap up his comments so that he does not have an objection from the Chair.


Mr. Jarvis:: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am not in any way quarrelling with what I think you put as a suggestion or indicated that Members were not supposed to comment on absences or presences. That has never been my understanding with respect to a Minister in whose name a Bill stands. In the 12 years I have been here, with all respect, a reference to the presence or absence of a Minister in whose name a Bill is debated on second reading has not only been commonly done but, I think, regularly done. I do not think you have made a ruling on this matter-


Mr. Cullen:: Civility.


William Herbert Jarvis: My hon. friend from Sarnia says "civility". But that Hon. Member when he was a Minister was always present in the House when his legislation was here. If we are going to talk about hypocrisy-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order, please. I think the point has been well made. Nevertheless, the rules are quite clear. Hon. Members are not supposed to make reference to the presence or absence of other Hon. Members.


Mr. Mazankowski:: With Ministers you can.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: I think enough has been said to establish the point. I think we should leave it at that. The Hon. Member for Western Arctic (Mr. Nickerson).


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, whether your contribution be a ruling or a suggestion-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The Hon. Parliamentary Secretary rises on a point of order.


André Maltais: Mr. Speaker, I merely wish to say that if the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (Mr. Munro) is absent from the House today, it is because he is in the Yukon attending a meeting with Indian organization representatives to prepare for the Constitutional Conference scheduled for the 8th, 9th and 10th of March. That is why he is not here now.


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, I will take your advice and not refer to any Ministers who may or may not be present in the House this afternoon. I will refer to one Minister who, at the present time, happens to be going to my riding, there to talk to a Liberal partisan organization.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: While his Bill is in the House.


Dave Nickerson: It is Ministers like this, who put partisan concerns before public concerns and before the concerns of their Department and the special interest that their Department has in certain groups of Canadians, who bring the entire Liberal Government into disrepute, Sir. However, in this case
February 17, 1984

you might think I am worried about this unnamed Minister travelling around my riding on partisan business, but I am not worried. My constituents know that when an important Bill such as this one comes up in the House, at least their Member of Parliament is here in Ottawa performing his public duty. When that certain unnamed Minister travels around the North, if anything it does me and the Party I represent more good than harm. Every time he goes there, I count among my constituents slightly fewer Liberals. There are not that many to start with, but every time he has been there, there are one or two fewer when he leaves. If he stayed there for a whole week, I would venture to guess that you would not find a single living, breathing Liberal in the whole Northwest Territories.
Another Liberal trick that we see introduced into the House again this afternoon, and it has been done many times, is to wait until a deadline approaches. In this case there is a deadline of March 6. If this Bill is not passed into law by March 6, then certain obligations regarding moneys that have been undertaken by the Government of British Columbia expire.
The Government had all kinds of time to bring in this Bill previously. It could have brought it in just after the Speech from the Throne. What did it do? It waited until February 17, when it knows that Parliament is going to recess on February 24, seven days hence, and insists that the Bill be gone through in a matter of two or three days. It also knows that the House is cluttered with business arising out of the non-budget brought down by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde).


Mr. Epp:: And he wants the spy Bill.


Dave Nickerson: He wants the spy Bill.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: We know what respect you have for deadlines.


Dave Nickerson: There is very little parliamentary time with which to deal with this Bill. It is despicable to use this trick and this tactic in order to get Bills through, putting pressure on the Opposition so that in all probability they cannot give this matter the real attention it deserves.
When we look at the Bill, we find out that the intention behind it is to put into effect agreements, some of which have been negotiated, signed, sealed and delivered, and other agreements which may be negotiated in the future. Where are these agreements? If that is the main part of the Bill, surely the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development should be able to provide us with copies of this agreement, but he has made no offer to do that. Parliament is being asked to approve agreements, some of which have not yet been negotiated, sight unseen. We are quite prepared to accept the fact that some of these agreements are still in the process of negotiation, but we would like to see-


André Maltais: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
Lands Settlement Act
The Hon. Member has just stated that he does not know which agreements have not been ratified by the parties. I should like to remind him that I clearly indicated in my statement this morning all the points which have been negotiated, as well as the amounts of money and sizes of land involved.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: That is not a point of order.


Dave Nickerson: You are quite right, Mr. Speaker, that is hardly a point of order. After long experience in dealing with Members opposite, we have found that we are not able to take their word when they say something. They tell us not to worry about an agreement, that they will tell us what is in it. That is not the way I like to go about these matters. I would like to have the agreement in black and white, signed, sealed and delivered, examine the signatures on it, especially if it was signed by the Minister of Communications (Mr. Fox), so that I can make sure that the signature that appears on the face of it is genuine. Quite frankly, I am not prepared to take the unsubstantiated word of Hon. Members opposite. It would have been of considerable help if at least one of these agreements, and I presume they are all after the same fashion, had been made available to us so that we could see exactly what the agreement said.
I want to go through the Bill quickly and deal with the principles contained in it. When I heard that a Bill of this nature was coming forward, I thought the intent of the Bill must be to give authority to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to enter into these agreements. When you read through the Bill, you find that is not the case. Apparently the Minister already has authority to enter into agreements of this nature. The parties who do not have that authority and to whom it must be given by Parliament are the bands and the band councils.
It is the intention of Clause 3 of the Bill to give to a band council the authority to enter into these agreements. This is indicative of several problems that are faced by bands and band councils throughout Canada. Under the Indian Act, they do not have authority to enter into legally binding agreements. This prohibition frequently delays considerably the needed developments on reserves that have been set aside. The inability to enter into legally binding contracts such as mortgages makes it very difficult for such developments to take place.
I can well understand the frustration that band councils must feel when they have good deals going, when they want to take advantage of the land on the reserves or other resources such as lumber contained thereon, and they find themselves prevented from entering into mortgages and similar types of arrangements with which to raise the necessary funds. Under the Indian Act they are denied that authority, which comes as a matter of course to practically any other body corporate in Canada. What we are doing with this Bill is giving that needed authority.

February 17, 1984
Lands Settlement Act
Clause 4 of the Bill denies any legal obligation on the part of Canada with respect to lands about which they enter into negotiations. That presumably is a standard type of clause in these agreements or in legislation of this type. Clause 5 of the Bill deals with the retroactive-


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order. Once again I have to draw the Hon. Member's attention to the fact that on second reading reference should not be made to a clause in the Bill. We are discussing the principle of the Bill.


Dave Nickerson: The principle contained in the Bill to be found in Clause 5 deals with retroactivity. Yet another principle is contained in Clause 6 of the Bill. The third, fourth or fifth important principle contained in the Bill gives authority to the Governor in Council to finalize future agreements. Parliament is once again delegating to the Governor in Council authority to sign deals on behalf of Parliament. Again these are to be "sight unseen" agreements. In this instance we only have the word of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development that these agreements will not contain anything offensive to Parliament or which we did not intend when passing this legislation.
I was pleased to hear the presentation of the Hon. Member for Cowichan-Malahat-The Islands (Mr. Manly) on another principle of the Bill, the one contained in the last clause. This removes some of the fears of the beneficiaries under these agreements in British Columbia with respect to extinguishing claims to lands other than the so-called cut-off lands. This principle in the Bill makes it quite clear that other lands to which people lay claim will not be affected by the passage of Bill C-18.
I will conclude my remarks because this matter is to be referred to Committee of the Whole. All in all, I am pleased that we will be able to bring into effect this afternoon at least partial settlement of some of the outstanding specific claims. The record of the present Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development is appalling. He has been in office for some four years and has failed to make any progress. There has not been one comprehensive claim dealt with in finality in those four years, although I have a press clipping in my files which quotes the Minister a week or so after he came into office as saying that he would have these matters wrapped up in about six months. He has been in office four years and not one comprehensive claim has been dealt with in finality. With the exception of the Fort Nelson agreement with which we dealt a couple of years ago, this is only the second group of specific claims that have been addressed. Progress has been extremely slow and very agonizing, but at least we see a little more progress with Bill C-18.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: There is a ten-minute period for questions, answers and comments. No one is seeking the floor for questions. Is anyone seeking it for debate?


Some Hon. Members:: No.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, Bill read the second time and, by unanimous consent, the House went into committee thereon, Mr. Herbert in the chair.
On Clause 2-Definitions
Dave Nickerson: Mr. Chairman, on page 2 of the Bill, Clause 2 refers to certain of the cut-off lands which are not to be included. These lands are the so-called Railway Belt and the so-called Peace River Block. Would the Parliamentary Secretary be kind enough to explain to us what and where are the Railway Belt and the Peace River Block? Would he also explain why they have been excluded from Bill C-18?


André Maltais: Mr. Speaker, these details were worked out at the time of the negotiations and they appear in the reports which are in the Department's possession. This bill does not contain all the elements which were negotiated; but we are ready to table any time the agreements which have been negotiated as well as the specifications pertaining to this particular agreement.


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Chairman, the Parliamentary Secretary did not tell us where the Railway Belt is or where the Peace River Block is. Perhaps he could at least tell us the rough geographical location of these lands, if he knows.


André Maltais: I could provide the House with the exact particulars on that, but the Peace River Block which is described here is directly connected to the area which was described with the Indian reserves concerned.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Chairman, in his remarks in second reading the Parliamentary Secretary mentioned the difficulty they were having in acquiring all the agreements. He mentioned that there was still one agreement which they failed to negotiate. Is this the particular agreement which they failed to negotiate? If it is, perhaps he could nod; if it is not, perhaps he could tell us which one is outstanding.


André Maltais: Mr. Speaker, what is involved is an agreement with a group of Indians in Westbank, who are asking for additions to the Canadian Government's offer for as long as the various agreements are not signed, because monetary and land area details still have to be finalized. It is strictly a matter
February 17, 1984

of the amount of money and the number of acres required by the Westbank group.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Chairman, could the Parliamentary Secretary tell us in what province that particular band is located?
[ Translation]


André Maltais: In British Columbia, Mr. Speaker. In British Columbia.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Could I ask the Parliamentary Secretary whether there were funds involved and whether those funds expire on March 6 as a result of their not being part of the agreements pertaining to this Bill?


André Maltais: Mr. Speaker, at the moment there is no funds involved, directly, in the issue. It is simply a matter of reaching a formulation that is agreeable to both groups. These Indians are asking for certain sums of money and a certain land area, but there is no complete agreement on that. This is why, for the time being, one band still has not completed the agreement.


[Stage Direction]
Clause agreed to.
On Clause 3-Agreements re cut-off lands settlements [English]
John Horton McDermid: Mr. Chairman, I would like to direct a question to the Parliamentary Secretary. There are 22 agreements which are either completed, being negotiated or under review. The one under review is the one in the Okanagan. Could he explain why it is under review and where it stands at the present time?


André Maltais: In Okanagan, Mr. Speaker, this is quite true, as the Hon. Member stated. The agreement is practically finalized. There are still monetary matters to be settled. It is a matter of money, and last week we were on the verge of a settlement.


John Horton McDermid: I am referring particularly to the Okanagan agreement. It appears that everything has been agreed to except the band vote, and it appears in my briefing notes in any event that that is what is under review. The Parliamentary Secretary said that it was money and lands, but my briefing notes from the Department indicate that it is the band vote. Does the Parliamentary Secretary know anything about that? Could he expand on that?


André Maltais: Mr. Speaker, among the twenty-two agreements concluded with the bands, there are a number of agreements in principle, and the Department still has a
Lands Settlement Act
number of agreements in principle that have been completed for certain bands.
It is true that for some bands there is still a matter of vote 10 or vote 15 or something like that; it is strictly a matter of how things will work once the settlement has been finalized.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Chairman, did the Parliamentary Secretary know which one I am referring to? Is it a problem with the band vote, a problem with money or a problem with land? This is the only one that is labelled "under review" in the briefing notes from the Ministry. Five have been settled, one is under review and I gather the other 16 are at various stages of negotiation, and I shall ask about them later. What exactly is under review with this particular agreement with the Okanagan Band?


André Maltais: Mr. Speaker, in the notes I have here, it says it is a matter of land and not money, as far as the vote is concerned.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Chairman, the other matter I want to bring up is that of the 22 negotiations on the cut-off claims that are going on at the present time. Apparently one band has not seen fit to support the other 21 bands, that is, the Seton Lake Band. Could the Parliamentary Secretary indicate what their concern is or if it has been eliminated?


André Maltais: Mr. Speaker, departmental officials who are working on this file have informed me it is now only a matter of finding out whether there are enough people to vote on the agreement. In other words, the matter is under review because of the number of people required to vote on the agreement.


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Chairman, the Parliamentary Secretary did not answer the question about the Seton Lake problem. I wonder if he could refer to it. I think his answer referred to the Okanagan Band and the vote under review. Seton Lake is the band that has problems with the Bill. I wonder what the problem is and why the band does not agree with the Bill, or has that disagreement been resolved to the satisfaction of the band?
[ Translation]


André Maltais: If the question is put like that, Mr. Speaker, the answer is very simple. It is a matter of the percentage of votes in favour of the agreement that is to be concluded.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, I should like to have one thing clarified, although the problem may be with the translation. In answer to my first question, the Parliamentary Secretary told me that in the case of the one band that did not have
1526

February 17, 1984
Lands Settlement Act
an agreement, a money problem was not mentioned in the file, yet in answer to my colleague, the Hon. Member for Bramp-ton-Georgetown, he said the problem was money and lands. Could he clear the matter up for me?


André Maltais: Mr. Speaker, I said that most of the agreements to be negotiated with the twenty-two bands have been settled. However, the case to which the Hon. Member referred earlier was still under review last week, and it was not a matter of money or land in that instance but a matter of percentage of votes. The question put earlier was: In the case of the West Bank Band-the Indians I was referring to-was there still a land or money issue to be resolved? Actually, I think that at this very moment, a settlement has been reached. Last week, we were about to finalize two final agreements, and I think these have now been settled.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Chairman, as I understand it, the file on an agreement still to be settled that carries money and land is Westbank. Is that correct?
issue of lands and money is settled, and it is a matter of percentage of votes.
Clause 1 agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Title agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.

["Order, please. It being five o'clock, this House stands adjourned until Monday morning at eleven o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).\nAt 5 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.", 'Monday, February 20, 1984']
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Shall all orders and items listed under Private Members' Business preceding Order No. 33, be allowed to stand by unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


André Maltais: Yes, that is right.
To avoid any misunderstanding, I will ask my advisors to help me complete the answers so as to make quite sure that there is no misinterpretation of questions and answers.


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Chairman, I should like to know whether the ratification process for these agreements used at the band level was a standard procedure? Was it a simple majority of the band council vote; was the matter voted upon by the membership at large; was it a two-thirds majority that was needed to ratify the agreements, or what process of ratification was adopted?


André Maltais: Quite simply, Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier it is a question of a majority vote among band members aged 18 or more. It is a technical question, a question of internal procedure within the band. I think it is quite clear and the reserves have to cope with this kind of dilemma now and again, that is at what age is one eligible to vote and what are the internal procedures of the band council itself. Everything is being sorted out.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clauses 4 to 7 inclusive agreed to.


André Maltais: Mr. Chairman, I would like to set the record straight about the question of Westbank. The Okanagan Band as well as the issue of lands and money have been settled. There again it is strictly a matter of the internal percentage of votes. It is exactly the same thing. I want to make things clear: if the Westbank or Okanagan Indians are not involved, the



Donald Frank Mazankowski: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should consider the advisability of reducing the cost burden on Canadian farmers by removing the 9 per cent federal sales tax on diesel fuel and gasoline used for the production of food.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I genuinely apppreciate the opportunity to present this motion at this time because I feel it is very timely. It is timely because it comes on the heels of the Budget, which was introduced this week, which really provides no relief whatsoever for the agricultural community and specifically the individual farmer who has been faced with some very difficult problems. The Budget fails to address any of the problems which are facing individual farmers in the agricultural community as a whole, and it even goes beyond that and fails to acknowledge that there are serious problems.
I feel this motion is timely also in that this debate happens to take place roughly on the fourth anniversary of the Liberal Party's return to power. We all know what the platform of the Liberal Party was during the course of that election campaign. It was basically a platform based on deceit, subterfuge and quite frankly, a hidden agenda. While the members of the Liberal Party talked about a "made in Canada" energy price, they certainly did not spell it out in any detail. They misled the Canadian public into believing that energy prices would be lower than those proposed by the Progressive Conservative Party.
Farmers are now contemplating their planting. They are seriously considering what they are going to seed and how much. Given the fact that the commodity prices are low, input costs are high, and there is no relief in the Budget, it is a time

February 17, 1984

when farmers are seriously looking at their future in terms of what sort of production patterns they can contemplate. I believe, for those three reasons, it is a very timely subject.
I would like to reiterate once again, Mr. Speaker, that the farmers of Canada are in very serious financial difficulty. This measure would provide some relief. It would serve to alleviate their problems somewhat-not much, but somewhat. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) in his Budget speech talked about the need for confidence, hope and optimism, and the need to increase productivity and our competitive position. I listened very intently to those words, Mr. Speaker, but there is really nothing in this Budget which relates to improving the confidence, hope and optimism of the agricultural community of Canada. Therefore, I believe this motion should be given very serious consideration.
Let us just look briefly over the last four years to see what has happened in the agricultural community. In the last four years there have been close to 2,000 farm bankruptcies. That is a huge number, and all the bankruptcies or farm failures are not recorded. That figure of 2,000 bankruptcies does not clearly identify those who have voluntarily gone out of business or those who have gone into receivership and are not a statistic. There were 488 farmers who declared bankruptcy in the year 1983. That is almost 400 per cent more farm bankruptcies than occurred in 1979. Roughly 125 bankruptcies were registered in 1979. In 1983 there were 488. For example, in western Canada, there was a doubling of the figure for 1982. Why has this occurred? Primarily, Mr. Speaker, it has happened for reasons beyond the individual farmer's control. It is not because farmers have not been productive. It is not because they have not been good managers. It is basically because of developments which are quite clearly beyond their control, such as low commodity prices and high input costs, and it is largely as a result of the policies of the Government.
There are two very important elements to that component, Mr. Speaker. The first is the interest rate policy of the Government, and the second is the energy pricing policy. There is no explanation for this Government's current energy pricing policy. It really constitutes the largest revenue grab by a federal Government in the history of this country, and it is a revenue grab which has been carried out on the backs of the food producers. We know, in terms of our food component in this society, we still have one of the lowest food components of any industrialized nation in the world. I do not believe the farmer should be further hampered and strapped with this additional cost simply to feed the coffers of the federal Government.
We all remember the campaign of 1980 and the Liberal promise to keep energy prices low. The Liberals did not say how low, but they certainly did not tell the Canadian people that the prices were going to rise to the heights at which they are today. Let me review what has happened over the four-year period. I phoned the Gulf dealer in the Town of Two Hills, Alberta, earlier this afternoon. I asked him to compare the prices of farm fuel today with prices which were in effect four years ago today. In February, 1980, gasoline used for
Agriculture
farm production purposes cost 72.96 cents per gallon. At the same time, diesel fuel cost 65.68 cents a gallon. Today, in February, 1984, the price of gasoline used on the farm for food production purposes is $1.45 per gallon. That includes a 32-cent provincial tax reduction which occurred in 1982. Therefore, if the provincial tax had remained in effect, as it was in 1980, it would have added another 32 cents and would have brought the price up to $1.77 per gallon. In the case of diesel fuel, the price today is $1.37. Here again that includes a 32-cent provincial tax reduction which took place in 1982. So even taking that into consideration, there is a doubling of the fuel prices in that four-year period. We all know what the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) said on January 31, 1980, in Alvinston, Ontario. He said this:
Farmers and consumers will get a break from the federal Liberal agriculture policy-
Farmer costs of production will be held in check and as a result so will consumer prices-
Fuels used in farm production will be exempt from any excise tax and a special price structure established.
Basically, Mr. Speaker, we are asking this Government and particularly the Minister of Agriculture, to fulfil at least part of that promise he made back in January 1980. Failure to do so would be an outright betrayal. The removal of the 9 per cent sales tax on diesel fuel and gasoline used for the production of food would reduce the price of fuel by roughly 17 cents or 18 cents. It is a rather interesting figure. I could say that if you included the removal of the Canadian ownership charge- which has fulfilled its obligation-of 4.5 cents a gallon, we could have a saving of 22.5 cents a gallon for the producer. That would help. The federal tax component on farm fuels is roughly 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the pump price. For every gallon of gas or fuel sold, about 62 cents go into the federal Government coffers. This is costing Canadian farmers roughly $275 million a year. In 1981, farmers spent $1.2 billion for energy. In addition, they spent $600 million to $700 million for fertilizer, including an energy tax component of probably 10 per cent. If you look at fuel taxes alone, they constitute 20 per cent of all energy costs. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I say this is not an unreasonable proposition.
Prairie farmers paid an average of $5,100 in direct energy costs in 1981. This contributes immensely to farm input costs and the cost-price squeeze. We note that farm input costs have tripled since 1971. Since the beginning of 1980 they have gone up by 35 per cent. In the meantime, the selling price of the farmers' products is basically at the same level. If you use the price deflator, you will find commodity prices below the level of 1972-73.
The price of grain, Mr. Speaker, is a good example of what I have been saying. The producer price at the ports of Thunder Bay or Vancouver in the 1979-80 crop year was $196.43 per metric tonne. Today, including the final payment for 1982-83, the net realized price was $192.34. I should not say "the net realized price". That was the net price at the point of departure. Therefore, grain prices have fallen over the last four

February 17, 1984
Agriculture
years. There really is not much control over that because in order to sell our grain abroad we must be competitive. However, we have a Government which has imposed horrendous taxes on the backs of the producer. This year it increased freight rates. My proposal would at least lessen some of this impact. I urge the Government to seriously consider this because it is important for the farmers of Canada to have some faith and confidence, some degree of optimism.
I could go on and give you all sorts of figures on net income, Mr. Speaker. As recorded by Statistics Canada, farmers are making about 50 per cent of what they made in 1975. That is hardly cause for joy or optimism. Other countries support their producers to a greater extent than Canada. Fuel prices in other countries are much lower. U.S. fuel prices are roughtly 20 per cent to 25 per cent below the prices Canadian farmers are paying. The ten-year average support paid to farmers per metric tonne was $6.35 for wheat in Canada, $11.41 in the United States and $19.96 in the EEC. For barley producers in Canada, assistance was largely in the form of the cheap freight rate, the Crowsnest Pass freight rate which has now gone down the tube. Canadian producers were supported to the tune of $6.32 per ton, U.S. producers received $7.57, and the EEC it was $32.80 per ton. That gives you an idea of what competing countries do for their producers. We call upon this Government to recognize that and take some steps to ensure that we do our part to ensure Canadian producers are indeed competitive. Agriculture is and will continue in the foreseeable future to be a major component of Canada's economy.
I noted from The Globe and Mail that last year alone, Mr. Speaker, the farm program in the U.S. cost the federal Treasury some $28 billion. They are supporting their farmers, but Canada is not supporting its farmers commensurate with producers in other countries. When you consider the importance of agriculture, you realize it makes up about 40 per cent of the nation's economy. While roughly 5 per cent of the population is directly involved in the production of food, the agri-food system employs about 18 per cent of the Canadian work force. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, there are many reasons for the Government to look at this motion very seriously. I think it is a reasonable proposal, and it would provide a demonstration of faith, hope and optimism, perhaps even some confidence in the farmers.
I have had some discussions earlier with the Parliamentary Secretary and there seems to be some consensus over there that this is a measure worthy of consideration. I think this motion would provide an excellent vehicle for looking at the whole area of farm input costs and the difficulties farmers are facing.
If it is agreeable, Mr. Speaker, I would be prepared to amend the motion to include the words:
That the subject matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs for consideration.
My friend, the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington) would second the motion, and if it meets with the approval of the House I would be prepared to submit that amendment for your consideration.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: I would like to have a copy of the motion if I may, but let me make an observation. My first impression is that the wording of the original motion is such that an amendment in the form suggested by the Hon. Member would not be acceptable. The motion is that in the opinion of this House the Government should consider the advisability of-under those circumstances I think it is up to the House to make a decision as to whether or not this matter should be passed. I do not find that there can be in this instance a reference, as is suggested by the Hon. Member, of the subject matter to committee. That is an observation on my part and perhaps the Hon. Member would like to comment before I render a ruling.


Mr. Fisher:: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if instead of amending it as described, we said that, "In the opinion of this House the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs should consider the advisability". Would that then circumvent the problem you have described?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The problem the Chair has is that the motion is that the Government should consider the advisability. The suggestion now is that we are eliminating consideration by the Government and are talking about consideration by a committee. This is the problem the Chair has with the amendment.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, naturally I would be delighted, as a minimum, to have the matter considered by the standing committee. I know that the House can do many things by unanimous consent. If the wording that has been advanced by the Parliamentary Secretary would fulfill the spirit of allowing this measure to go to the Standing Committee for consideration, I would certainly want to be the first to endorse and echo my support for that. I think it is a matter worthy of consideration. Being a bit of a horse trader from way back, I suspect half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. It is quite obvious that we would not get anything with the precise wording of the present motion. I want to go on record as supporting the modified wording that the Parliamentary Secretary has advanced.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Do I have the unanimous consent of the House to accept the withdrawal of the motion which is presently under discussion?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Does the House unanimously agree to the substitution of the motion as proposed by the Hon. Member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski)?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The motion under consideration is the motion proposed by the Hon. Member for Vegreville.
February 17, 1984


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I would like to spend a few minutes supporting the motion proposed by the Hon. Member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankow-ski). I think it would be of considerable assistance to the farmers of Canada. I would like to speak on behalf of the Saskatchewan agricultural community which finds the present energy costs much too high in terms of producing food. 1 will be very brief because the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kings-way (Mr. Waddell) wants to say a few words as well. We would also like to get this through the appropriate committee and subsequent stages.
The Hon. Member for Vegreville has outlined to the House a number of reasons why energy costs are becoming a real burden for farmers today. The price of wheat has not gone up in the last three or four years and farm input costs have skyrocketed. Interest rates have been very high for the farming community. Also the Crow rate has been abolished. The price of moving grain is going up by 500 per cent over the next nine years. Because of those things, there will have to be some support for the farmers.
I remember very well when, in the 1980 election campaign, as I am sure my friendly farmer friend from the Toronto airport riding recalls, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) made a promise to the farmers. He said that if he was re-elected he would change evaluation day for capital gains on farms from December 31, 1971 to 1974 or 1976, which would take care of some of the inflationary problems. That was a campaign promise. We received some other capital gains changes on Wednesday, but the Government did not change evaluation day. I want to remind the Parliamentary Secretary of that since I know he is concerned about the farming population.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Picky people.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: In terms of the precise motion before us today, I would like to put on the record figures showing where the energy dollar goes when people buy gasoline or diesel fuel for a tractor, car or truck. The figures I will use are October figures from a service station in Regina for leaded regular gasoline. The prices keep fluctuating and we had a different set of figures from the Hon. Member for Vegreville. These Figures are for a litre of gasoline which in October cost 40.2 cents in Regina, Saskatchewan. The federal share was 11.03 cents. That is made up of five or six items. The sales tax on this litre of gasoline was 2.89 cents. That is something we would like to see removed to help the farmers. There was an excise tax of 1.5 cents. The excise tax can be rebated to the farmers for farm fuel. This is useful to a number of farmers in my constituency, particularly smaller operators. More and more farmers are switching to diesel and as there is no excise tax on diesel the farm rebate on the excise tax is of no assistance.
The third thing the federal Government gets is the Canadian ownership charge which is charged on all gasoline. That works out to .72 cents a litre. The fourth thing is the wellhead royalty. That is 3.55 cents. The petroleum compensation
Agriculture
charge is 2.37 cents. The total moneys going to the federal Government on a 40 cent litre of gasoline was 11.03 cents.
In my province the provincial government also gets a share. The provincial government collects a royalty of 5.8 cents on each litre. We do not have any sales tax or other taxes above the 5.8 cents. The industry gets the lion's share. It gets 23.37 cents a litre in Saskatchewan. The industry's share is broken down in the following way. The ordinary retail dealer in Regina gets 3.27 cents. The refining, transportation and marketing of the crude oil amounts to another 10.26 cents. The transportation is .49 cents and the wellhead share is 9.35 cents.
That is the way a litre of gasoline is broken down. The federal Government takes about 11 cents, the province takes about 6 cents, and the industry takes about 23 cents. The total is around 40 cents. I think it would be useful if we were to accept the ideas expressed here by the Hon. Member for Vegreville and many other Members of the House to take off the federal share in order to stimulate the agricultural economy.
I would like to remind Hon. Members that the industry in the country basic to a healthy economy is the agricultural industry. If farming is going well, things will go very well in Montreal for my friend who sits across the way. If farming is going well, jobs will be created in the small business sector and the service industries. Farmers will buy tractors from Brantford. They will buy all kinds of combines and fertilizers. I think it is better for everyone. There is a tremendous spin-off effect from dollars spent in agriculture.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: They might even buy the odd Belarus.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Did the Member for Vegreville say he wants to buy a-


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I said they might even buy the odd
Belarus.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: I see. The farmers spend an awful lot of money on energy, Mr. Speaker. I have here the statistics issued by Agriculture Canada in 1983 entitled, "Selected agricultural statistics, Canada and The Provinces". It shows the numbers of dollars spent by farmers in 1981. The total expenditure on energy in Canada was $1,217 billion. That takes into account gasoline, diesel fuel, liquefied petroleum gas, natural gas, fuel oil and electricity. Those are the total energy costs. Two items make up the lion's share of that amount. Gasoline amounts to around $450 million, and diesel fuel amounts to around $460 million of what farmers spent in 1981 in terms of energy costs.
And it is exactly the same thing for all provinces, Mr. Speaker. But in Saskatchewan, in early October, they spent about $326 million on energy two years ago. They spent $290 million in Alberta, $258 million in Ontario-practically the same amount-and $123 million in the Province of Quebec.

February 17, 1984
Agriculture

You can see that there are tremendous costs to the farmer. The suggestion being made today by the Member for Vegre-ville will go a considerable distance toward making things a little bit easier for the farmers of this land. I urge the House to agree to the motion.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: For clarity, the Chair would like to read the motion proposed by the Hon. Member. Mr. Mazankowski, seconded by Mr. Huntington, moves:
That in the opinion of this House the Standing Committee on Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs consider the advisability of reducing the cost burden on Canadian farmers by removing the 9 per cent sales tax on diesel fuel and gasoline used for the production of food.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, I will not be too long. This is a very important motion and a very welcome motion. Because I have been in the manufacturing and food business I can say that every dollar of the direct cost in production or manufacturing, by the time it goes through processing, handling, distribution, on to the retail shelf and into the cash register, it becomes $5. If the Government really means what it continues to say about improving our national productivity and about productivity being the answer for tomorrow and the return to a respectable place in the industrial world, then we must consider motions like this very seriously.
Therefore, I compliment the Member for Vegreville for bringing this motion forward and I thank the Members on the Government side for allowing the amendment to be moved.
I would also like to point out the troubles that we are experiencing on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts with our fishing industry and the cost problems we have there vis-a-vis other fishing nations. In light of the fact that we have to reduce costs and at the same time improve quality in packing and delivery of these food resources, I would like to move another amendment. It reads:
That on line 3 of the motion, after the word "farmers", we add the words "and fishermen".


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to support the proposal that we are hearing today. I believe it should go to committee for detailed study. I am glad that it was improved by the Hon. Member for Capilano (Mr. Huntington).
I must say that the Member for Vegreville describes himself as an old horse trader and says that he likes to wheel and deal. We are seeing his talents here today. I suppose if he is an old horse trader he knows how to patch up an old nag and try to get it to look look good for the market. In this case, no matter how much he tries to patch it up, the Tory energy policy is so lame, so weak and so sick that not even a persuasive and charming old trader like him can make it look like a young filly. We have seen him make some energetic efforts today in an attempt to take us on on the Government side about some of our energy ideas. I categorize that as trying to take an old nag and turn it into a young filly.
Let us examine some of his remarkable efforts here. He reminded us of the prices that people are paying at the pump in his riding in Alberta and compared them with the prices that were being paid back in those dark but thankfully brief days when the Tories were in power. He forgot to mention that the Tories had a schedule of increases that were going to inch energy prices up after 1979.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Never double.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Things were not going to stay static. In fact, there were going to be big leaps. All of us in the House, as well as the Canadian people, remember that the Tory energy policy expressed in 1979 indicated that prices by now would be at least 85 per cent of the world level. They were then going to add 18 cents a gallon on top of that.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: That is not right, and you know it.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Furthermore, they were going to change the schedule so that the big increases came right at the beginning and the lower increases came at the end. We would have already paid those big increases by this time. Let us compare that with what the present Minister of Finance did with his national energy policy when he was Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. He said that they should not go that high at all, and they do not go anywhere near that 85 per cent ceiling. Moreover, he said that those prices should include most of the charges that our hon. friend wanted to add on. Finally, the price increases were going to rise relatively smoothly. They were not going to take a big leap at the beginning and taper off at the end.
All of that resulted in people of my riding in Mississauga and, equally important, people in his riding of Vegreville paying less over the last four years for their energy than they ever would have paid under that Tory regime. Under that persuasive, charming but very expensive Tory regime, they would have paid far more if the Tories had followed through with those ideas in 1979 instead of acting in a compassionate way as we have done since 1980.
I would just like to point out this bete noire that Members on that side refer to all the time, namely, the Canadian ownership charge. What a terrible thing it is. First it is terrible, of course, because of the word "Canadian". Second, it is even more terrible because of the reference to ownership. Third, it costs people 4 cents a litre, by my calculation, opposed to the 18 cent surcharge that those on the other side were going to slap on.
I realize that it is not comfortable to defend a tax. I know that it never leaves the incumbent comfortable to be required to levy a tax, but I will say that I feel a lot better asking people to pay 4 cents so as ultimately to own something rather than paying 18 cents that will just go to the border and be shovelled out to a bunch of foreigners who happen to own the company at that time. I like keeping it inside Canada. That is why we have a Canadian ownership charge rather than an 18 cent a gallon foreign ownership charge.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
February 17, 1984


André Ouellet: You cannot take it.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: I can take it but I do not think the Hon. Parliamentary Secretary wants to leave such distortion on the record. He is talking about a 4.5 cent per litre ownership charge. He can apply whatever tag to that he wants but I wish to point out that it is very improper to talk about a 4.5 cent ownership charge and relate it to the 18 cent a gallon charge that was in the Crosbie Budget. The 18 cent a gallon charged today under the present Government is 88 cents.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: I have a point of order, Mr. Speaker.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The first point of order was not a point of order. If the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Kingsway (Mr. Waddell) has another point of order, I will listen.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Would the Hon. Member who is speaking permit me to ask a question, Mr. Speaker? It will be a very short one.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, I would love to have the Hon. Member ask me a question, but if he can do it at the end, we will have more than 20 minutes left over.
I appreciate the fact that you have told the gentleman from Capilano that his point was not in order, Mr. Speaker. It was not in order in any way, shape or form under anybody's rules, mathematics or arithmetic.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Douglas Glenn Fisher: I think the Canadian consumer, including the Canadian farmer, knows that 18 cents a gallon is more expensive than 4 cents a gallon.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: Not 88 cents.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: It will be a long time before the Tories can patch up that 14-cent difference and make it look like that young filly that we were talking about a few moments ago.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: You are talking like an old stallion.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: I would like to refer to the way the Tory Party, in its gentleness and politeness, said that we were a crummy Government. You will notice, Mr. Speaker, that they said we were crummy, but the Hon. Member for Vegreville did not say what he was going to do to be so much better.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: You have a proposal right there.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: We heard some references to 1979. We knew what the Tories were going to do in 1979. He did not need to remind us that in 1979 those ideas were pitched out.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: They would like to have them again.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: But we heard about 1979. But he did not tell us about what the Tory Party was going to do in 1984. He did not
Agriculture
tell us that. His good friend from St. John's West has already told us what they are going to do. Let me quote what he said to the citizens of Canada-


Arthur Ronald Huntington: You are talking about a Member who is absent.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I think there are some limitations with which a person can debate the motion at hand. If he wants me to outline the Tory energy policy, I will be prepared to do that. But obviously I cannot do so within the context of the motion we are now debating. I would hope the Hon. Member would consider that when he throws that challenge across the floor.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: I think in that circumstance maybe the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fisher) should restrict himself to the motion under discussion.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Mr. Speaker, relevance is always my guiding principle here. I appreciate being brought back to the mark by the Hon. Member for Vegreville. I want to assure him that he raised this topic first. I am only trying to balance the debate so future students of our discussion will know how we feel.
I would like to refer you, Mr. Speaker, to the Ottawa Citizen of February 16. The following is reported to have been said: "You have to be mean, nasty and do all sorts of unpleasant things. That's why I'm not going to outline what they would be now."
That was not a Liberal speaking because we are neither mean, nasty nor unpleasant. It was not an NDPer because they are not those things either. Those words come from the leading finance critic of the Tory Party, and that is what the Tory energy policy is going to be. People know that instinctively. People know that in their bones. People had that same experience in those few dark months of 1979 when the Hon. Member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) was the Minister of Finance. He wants to return and plunge the country back into that same valley of despair.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Douglas Glenn Fisher: I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the country is not going to buy it any more than it will buy this lame idea we have here today.


An Hon. Member:: That is sour grapes.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: I do not want to preempt anything, but I am told by one of the Members of the NDP that if we watch Global television tonight we will hear the Hon. Member for St. John's West saying exactly the same thing again. That is the Tory energy policy for farmers, for small town people, for big city people, for suburban people, for young people and for old people. The policy is straightforward. You have to be mean, nasty and do all sorts of unpleasant things.
That is quite a policy, Mr. Speaker. What a refreshing thing to hear from a Conservative, who is prepared to state what lies

February 17, 1984
Agriculture
deepest in his heart-mean, nasty and unpleasant. However, despite those drawbacks, I am prepared to join with the Hon. Member for Vegreville to discuss this issue in the Finance Committee. I think it bears some merit. I congratulate him for bringing this matter forward. I will ask him now in public to cast off his Tory shackles and to let his otherwise generous spirit reign. If we come into the Finance Committee with this kind of idea, we clearly want to do things for food producers generally.
The first problem we are going to run into when we do this was typified by the amendment moved by the Hon. Member for Capilano. All of us were thinking about farmers in our own narrow way, but the Hon. Member for Capilano, quite rightly, broadened our scope to fishermen. But what about food processors and I ask this seriously? What about the people who work in warehouses and in the stores? They also have a role to play in the food chain.


Arthur Ronald Huntington: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I would like to point out that food processors for years have enjoyed federal tax exemption.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: That is not a point of order. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: It may not be a point of order, Mr. Speaker, but it is a fact which badly needs to be said. I appreciate hearing it from the Hon. Member. I am trying to illustrate the issue that on all tax exemptions we get everybody trying to cut in. Hon. Members all know this. They know the difficulty that arises out of a generous move which is later exploited by other people. We know, for example in my area, that there are lots of people who would love to call themselves farmers in order to get the benefits provided in the tax system for real farmers. The consequence is a complicated anti-avoidance section in the Income Tax Act. I am not sure that anybody will be able to come up with a better answer, although I look forward with interest to the results of the consultative committee announced by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) in his budget. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, if that committee sets up wide open tax avoidance opportunities, many non-farmers will try to take advantage. Equally, a lot of non-farmers will want to be called farmers if we show people how to cut the price of gas. We all know that. It is common sense. The committee will have to grapple with that problem. If the committee wants to have its report taken seriously, we will have to come up with a responsible answer to that question.
The second thing we will have to come up with, and it is alluded to by the capable Member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Evans), is how we are going to administer this. Do we go back to the purple gas system? If we are dealing with diesel fuel, we cannot do that.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The machinery is in place now.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: What are we going to do then? How are we going to administer it? How do we find out where the gas is
sold and who buys it? All of this is complicated because the taxes apply at the very lowest level in the refining chain. They are not applied at the gas station. They are applied way down in the gasoline system-


Arthur Ronald Huntington: The machinery is in place.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: -and the fuel system-way at the beginning of the pipeline, as it were. Therefore, the tax will flow right through everything, including a lot of mark-ups, and we will have to figure out how to separate it out for the sake of the farmer.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: The mechanism is in place with the excise tax.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: It is not impossible, but it will be a problem for us to look at. I hear some suggestions, and obviously there are some good ideas in play and the committee can look at them.
Third, I want to point out that the costs are not as high as has been described here. My notes from the Finance Department tell me that if diesel fuel costs 35 cents a litre without any provincial road tax, then the federal sales tax is approximately 3 cents of that 35 cents. I understand that farmers can get 1.5 cents back on gasoline. There may be a system there that we can follow with diesel fuel as well. But if you can claim 1.5 cents back on a litre of gasoline, it shows the low impact this tax is having at that level. I would think the committee will have to ask: If we are going to require paper work both from the farmer and the private sector generally and from the Government, would it be worth it to set up this kind of routine? Those are serious questions that the committee is used to handling.
Finally, it is important to look at what has been done for farmers in the past week. We heard a misleading reference from the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) about the capital gains tax. It is clear in the farming community and in this House that farmers received a big bonus through the tax system in the recent Budget. We provided ways in that Budget for farmers to shelter up to $120,000 in capital gains by placing that in their RRSPs. They will not avoid the tax permanently, but clearly they can defer it for significant periods of time. They can spread out their income and claim it back at much lower rates of tax.
That is a far more flexible way to deal with the problem of capital gains than moving the valuation day would have been. This is a far superior kind of response. As one example, we do not get through our economy a variety of different valuation days. We get one valuation day continuing to be applied to everybody and a special measure that really helps farmers. Second, incorporated farmers will benefit from the new small business tax simplification measures. Third, farmers generally will benefit from the flexibility on the pension plans was proposed by the Minister of Finance.
Those are big improvements which members of the farming community from coast to coast recognize and are beginning to
February 17, 1984

applaud. Wednesday's Budget went a long way to accommodating the concerns of farmers. I hope we can go a little way in the Finance Committee on this equally important measure. I hope the Hon. Member for Vegreville will come to committee and lend us his charm and insight, as he always does in the House.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: For clarification before we proceed further, the Chair would like to advise the House that since the Hon. Member for Vegreville could not second the amendment as he proposed the original motion, the amendment has been seconded by the Hon. Member for Scarborough East (Mr. Gilchrist).


Dave Nickerson: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When the original motion was introduced, it dealt with relief from taxation on fuel products for farmers. The motion was amended to include fishermen. I presume it would be the wish of this House that all primary food producers be included within the scope of the motion. One group seems to have been excluded, those who hunt. They are of particular importance in my constituency. When the matter gets to committee, I hope that also will be taken into consideration.


Ian Gardiner Waddell: Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Fisher) made reference to horse traders. I know he is a literary man. Perhaps I could paraphrase Dr. Samuel Johnson by saying that a white horse and a Liberal are very similar: the first one is difficult to keep clean and the second one is difficult to keep honest. His speech on the Canadian ownership charge was something to behold. The Canadian ownership charge of four cents a gallon is a terrible charge, not because it is Canadian, ownership or a charge, but because it is there for no reason. It is there for the taking over of oil companies. The question I would have put to the Hon. Member if I had time is, which oil companies are they going to take over? This is not irrelevant, it is right on point. The Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde) said that we are not going to take over any more oil companies at the moment. The Government is collecting up to $800 million a year on a tax under false pretences. The Canadian ownership is a fraud, nothing more, nothing less.
If the Hon. Member wanted to attack the Conservative Party, he could have mentioned that the Conservative oil price was based on world price. That was the problem the Clark Government had. They were being whipsawed between the Premier of Ontario and the Premier of Alberta when trying to set an energy price. They opted for the world price. They moved toward it very rapidly and lost the election. I suspect the Hon. Member is here today because of that policy. He should have talked about the Liberal price being a blended price, which was not the world price but with all of these taxes it is becoming the world price.
Agriculture
I support this motion going to committee. I am an urban Member, although there are many retired farmers from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in my riding. Also, our people feel instinctively that the Canadian farmer needs the best help we can give.
Last week I was at a nomination meeting in the Peace River district. I had conversations with our candidate, Elroy Diem-ert, and with Grant Notley, the Leader of our provincial Party, who is also the provincial Leader of the Opposition and some farmers there. I talked to the farmers. It became clear that they too were being whipsawed between the increase in the Crow rate, which the Hon. Member for Yorkton-Melville (Mr. Nystrom) talked about, and some of the other increased costs such as this tax. Even a dumb urban Scot like me could get it through his thick head that this is a problem for the farmers. This is a good motion. It should go to committee.
This Government is prepared to advance all kinds of assistance to the oil companies in the form of PIP grants, $8 billion over the next four years is earmarked for PIP grants. The Budget gives further breaks to oil companies.

There are numerous grants for the major oil companies. There is also some assistance for large corporations and banks, but nothing for farmers.

This is a start. If we can tackle something that really affects the farmers who are being hurt by the increase in the Crow rate and because their energy costs are going up, and from what the Members from Alberta and Saskatchewan have been saying today, they are being hurt with the price they are getting for their produce, then this should go to committee.
I will conclude by saying that, when the Hon. Member said we should take the old nag and turn it into a young filly, I did not realize that he supported the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) running again for the Liberal leadership.


Douglas Glenn Fisher: Any time.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Is the House ready for the question?


Some Hon. Members:: Question.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Yea.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The amendment is carried.

February 17, 1984
Motion (Mr. Mazankowski) agreed to.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: The question is on the motion, as amended. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion as amended?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.
Motion as amended agreed to.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Herbert):: Order, please. It being five o'clock, this House stands adjourned until Monday morning at eleven o'clock, pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At 5 p.m. the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Monday, February 20, 1984