1984-03-23

OFFICIAL REPORT


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33 Elizabeth II

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Canada
28 1989
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Published under authority of the Speaker of the House of Commons by the Queen's Printer for Canada
Available from Canadian Government Publishing Centre, Supply and Services Canada, Ottawa, Canada K1A 0S9.
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Friday, March 23, 1984


Mr. Scott Fennell (Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, in the Montreal Gazette today another example of injustice to the people of Quebec has been brought to my attention. Farmers in the area surrounding Mirabel, whose land was taken away from them at ridiculous prices, are fighting to regain their rights under our Constitution and under their privilege as Canadian citizens. The Government has to be condemned for the attitude it took toward those people at Mirabel. Those people had excess land expropriated, taken away from them. The Government did not do the same thing in Pickering, because it knows the people in Pickering would battle for their rights.
I request the Government to reconsider its hard stand against these fine people from the area around Mirabel who had their homes taken away from them, homes which go back many generations. This land should be returned to the original owners or their heirs in order to retain the identity of that community. The area of Mirabel is a disaster, Mr. Speaker. It has not provided any benefit to the people there. It has only been hurtful to those citizens.
I request that this House bring forward an act to permit the original owners to repurchase the 50,000 acres-


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



MEDICAL CARE


Mr. Stanley Hudecki (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Association of Interns and Residents has brought to the attention of the Standing Committee on Health, Welfare and Social Affairs that a practice exists under the existing Medical Care Act and, according to CAIR, will continue to exist under the Canada Health Act, whereby a Province can regulate the number of qualified practising physicians by denying them a medicare
billing number. Such a practice is now occurring in the Province of British Columbia.
It must be remembered that these doctors have been declared fully qualified by an appropriate College of Physicians and Surgeons which is responsible for assessing their training and awarding licences to practise. Although this practice is at present restricted to one Province, it is conceivable that it could be adopted by all the Provinces in Canada, thus denying the right to practise to qualified physicians who are Canadian born and Canadian trained.
In all Provinces but Quebec they can opt out of the system and be paid under the insurance scheme providing that they set fees within the accepted level of pay in the fee schedule. This problem, I feel, has not been solved in the deliberations of the Standing Committee. It is a principle of fundamental fairness that duly qualified doctors be assured that they will have an opportunity to practise within medicare, otherwise they may be deprived of an opportunity to earn a livelihood in the practice of their profession unless a second tier outside medicare is established.



AGRICULTURE


Mr. Lee Clark (Brandon-Souris):: Mr. Speaker, for years the Department of Agriculture has underfunded the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba, and it is time for a change. The Exhibition organization puts on three fairs each year, including the Royal Manitoba Winter Fair in Brandon, which begins this coming Monday. It is the largest spring fair of its kind in western Canada, and it has a tremendous economic impact on the entire Brandon-Souris region.
Thanks to a dedicated organizing group, all three fairs have prospered and grown. Unfortunately, federal funding has not kept pace. Last year the federal Government contributed less than $22,000, which covered only a fraction of the Exhibition organization's three-quarters-of-a-million-dollar budget. In fact, over the past eight years there has been only a paltry increase in federal funding.
Other exhibitions elsewhere in the country are not underfunded to this degree and there is no excuse for the lack of adequate funding in Manitoba. Although the three fairs put on by the Provincial Exhibition in Manitoba are top notch, the organizers know that in order to keep on attracting top competitors and exhibitors, they must offer adequate prize money. That may not continue to be possible unless federal funding is improved.

March 23, 1984
I strongly urge the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) to adjust his Department's funding arrangements in such a way as to give the Provincial Exhibition of Manitoba the support it deserves and, indeed, the support it has earned.



THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION

Hon. Bud Cullen (Sarnia-Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, I would like to call to the attention of the House that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mulroney) is once again breaking new ground. He has agreed to appear on open line shows across the country, but on one condition, that no one can call in. It will be an open line show, but will be open from one end only. Yesterday, his press assistant confirmed that this was in fact the case but refused to say why the Hon. Leader of the Opposition would not allow people to phone in and talk to him. Today, fortunately, Bill Fox, his press secretary, has been more forthcoming. He said that the Leader of the Opposition has made it a policy not to appear on any open line shows because they are too volatile and can be manipulated by rival political organizations.
People of Canada, do not call in to the Leader of the Opposition, because the line will be busy.

[DOT] <mo)



INDIAN AFFAIRS


Mr. Laverne Lewycky (Dauphin-Swan River):: Mr. Speaker, the Valley River Indian Band in my constituency has been after the Department of Indian Affairs to assist in the purchase of a ballast pit within their reserve. This pit could be compared to the hole in a doughnut relative to its location in the reserve. An offer to sell the land to the Band was made in 1981, but no meaningful action was undertaken by the Department. The sum of $15,000 was asked for but not accepted. This represents a pittance when one takes into account the fact that the Department spent $30,000 over the last two years to supply gravel to this reserve.
This historically legitimate land claim should have been settled years ago, had the Minister heeded my representations. The social and economic value of this land to the Bank is far greater than the amount requested. I call upon the Minister and the Department to act immediately to secure this piece of land for the Valley River Indian Band under their land claims programs and projects.
[ Translation]



BANK OF CANADA


Mr. Jean-Claude Malepart (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works):: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of S.O. 21 to protest against a statement by the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mr. Bouey, who said yesterday that workers are partially responsible for high interest rates in this country, because they are getting higher wage increases than their American counterparts.
Mr. Speaker, I think Mr. Bouey is being unfair to Canadian workers. He should not forget that last year, most workers in Canada took cuts in wages, and others were obliged, as in Quebec by the provincial Government, to forgo scheduled wage increases. Furthermore, most workers have had to accept the work sharing concept.
Mr. Speaker, I think Mr. Bouey ought to set an example and take a cut in salary or simply offer his resignation.



POLITICAL PARTIES


Mr. Doug Lewis (Simcoe North):: Mr. Speaker, I want to share with the House a letter I recently received. It starts out: "Dear John: It was so nice to see you on TV after all those years. It seems like only yesterday that you quit while I was in the middle of the Ontario election campaign in September, 1975. Like many Canadians I wondered where you had been for the past nine years. Some said you were making films. Some said you were writing a pricy newsletter based on your experience as Finance Minister. Some said you were working in a fancy restaurant.
I didn't think you would be returning to politics when I heard you were practicing law on Bay Street. But you have quit that, too, although you have not quit the bank directorship. By the way, John, now that you are 'fresh' to politics, you should practice your one-on-one TV interviews. Shifty eyes, swivel chairs, a tense expression and evasive answers may have been OK in the days of radio when you were Finance Minister, but we are using television now and your lack of experience shows."
It is signed, Mr. Speaker, "Affectionately yours, Bob Nixon, former leader, Ontario Liberal Party".



EXTERNAL AFFAIRS


Mr. Jesse P. Flis (Parkdale-High Park):: Mr. Speaker, Canadians from all three Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania, and
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Estonia, continue to be concerned over the fact that the federal Government's publication Diplomatic Corps And Consular And Other Representatives In Canada does not include the names of the honorary consul generals representing each of these states in Canada. In light of the fact that this publication includes names of representatives from agencies such as the International Labour Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, to name but a few, I urge the Government and the Secretary of State for External Affairs (Mr. MacEachen) to include the names of the above three honorary consuls general under this special category of "Other Representatives".
On behalf of all Canadians of Baltic descent, 1 urge the Canadian Government to give some recognition to the representatives of these three important areas of the world by including their names in the above directory.



INDIAN ACT


Mr. John McDermid (Brampton-Georgetown):: Mr. Speaker, it is a shame that I have to rise in the House today-


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


John Horton McDermid: Wait for it-and again make a plea to the Government to bring forward legislation immediately to remove a Section in our Indian Act which discriminates against Indian women in our country.


Some Hon. Members:: Hear, hear!
MS)


John Horton McDermid: Section 12.(l)(b) is the offending Section. It has been promised by this Government year after year in the Speech from the Throne, by the Minister responsible for the status of women (Mrs. Erola), by the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau), and by the Minister of Indian Affairs (Mr. Munro). Yet we have no legislation. It is a black mark on the country. It is a black mark on the Government of the country. A Bill must be introduced in the House immediately so we can remove that discrimination in the Indian Act. It is a shame, and it must be done right now.



CRIMINAL CODE


Mr. Bill Blaikie (Winnipeg-Birds Hill):: Mr. Speaker, recently in Winnipeg a father was aquitted on a technicality after admitting that he had sexual intercourse with his adopted daughter. Apparently he could not be charged with having sex with his adopted daughter because the child was born out of wedlock and is not therefore a child according to the law as it
Oral Questions
now exists. The charge was changed to having sex with a foster daughter, and the man got off when the judge ruled that an adopted daughter does not fall within the definition of a foster child.
Clearly this is one of those cases in which the law is an ass. Action must be taken to amend the Criminal Code to provide better protection for illegitimate and adopted children. The Attorney General of Manitoba and others have called upon the federal Government to amend the Criminal Code to close this loophole. I would certainly urge it to do so as quickly as possible. I am confident there would be co-operation from all Members of the House.



ORAL QUESTION PERIOD


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. The Minister has said that when interest rates rise in the United States they must also rise in Canada. Can the Minister explain to 1.5 million unemployed Canadians why unemployment in the United States has been falling in the past few months, and rising in Canada? Why can we not share in some of the gains if we have to share in the pains?


Hon. Marc Lalonde (Minister of Finance):: Mr. Speaker, very simply, employment has risen in the United States and also in Canada. The reason that our unemployment figure has not gone down faster is the significant difference between the participation rates, that is, the number of people coming into the work force in Canada and in the United States. I will give my friend a figure. The increase in participation in Canada last year was 40 per cent larger than it was in the United States. We have had a much larger number of entrants into the labour force in Canada than there has been in the United States. This is part of the explanation.
The cycles of recession and recovery are not identical in Canada and the United States. Over time those cycles tend to be similar, but in the short term they have never coincided in the past. One should expect there to be lags in either direction between the two countries. However, fundamentally the same general direction applies.


Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, Canadians who are unemployed will have a lot of difficulty with that economic gobbledegook which can only be understood by some economists.


REQUEST FOR ACTION TO REDUCE UNEMPLOYMENT
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: Mr. Speaker, let us talk to the 1.5 million Canadians who do not have jobs. Why can

March 23, 1984
Oral Questions
we not tell them we are going to try some of the things they have tried in the United States which have cut down unemployment? Forget about entrants into the work force. Why can we not have some of those events in Canada which cut down on unemployment in the United States, so that we can put Canadians back to work?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, 1 cannot help the Hon. Member very much on the first question if he refuses to use his brain and examine reality. The statistics are there. They indicate that we had a much larger growth in the labour force in Canada than the United States had last year. I ask the Hon. Member to look at the figures. He should be able to understand them, even if he refuses to make the effort of exercising his mind by analysing the consequences of having a larger growth in the labour force in Canada than in the United States.
As to the second point he raised, 1 want to stress to him that indeed we have taken steps in this country to stimulate the economy. In effect the deficit itself indicates how much more the Government is injecting into the economy compared to what it has taken out of the economy.
We have announced a number of measures, particularly last year, that are now in operation, whereby we are stimulating the private sector with about $2.4 billion in tax incentives. We are also adding significantly to government infrastructure capital expenditures, in order to stimulate construction and activity in the housing industry.
1 remind him that under the Special Capital Recovery Projects we will spend over $1 billion in federal funds this year. We have also set up a fund of $1.3 billion for this year that will come to the help of young people in this country who are experiencing the largest percentage of unemployment at the present time.


HOUSING
Douglas Grinslade Lewis: No matter how the Minister of Finance slices it, unemployment in Canada is 11.3 per cent and rising, and unemployment in the U.S. is 7.8 per cent and going down.
Mr. Speaker, I want to return to a question 1 asked the Minister earlier this week with respect to mortgage interest rates. He stated that the Mortgage Rate Protection Plan will protect home owners against excessive increases in interest rates. As the House and the country will know, but the Minister of Finance does not know, that plan protects Canadians when the mortgages are renewed three and four years from now. What is he doing today to address the rise in mortgage interest rates which will cripple the building industry and prevent Canadians from buying homes?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the Hon. Member says that unemployment is at 11.3 per cent and rising. He must have statistics that no one else in Canada has. I suggest that he should wait for the Statistics Canada figures for next month. He might be surprised. What will he say if unemployment comes down next month? I regret that the figure is high at 11.3 per cent and I am concerned about it, but I do not think the Hon. Member helps the situation or shows that he is looking at it with any particular degree of fairness when he says it is rising. There is no evidence to that effect. Indeed, I suspect that we may have contrary results when the figures come out next time.
As far as the Mortgage Rate Protection Plan is concerned, as the Hon. Member knows it will be effective at the time of renewal of mortgages, but it will be a very effective program. It has the support of all the agents concerned, including the housing industry, the construction industry in this country, and the Canadian Consumers' Association. I hope my hon. friend will support that measure when it comes before the House.
With respect to the immediate situation, it is regrettable that mortgage rates have gone up by half a point. However, I do not think that my friend can conclude that this will cripple the housing industry, any more than a decline by half a point would have suddenly led to a huge boom in the housing industry. These movements are rather small and I am confident that we will not see them become larger.


LABOUR CONDITIONS
Hon. Flora MacDonald (Kingston and the Islands):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. He will have received a letter from the Canadian Council on Social Development pointing out that older workers, particularly adult men who are heads of families, are the people most severely hit by long term unemployment, that is, people who have been without jobs for more than a year. In fact the number of jobless in that group has more than doubled in the last couple of years.
Since most of the Government's job-creation programs are directed toward younger workers, and therefore the group I am talking about does not qualify because of age, and because their unemployment insurance benefits have been exhausted and they are literally living in despair, why is the Government not paying more attention to the plight of jobless older workers particularly when their numbers have increased so dramatically in the last couple of years?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, now the Hon. Member is complaining about too much assistance for young workers compared to what is being done for older workers. I wish the Hon. Member's Party would get its act together. First, they attack us for not doing enough for
March 23, 1984

young people, and today the Hon. Member is saying we are doing too much, compared to what is being done for older workers. I may remind her that the Government has direct job creation programs some of which are mainly aimed at young workers, but there is also a substantial number aimed at all workers, including the older workers.
1 may also remind her that the Department of Employment and Immigration has special programs for the people to which the Hon. Member is referring. These include the program based on Section 38 of the Unemployment Insurance Act as well as the labour adjustment programs, some of which are being used to help the textile and footwear industry. We have set up programs specifically aimed at older workers who have not yet reached retirement age but are facing a difficult situation in industries that are in a relative decline. We have adjustment programs for these workers to help them cope with these very difficult circumstances.
I should be happy to send the Hon. Member a list of these programs if she does not yet have that information.


LONG-TERM IMPACT OF UNEMPLOYMENT
Flora Isabel MacDonald: Mr. Speaker, the Minister says he wishes I would be consistent. I wish he would not attempt to deceive people.
Has the Minister read this letter from the Canadian Council of Social Development which points out so dramatically the plight of the older worker? We know the great difficulty with younger workers, but the Government also has to realize that there are real problems for those people who are older. They point specifically to the age group between 55 and 65 who are living in real difficulty. The Council also asks the Minister whether he would put more study into the long term problems arising from unemployment.
In light of the studies being done in the United States, which I raised with the Minister last week, will he not take this recommendation of the Canadian Council on Social Development and look into the long-term impact of unemployment and what it is doing to the people of this country? It is really having disastrous effects on their lives.


Hon. John Roberts (Minister of Employment and Immigration):: Mr. Speaker, I have read the letter thoroughly to which the Hon. Member refers.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Your colleague has not.


John (Moody) Roberts: I had some discussions with the people serving on the Committee on Social Development. I have also raised these questions, to which the Hon. Member has referred, with my provincial counterparts at the meeting held in Saint John a few days ago. Yes, we are concerned about both the short-term and the longer-term implications.
Oral Questions


Flora Isabel MacDonald: I am glad you are. The Minister of Finance is not.


John (Moody) Roberts: It was as a result of that, that the provincial Ministers at that conference agreed with me that we would try to hold a special conference of employment ministers on this subject and on, for instance, skills development and literacy problems, sometime before this summer. We are working on that conference. It may not prove to be possible to have it as quickly as we would like, but the employment ministers in Saint John agreed with me that we would try to organize such a conference before the summer.


Flora Isabel MacDonald: Thank God. You are more humane than the Minister of Finance.


FINANCE
Mr. Ian Deans (Hamilton Mountain):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. Yesterday the chartered banks, following the direction of the Bank of Canada, raised their interest rates again for mortgages and consumer loans. For the past number of weeks the Minister of Finance has been repeating that the Government does not have a high interest rate policy, yet every week we see the bank interest rates sneak and creep up to a higher and higher level.
The course of action being followed by the banks now is the same course that was followed in 1981 when we saw interest rates go from 18 per cent in May to 19 per cent in June, to 20 per cent in July, and to 21 per cent in August. If the systematic increase in interest rates that we now see occurring is not part of a high interest policy, would the Minister care to tell the House and the Canadian public what is a high interest rate policy?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I would like to use the expression of the Hon. Member and ask him what the NDP was saying when the interest rate in Canada was sneaking and creeping down from 21 per cent to 11 per cent? Were members of the DNP claiming that the federal Government had a low interest policy and that this was terrible? They were not, obviously. They were realizing that the economy was evolving in a situation both in Canada and the United States where we were able to have a situation in which interest rates were coming down.
At the present time, as I have indicated, we have a situation where we have practically eliminated the difference between the U.S. and Canadian rates. We have been able to bring interest rates in this country down to the levels of the United States whereas, before the six and five program, for instance, we had a spread of up to 4 per cent and 5 per cent above United States rates. If the United States rates go up, as they have been creeping up since January, it is unrealistic to expect

March 23, 1984
Oral Questions
that we can have a situation in Canada where we have lower interest rates than the United States over an extended period. We may be able to do it for a few days or a few weeks, but as 1 have repeated over and over again in the House to my friends, they should realize that if Canadians can get 11.5 per cent for their money in the United States, they will not keep their money in Canada at 9 per cent or 10 per cent. It is as simple as that.


Ian Deans: In effect the Minister is saying that there is nothing we can to independently, that those people who are now unemployed can continue to look forward to years of unemployment, and that those who have jobs can look forward to further unemployment. In effect, that is what the Minister is saying, that nothing can be done in Canada. Surely he knows that there is a large body of opinion that high interest rates in Canada can do nothing but hinder investment in the country and stall the economic recovery, if in fact there is an economic recovery taking place.


UNEMPLOYMENT LEVELS
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, is it really necessary for the Government of Canada to replay the disasters of 1981, 1982, and part of 1983, and to allow unemployment to go from 1.5 million to 2 million or 2.5 million people? Is that the only answer with which the Government can come forward to deal with the economic problems facing many people in the country today?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, of course not; of course not. Our policy is not a policy of impotence.


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Marc Lalonde: I have indicated to the Hon. Member repeatedly that indeed we have achieved a lot in bringing down the inflation rate in the country, that we have achieved a lot by increasing productivity, that we have achieved a lot by having the largest trade surplus in our history, and that indeed we have achieved a lot by reducing the difference between U.S. interest rates and Canadian interest rates. This has allowed us to be more competitive, more productive, and more efficient, and has prevented us from having even higher unemployment than we have at the present time.
We do not have a high interest rate policy. Our policy is one of having the lowest possible rates of interest that we can achieve in this country. That is what we are working at and trying to achieve. This is the aim of our policy-the lowest possible rate of interest with the highest possible rate of growth in the economy.


Ian Deans: Surely the Minister recognizes that high interest rates in the years 1981, 1982 and 1983 directly resulted in higher unemployment, higher levels of bankruptcies, both personal and business, and in what virtually turned out to be chaos in the lives of almost two million Canadian families. Surely the Minister also recognizes that to deny those people
and others the opportunity to fend for themselves and create a life for themselves, is to deny that the Government has any responsibility.


GOVERNMENT POLICY
Ian Deans: Mr. Speaker, surely it is not unreasonable to suggest that if the result of high interest rates will be, without exception, higher unemployment, higher levels of bankruptcy, higher levels of mortgage foreclosures, and more chaos in the economy, the Government must then take it upon itself to pursue a different policy, a policy of lower interest rates, a policy of government responsibility, a policy which says that the Government of Canada will set an interest rate that will satisfy the best interests of Canadians living in Canada, rather than follow an interest rate made in the United States which works havoc with Canadian workers, manufacturers, and employers?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I have listened to the tirade of the Hon. Member with a great deal of interest. I have to repeat what I have just told him, that our policy is to have the lowest possible interest rate. That is the Government's policy. I cannot say it in more or in better words. That is our objective. This is what we are trying to achieve at all costs. Once more, the notion that somehow the Government could dictate interest rates here well below those in the United States is living in fairyland. Once more, even NDP supporters would be the first ones to ship their money to the United States if they could get more than in Canada for it. It is as simple as that.


AGRICULTURE
Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Agriculture. Hopefully he will know that there is a very serious agricultural crisis which is worsening day by day. At least 50 farmers in my constituency of Brandon-Souris will not be able to put in their crops this spring, at least in part due to high interest rates. Those high interest rates are partly due to the fact that many farmers in Manitoba and elsewhere in Canada are locked into Farm Credit Corporation loans at 16 per cent or higher. Are the Minister and his Government incapable of doing something to help these farmers, many of them are in their thirties, some of whom are in their forties and sixties, who are being forced off the land by policies of the Government for which it should forever feel ashamed?


Hon. E. F. Whelan (Minister of Agriculture):: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Hon. Member is aware that the Province of Manitoba has some responsibility. Those farmers did not reach the position they are in overnight. Agriculture is a joint responsibility in Canada.
March 23, 1984

We subsidized the interest rates of some of those farmers about whom he is talking, down to 12 per cent. Some of them have not made any payments during the two years they were subsidized down to 12 per cent. It has cost the Government millions of dollars to subsidize those interest rates. We were lending at 16 per cent and 16.75 per cent, whereas private lending institutions were providing money at 20 per cent to 23 per cent.
When he says that we did not do anything, I would gently remind him that the marketing system which his Party seems to support is very sick and does not give farmers a decent return. Then he wants the Government to come along and assist that sick marketing system under which they are operating. I want them to make up their minds on just what they want. He knows as well as I do that many farmers in the Province of Manitoba who are in some kind of marketing system are looking after the market themselves, running it for themselves, and are paying bills too.


ASSISTANCE FOR FARMERS
Walter Leland Rutherford (Lee) Clark: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my supplementary question to the Minister of Finance. On behalf of farmers in my constituency who are being forced into bankruptcy, either by creditors or voluntarily as a result of high interest rates, why are the Minister and his Government prepared to liquidate the debts of Canadair and yet do nothing to help average, ordinary farmers?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I may remind the Hon. Member that every year, the Government makes it possible for the Farm Credit Corporation to lend hundreds of millions of dollars to the agricultural sector in this country, and that every year, the Department of Agriculture spends hundreds of millions of dollars to help the industry and ensure it will be productive and able to compete on world markets. The fact is that agriculture in Canada has proved to be one of the most dynamic sectors in our economy and in the world, for that matter. With the support of the Government of Canada and the policies this Government has implemented, the agricultural industry in Canada has proved to be extremely productive, but there have been difficult times where high interest rates have caused problems for a number of farmers, and as the Hon. Member is aware, we have implemented a number of measures to help farmers facing particular problems.
Oral Questions


SMALL BUSINESS
Thomas Scott Fennell: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. His description is very appropriate. Incompetent is a very appropriate definition of the Minister of Finance. There are thousands of people who are worrying about jobs. Small businesses are panicking because of the new trend of interest rates going up. Will the Minister of Finance put in a contingency plan to protect the small businesses of this country by means of reintroducing the SBDB in its original form, which was intended not only to help bankrupt companies but to help those strong small Canadian companies that were so damaged by the previous rise in interest rates?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to receive the Hon. Member's suggestion.


MINISTER'S POSITION
Thomas Scott Fennell: Mr. Speaker, we have heard this Minister give long, macro economic dialogues in this House over the last week.


An Hon. Member:: You have learned a new word.


Thomas Scott Fennell: I have learned a great deal. The Minister has failed to tell the Canadian public what he is going to do to get people back to work, to save small businesses and get this country moving again.


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I do not understand how this fits into Question Period. The Hon. Member has made a speech. I have not heard a question. He complains about long answers. I gave him a short one. He should be satisfied with that. I could go on to explain to him-


John Horton McDermid: No, no.


Marc Lalonde: You are afraid of getting longer answers? You will get one. In the last budget I introduced measures to produce-


Mr. Speaker:: Order. The Minister of Finance has made a point. Questions of a general nature are hardly suited for Question Period. We are now entering a period of mini debates, not questions and answers. This is an evolution of this period upon which Hon. Members might care to reflect.

March 23, 1984
Oral Questions BANK OF CANADA


GOVERNOR'S STATEMENT ON WORKERS' WAGES
Mr. Lome Nystrom (Yorkton-Melville):: Mr. Speaker, I have a short and very specific question for the Minister of Finance. Yesterday Gerald Bouey, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, stated that Canadian workers are partly to blame for high interest rates in this country because their wage increases are higher than in the United States. According to the United States Labour Department figures, the 1983 wages of Canadian workers were only 93 per cent of those of workers in the United States. Does the Minister agree with the Governor of the Bank of Canada that Canadian workers are partly to blame for high interest rates? If not, will he tell Governor Bouey to go take a walk in a storm?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, the question is not only in terms of Canadian workers, but all Canadians. Over a period of several years settlements regarding wage and salary increases in various forms, not only of the ordinary worker, but of senior officials and so on, have been more than in the United States. To give my friend some idea, in 1981 non-COLA commercial wage settlements in Canada were 5.1 per cent higher than in the United States; in 1982 they were 3 per cent higher, and in 1983 they were 1.7 per cent higher than in the United States. If we go back before 1981, we find similar figures over a number of years.
When 60 per cent to 70 per cent of our Gross National Product is composed of salaries and wages for all Canadians, it is clear that the wage component is a significant factor in our economy. If our increases in wages, salaries and remuneration generally are larger than in the United States, we will not be able to compete with the United States, which is our main client and one of our main competitors. I am sure the Member knows that. This is a reality that this country has to face. We have to remain competitive.
The only way we will be able to have relatively higher settlements than in the United States and still remain competitive is if we can have a higher rate of productivity in this country than in the United States. My friend knows that in the last few years the rate of productivity in Canada was not as high as in the United States. I am happy that in the last year we have improved our rate of productivity. I hope that all Canadians will ensure that our economy will be even more efficient than in the future.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, the fact remains that the average manufacturing wage in this country is only 93 per cent of that in the United States, $11.44 an hour compared to $12.31 an hour.


REQUEST THAT GOVERNOR'S SALARY BE REDUCED
Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, my supplementary question is directed to the Minister of Finance. I believe he is aware that Governor Bouey's salary last year was $104,000. His American counterpart, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker, was paid the equivalent of $85,000 in Canadian funds. If the Minister will not fire Governor Bouey, will he at least take the next logical step and reduce his salary to $79,000, which would be 93 per cent of the salary of Mr. Volcker?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, I remind my hon. friend that the salary of Governor Bouey has not been increased in the last few years. In fact he has turned down an increase in salary to which he would have been entitled under the six and five program.


PENITENTIARIES
Mr. Bill Vankoughnet (Hastings-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington):: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. Considerable pressure has been building among employees as well as inmates at Millhaven Penitentiary over the recent number of stabbings and murders, a situation worsened by inmates' access to drugs and alcohol. Employees have brought their concerns to the attention of the Commissioner of Correctional Services. In view of this situation, and the decision by your Ministry to hire commissionaires for part-time-


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


William John Vankoughnet: Mr. Speaker, is the Solicitor General aware that part-time contract people are being hired for positions in control towers on the inside of these prisons? I wish to refer to comments that have been made that these people are not of a qualified background so that situations which arise, such as that at Archambault-


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member is making a representation. He really should ask the question.


William John Vankoughnet: Mr. Speaker, is the Minister aware of this situation? If so, what is he prepared to do to address the situation which has been brought to the attention of the Commissioner, especially considering the recent coroner's report in eastern Ontario that drug abuse and alcohol are rampant in that institution?


Hon. Bob Kaplan (Solicitor General of Canada):: Mr. Speaker, I met with the union. In fact I meet with them
March 23, 1984

periodically, almost every three months, and go over an agenda of items of concern. That particular matter was not on our most recent agenda. However, I am certainly willing to discuss it with the representatives of the union.
1 approved a policy of replacing professional members of the CSC with part-time people in areas where no threat at all is to be presented to the security of the institution. I challenge the Hon. Member to relate the kinds of jobs replacements he has referred to with the kinds of problems that exist in the institution. The manning of a tower by any person who is qualified to do that, does not bear on the possibility of excessive drugs in the institution.
1 am very concerned about the escalating costs in the past of the Correctional Service of Canada. During this period of restraint I have taken special steps in the institution to try to bring costs down. Using commissionaires who are well qualified to do the job they are given, rather than using highly trained professionals of the CSC to do jobs which do not require professional training particularly, is a very important way of saving money for the taxpayer.


PERIMETER SECURITY
William John Vankoughnet: Mr. Speaker, what we are dealing with is not economics; we are talking about human lives. For the Minister to suggest that we have people in penitentiaries who are not fully qualified is incomprehensible. Everyone who works in a penitentiary, such as Millhaven especially, should be well qualified. That is very important, whether they are back-up people or whatever they are. We are not just talking about economics; we should be talking about the security of the inmates and the people with families who work there.
My supplementary question concerns perimeter security, Mr. Speaker. There have been suggestions that there will be fewer people in guard towers on perimeter security because of the new electronic surveillance equipment. I have been told by people who work there that this equipment is not functioning very well at all because of weather conditions in that area. I should like to know what the Minister is doing to make sure that the perimeter area is secure, and if he has plans for further reducing the number of people in these towers.


Robert Phillip Kaplan: Mr. Speaker, if the Hon. Member is genuinely concerned about this, I do not know why he does not show up at the meetings of the Justice Committee where such matters are discussed. I took the case for perimeter intrusion detection electronic devices to that Committee and I think I was able to satisfy a great many of the reasonable Members who attended that, in a lot of cases, electronic surveillance is more effective than surveillance only by people, without electronic surveillance, as has been done in the past. I think the Hon. Member could
Oral Questions
learn a lot by attending that Committee. One thing he would find is that no measures have been introduced, even to save money-absolutely no measures-that would increase the risk to a community or to the staff who work in an institution, or even to the inmates.


INDUSTRY
Mr. Stan Schellenberger (Wetaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Finance. There is a need to create jobs, and the petrochemical industry has that potential. Is the Government prepared to consider the recommendations of the task force on petrochemicals in a favourable way? Will he announce whether he is prepared to forgo the up-front taxation on the feedstock, especially to allow a more market responsive taxation system to be put into place?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, not long ago we received a report from a task force on petrochemicals that was set up by the Government. This report was received by the Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion and the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. Our officials are examining the report and its implications, and we shall be happy to inform the Hon. Member as soon as we have finished studying the report and Cabinet has made a decision.


Mr. McGrath:: Supplementary. A short supplementary.


Mr. Speaker:: A short supplementary. The Hon. Member for St. John's East.


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I have a short supplementary question for the Minister of Employment and Immigration who is sitting next to the Minister of Finance. Perhaps he might be able to explain to the House why, more than five weeks after the Budget, he has not yet been able to utilize the $150 million made available to him by his colleague in the last Budget for-


Mr. Speaker:: That has nothing to do with the original question. This is not a supplementary. It has nothing to do with it. The Hon. Member for Portage-Marquette.


Mr. Trudeau:: Learn the rules.


AGRICULTURE
Mr. Charles Mayer (Portage-Marquette):: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture about the red

March 23, 1984
Oral Questions
meat situation. There have been discussions recently with provincial Ministers and four of them agreed in principle to a so-called tripartite red beef stabilization program. The Minister is on record as saying two years ago that something could be done. I wonder if he would be prepared to tell us what stage the discussions are at now, and when we can look forward to the introduction of legislation in the House that will facilitate matters.


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the Hon. Member is aware of the meeting held here in Ottawa on February 9 with some Ministers. In fact every province was represented. They are not in unaminous agreement about how the plan should work, put there was enough feeling of support there that I have instructed my officials to go ahead with the legislation. We had a meeting about it this morning and they are proceeding with the draft legislation at the present time. The date they have set for approval and, hopefully, for a signing function by the provincial Ministers and myself, is in July of this year.


STATUS OF DISCUSSIONS
Charles James Mayer: Mr. Speaker, if I understand the Minister correctly, that means that a plan will be in place by July 1. If that is the case, when will it take effect? Will it be in effect in time for the fall crop of calves? Could the Minister bring us up to date on the state of the discussions with the various sectors involved? We are talking about a hog plan and two separate plans in the beef industry, one for the calf operation and one for slaughter calves. Could the Minister bring us up to date on those discussions?


Eugene Whelan: Mr. Speaker, it seems that the pork producers are almost unanimous across Canada; sheep people are as well; cow-calf people are, but the big problem is in the finished cattle sector, whether it would be for this year. It is a tripartite type of agreement. It has not been agreed whether it would be for this year or not, but we hope it would be paying for the calendar year 1984.


RESEARCH INTO LONG-RANGE AIR POLLUTION
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. The Minister recently agreed to an amendment to the preamble to the Canadian Health Act which included the insight that we will only bring about improvements in the wellbeing of Canadians if we address the environmental causes of disease, as well as other causes of disease. I wonder if the Minister could tell the House how she reconciles that legitimate perception with the fact that a request for $1.2 million to continue studies on the health effects of long-range air pollution has been rejected by her Department? Is she aware of this rejection and, if so, did she support it? If she is not aware of it,
what will she do to make sure that this kind of important research continues?


Hon. Monique Begin (Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, the problem of limited resources is well known, particularly in fields like the one for which I have responsibility. It is true that at the last banking date we could not find that sum of money. It means competition with programs such as the creation of the first native health professionals career program, which I thought must have top priority for the health status of Canadians. You simply have to weigh priority. There is an interdepartmental committee on an acid rain program, to fight air pollution, that is now working with my officials to try to find, through other public and even private sources, funds for the continuation of this study. My Department will analyse the data collected in the first four years of the program.


IMPORTANCE OF RESEARCH
William Alexander (Bill) Blaikie: Mr. Speaker, it would appear that, along with others, the Minister is trying to find money to continue this research. That is a good thing and I hope she is successful. May I say to her that it is not a question of trading off a program that she suggested, with the one that I mentioned. This kind of research is very important and ought to be structured into the long-range plans of the Department of National Health and Welfare. When she gets around to doing that we will be completely satisfied.


Monique Bégin: Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the question was, exactly, in the second representation made by the Hon. Member. The fact is that the data collected up to now will be analysed by my Department and we hope that other stages of the program of research will take place. I think it is better to consider this as a temporary disruption of funding more than the cutting off of funds forever.


INDIAN AFFAIRS
John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. His predecessor, who is now the Secretary of State for External Affairs, with great fanfare in 1981 announced that he was creating a $345 million fund to develop Indian businesses. May I ask the Minister how many loans have been given from that fund since 1981?


Marc Lalonde: Mr. Speaker, this question should more properly be addressed to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. I am not responsible for the administration of the loans and of the fund.
March 23, 1984


John Horton McDermid: Mr. Speaker, that is not where the loan responsibility rests, just to give the information to the Minister of Finance. It rests with the Department of Trade, but there is not a soul from that Department over there and it was the Minister of Finance who announced it.


ACTIVATION OF FUND
John Horton McDermid: Will the Minister make a commitment to encourage his colleagues to activate that fund so that Indians can start small businesses, and have proper funding which would help the unemployment situation which is tragic with the Indian people?


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair has difficulty accepting a supplementary in view of the responsibility of another Minister for the program, according to the rules and practices of the House.


PETITIONS
Mr. Speaker:: I have the honour to inform the House that the petition presented by the Hon. Member for Halifax West (Mr. Crosby) on Thursday, March 22, 1984, meets the requirements of the Standing Orders as to form.



POINT OF ORDER


James Aloysius McGrath: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order arising out of your ruling during Question Period as to the relevancy of my supplementary question. I do not often challenge the Chair. Indeed, under the rules we cannot challenge the Speaker's rulings. However, clearly, Mr. Speaker, I think in this particular case you were wrong, and I say that with great respect-


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


James Aloysius McGrath: My question was clearly supplementary.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member for St. John's East is an experienced parliamentarian for whom I have personally a great deal of respect. I am sure the Hon. Member knows that supplementaries are in the discretion of the Chair. I believe an examination of today's Hansard will indicate that this Question Period was not the finest hour. With all due respect, the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Schellenberger) asked a very specific question relating to incentives with regard to the petroleum industry in his area, and a very specific-


An Hon. Member:: Order.
Petitions


Mr. Speaker:: With all due respect, in the interpretation of the Chair, this was an incentive for investment. The Chair had great difficulty relating the supplementary as posed by the Hon. Member-and this was a discretion of the Chair in an attempt to accommodate Hon. Members-to an investment incentive program announced in the Budget. In the circumstances, the Chair determined it was not a relevant supplementary.
The Hon. Member will note that the Chair had one or two other difficult decisions to make today. With all due respect, the Chair would be delighted to meet with the Hon. Member afterwards. If there is a true feeling there has been an injustice done, the Chair is always willing to look at the record and try to be as fair as possible in the circumstances in granting supplementaries.


Mr. Bill Yurko (Edmonton East):: Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. I have noticed that the Speaker during the last several weeks has been recognizing Hon. Members to ask questions without supplementaries during the last five or ten minutes of each Question Period. I would like to commend the Speaker and ask him to continue the practice.


Mr. Speaker:: The Hon. Member, however well intentioned, is out of order at this point.


Mr. Lome Greenaway (Cariboo-Chilcotin):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have been away from the House for several weeks. When I opened my desk drawer I found that someone had left a "weapon" in my desk. I believe, actually, it is the kind of thing which someone should use on the Minister of National Revenue, but you are welcome to have it!


Some Hon. Members:: Oh, oh!


Mr. Speaker:: The Chair will bring this to the attention of the Sergeant-at-Arms and wishes to assure the Hon. Member that it is inconceivable that any Hon. Member of this House would bear any ill will toward him!



ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS


Ms. Margaret Mitchell (Vancouver East):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the honour to present a petition from over 900 parents of school children who live throughout the Cities of Vancouver, Coquitlam, Surrey, Langley, Richmond, North Vancouver, Burnaby, Port Moody, Delta and West Vancouver in British Columbia. These parents ask that an error in the federal Criminal Code of 1976 be corrected so that growing children can be protected in parks and playgrounds from convicted

March 23, 1984
Order Paper Questions
sexual offenders. They ask that this law be changed now to protect our children as humanely as possible. I fully support this petition, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):: Mr. Speaker, 1 have the honour to present a petition signed largely by a great number of women with respect to the terrible conditions which exist in Canada concerning abortion. They urge that the Criminal Code be amended so that abortion be available only for the absolute protection of human life.


Mr. Robert Wenman (Fraser Valley West):: Mr. Speaker, I have the duty and responsibility to present a petition on behalf of Arab horse breeders in my constituency of Fraser Valley West and elsewhere. The nature of the petition is to protest the arbitrary and undemocratic activities of the Canadian Arab Horse Registry which proposes to introduce mandatory blood-type tests of questionable value, and charge importation fees for horses already registered in America.
The purpose of this petition is to ask the federal Government to order CAHR to change its constitution to allow proxy voting and require that all directors be persons who have bred and registered foals successfully over the last five years in the Canadian and/or American registry.


QUESTIONS ON THE ORDER PAPER
[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)
Mr. Leonard Hopkins (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources):: Mr. Speaker, the following questions will be answered today: Nos. 382, 420, 424, 597, 633, 639 and 648.


Mr. Howie: 1.	Will the Canada-Prince Edward Island Development plan expire and, if so, on what date?
2.	Are there any negotiations to replace or renew it and, if so, what is their status?


Mr. John Evans (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Privy Council):: 1 am informed by the Department of Regional Industrial Expansion and the Ministry of State for Economic and Regional Development as follows:
1.	Yes, March 31, 1984.
2.	Yes. Discussions with the Province are well under way, with the objective of arriving at a new federal-provincial agreement by March 31, 1984.


Mr. St. Germain: What programs fall within the mandate of the Employment Development Branch of the Department of Employment and Immigration and, since January 1, 1983, what amount has been allocated to each province for each program?


Mr. Jean-Guy Dubois (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Employment and Immigration):: There are four consolidated employment development programs administered by the Employment Development Branch. They are: Canada Works; Local Employment Assistance and Development (LEAD); Career-Access; and Job Corps. The Branch also administers employment creation grants and contributions funds but these funds are not allotted by region.
Allocations for the four main programs are made on a fiscal year basis. The allocations for fiscal year 1983/84 are:
1983/84
Estimated Allocations ($' 000)
Canada Works LEAD Career-Access Job Corps
Newfoundland	45,167	9,305	2,926	1,238Prince Edward Island	7,907	7,582	1,039	198Nova Scotia	32,775	8,875	4,026	457New Brunswick	36.513	4,726	3,234	232Quebec	192,231	35,598	29,540	5,006Ontario	184,276	8,694	34,109	6,294Manitoba	23,245	7,005	4,858	3,751Saskatchewan	14,041	3,772	4,792	2,157Alberta/Northwest Territories	24,528	3,148	6,935	6,117British Columbia/Yukon	127,357	7,862	11,747	3,170


Mr. Howie: As of January 1, 1984 how many people were receiving old age security benefits?


Monique Bégin: As of January 1, 1984, there were a total of 2,750,104 persons receiving Old Age Security benefits. The breakdown is as follows:
Recipients of Old Age Security only	1,239,406
Recipients of Old Age Security and guaranteed	1,243,060
income supplement
Recipients of spouse's allowance	87,638
2,570,104


Mr. Howie: What are the (a) names (b) positions of the persons who occupy positions on the Executive and Board of Directors of the Roosevelt Campobello International Park Commission and, in each case, what amount was he/she paid in respect of that position in the fiscal year ended March 31, 1983?


Hon. Allan J. MacEachen (Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs):: The Roosevelt Campobello International Park Commission consists of six members and six alternates. They are: the Hon. Hedard J. Robi-
March 23, 1984

chaud, P.C., Chairman; the Hon. Edmund S. Muskie, Vice Chairman; Mr. Robert A. Tweedie; the Hon. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr.; Mr. David H. Walker; and Mr. Curtis M. Hutchins; Miss Grace Tully; Mr. Stuart D. Trueman; Mr. James H. Rowe Jr.; Mrs. John Norris; Mr. Lawrence Stuart; and Mr. Rowland Frazee.
The Commissioners receive no remuneration from the Commission; however, they may be paid reasonable per diem and travel expenses by the Commission.


Mr. Mazankowski: Does the Federal Business Development Bank perform a merchant-banking role and, if so, in 1983 (a) how many (i) small businesses utilized the bank's services (ii) financial packages did the bank arrange and what was the dollar value of those packages (b) what amount, if any, did the bank collect in fees for its services and what was the cost of providing those services (c) in how many companies did the bank participate as an equity partner or short-term holder of stock options and what was the net profit or loss on these equity transactions?


Hon. David Smith (Minister of State (Small Businesses and Tourism)):: Yes, the Federal Business Development Bank (FBDB) does perform a merchant banking role, pursuant to its new mandate and, in 1983:
(a)	(i) 51 small businesses utilized its services, (ii) 18 financial packages were arranged and the dollar value of these packages was $6,165,000; 19 were under consideration; 14 were abandoned after investigation found that financing was not required or the bank was not able to arrange financing.
(b)	$70,055 in fees was collected and the cost of providing those services was $55,958.
(c)	The bank participated in 10 companies as an equity partner or short-term holder of stock options. No net profit or loss can be reported because none of these equity transactions were sold during the year.


Mr. Stewart: In the fiscal year 1983-84, what amount was budgeted for the Enterprise Development Program (EDP)-Part 1?


Hon. Ed Lumley (Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion):: For the fiscal year 1983-84, an amount of $85,103,000 was budgeted. However, since the Enterprise Development Program (EDP) is one of the programs which has been subsumed by the new Industrial and Regional Development Program (IRDP), project applications could no longer be accepted under the Enterprise Development Program (EDP) as of September 15, 1983.


Mr. Howie: In each of the last two preceding fiscal years, were any lawyers employed by the Department of Justice and, if so, how many and in each case what was the total expenditure related to their remuneration?
Financial Administration Act


Hon. Mark MacGuigan (Minister of Justice):: The number of lawyers employed by the Department of Justice in fiscal years 1981-82 and 1982-83 and their total remuneration were as follows:
Number of	Total
Lawyers	Salary
1981- 82	538	$22,005,0001982- 83	577	$25,380,000


Leonard Donald Hopkins: I ask, Mr. Speaker, that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.


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


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.



GOVERNMENT ORDERS


Hon. Andre Ouellet (for the President of the Treasury Board) moved: that Bill C-24, An Act to amend the Financial Administration Act in relation to Crown corporations and to amend other Acts in consequence thereof, be read the second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Miscellaneous Estimates.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to introduce on behalf of the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray), a Bill which, needless to say, is an important piece of legislation. We hope that this Bill will provide the new and comprehensive framework we need to provide for authority, control and accountability with respect to federal Crown corporations.
As the House is aware, the need for such a framework was mentioned in 1977 in the Blue Book of the Privy Council Office, which, at the time, suggested a number of legislative measures, as did the Bill on Crown corporations tabled in 1979 by the Government then in power, and finally, the policy statement and Bill presented by our Government in 1982, and again in 1983 in Bill C-153.
In establishing the formula provided in the present Bill, the Government was able to use to good advantage the views expressed by all Hon. Members on the subject, and especially the reports presented by the Public Accounts Committee, by the Auditor General and by the Lambert Commission, the

March 23, 1984
Financial Administration Act
Royal Commission on Financial Management and Accountability.
The essence of the legislation now before the House, Mr. Speaker, is that the control and accountability of Crown corporations can best be strengthened by clarifying the roles and responsibilities of Parliament, the Government, boards of directors, and corporation managers. The result is that Parliament's role is enhanced, the ability of the Government to act as a vigilant and effective shareholder is improved, the audit system is reinforced and expanded, and the corporations themselves retain the necessary freedom to operate in accordance with sound management practices. The House will take special note of the fact that the Auditor General has expressed general support for this legislation and, at the end of my remarks, with the consent of the House I will gladly table appropriate correspondence in this regard between the Auditor General, the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray).
It is useful to note, Mr. Speaker, that the public and parliamentary debate on this matter has focused on questions of control and accountability. The discussion has not centered primarily on the more fundamental political or philosophical question of whether Crown corporations should exist. This is, I believe, a testament to the justifiable pride and satisfaction with which the public over many years has viewed this characteristically Canadian enterprise. Governments, at both the federal and provincial levels, have frequently in our history chosen the corporate structure for achievement of specific roles and specific policy objectives, opting for the advantages of an arm's length relationship with the Government. This corporate instrument of public policy has been employed in areas of transportation and energy, in broadcasting, and in a wide range of activities ranging from support for agriculture and fisheries to the financing of exports, the administration of ports, and the minting of coins. It is interesting to observe, Mr. Speaker, that the corporate holdings of the provincial governments, which include, of course, the large power utilities, exceed those of the federal Government on the basis of total assets represented.

1 assume our Progressive Conservative friends opposite will bear this observation in mind. It is true that the provinces- which unfortunately, I must say, are almost all being run by Progressive Conservative Governments-are much more involved and have much broader powers through their provincial Crown corporations than the Government of Canada does.
That is why I fail to understand why in some areas, our Progressive Conservative friends are against federal Crown corporations, while they do not seem to have any objections to provincial Crown corporations-

At the federal level I want to say that it has now been more than 30 years since a general legislative framework governing the operation of Crown corporations was put in place. In bringing the legislation up to date, Mr. Speaker, it is necessary to recognize that there has been substantial growth and change in that period and that federal Crown corporations vary in many ways. Some have thousands of employees while others have fewer than 25. Some operate in a competitive environment, others do not. Some are financially self-sufficient while others depend in whole or in part on parliamentary appropriations. Some Crown corporations have rather broad mandates while others have been created for very specific purposes. Measures are therefore necessary as a beginning to clarify the manner in which these diverse Crown corporations are classified for legislative purposes.
At present, most Crown corporations are listed in Schedule B, C or D of the Financial Administration Act, but in a manner which is, I have to admit, not consistent. Through legislation under Bill C-24, all present Crown corporations will be either listed in the schedules or exempted by statute from the provisions of the Act. Each year the President of the Treasury Board will table in Parliament the names of the subsidiary Crown corporations. Through this legislation three parent Crown corporations will be exempted from the provisions of the Financial Administration Act; The Bank of Canada, the Canadian Wheat Board and the International Development Research Centre.


Mr. Mazankowski:: Hear, hear!


André Ouellet: The Government has concluded that in these three cases the new policy could result in inappropriate relationships given the special nature of these corporations and the provisions of their existing Acts of incorporation. I am glad to see the former Minister of Transport, who is a defender of the Wheat Board, approve this decision of the Government.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Very much so.


André Ouellet: The Bill has also provided that those Crown corporations of a governmental nature would be henceforth grouped in Schedule B of the Financial Administration Act and be referred to in future as departmental corporations. They would be subject to provisions of the Act that now apply to Government Departments.
All parent Crown corporations of a commercial nature will, under the Bill, be listed on a new Schedule C of the Financial Administration Act. This schedule will have two parts: parent Crown corporations operating in a competitive environment and not normally dependent on operating subsidies, such as Air Canada or PetroCan, will be listed in Part II of Schedule C; the other, more numerous corporations which are dependent upon parliamentary appropriations, such as the CBC, or that operate in an environment where competition is less severe, would be listed in Part I of Schedule C.
It is important to emphasize, Mr. Speaker, that the framework for control and accountability in this legislation also
March 23, 1984

specifically addresses subsidiary Crown corporations. For the first time, therefore, the relevant provisions of the Financial Administration Act include requirements with respect to the subsidiary Crown corporations, providing a rigorous system of reporting and control for them which has been absent to this point.
Hon. Members will observe that the provisions of the Bill distinguish between parent and subsidiary Crown corporations. Primary control by the Government and Parliament will be exercised through the parent companies. I direct attention, Mr. Speaker, to the fact that the Bill provides that subsidiaries will not be able to engage in activities denied to the parent corporations. The Bill provides, moreover, that the Government may extend the controls directly to subsidiaries if it considers such action necessary. The legislation applies as well to the Canada Development Investment Corporation, despite some preliminary suggestions to the contrary. 1 am sure all Members in the House will be pleased by this decision of the Government.
The Government's ability to direct and influence the activities of corporations in which it has less than 100 per cent ownership is, of course, limited because the rights of the other shareholders must be respected. Where such investments are held by Crown corporations the proposed legislation does, however, require that the Crown corporations be held accountable for their investments. For example, if a Crown corporation holds a minority interest in another corporation, it would be inappropriate for the Government to impose its public policy objective on that enterprise. The Crown corporation would be obliged to account for that investment interest in the corporate plans submitted for government approval.
While the main elements of control are embodied in the legislation, some flexibility will be essential in matters concerning government approval of specific corporate decisions. A single set of controls, as specified in the legislation, applicable to Crown corporations irrespective of their degree of commercial involvement, simply will not work. The necessary flexibility will be achieved through the use of regulations covering such matters as the timing, form and content of corporate plans. 1 would like to say immediately that the Government is prepared to table the regulations when the Bill goes to committee. When the Bill goes to committee we will immediately give the members of the committee the regulations.
It will thus be apparent, Mr. Speaker, that nothing in the use of such regulations will weaken the statutory role of Parliament. It is important to stress this. The regulations will be there to give flexibility. In no way should this be construed as a reduction in the role and responsibility of Parliament. The regulations are designed primarily to expedite relations between Crown corporations and the Government as a shareholder.
It is fundamental to the Government's position on Crown corporations that the role of Parliament in these matters be clarified. Explicit parliamentary approval will be required for
Financial Administration Act
the establishment of any new parent Crown corporations, for the mandates of these new corporations, and for any subsequent change to their mandates.
This approval could be sought in one of two ways. One approach would be through a special Act. The Bill also provides, however, that in the case of corporations created under general companies legislation, parliamentary approval would be sought through a motion that would enable substantial discussion in the appropriate standing committee. Parliament will continue, of course, to have authority to approve the financing of Crown corporations' activities where appropriations are required.
Parliamentary approval would be required as well for the disposal of any ownership of a parent Crown corporation. Here again the Bill proposes parliamentary consideration of either special legislation or a motion which would be studied in a standing committee. Parliament has the right to expect a systematic flow of timely, pertinent information on the management of Crown corporations.
This would be achieved in the following manner, Mr. Speaker. First, Parliament would be made aware of the objective of Crown corporations for each planning period through the annual tabling of corporate plan summaries.
Second, in their annual reports the parent Crown corporations would be required to report on the extent to which they and their subsidiaries met their objectives for the financial year. These reports as well will be tabled in Parliament.
Third, the approved operating budgets of all parent Crown corporations requiring parliamentary appropriations would be tabled, as would all appropriate capital budgets.
Fourth, all government directives would be tabled.
Fifth, the President of the Treasury Board would table an annual consolidated report on all Crown corporations listing all government corporate holdings and including employment and financial data. Finally, Mr. Speaker, all reports tabled in Parliament would be referred to the appropriate standing committee or committees.
The Government would be responsible for the major strategic decisions of Crown corporations and must, threfore, be in a position to review their plans and requirements. The Bill will give the Government the authority to require that the necessary information be supplied in advance to allow the Government to make proper revisions. This does not mean, however, that the Government should create a parallel management structure which would serve only to diffuse managerial responsibility. It is certainly not in the mind of the Government to do such a thing. Parallel systems are not contemplated and should not take place.
Responsibility for the appointment of the boards of directors of parent Crown corporations will rest exclusively with the Government. It will also appoint the chairmen of the boards and the chief executive officers in all cases where the Act of incorporation does not provide otherwise. It is the Government's view, Mr. Speaker, that the Government, as the single shareholder, must retain this right of appointment. In this

March 23, 1984
Financial Administration Act
position it is supported by the Auditor General and by similar actions in those provinces where Crown corporation legislation has recently been reviewed.
The Government will be required by legislation to approve any extension of the activities within the mandates of Crown corporations, whether through the creation of new corporate entities or the acquisition of shares or assets. Government approval will also be required for the disposal of wholly-owned subsidiaries or of major businesses or activities of parent Crown corporations. Specific government approval may be required as well for the disposal of property. Prior government approval will also be required for corporate borrowing and for operating and capital budgets. The Government's responsibility is to ensure that parent Crown corporations have specific objectives against which their performance, including that of their wholly-owned subsidiaries, would be measured.
For this reason, parent Crown corporations will be required to obtain annual government approval of their corporate plans in which the Government will expect a statement of clear objectives for the planning period. Hon. Members may wish to be reassured that in cases where corporations with subsidiary or holding interests submit consolidated plans-the CDIC would be the typical example-there are provisions that each of the separate businesses and activities must be identified.
The government approval procedure which 1 have outlined does not mean that Crown corporations would be faced with major change in their strategy each year. However, it would be the means whereby the Government would have an opportunity to review corporate objectives and, from time to time, require new policy directions where appropriate.
Situations will undoubtedly arise where the Government will want particular parent Crown corporations to take on specific assignments that are in line with both corporate mandates and broad public policy but which may not, in the board of directors' view, be in the mainstream of the corporation's activities. The legislation therefore gives the Government the ability to issue directives requiring corporations to implement such assignments but only after consultations with the board of directors. The proposed legislation specifically provides, however, that where the Government issues a directive it is the Government, not the board of directors, that would be accountable for the consequences arising from the implementation of such directives.
Nevertheless, it is quite clear in the legislation that the board's duty to implement the directive has to be observed promptly and efficiently. Government directives would be tabled in Parliament and responsibility for them would clearly rest with the Government. It is expected that such directives would be few in number and infrequent.
The corporate plan will provide the primary vehicle through which the Government and the parent Crown corporation agree on the broad objectives for the total corporate entity. The Government considers it inappropriate to issue directives that could be construed as interference in cultural activities
that Parliament has entrusted to certain Crown corporations. The Bill therefore provides that no directive could be issued to the Canada Council, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Canadian Film Development Corporation and the National Arts Centre Corporation, dealing with the form or content of a project, production or broadcasting program. The same prohibitions will apply to directives concerning the provision of financial assistance by these corporations to any person or group. Any other directive issued to these corporations would be tabled in Parliament and the Bill provides that no action on the directive could be taken until 30 days after the tabling occurred.
In summary, the Government's involvement is reserved for major strategic issues, for matters of public policy, for approval of corporate plans and budgets, and finally, for appointments of the chief executive officers and the board of directors of the parent Crown corporations. For these purposes, the Government will be prepared to deal quickly with matters that often will be of critical importance to the successful operation of the corporation. The Government will be expected to give the parent Crown corporations and, through them, their wholly-owned subsidiaries, clear guidance on policy matters and the Government's requirements for information.
I would like now to turn to the provisions of the Bill relating to the role of directors and managers. Given a clear parliamentary mandate and government concurrence in strategic directives, Crown corporations are responsible for the efficient and effective management of their affairs. Bill C-24 makes it clear that direct responsibility for such management rests with the board of directors. In order that this pivotal role of the board will be beyond question, the Government has restated in this legislation the duty, the responsibilities and conflict of interest provisions applying to directives as they are set out for private sector companies in the Canada Business Corporations Act.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Except they don't get indemnity by the Government.


André Ouellet: In short, the responsibilities of the directors of Crown corporations will be those that apply in the private sector.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Except for indemnity.


André Ouellet: The Hon. Member talks about indemnity. In many cases the members of boards in the private sector are much better paid than what we are paying in government.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Are they, now? How would you like to table the directors' fees in the CNR?


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Order. I would invite Hon. Members to reserve that type of exchange for the committee stage. The Hon. Minister has the floor.


André Ouellet: I want to say that, indeed, a lot of competent and great citizens have agreed to serve on boards of many Crown corporations out of a sense of duty and responsibility to do their share for their country.
March 23, 1984


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Like Jack Horner.


André Ouellet: In fact, they are doing so at personal expense in many cases.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: A thousand dollars a day salary.


André Ouellet: I think the Hon. Member is wrong in his assumption.
Anyway, I want to say that it is to the board of directors that the Government will look for the integrity and soundness of plans, recommendations and proposals concerning the direction of the Crown corporation, and for judgments and guidance on operational issues. It is the board that the Government will hold primarily responsible for performance. It is to the board that the legislation provides specific responsibilities related to the audit function, including overseeing effective internal audits and ensuring that proper, thorough external examinations are conducted for the annual audit report and periodic report on the corporation's management systems.
I would like to conclude my remarks by briefly reviewing those aspects of the Bill relating to the auditing of Crown corporations. Hon. Members will agree that a good audit system is essential if management is to be alert to possible weaknesses in the corporation's control systems and if the shareholder is to have a reliability check on the corporation's activities. Properly structured, precisely defined as to role, and carefully organized as to reporting relationship, good audit systems form an invaluable check on the comprehensiveness and soundness of a corporation's management system. It is the fundamental objective of this legislation to ensure that the sound and comprehensive management system is put in place as soon as possible.
Because Crown corporations often have goals that are not purely financial, the auditor will be asked to attest to the accuracy and consistency of non-financial performance indicators which the Government has indicated it wants verified.
The management systems that most Crown corporations now employ to ensure that assets and operations are managed efficiently will henceforth explicitly be required by statute. The proposed legislation will also generally require Crown corporations to have an internal audit activity which will be under the general direction of an audit committee of the board of directors.
Audit works best when it is regarded by management as a tool to improve the performance of the corporation. At the same time, the auditors work for the shareholder, in this case the Government of Canada, and the shareholder has a right to be assured that the corporations have established proper management systems. The new proposals include an external special examination of the management systems, structured in a way that should provide the shareholder with the necessary confidence while helping management improve its performance.
Financial Administration Act
At least every five years, all Crown corporations will have an external examination to provide reasonable assurance that there are no significant deficiencies in the management systems and practices of the corporation. This examination at least every five years will normally be carried out by the auditor performing the annual audit, but in certain circumstances it may be appropriate to have another qualified person undertake the examination. The legislation provides the flexibility.
For corporations in Part II of Schedule C, those operating in a highly competitive environment the examiner's report will be made only to the board of directors, in order not to expose the corporation to public scrutiny of a kind that its competitors would not face. We have to be realistic in this regard and make sure those who are in competition cannot give information that would be detrimental to the good operations of the corporations. Indeed, there would be many ways for companies competing with Crown corporations to seek information to their advantage, which is not really in the public interest. Therefore it will be important, in order not to expose corporations to public scrutiny of that kind, to make sure that does not take place. However, this implies a very special responsibility on the part of the board to protect the interests of the shareholder. We will rely on the good judgment and good sense of responsibility of the shareholder as well as the people sitting on the board on behalf of the shareholder.
For corporations in Part I of Schedule C, the examiner will have the right to bring significant deficiencies to the attention of the appropriate Minister and, if in the examiner's opinion the circumstances warrant, to the attention of Parliament, though only after consultation with the board of directors, the appropriate Minister and the auditor general.
Audits and special examinations are designed to provide an independent, objective assessment, for management and the shareholder, of the adequacy of financial and management controls. Auditors and examiners may not, however, question the merits of particular policy or business decisions, or the objectives of the corporation.
The legislation also proposes a clear and strengthened role for the Auditor General. On or after January 1, 1989, the Auditor General would be appointed by the Government as the auditor or joint auditor of each Crown cbrporation listed in Part I of Schedule C, unless the Auditor General waives the requirement that he be so appointed. A phasing in of this new role has been proposed so as to avoid disruption of the work now done by private sector auditors. I will be possible under certain circumstances for private sector firms to undertake the special examination of corporations in Part I of Schedule C.
For those Crown corporations listed in Part II of Schedule C, an auditor would be appointed by the Government after consultation with the board of directors. As is the case with those corporations in Part I of Schedule C, the special examination would be carried out either by the auditor or another qualified person.

March 23, 1984
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I referred at the outset of my remarks, Mr. Speaker, to the general support of this legislation given by the Auditor General, who was frequently consulted by the Government and its advisers in the course of preparation of the Bill. As Hon. Members who have followed this matter closely will undoubtedly surmise, this was not a simple exercise in legislative draftsmanship. Many views have been expressed, and the number and variety of Crown corporations meant that many individual situations had to be taken into account in developing a single, comprehensive approach that would commend itself to Parliament.
I want to say-



and I will say it in French, as one who is responsible for one of our major Crown corporations, that I wish to congratulate the Treasury Board officials who helped prepare this legislation on their concern for consultation, their insight and the excellent job they have done. Personally, 1 am very pleased that these consultations took place, I am very pleased with the insights I received from Treasury Board officials, and I must congratulate them publicly for their excellent work, all of which has made it possible to introduce this Bill before the Parliament of Canada today.

I want to say in my concluding remarks that after reviewing the final draft of the Bill, the Auditor General wrote to the Prime Minister to say:
I am entirely supportive of this version of the proposed legislation .... I recollect that last June I wrote you, expressing my concerns about the need for a more effective accountability framework for Crown-owned corporations. I think it therefore only appropriate that 1 write again now when there is such tangible evidence of action that will help alleviate my concerns.
The Auditor General has written to the President of the Treasury Board and again I quote:
I sincerely appreciate the opportunity to be consulted where the office has expertise in matters such as the proposed Bill to amend the Financial Administration Act regarding Crown corporations. I hope that this sort of cordial and constructive relationship with your office will continue in the future.
I think the version I have discussed with Mr. Clark who is the Associate Secretary of the Treasury Board, goes a long way towards responding to our major concerns as outlined, for example, in Chapter 2 of our 1982 Annual Report. With respect to the auditing regime, I am supportive and hope this Bill finds favour with other Members.
I think Members of the House will share the Government's view that the support of the Auditor General for this Bill is an important reason for its support by all Members of this House. I look forward to it in order that it can go to the committee soon where my colleague, the President of the Treasury Board, can provide more detailed explanations of the Bill and discuss in more detail with all Members of Parliament the fine points of this good legislation.


Mr. John Thomson (Calgary South):: Mr. Speaker, it is very sad that the Government has chosen to ignore one of the most serious problems that face Canadians today. Crown corporations are a very serious problem. They are insidious and they represent a huge subgovernment. Crown corporations employ
more people than the Government itself. They lose $4 billion a year. It is not easy to come to grips with this problem and it will never be solved if the Government wants to go through a fafade of motions and legislation. It knows as well as anyone that this legislation fails to come to grips with the questions of accountability and control.
An extensive book could be written on accountability and control, all the audit provisions in the world could be introduced and the roles of the directors and officers could be specified, but the problems of Crown corporations will never be solved if there is a lack of political will and intent on the part of the Government to bring the corporations under control. Intent is at the heart of the issue. As long as the Government wants to play games with Crown corporations through political appointments and to create a regime in which no one is responsible, as long as it wants Crown corporations to be responsible to Cabinet, it will never come to grips with the problems because no one is responsible. The Cabinet is collectively responsible, and everyone's responsibility is no one's responsibility.
On behalf of the Conservative Party let me say that we would dearly love to support this piece of legislation. We think it is a serious problem. If the legislation came to grips with only a smattering of the problems, we would support it. The Minister's words were fine-sounding ones. If we could implement what he said in his speech and if the legislation addressed what he said, he would have my blessing and the blessing of the Conservative Party. But the Minister knows full well that his words are empty and are not reflected in the legislation. He knows full well that it is just another smoke and mirrors job, which is so typical of the Government. Why will it not come to grips with the problems? The Government does not have the political courage to come to grips with them; that is the truth.
Time does not allow me to go through the Bill clause by clause to demonstrate its numerous and manifest defects, but we will take it apart in committee. We will deal with it clause by clause in committee. Perhaps we will be able to make enough amendments to give the Bill some substance so that it will come to grips with the problems. Instead, today I will focus on a few general points. In so doing, I hope to demonstrate, first, that the Bill is not what the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray) said in his statement following first reading; and second, when closely examined, the Bill is so full of defects that it represents no improvement whatsoever to the current situation.
The legislation offends me as it should every Member of the House. I should like to indicate why. I will begin with the regulations, or should I say lack thereof because the Government has not even produced any such regulations. It has the utter audacity to present the Bill but it did not bother to present the regulations. We are buying a pig in a poke. The legislation indicates that certain matters will be spelled out in the regulations, but we do not know what the regulations indicate. The Government wants opposition Parties to support
March 23, 1984

the legislation but it is not prepared to tell us what it says. That is typical of an arrogant government.
This Bill gives huge regulatory-making powers to the Government. As such, it is typical of the Government's excessive desire for secrecy and unbounded administrative discretion in running the affairs of government, insulated from any parliamentary or public scrutiny and control. Government Members say: "Keep them in the dark; let us not open up the process so that Parliament knows what is going on".
I refer Hon. Members to the wide discretionary powers given to Ministers under the National Energy Program as an example of how the Government operates. In earlier times, such legislation would have been rejected out of hand by the House. 1 regret to say that we have reached the point where the Government blithely tables this legislation and feigns shock when Hon. Members express honest and heartfelt dismay at the extent of regulatory decision-making powers within it. Government Members say: "Oh, we would not dream of doing anything like that", but we have come to know otherwise. The Bill itself says one thing. When the regulations are presented, the Government does quite another.
There are three fundamental problems with the extent and nature of the regulating powers in Bill C-24. First, every section of substance has attached to it a regulation-making power by which the Government in effect defines how the section will operate or by which Crown corporations can be exempted from the requirements imposed by the section. As one example, 1 refer to Section 100 which appears to indicate that the Minister of Finance must approve the terms, conditions and timing of any and all borrowing by a Crown corporation. However, Subsection 135(4) authorizes the Governor in Council, by regulation, to exempt a specified Crown corporation or a Crown corporation of a specified class from the application of this section. What the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away. The Government is asking Parliament to buy a pig in a poke. Without seeing the regulations, how can we possibly know how the Government intends to use the Bill?
Second, even if we were to see the regulations, how would we know that the Government would not change them the day after the Bill is passed or use them over the years to subvert completely Parliament's intention or understanding when it approved the Bill? The answer to the question is that we would not know. We have no assurance; there is no guarantee whatsoever in the legislation.
Third, there are few if any criteria in Bill C-24 that constrain or establish a framework within which the Governor in Council may make regulations. There are no criteria limiting the Government's power to move corporations from one schedule to another, from one classification of Crown corporation to another. The form and content of corporate plans, operating and capital budget and corporate by-laws are set by regulation, but we do not know what are the regulations. How do we know whether it will be a one-line operating plan? Is that what the operating plan is-a one-line capital budget? Bill C-24 does not specify the circumstances under which the
_________________________________________2383
Financial Administration Act Government may exempt corporations from any requirement in the Bill.
The Minister indicated that he intends to table the regulations before committee review. We thank him for that small mercy.
Perhaps I could call it one o'clock at this particular point. [Translation]


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


[Stage Direction]
AFTER RECESS

The House resumed at 2 p.m.
Mr. Deputy Speaker:: When the House rose at one o'clock, the Hon. Member for Calgary South (Mr. Thomson) had the floor.


John William Thomson: Mr. Speaker, if it is permissible, I understand that the Minister of Labour (Mr. Ouellet) would like to table the correspondence with the Auditor General.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: Before recognizing the Minister, I should inform the House that this can only be done with the unanimous consent of the House.


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


André Ouellet: Mr. Speaker, in my speech I referred to correspondence exchanged between the Auditor General of Canada, the Right Hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) and the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Gray). 1 therefore wish to table this correspondence in both official languages and I would like to thank my hon. colleagues for giving their unanimous consent.


Mr. Deputy Speaker:: The House has heard the Minister of Labour. Is it agreed?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


John William Thomson: Mr. Speaker, just before we adjourned for lunch, I had concluded that there are no criteria contained in Bill C-24 by which the Government is limited in its power to move corporations from one schedule to the other. There is no form in content with respect to corporate plans operating in capital budgets. Corporate by-laws are also set by the regulations. Bill C-24 does not specify the circumstances under which the Government may exempt corporations from the requirements of the Bill. I went on to say that it was reassuring

March 23, 1984
Financial Administration Act
to at least note that the Minister had offered to table the regulations before or when the Bill goes to committee.
One of the contentions that the Minister put forward in his remarks that is crucial in so far as Parliament is concerned is the role that Parliament should play in the control of Crown corporations. In his statement of March 15, the President of the Treasury Board said that Bill C-24 would clarify the roles and responsibilities of Parliament. This morning the Minister expounded at great length on how Parliament was going to control Crown corporations in the future.
Bill C-24 entails a clear and major erosion of parliament's existing control over Crown corporations. This is the latest manifestation of the Government's contempt and disregard for the House. The Minister's statement said that by statute Parliament will be required to approve the creation, mandate and financing of Crown corporations. But that is just nonsense, Mr. Speaker; it is not true at all.
Let us examine Parliament's control over the creation of Crown corporations. First of all, Parliament will have no control whatsoever over the creation of subsidiaries of Crown corporations. I contend that this has been the major cause of the problem. It has been the creation of subsidiaries of Crown corporations that has caused the greatest proliferation over the last 15 or 20 years. There are really only seven what may be called commercial Crown corporations but they have over 150 subsidiaries. They have bred like rabbits. Parliament does not have any control over the creation of these beasts at all. In effect, the Government is letting Parliament guard the front door of the stable while all the horses run out of a wide open back door.
Second, Bill C-24 says that a Minister does not need parliamentary approval for the creation of a Crown corporation if he or she already has the power to do so through an existing Act of Parliament. As Hon. Members know, there are any number of Acts of Parliament which give Ministers the right to create a parent Crown corporation. For example, under the energy resources legislation the Government could create a new Petro-Canada at will; under the Atomic Energy Control Act the Government could create any number of new parent Crown corporations. In the short time that we have had this Bill before us we have counted a dozen pieces of legislation that give Ministers such power. Parliament does not really have any control over the creation of Crown corporations; they can be created under the existing legislation. I hope the Government would consider an amendment that would preclude this. Surely that is not too much to ask.
Third, in a few instances a Minister might deem it appropriate to table a special Bill. This is very offensive, Mr. Speaker, and I say it is not in the spirit of parliamentary democracy. It is a flagrant, arrogant statement. If a Minister does table a special Bill to create a Crown corporation and Parliament is given the opportunity to review it, that review will be limited to 30 days in committee and seven hours of debate in the House, maximum. Is the Government kidding? Is this some
kind of practical joke? Does the Government really expect Members on this side to accept legislation that would limit our time to review something of the magnitude of the Petro-Canada Act or the Air Canada Act to 30 days in committee and seven hours of debate in the House? The Government is putting closure in the Act. I say that is arrogant and we will fight this Bill until the cows come home before we allow it. It is unprecedented; it is automatic legislative closure and is contrary to what I thought Parliament was all about.
Fourth, we have an opinion that suggests that Bill C-24 does not bind the Crown under Section 16 of the Interpretation Act and, therefore, does not remove the Governor in Council's current prerogative to incorporate new Crown corporations without parliamentary approval. In other words, the words in the Act and the words of the Minister belie any kind of parliamentary control of the creation of Crown corporations. The Minister should know that when any legislation is placed before the House, the first thing that is asked is whether it is meant to bind the Crown. That is the first question the draftsman will ask. In the case of Bill C-24 one has to ask why the Government chose to ignore that question. As we read it, the Bill gives the Governor in Council the prerogative to incorporate new Crown corporations at will, without parliamentary approval.
I want to return to the Minister's assertion that I referred to earlier, Mr. Speaker. Just how does Bill C-24 do anything that requires Parliament to approve the creation of every parent Crown corporation? Those are the Minister's words, not mine. He said that Parliament must approve the creation of every parent corporation. I have given four examples of ways the Government can escape that obligation. If it can escape the provision to come before Parliament, then I have to ask myself if there is any sincerity behind the legislation. It belies what the Minister has said.
The Minister went on to say quite a bit about the role of the board of directors. It will exercise greater control over Crown corporations. I am dismayed, but not surprised, to see that the Government has learned nothing from the fiascos at Canadair and de Havilland, from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited or Air Canada, from Polysar or the Cape Breton Development Corporation. The Government has chosen to ignore the recommendations of the Auditor General of Canada, the Lambert Commission and many of the Crown corporations themselves with respect to the role and responsibility of the boards of directors.
In effect, Bill C-24 would convert boards of directors into advisory boards with little or no power. If we are to come to grips with the control and accountability of Crown corporations, it is absolutely crucial to have ministerial accountability, not collective accountability. Everyone's responsibility is no one's responsibility, Mr. Speaker. The pillar of control and accountability must be ministerial accountability. You have to tie the can to someone and hold him accountable. That is a problem which occurred with Canadair, de Havilland and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, as well as a number of other Crown corporations. No one assumed responsibility.
March 23, 1984

A regime of accountability and control lies with an effective board of directors. If all the responsibility is taken away from a board of directors, how can one expect them to act as a responsible body? That is what Bill C-24 has done. The Governor in Council and the Cabinet are all things under this legislation. In the private sector, the principal role of the board of directors is to recruit the chief executive officer and supervise his stewardship of the corporation. That is the essential role of a board of directors. It must pick that chief executive officer and hold him accountable for the operations of that corporation. Under Bill C-24 the Cabinet appoints the chief executive officer, sets his tenure and remuneration. The board of directors has nothing to do with the selection of the chief executive officer. The Cabinet picks its political appointee.
The Cabinet also appoints the chairman of the board. The board does not even have to be consulted. In some cases like Canada Post and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and other Crown corporations, the Cabinet even appoints vice-presidents and other various lesser management posts beneath the chief executive officer. How in the world can the chief executive officer hold management accountable if the Cabinet appoints the management for him? It is a great system of accountability and control when the Cabinet decides who is going to be the vice-president of marketing for such and such a corporation! In that case, the chief executive officer of some Crown corporation could say to one of his vice-presidents: "We have a problem and this is the way we should be dealing with it. Would you please address the problem and bring your recommendations forward to me?" The vice-president could then say: "I will think about it. I am not accountable to you; I was chosen by the Cabinet. How can you tell me what I should or should not do?" That is just crazy. You cannot have a regime of accountability under those circumstances, Mr. Speaker.
Not only does the Cabinet appoint the vice-presidents, or can, but it is also going to appoint the auditor. In most corporations where one wants a responsible board of directors, that responsibility is assigned to the boards. If you make that the board's responsibility, then that auditor is responsible to report to that board of directors. When you deny the directors that responsibility, they can ask what they are there for. We know what the Government wants them there for. It wants them for window dressing. It needs a spot for political appointments. That is what this Bill does, and does deliberately. This legislation has made the board of directors valueless to the accountability process.
The Cabinet will even approve the by-laws on behalf of the board of directors. The board of directors is supposed to approve the by-laws. This Bill does not even give it the right to approve the by-laws of the corporation. Cabinet is going to set the dividend policy. Cabinet can direct the board on the conduct of the corporation's business and its affairs. What on earth are the directors supposed to do? This Bill completely emasculates the board of directors as far as its responsibility is concerned. I say to this House and to you, Mr. Speaker, that if
Financial Administration Act
we are going to have accountability in Crown corporations, not only do we have to have ministerial accountability but we have to have a board of directors which acts in a responsible way in so far as management is concerned. But no, this legislation denies the board those responsibilities. It is just a window dressing operation.
I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, what Bill C-24 expects these directors to do. It expects them to be good Liberal appointees, to go to board meetings and collect their per diem.


André Ouellet: No, no.


John William Thomson: That is exactly what the legislation does. Read it. The Minister said it himself. It expects them to be good Liberal appointees, to go to board meetings, to collect their per diems and to do what the Government tells them to do. That is exactly what Bill C-24 says.


André Ouellet: Show me the word "Liberal" in the legislation.


John William Thomson: The Minister said he wants the board to do more than that, but that is not what this legislation says. Has the Government learned nothing? Have we gone through the fiasco of Canadair and de Havilland only to perpetuate the system which caused the problem in the first place?
As you know, Mr. Speaker, I am co-chairman of our Party's task force on Crown corporations. Our task force has spoken to many chief executive officers and directors of Crown corporations. One theme dominates. Crown corporations do not know who they are accountable to. We have been told the tale of a chief executive officer of a major Crown corporation who comes to Ottawa at the invitation of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Lalonde). The Minister of Finance tells him: "You do this". The chief executive officer replies: "I thought I was responsible to the Minister of Transport". He is told that he may very well be responsible to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy), but the matter has been discussed with him and this is what he is supposed to do. The chief executive officer is told it is not necessary to talk to the Minister of Transport. "You do what I tell you and everything will be just fine".
The next day the chief executive officer speaks to the Minister of Transport and tells him the situation. The Minister of Transport says: "I beg your pardon? I have never discussed this matter with the Minister of Finance". The chief executive officer replies: "Do you want me to carry out this policy or not?" The Minister of Transport says: "No, I do not want you to carry out that policy".
That story is just typical of the types of operations and problems we have with Crown corporations today. It is the major problem which Members opposite cannot seem to get through their heads. How can you have a system of accountability when chief executive officers have to account to more than one person? How can they be expected to know which way to go? It is a hopeless mess and this legislation does not even attempt to address that problem.
My view is that we will never solve the problems of Crown corporations until they come under an effective regime of

March 23, 1984
Financial Administration Act
individual ministerial accountability. That is the core of the problem, Mr. Speaker. Bill C-24 goes in the opposite direction. The individual Minister is nothing but a post box. And, of course, that is the way Government wants the system to run.
Let us look at the question of Canadair. Who was responsible? Was it the board of directors? The chief executive officer? The Minister? We did not have a Minister we could hold accountable for Canadair. No, Sir; the thinking of the Government is that if we had a Minister accountable for the losses in Canadair, he would have to resign, or he would have to think about it. If he was accountable for the loss of $1.4 billion of taxpayers' money, do you not think that the Minister might have to give a moment's thought to his responsibility and hold himself accountable and resign?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: You lost the Avro Arrow.


John William Thomson: Mr. Speaker, that is typical. They do not want to address the problem so they throw the Avro Arrow at us after 25 years. What does that have to do with what I am talking about here this afternoon concerning ministerial accountability?


Jack Sydney George (Bud) Cullen: It has everything to do with it.


John William Thomson: If someone lost $1.4 billion of taxpayers' money, he should darn well resign. But under this Government's system no, Sir, we are not going to make any Minister accountable. We will have collective Cabinet responsibility and in that way no one will be responsible or accountable. A great way to run a railroad!
The real authority is, of course, exercised by Cabinet or Treasury Board; groups of Ministers rather than individuals. In being accountable to so many Ministers, corporations will continue to be accountable to no one.
It is interesting to look back at Canadair because you cannot help but use it as an example of everything that is wrong with Crown corporations. One of the most extraordinary things about Canadair, and I find it absolutely incredible, is that here we have a government trying to tell us that there is a new regime of accountability and control as far as Crown corporations are concerned. They want us to believe that. However, the board of directors of Canadair was reappointed in its entirety. Who was responsible in Canadair for the fiasco? It could not have been the board of directors because the Government chose to reappoint every single one of them. They had no responsibility. Was it the Minister? No, it was not the Minister, because there was no Minister accountable. It was the Cabinet, so what really should have happened is that the whole Cabinet should have resigned. No one is accountable except for an amorphous collectivity called the Cabinet which, in the end, ducked the responsibility.
What have they done, Mr. Speaker? They have put all the problems off on the new super Crown corporation, the grand-daddy of them all, the Canada Development Investment Corporation, the CDIC. Bill C-24 does nothing but perpetuate
this lack of real accountability. That covers my four general points, Mr. Speaker, and there is much more I intend to cover in committee.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, please allow me to make these two brief points. If Bill C-24 is such a good piece of legislation, why is it not good enough for CDIC? Why does Bill C-25, the CDIC Bill, differ in so many ways from Bill C-24? For example, Bill C-24 authorizes Cabinet to appoint chairmen and chief executive officers. Bill C-25 allows the board of directors of CDIC to appoint the chairman and chief executive officer. Which is the right way? Obviously the Government does not know.
The Government says the Auditor General supports this Bill. Well, I met with the Auditor General on Wednesday for three and a half hours and I found that he had not even seen the final draft of the Bill. Nor had he seen the regulations. Even at that he expressed many reservations about the Bill. I shall leave it to him to make his case at the appropriate time.
The Government will say that I am being paranoid. Trust us, they will say, because we know what is best. We would not dream of doing all those nasty things Bill C-24 would allow us to do. Oh, no? The Canadian Ownership Account was approved by Parliament, over our objections, on the grounds that it could be used only to finance new energy companies. The revenues in the account are now going into the general revenues of the Government. On that evidence alone, why should we trust the word of the Government on anything as important as Crown corporations?
Finally, Mr. Speaker, we can do better. The Government has been studying Crown corporations since 1972 and has been promising reforms since 1977. Is Bill C-24, this almost incomprehensible piece of legislative mish-mash and gobbledegook, the best they can manage after all that time? Well, when our chance comes we will show the other side not only what can be done with Crown corporations but what must be done. Bill C-24 will go where it belongs, in the trash can.


Lorne Edmund Nystrom: Mr. Speaker, I wish only to say a few words on the Bill before the House today. The Member of my Party responsible had to be in his constituency and I will try and substitute for a minute or two. The main detailed criticism, suggestions and comments on this Bill will be made, of course, by our people at committee stage.
1 am very pleased to say that in general we are pleased to have a Bill like this before Parliament. I do not think it goes far enough on the accountability of Crown corporations, which are a very important aspect of Canadian economic life, one which is often ignored by parliamentarians and not scrutinized closely enough by those of us in this place.

We have many Crown corporations in this country, and if I remember correctly, there are now about 300 or 310 federal Crown corporations. These corporations administer very substantial amounts of money, and in fact, the 300 federal Crown corporations have a total budget of about $67 billion. That is a
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lot of money, and that is why I think we should have more control over the accounts and books of these Crown corporations.
As far as employment is concerned, today, about 265,000 people work for federal Crown corporations. That is about the same number as are working in the Public Service today. And there are not only federal Crown corporations-

-we also have many provincial Crown corporations. In my own Province of Saskatchewan we have a very proud and honourable tradition and heritage of having many Crown corporations which have made a tremendous impact and played a tremendously valuable role for the people of Saskatchewan. In fact, you will find that historically all three Parties in this House, and when they have been the Government in various provinces, have created Crown corporations, supported them and nursed them along the way. That, of course, includes the Conservative Party, who are often very critical of Crown corporations in this country today. I think sometimes they are being a bit hypocritical when they speak against Crown corporations. One need only look at Bill Davis in Ontario and the Crown corporations in that province, or at Peter Lougheed in the Province of Alberta with PWA and many Crown corporations like that, plus their involvement in the oil industry. That shows the Conservative Party historically and currently believes that Crown corporations have a major role to play in our country and society.
As I said, in our province we have seen the contributions of many Crown corporations. I am thinking now, for example, of the Saskatchewan Power Corporation, the Saskatchewan Government telephones, and more recently the establishment of the Saskatchewan Potash Corporation which now controls about 40 per cent of the potash in our province. That is the largest potash corporation outside the Soviet Union. These Crown corporations have made a tremendous contribution to our country and our society.
As 1 was saying before, hundreds of thousands of Canadians work in the various Crown corporations throughout the land. Some of these corporations are very big. Hydro-Quebec is a very large Crown corporation that has made a tremendous contribution.
I and many people in my Party are concerned that often Crown corporations are not as accountable as they should be to Parliament, the legislatures and the average citizen across the country. In the 1940s the then Premier of Saskatchewan, Tommy Douglas, decided that if Crown corporations were going to play such an important role in the province they should be more accountable. In Saskatchewan a special Crown corporations committee was established. The reports and activities of all the Crown corporations in Saskatchewan must now be referred automatically each year to this particular Crown corporations committee. Therefore there must be accountability. The officers, presidents and chairmen of the Crown corporations must appear before that particular legisla-
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five committee. They must be accountable. They must explain what their plans are and be available for cross-examination.
I believe that is the direction we should be taking in this Parliament as well. My friend, the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin), has often said that the annual reports of CNR, Air Canada and all the other Crown corporations should be automatically referred to the relevant parliamentary committee. In that way we, as elected representatives, will have a chance to make our point of view known and to say what our constituents want us to say about the direction of these particular Crown corporations.
I can speak from experience of the problems we had with the CNR in my constituency. In Melville we have approximately 700 CNR employees. They have had many frustrations with that particular Crown corporation. Many of the workers in the CNR feel it is time that that Crown corporation was socialized or re-nationalized to make it more responsible to the ordinary Canadian citizen. That is one of the frustrations I have with the system we have today. Communities are affected by the insensitivity of a large Crown corporation like the CNR. In many communities in my constituency rail lines have been abandoned and elevators have been pulled down because we could not persuade the CPR to continue service to these communities on these branch lines. We have had many fights about retaining branch lines. We have won some and lost some. It would be much easier to win these battles if the CNR were more accountable to this Parliament and to the people of Canada. That must be one of the objectives of Bill C-24 which is before the House today. Hopefully, Members of Parliament can amend the Bill at committee stage to provide more accountability to Members of Parliament.
The important thing is to make sure that Crown corporations are more accountable to the ordinary citizens of the country. Canadair, de Havilland and other Crown corporations have been in trouble recently and have been aided and assisted by the federal Government, rightfully so in some cases. However, in some cases I wonder very seriously. When I think of these corporations I get angry because there is not more accountability, we cannot have the officers appear before parliamentary committees and we cannot have more input into the decisions made by these Crown corporations.
While we have this type of Bill before Parliament we must discuss attempting to democratize Crown corporations a lot more than they are today. In this country we must have a lot more economic democracy and a lot more decentralization of decision making and power to give more power to the ordinary citizen. There is no reason why workers in Crown corporations should not have members on the boards of directors. There is no reason why the workers should not be more directly involved in the management and control of the Crown corporations on an ongoing, day to day basis. That is the kind of step we must take.
Our country is a federation and therefore the provinces must be more involved in some of the national Crown corporations and national institutions which we have in the country. I am thinking, for example, of the Bank of Canada and the impor-

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tance of monetary policy. 1 do not believe it is wise to have so much control resting solely with the Minister of Finance. I believe the provinces should have the right to appoint people as directors of the Bank of Canada so that there is some input from the provinces. Provinces have a tremendous impact on monetary and fiscal policy. The actions of Hydro-Quebec are very important in terms of our monetary and fiscal policy. The actions of the Saskatchewan Power Corporation, Saskatchewan Potash Corporation or some of the bigger corporations in Ontario and British Columbia are very important in terms of monetary and fiscal policy.
We must democratize Crown corporations, making sure the provinces have some input into who sits on the boards of directors. The time has come when producers, farmers and fishermen must have more say about who becomes a member of the boards of directors of such Crown corporations as Canagrex. They must have more say about the management of our Crown corporations. In the economic sense we must democratize these institutions and make them truly national and truly Canadian institutions.
One of the problems in the country today is that we are much too centralized. There is too much power in and too many decisions being imposed from Ottawa. We must recognize regional differences and try to build a national partnership. If we did this I believe we would be much better off. For example, Mr. Speaker, we are the only democratic federation in the world that I know of in which the most populous regions dominate both Houses of Parliament. The two central provinces dominate the House of Commons because of representation by population. The two central provinces also dominate the Senate. I do not know of any other democratic federation in the world where the most populous regions will dominate those Houses. We do not have a balance between population and regionalism in the country. I believe that is one of the problems with some of our national institutions as well. They do not reflect the country as a whole.
When the Hon. Member for Ottawa-Carleton (Mr. Pepin) was the co-chairman of the task force on the Constitution with the late John Robarts, he and his colleague tried to address some of the problems of regionalism and how more national, representative institutions could be created in the country. They suggested some changes and amendments which could be made.
I believe that the 300-odd federal Crown corporations could be more reflective of the country if we had more parliamentary accountability and more input from the provinces. Many of these Crown corporations operate in areas which are co-jurisdictional, such as agriculture. We should have workers on the boards of directors. They should be more involved in the management decisions. We should have ordinary citizens elected as directors as well.
These are just some of the things 1 believe we should be doing. The Bill before the House gives us that opportunity. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I hope this debate does not degenerate into a debate about Crown corporations being negative, bad and the bogeyman of our society. I hope that in
this debate we will try to improve the role of Crown corporations, try to integrate them more carefully with the nation as a whole and try to make them more accountable to Parliament and the people of the land. If that is done I believe this will be a much better country for each and every citizen.


Mr. Maurice Foster (Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board):: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity to say a few words in this debate on Bill C-24, the Crown corporation Bill, and amendments to the Financial Administration Act. This Bill is essentially a response to a great deal of concern that has been expressed by the Auditor General and the relevant committee of the House of Commons. As well, it draws on the Lambert Commission report on financial management and accountability and indeed in many way goes further than that report.
The Bill also takes into account information received by the Government in its 1977 Privy Council Office white paper on Crown corporations. It is also based on reports of the Public Accounts Committee going back to the Polysar report of 1977. We particularly studied the recent Public Accounts report on control and accountability of Crown corporations. We believe that we have addressed many of the principal concerns while also taking into account the comments we have heard from business and professional associations.
In trying to strike a delicate balance, we feel that it just makes no sense to overly restrict these Crown corporations. By doing so we would unnecessarily put at risk their financial viability in the marketplace and jeopardize the considerable investment which the taxpayers have made in these Crown corporations.
This morning, the Hon. Member for Calgary South (Mr. Thomson) talked about these Crown corporations losing $4 billion per year. I suggest that he is using a certain amount of licence to say that these Crown corporations lost $4 billion a year because many Crown corporations are those which will be included in Schedule I of the Act when it is adopted by Parliament. These include agencies like Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation which receives $1.5 billion to assist in providing Canadians housing and shelter; the CBC which receives approximately $744 million a year; groups like the Canadian Wheat Board which receives $118 million a year; the Federal Business Development Bank which receives $118 million a year; the Farm Credit Corporation, and VIA Rail. They are all Crown corporations but they are agencies that really provide a way of delivering a government service to the people. I believe the Hon. Member is inadequately explaining the real situation when he says that these Crown corporations lose $4 billion a year.
I have the impression that the Hon. Member is very opposed to Crown corporations. It is his right to be so. I recall when I was working with the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources a few years ago that his Party was very opposed to the Bill establishing Petro-Canada. That is a free choice for his Party to make. Our Party supported the establishment of
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Petro-Canada and did so. We believe it was beneficial to Canadians at large and it certainly carries broad support throughout the country.
However, I notice that most Hon. Members on the other side are not opposed to provincial Crown corporations, such as the Alberta Energy Corporation or Ontario Hydro, which certainly is much larger than any federal Crown corporation. It is a way for a government to provide services.
This Bill sets out a regime for dividing these Crown corporations into those which receive appropriations from Parliament and those which are competitive and capable of operating without parliamentary appropriations. They are organized on a reasonably rational basis.
The Member suggested that there is really no political will to put this Bill through Parliament. I suggest that the fact it was introduced exactly a week ago yesterday and is before the House today certainly indicates that we want to proceed with this Bill. I believe he made an excellent suggestion to have this Bill go to committee for a vigorous discussion, as usually takes place in committee.
It has also been suggested that this regime does not make anyone responsible for particular Crown corporations. However, I think the legislation follows the recommendation of the Auditor General that the responsibility for these corporations should go back to the Government and the responsible Minister. The appropriate Minister will make recommendations to the Governor in Council with regard to directives, the operating budget and the corporate plan which will be tabled in Parliament. Obviously, the appropriate Minister for each Crown corporation will not only be legally responsible but politically responsible during Question Period every day in the House of Commons. There cannot be much more responsibility to Parliament than having to answer questions daily during Question Period or defending the directives, corporate plans and operating budgets before the appropriate parliamentary committee. I cannot imagine any more direct way of putting responsibility on the individual Minister.
The Hon. Member suggested at the beginning of his remarks that the Government had produced no regulations. This is not surprising since regulations often are not tabled at the time of second reading because we are dealing with the purpose of the Bill. Clearly, the Minister, acting on behalf of the President of the Treasury Board, has indicated that those regulations will be made available at the committee stage. While this is not done very often, the Minister has given the commitment in this case that the regulations will be put before the committee dealing with this Bill.
The Member also suggested that the regulations give too much power to the Government. Obviously, regulations can be enforced only to the extent provided for in the Act. It is important to note that the regulations as passed by the Government must be contained in The Canada Gazette and are subject to review by the Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments.
He suggested that Section 135(1) gives power to the Minister of Finance for the financial control of Crown corporations but there is an exemption in subsection (4). The reasoning
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behind that is that the over-all financial budget of a corporation, such as the Export Development Corporation, is approved but when such a corporation must go to the market for a particular borrowing a regulation could be applied for it to be exempt from that individual need for financial resources. Of course, all regulations are published in The Canada Gazette and are subject to scrutiny by Members of Parliament through questions in the House and in the Committee on Regulations and Other Statutory Instruments. It has also been suggested that regulations can be changed. Sure, any regulation can be changed, but the Government has to be able to defend the change when it is published in The Canada Gazette either here in the Chamber or in the appropriate committee.
The Hon. Member talked about the regulations relating to the moving of a Crown corporation from Schedule C Part I to Schedule C Part II, and said that this can be done without any constraint. If this is done by the Government, it has to be reported in the House of Commons and the move becomes effective 31 days after tabling in the House. I think the idea was that we are trying to provide some flexibility in this legislation. I think there is a provision now that Crown corporations can be put on existing schedules by an Order in Council, but they can only be removed by an Act of Parliament. There are some Crown corporations on the list which the Government no longer has. The flexibility provided in this provision would be beneficial in that regard.
The Hon. Member also talked about Clause 130 which covers corporate plans and budgets. He mentioned that there might be a one line plan. If we look at Clause 130 in the Bill, we see the heading "Corporate Plans and Budgets". These items must not only be recommended by the responsible Minister but must be approved by Cabinet and placed before Parliament. The corporate plan must cover all the activities of the corporation and its subsidiaries. The corporation must under its mandate state its objectives over the plan period as well as its expected performance for the current year relative to the previous stated objectives. The plan must set out information according to the corporation's major lines of business. New corporations would have to outline what their objectives and main lines of business or plans would be. As a result, much more detailed information will be made available to Parliament. The idea is to improve management control and to have a constant flow of information to Parliament from the Crown corporations so that Parliament may be able to maintain its control over Crown corporations.
It is suggested that Parliament is really losing its power to control Crown corporations. I would argue the other way, that Crown corporations can only be set up now under the Canada Business Corporations Act without regard to Parliament. When this Bill is passed it will be paramount over every other Crown corporation with the exception I believe, of the Bank of Canada, the International Research Institute and the Wheat Board.

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Mr. Benjamin:: Tell us what you know about the Wheat Board.


Maurice Brydon Foster: This Bill will be paramount. The Hon. Member has expressed a great deal of concern that certain corporations can be set up without regard to Parliament. I recall that when we put the Petro-Canada Bill through it gave the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Chretien) the power to establish energy corporations to hold the Crown's share. As well, there was such a provision under the Atomic Energy Control Board. Those powers, Mr. Speaker, have been removed from those two pieces of legislation. There may be other agencies which have some power. I think that needs to be discussed in committee. I think it is clearly the intention of the legislation to make it so that all Crown corporations will have to be set up under the two routes which are established by this Bill, namely, through the Business Corporations Act which requires the tabling of a motion here, referral to the standing committee and debate in the House or by a special Act. I think any major parent corporation will be established by an Act of Parliament in the future, just as CDIC has had a Bill put before the House in recent days to establish it by an Act of Parliament.
I want to mention a couple of other points which the Hon. Member outlined. He complained about parliamentary control over the board of directors. It is proposed that the board of directors be appointed by the Governor in Council, but in the Bill the responsibility of the boards of directors is taken directly from the Canada Business Corporations Act. That responsibility is spelled out as being to exercise skill, care and diligence. It seems to me that the Bill is a balance between having a good board of directors to operate Crown corporations but having control through the Government and the Minister to Parliament, so that Crown corporations ultimately will be following the will of Parliament and the will of Government.
The Hon. Member suggested that chief executive officers should not be appointed by the board of directors.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: That is normal.


Maurice Brydon Foster: I think the Government's position on that was that chief executive officers should be appointed by the shareholder, which is the Government of Canada-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: That is not normal.


Maurice Brydon Foster: -that we ultimately have the responsibility, namely, the Government.


Mr. Dick:: Why have a board?


Maurice Brydon Foster: In the consultations which the Department had with the Auditor General I think that that was his view, that likewise the chief executive officers should be appointed by the Governor in Council.
I was interested in the suggestion made by the Member for Calgary South that the board of directors does not have to approve the by-laws. I was not very clear on that. Clearly the
by-laws are passed by the board of directors of the corporation. Under the Conservative Bill of 1979, each one of those by-laws, as I understood that Bill, had to be approved by the Governor in Council, the Cabinet. There is no such approval suggested in this Bill. It is suggested clearly that where the Government wishes to override a by-law, it would be able to do that, but it would not have to do it in normal circumstances.
I wanted to mention those few items, Mr. Speaker. I think we really want to see this Bill passed. We want to see accounting by Crown corporations and control over them by the Parliament of Canada approved. I hope there will be co-operation to see the Bill moved reasonably soon to the standing committee so that we can discuss its many details. It is a very complicated Bill, but I think it will meet many of the needs of Canadians which Hon. Members on both sides of the House have suggested. I hope this matter will be referred to committee after a thorough discussion at second reading.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, would the Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Foster) advise us of the criteria which the Government used to place some Crown corporations in Schedule C, Part I and in Schedule C, Part II? When the representative on our side was talking to the Minister and his special assistant, Mr. Ed Clark, formerly of National Energy Board fame and lately of Paris, he was told that they could not really explain it. Does the Parliamentary Secretary think that perhaps it has something to do with audits, that they wanted to ensure, for example, that the Canada Ports Corporations would have the auditor the Minister of Transport (Mr. Axworthy) wanted appointed from Winnipeg? Was that the reason Canada Ports came under Part II? Was the reason for CNR being in Part II that Jack Horner, lately of Crowfoot, wanted to ensure that the CNR was in no way subject to a government audit? Could he explain the real rationale and at the same time explain why VIA Rail and Loto Canada are in Part I but other corporations like the Canada Ports Corporation do not qualify?


Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, the rationale for placing Crown corporations in Schedule C, Part I and Part II is that generally Part II corporations are those which are in competition in the marketplace and do not regularly receive or depend mainly upon parliamentary appropriations for funding. Those in Part I are corporations which tend to be less in competition with private sector companies and are dependent mainly upon parliamentary appropriations for their funding.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary could give us the rationale for St. Anthony Fisheries Limited, which is in competition with private fisheries companies, being in Part I, whereas the Canada Ports Corporation, which is an absolute monopoly institution-no one else can operate a port except the owner of the port facility which happens to be the Crown-is somehow in competition and is included in Part II? The other corporations in Part I are clearly in the business of being competitive. That does not fly, and the Parliamentary Secretary knows it. Is it really the audit?
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Maurice Brydon Foster: Mr. Speaker, the reason is as I have outlined. Corporations like Air Canada which are in competition with CP and other world-wide airways and CNR which is in competiton with CPR-


Donald Alex Blenkarn: What about Loto Canada?


Maurice Brydon Foster: Loto Canada is not operational yet.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: It used to be.


Mr. Pepin:: You killed it.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: If we killed it, why is it there?


Maurice Brydon Foster: For instance, VIA Rail is not in direct competition with other railroad companies in Canada.


Thomas Scott Fennell: What about with buses?


Maurice Brydon Foster: Of course it is with buses. However, I have indicated the general rationale. As Hon. Members can appreciate, it is impossible to draw a completely fine line between those which are and those which are not in commercial competition. The general rationale is that those which usually operate without parliamentary appropriations or in competition are in Part II and the other ones, the majority of Crown corporations, are in Schedule C, Part I.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Could he explain why Canadair, de Havil-land and Eldorado are suddenly missing? Is it because the Government intends to pass the CDIC Bill? If that is the case, why is Teleglobe Canada in Part II? As the Parliamentary Secretary knows, if the CDIC Bill passes, Teleglobe suddenly becomes a subsidiary of CDIC. He knows that CDIC does not own shares in Canadair, de Havilland or Eldorado at the present time, until the CDIC Bill passes. Why do we have such a ball-up? At this stage of the game, because this Bill comes before the CDIC Bill, why are Canadair, de Havilland and Eldorado totally left out?


Maurice Brydon Foster: As a matter of interest, I am told that St. Anthony Fisheries is no longer an active Crown corporation. That is one of the difficulties the legislation is trying to overcome. We had the anomaly of the Governor in Council being able to put Crown corporations on a schedule but not being able to remove them from a schedule without an Act of Parliament, so it was not possible to remove a corporation like St. Anthony Fisheries.
With regard to the Hon. Member's question concerning Eldorado, last year the Government published a statement indicating that corporations being held by CDIC were corporations of which the Crown under certain circumstances would consider disposing. However, they are mostly corporations which are in active competition. Eldorado Nuclear is in competition with uranium mining operations in Saskatchewan, with Rio Algom and Denison Mines. The shares of Massey-Ferguson and so on are in competition with those of other farm implement companies. All these companies are held by CDIC.
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Donald Alex Blenkarn: I know most of the companies in the schedule, but not Mingan Associates, Ltd. I was wondering if the Parliamentary Secretary, whose job it is to understand this Bill, could tell us what is Mingan Associates, Ltd.?


Maurice Brydon Foster: If the Hon. Member will hold off for a little while, I will try to determine just exactly what Mingan is. I have not mastered all the names on the list.


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, it is obvious from the questions I have asked and the questions which Hon. Members on this side will be asking that the Government has given very little thought to Bill C-24. The schedules cannot properly be explained, not only by the Parliamentary Secretary but by the public servant responsible for the Bill, Ed Clark of Paris. We have a Bill which is difficult for us to support. Indeed, it should be difficult for the Government to support. One wonders why the Bill was brought forward in the first place. It is certainly a Bill which accomplishes little in terms of parliamentary control over Crown corporations, indeed government control over Crown corporations.
We have difficulty with the Bill. Until we have received a great deal more explanation from the Government, we will not be very co-operative. We suggest that in committee, if indeed the Bill goes that far, the Bill should be sent for redrafting and be re-presented to Parliament on another appropriate occasion.
The question of Crown corporations is not new in this country. Indeed, this Party has been responsible for creating Crown corporations on a number of occasions. We want to make it very clear that we do not oppose the use of the Crown corporation technique to handle those obligations of Government that cannot be handled appropriately in a country like Canada in any other way than a corporate set-up following the concept of a Crown corporation. Looking over the history, I note that the first Crown corporation in this country was the Royal Canadian Mint, incorporated in 1870, certainly a long time ago, under the auspices of Sir John A. Macdonald.
The major Crown corporation incorporated federally was the Canadian National Railways. Prior to that, Ontario really broke the ice with the creation of Ontario Hydro in 1902. When governments created these Crown corporations in the beginning, they created them because there was no other way to accomplish a national goal. A Crown corporation was created to build a seaway. A Crown corporation was created to look after the sale and dispersal of hydroelectric power. Those Crown corporations were used as a main asset of the falling water in our many rivers.
Crown corporations were used to put together a rail system when our rail system was likely to fall apart through bankruptcy, insolvency and the rest. Because this is a large country, we needed that transportation badly. It was also on that basis that we incorporated Air Canada, or TransCanada Airlines as it was then called. On that basis we brought forward the Canadi-

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an Broadcasting Corporation when there were no radios and no communication.
What the federal Government and indeed every government must do is to review from time to time our use of Crown corporations to see whether they are still valid and needed, whether the purpose for which they were originally created is still a valid purpose. I think of the CBC, for example. It is now only one of the communications companies in Canada using radio and television. I wonder, perhaps the Hon. Member for Algoma (Mr. Foster) ought to wonder, why we have to spend $900 million this year to keep the CBC alive when the late Lord Thomson of Fleet said that to own a television licence was a licence to print money.
When we look at these corporations we have to look at them in that cold, hard light. Canadian National Railways was necessary in order to have a national transportation system, but is it necessary to have whirling restaurants in the sky in CN Tower Limited? Is it necessary to have hotels spread across the country? Is it necessary to have a hotel organization which, according to my calculations, produces a profit of 1.36 per cent on money invested? The Minister says you have to add certain interest attributable to that investment and so on. He thinks he can get it up to a 5.5 per cent return on investment. He says further that some of those investments are managed by the Hilton Hotel chain. Without the hotels managed by Hilton, the return on an investment of $137,812,-000-which is the book value, not the real value and land and premises-is $93,000. That is what we make, except for the help of the Hilton. We must have a review of this. This Bill on that issue deliberately prevents Parliament, indeed prevents the Minister, from getting down to brass tacks on where we are going.
Let us look at some of the purposes for which the Crown corporations have recently been created. In the past they were created to fulfil needed government services. That is not entirely the case today. Crown corporations now seem to be incorporated because this Government wants more interference in the private economy, it and its bureaucrats want to be businessmen.
Parliament was forced to incorporate Canagrex. Parliament has seen the Export Development Corporation grow from an organization designed to insure and act as a re-insurer for accounts receivable for exporters of Canadian goods into a monster-lending organization. It looks after its friends only. We see the same with the Northern Transportation Company. It uses its leverage in the north to put out of business or deprive from getting ahead private corporations in that field. Is this the purpose of a Crown corporation? If so, that purpose has to be questioned.
More dangerous perhaps is the nationalistic idea. "We are government and we can run things better than the businessmen". Therefore, the Government decided to get into the oil business. According to this year's estimates, we have to pay our oil company $520 million. Every other country with an interest in an oil company receives dividends; we get the bill. Only in Canada!
We have Teleglobe Canada in the communications business. Does it have to be a Crown corporation, or should it be in the private field? Is it only there because of nationalistic reasons, namely that Government civil servants want to own an active business? Is that the reason we have Canadair and de Havil-land? For whom do we build executive jets? Is it for Ministers to toot around the country, former civil servants or former employees of Petro-Canada who have now become chief executive officers of the CDIC? Is it so that they can travel around the country in their own private jet? Is that the reason? Is it for the development of Canada or is it because these fellows want to run businesses? They could not get into business on their own, so they use the taxpayers' money to do it. A great deal of concern has to be expressed by all Members at all times about where we are going with these corporations.
We have a task force on Crown corporations that is working on the issue. It is trying to clarify where we, as a nation, should be going with this concept of Crown corporations and Crown-owned businesses. I want to go over some of the recommendations that have come out of that task force. I will read them into the record as they are and then go over them and point out how this Bill is so deficient that even on the preliminary recommendations of that task force, we could ot support it. First of all, a Crown corporation should be there to rationalize and clarify the Government's relations with Crown corporations based on a return to a system of effective and individual ministerial responsibility. The key words are "individual ministerial responsibility".
The second principle is that there should be a classification system for Crown corporations based on the extent of a corporation's reliance on government financing and its role in implementing public policy objectives. There have to be different strokes for different folks. The schedule system in this Bill does not show that at all. A lottery company is mixed up with VIA Rail. Why we are in the lottery business God only knows! Where does the public purpose, public financing and the need for financing come in? Do we have to pour money into the lottery company?
Third, stringent measures must be there to restrict the incorporation of Crown corporations and the acquisition of Crown corporations and their subsidiaries, and new Crown corporations should only be created by a special Act of Parliament.
Fourth, there must be a requirement that three to five-year business plans be filed and tabled with Parliament and examined by Parliament and its committees.
Fifth, there must be a real clarification of the role of Auditor General in auditing Crown corporations and of his relationship with private sector auditors and the extent to which auditors are entitled to audit, explain and get into the meat and bones of a corporation to find out why it works in certain ways.
Sixth, there must be an improved accounting procedure so that the accounting procedure of a Crown corporation is
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exactly the same kind of accounting procedure as in private business. In many of these corporations it is virtually impossible to figure out whether it made a profit or a loss. The financial statement filed by VIA Rail is an example. It almost indicates that VIA Rail is profitable, yet we know that it costs very close to $700 million per year to keep going. How a corporation's financial statement could indicate profitability when it costs money to operate, is beyond me. We must have financial systems that reflect the private system and what it costs to operate a corporation.
Seventh, there must be clarification of the roles and responsibilities of directors of Crown corporations. As my colleague pointed out, the Bill makes the directors of Crown corporations part of an advisory panel; they are not responsible for anything. If they make a mistake, the Government indemnifies them. If they are sued as directors, the Government bails them out. They cannot recommend the appointment of a president, a chief executive officer or a vice-president. They are well paid eunuchs.
Last, Mr. Speaker, it is essential that there be a joint Senate and House of Commons committee whose job it is to police Canada's investment in these myriad corporations. Members of both Houses must look at these corporations and their financial statements; they must examine their financial officers to make sure that the purposes of the corporation are being met.
Let me go through the various reasons for which we say this Bill is not satisfactory. With respect to rationalizing the relationship to an effective Minister, my colleague has said that we believe a Minister must be clearly on the line for what happens in a corporation. He pointed out the disaster that occurred in Canadair. There was no one Minister to take responsibility. When the buck can be passed around the Cabinet table or around a government Department, when not even the directors of the corporation are responsible, then this particular method of dealing with Crown corporations is faulty. For that reason only the Bill is faulty.
Let me go further, Mr. Speaker, and deal with implementing the policies of the corporation and the classification of them, whether a corporation is an A corporation or a B corporation and whether or not it is serving a government function. We cannot be sure whether all B corporations are serving a government function. For example, is the Economic Council of Canada a government Department? Is the Atomic Energy Control Board a Government Department, or is it part of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited? Where does it fit? More thought must be given to Schedule B corporations. For example, the Crown Assets Disposal Corporation is shown as a B corporation, yet in Schedule C there appears the Canadian Arsenals Limited and other corporations involved in defence. But where do they fit? It is important that the classification in the Bill be revised and that it be made on the basis of whether the corporation fulfils a government function, whether it needs the continual injection of money for certain functions, and whether the corporation is an ordinary commercial corporation out on its own.
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To suggest that we could ever support a Bill that allows a government to create a Crown corporation on 30 days' notice with a seven days' debate to go into any field it wants, would bring disaster on any parliament. Surely even the New Democratic Party cannot support this Bill on that basis, even though it seems to enjoy Crown corporations. Crown corporations just go on and on with no control at all. For example, the examiners are not under control. Parliament must refuse to pass the Bill. It is not the kind of Bill that we can legitimately look at, as Members of Parliament responsible to our constituents.


Paul Wyatt Dick: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Hon. Member if in his humble opinion, since the board of directors of a Crown corporation does not have the usual powers of a board of directors in the private sector or as set out in the Canada Corporations Act and is not liable like private sector directors, this is just a porkbarrel for Liberals at a high salary?


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, one begins to wonder what the functions of directors are in a corporation. A director's function is to receive the report of the operating office of the company; to give advice to make sure that the corporation is proceeding well; to hire and fire chief executives and senior personnel in a company. These directors do not have those powers, so really we are not quite sure what they are there to do. A number of small private corporations operate with little activity from the directors. The chief executive officers of these companies are all appointed by the Cabinet. In some cases vice-presidents are appointed by the Cabinet. The Chairman of the board-and I do not know why there is a chairman of the board if it has no power-is appointed by the Cabinet. At that point, Sir, these companies are under the direction of the Cabinet; they are not under the direction of the board of directors. In the traditional sense, really, there is a necessity for a board of directors. If one wants to have advisory panels or something of that nature, fine. Perhaps the Hon. Member is right that these are directorships only for the opportunity to appoint one's friends to some cushy job where there is more than a decent stipend.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of my hon. friend in light of his remarks and the remarks of the lead off speaker for the Progressive Conservative Party. When that Party complains that these members of boards being appointed are nothing but Liberal hacks and are jobs created for Liberal friends, can I take it from that that if and when there is a Progressive Conservative Government, there is no way it would appoint Progressive Conservative hacks? In other words, could someone even like myself look forward to an appointment to a board of directors of a Crown corporation, or be appointed as chairman of the board? Who did the Hon. Member expect the Liberal Government to appoint, Conservatives, NDPers?


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for the question. The essence of the problem, Sir, is not who is appointed but, rather, the job which has to be done. There is
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March 23, 1984
Financial Administration Act
no point in appointing a person to do a job unless there is, in fact, a job to be done. One should not create a corporate structure the board of directors of which is composed of eunuchs, and that is what we have in this Bill. I suppose that if we were going to appoint someone who would be a good eunuch, the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) would qualify.
We believe that the way this Bill should be structured is for the directors to have the responsibility to ensure that the corporation acts properly, and they should be responsible for the actions of the chief executive officer and the other officers of the company. They should have the job of selecting the chief executive officer and the other officers who are going to do the work in the company. That, Sir, is what directors are all about. If one is going to have directors, they had better do some work and they had better be responsible for their work. This Bill gives them no responsibility at all.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: We are resuming
debate.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Question?


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: 1 am sorry, I would like to give the floor to the Hon. Member for Regina West (Mr. Benjamin) on a question, but the time allowed for the question period has now expired and we are back into debate.


Mr. Manly:: 1 rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. 1 believe that there is supposed to be a ten-minute question period and, from my observation of the clock, that ten minutes has not
elapsed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: I am advised by the Table officers who keep the time that I made a mistake. I will recognize the Hon. Member for Regina West for a question.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, to be a little more serious with my hon. friend, he mentioned government policy objectives and Crown corporation policy objectives. Does he differentiate on the assumption that a Crown corporation is there to serve public and social policies, in which case the Government would be responsible for the parameters of that public and social policy? Would he then agree that the board of directors would be responsible for Crown corporation policy only in terms of the operation of the corporation within the parameters of the social and public policy laid down by the Government of the day?


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Mr. Speaker, with respect to corporations which are in the social fields-and I would think the Hon. Member is looking at the Schedule B corporations in this Bill-these particular corporations, and some which are in Schedule C, Part 1, are corporations which are really boards under a corporate structure. There does not need to be, in my view, a board of directors for these corporations. There might have to be an advisory panel, but there does not need to be a board. These corporations are really departments of government, really doing a government function, so that the people
involved are virtually part of the government department. For example, I point out to the Hon. Member the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission. That is a government department function-


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: What about CN and Air Canada?


Donald Alex Blenkarn: It is very difficult to judge why it should be a corporation in the first place. It is really, Sir, part of a government Department. I would think we would get rid of many of these and bring them back into government-


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: What about CN and Air Canada?


Donald Alex Blenkarn: -so that they would be directly managed and handled by people who are employees of the Government of Canada as civil servants. My friend screams out, "CNR". The CNR is a different matter. The CNR is not a social corporation. It is a business corporation. It is expected to make a profit. We would expect it to make a profit. We would hope it would pay dividends. If its functions were clearly of such a kind that we would begin to wonder why it should not make a really good profit, we might even sell it off. However, that would be an entirely different proposition. It is not a social corporation and directors of that type of corporation ought to be good, solid business people who take solid responsibility for the solid management of the corporation.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the hon. gentleman this question: a government of the day, of whatever political stripe, lays out a public policy regarding a Crown corporation like CN or Air Canada. That may mean that it cannot make money, or can only break even, as a matter of public policy, otherwise it would have to decrease services. Would the Hon. Member then feel that the board of directors of Canadian National, for example, or Air Canada, or similar Crown corporations, would be able to overrule or ignore that public policy of the government of the day?


Donald Alex Blenkarn: Again, Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for the question. The problem comes from mixing a business corporation with a social purpose. It is our view that the social purposes, or the necessity purposes of those types of corporations, should be paid for separately by the Government. In other words, if it is a government concept that, for national unity purposes or some other purpose of that nature, it is essential that Air Canada, for example, run a regular service into Baker Lake in the Northwest Territories, then we think that the Government of Canada should pay the cost of that service directly to Air Canada as a fee for asking the corporation to perform that service. That particular service should not be cost subsidized, because when you do that, you allow management to duck away from its responsibility. They can always say, "Well, you know, we didn't make any money because we had to run this unprofitable service". You never get down to how unprofitable that service was or why they did not make a profit. That type of service ought to be charged for and paid for as if it were a commercial service run by the commercial operation that the Crown corporation should be.
March 23, 1984


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Mr. Speaker, before I start I want to commend the Hon. Member for Calgary South (Mr. Thomson) and the Hon. Member for Mississauga South (Mr. Blenkarn) for expertly putting forward some concerns we have regarding this Bill. These are things that the Government should take very seriously and I will put on the record some reasons for that.
In the time available I want to deal with two concerns regarding this Bill. The first has to do with conflict of interest guidelines in the legislation and how they are inadequate to determine whether or not the chief executive officer is carrying them out. The second concern is that of accountability.
Conflict of interest is most important in the private sector. You simply cannot have employees, directors or chief executive officers owning shares in competing companies. There cannot even be the appearance of a conflict of interest. Because of that, the Government, through legislation and within the Public Service, and even in Cabinet, has laid out directives regarding conflict of interest. Yet when we look at this legislation, especially Schedule C, Part I and Part II, the conflict of interest guidelines are not clearly outlined. The responsibilities of senior managers, appointed by the board to critical positions and who perform essential duties related to the overall well-being of the company, are not adequately or clearly defined.
I have taken some interest over the last number of months in northern transportation, and I have had responsibilities over the last number of years in the area of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. In looking at the Crown corporation which operates in Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, the Northern Transportation Company Limited, I have found a number of interesting situations which are the result of improper guidelines concerning the operation of Crown corporations. I specifically refer to conflict of interest, Mr. Speaker.
In 1969, Arctic Cruise Lines Ltd. began as a private company and was then incorporated in 1974. Four of the eight directors were shareholders. Twelve of the original 30 shareholders were Northern Transportation Company Ltd. employees. Two of the three applicants, who were in the corporation in 1974 and were listed as the first directors of the company, were NTCL employees. There is no problem with that because Arctic Cruise Lines was set up to be a passenger service company along the Mackenzie River system. NTCL distributed goods and services by barge along the Mackenzie and around the coast in the Beaufort Sea and Arctic Ocean. Therefore, in 1976, when NTCL requested all permanent employees to divulge any possible instances of a conflict of interest, there were none. I requested a copy of their conflict of interest guidelines and have found them to be good ones, drawn from instances which had been laid out here in the House of Commons. I will describe them briefly.
They said, Mr. Speaker, that employees must not act in any manner which might result in or create the appearance of using a corporate office or company appointment for private
Financial Administration Act
gain; giving preferential treatment to any person; losing complete independence or impartiality; and affecting adversely the confidence of the public in the integrity of the company. Employees must not engage directly or indirectly in any personal transaction or private arrangement for personal profit which accrues from or is based upon their official position or authority or upon privileged information which is acquired by reason of such position or authority. Employees must not act in any official matter with respect to which there exists a personal interest incompatible with an unbiased exercise of official judgment, or have direct or indirect personal business or financial affairs which conflict or appear to conflict with official duties and responsibilities.
These employees submitted letters indicating to their respective shareholders that there was no apparent problem with employees of NTCL holding shares in a small passenger service company. Arctic Cruise Lines did not do well financially. Demand for passenger service along the river was not great. So in 1979 Arctic Cruise Lines changed its name to Arctic Offshore Limited and became active in the offshore market for the movement of goods. As a result, it came into competition with Arctic Transportation Limited, another private company in the area, and of course the NTCL Crown corporation.
Since 1980, that company has enjoyed great success. It has increased in size by 168 per cent while NTCL has decreased by 30 per cent. Both the president of NTCL and the president of Arctic Offshore deny there is competition in the area. However, their chief competitor, Arctic Transportation Limited, maintains that they compete with both Arctic Offshore and NTCL for the same contracts. There is, of course, some discrepancy there.
Now, Mr. Speaker, four employees of NTCL are shareholders of Arctic Offshore. One is in a key position which oversees contracts for marine maintenance, and the other was, until recently when I brought this matter up, a director on the board of Arctic Offshore.
What is the problem, Mr. Speaker? The problem is that there are unclear guidelines, uninformed board members and unattentive management. This situation has existed since 1979. During this period of time the manager of sales and contracts for NTCL was a shareholder in Arctic Offshore, a competing company, against which he had to bid. There is an appearance of conflict of interest here. Because of a lack of vigilance, nothing was done about this conflict of interest until a Member of Parliament inquired into the affairs of that company. Now, of course, the chief executive officer has requested that these people divest themselves of their shares, almost five years after the first appearance of a conflict of interest.
What does this say? This company has not been brought before a standing committee of this House for six years. Members of Parliament and the people who are supposed to be responsible for the direction of this company were not asked any questions regarding its operation. That is why it is essential to have a joint committee involved, as has been recommended by Members on this side of the House. It would have

March 23, 1984
Metric Conversion
the responsibilty of bringing that corporation and other Crown corporations before it each year with a proper audit requesting proper information so that the types of things I have just described would not be allowed to exist.
1 have put questions on the Order Paper requesting information of this company. They have been on the Order Paper for over two months and have not been answered. If a Member of Parliament does not get proper information, it is impossible for him to even look into the company on behalf of the taxpayers of the nation. That is why one of the recommendations we are making is so important. That recommendation is for the establishment of a joint committee. I hope to continue my remarks on accountability when this Bill comes up again in the near future.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order, please. It being four o'clock, the House will now proceed with Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.



PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS-MOTIONS

[Stage Direction]
[ Translation]
["Order. The hour provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired. It being five o'clock, this House stands\nMetric Conversion\nadjourned until Monday next, at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).\nAt 5 p.m., the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.", 'Monday, March 26, 1984']
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Shall all orders and items preceding No. 99 stand by unanimous consent?


Some Hon. Members:: Agreed.


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Stand.



Donald Frank Mazankowski: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should permit, on a voluntary basis, the dual labelling in both the imperial and metric systems of all goods and products used in the production of agricultural commodities.
He said: Mr. Speaker, until the Clerk read the motion I had not realized this was Motion No. 99. That is a pretty significant number in Canada. It is the number which Wayne Gretzky, the very prominent hockey star of the Edmonton Oilers, wears. I hope I will be as successful in achieving the passage of this motion as he is in scoring goals.
I believe the motion before the House is logical, realistic, practical and makes a lot of common sense. There is a farmer from Montreal here who is sniggering. That is about the
mentality of the Members across the way. It is the mentality of the people who disregard the agricultural community and shove these things down our throats without any consideration, knowledge or understanding of the facts. I suppose the Hon. Member will pose as an instant expert in the agricultural industry in a few moments. I appeal to all Hon. Members of the House to consider what the motion does and to support it.
We have had far too many costly experiences caused by confusions and complications which have arisen in the conversion from imperial to metric. They have resulted in the loss of crops and severe damage to production in the agricultural industry. This ought not to be ignored. I appeal to all Members of the House to consider this motion seriously, a motion which, I repeat, is realistic, practical and makes common sense.
The key word in the motion, Mr. Speaker, is "voluntary". In this Party we have never believed in the forced imposition of metric in the country. We do not believe that the imperial system should be outlawed. We believe there is room for both, particularly during the transformation from imperial to metric. We are really saying that there is room for freedom of choice, Mr. Speaker. In my view there is no justifiable reason for refusing dual labelling. It would be convenient, it would enhance safety, and it would be much more economical for the producers. As I have said, there have been some very huge crop losses as a result of confusion due to metric conversion. I will support this statement later on in my remarks.
With the exception of one Bill having to do with the conversion in the grain industry, there was never any legislation to bring about metric. It has all been done through Order in Council. As a result, many of the worst fears of Canadians have been borne out by the result of the forced implementation of metric. It has caused confusion, uncertainty and costly mistakes. Altogether it has imposed a very costly burden upon the economy of Canada.
This is particularly true in the agricultural sector and particularly in the use of agricultural chemicals. Withg today's farming methods producers have come to rely very heavily upon fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides to enhance crop yields. These chemicals are very expensive and complex. It is important that they be applied properly. There is simply no room for trial and error. If the chemical is applied too lightly, it will be ineffective. If it is applied too heavily, it will burn the crops. There is no room for error.
There have been many examples of the results of confusion in the conversion from the imperial to the metric system. The Farm and Country magazine of July 20, 1982 carried the headline, "Metric Goof Takes Toll". This article reads:
Stratford-based ministry crop specialist Pat Lynch says 200 acres of "dead alfalfa" resulted from farmers in his area using the recommendations. He estimates that there are about 50 to 100 mistakes in the book.
This was a result of the conversion. About 50 per cent of the year's barley crop in a particular area was damaged as a result of a miscalculation in the application of weed spray used on the crop. There are many other examples.
March 23, 1984

Another factor as well is that if these chemicals are handled improperly they present a very major safety hazard. Health and safety concerns are important from the farmers' point of view as well as from the point of view of the consumer and the public at large. If we can overcome the problems of safety and of jeopardizing one's health by using imperial, we should be allowed to use it in a voluntary way. We use two languages in this country. We have labelling which provides for two languages. I see nothing wrong with the application of dual labelling which would provide for both metric and imperial.
There is another thing which should not be forgotten in this debate, that is, that when the Bill converting the grains industry to metric was debated in the House, the matter of hectares was not included. It was deleted from the Bill. Therefore, acres are still the standard unit of measurement within a metric system. That complicates the issue further. At least in western Canada, farmers are still measuring their land in acres. It is really part and parcel of the way the land is surveyed out in western Canada. It has almost become part of the tradition and culture of the agricultural society of western Canada. While they still use acres, farmers must utilize metric to apply the weed spray. Therefore they are using acres, kilograms and grams, which generates massive confusion.
This motion would provide a very simple way of overcoming that confusion. When we talk about conversion from pounds, gallons and acres, it becomes a very complex procedure in which there is a high potential for error.
Here is another letter sent to the Red Deer The Advocate by a person named Donald Hansen who says:
In the real world of basic production, you cannot start on a given day with all new metric tools and equipment.
That is another very valid point. Most of the equipment used by the farmer utilizes the imperial system. While the weed spray, chemicals and herbicides he buys is in metric, the machinery he has uses the imperial system. The seed drill machinery is based on acres and is not converted to hectares. The weed spray devices have tanks that are measured in gallons, not litres. The farmer has this equipment, but he must employ metric using that imperial equipment. The point is made when he says this:
You must, for many years, convert fuel tanks, spray tanks, boom widths, nozzle spacing and size, pressures, flow rates, implement widths, depths and heights, speeds and distances, truck boxes, fertilizer spreaders, ammonia tanks, countless fields and fences, transit rods, natural gas meters, fuel meters, ammonia meters, nitrolators, grain tester charts and measuring vessels.
These are all in imperial. He goes on to say:
Land measure must always be imperial since that is how this country was surveyed.
That is the point I was making earlier. He goes on to say:
1 learned that in order to convert my spraying operation completely to metric, 1 would have to do well in excess of 20 conversions.
It would require 20 conversions in order to make that application. I say that it is a real burden and that it is most unfair.
Metric Conversion
I have another comment from a person by the name of Gil Cyr of Prescott who said:
-'farmers from across the country have been urging the federal and provincial governments to allow such instructions to be put in imperial measure as well as metric. Due to mixups caused by unfamiliarity with the metric system, crops have been chemically burned, ruined and sometimes the produce is even unsafe for human consumption, he said.
'You consumers in the city don't realize how dangerous some of these bad chemical mixes can be-all we've been asking for is to give us the freedom of choice in using either metric or imperial measure,' he said.
I think that really makes the point. We have many clear indicators from the agricultural community that they want the freedom of choice or dual measurement. I know the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) has received many representations from Members of the House, including the Member for Moose Jaw (Mr. Neil) and the Member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Schellenberger) on the need to address this very real problem. It could be addressed very easily by simply allowing dual labelling. However, we have seen no sensitivity at all from the Minister of Agriculture.
The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has called for dual labelling. As well, the Women for the Survival of Agriculture stated the following in very short and succinct terms:
We want you to know that our group, Women for the Survival of Agriculture, fully endorses dual labelling-metric and imperial, on all farm sprays, chemicals and fertilizers. We feel that dual labelling is a necessity, not a luxury.
The livestock groups have balked at conversion to metric in their industry because of the concerns in other parts of the agricultural sector.
Therefore, this motion really deals with something that is very logical and practical and which makes common sense. If the metric system is so superior, as the Government suggests it is, why are so many farmers unwilling to use it? There may be a time, 10, 15 or 20 years from now, when new generations of farmers may be able to adapt to the metric system easily when the machinery will be adapted to the metric system, but that does not apply today. The fact of the matter is that we now have a program that has been developed that is very bureaucratic, difficult to deal with and the cause of confusion. It has cost farmers and the economy a lot of money.
I appeal to the House to give serious consideration to this motion, because this problem will continue for some time. If we cannot address this very fundamental and simple issue in the House, then I am not sure why we are here. This is where points of view should be debated and where decisions of this nature should be made.
I conclude by saying that beneath the confusion that surrounds this issue perhaps there is another more important underlying issue, that is, the issue of forced metrication without consideration of the rights and freedoms of individual Canadians. We all know that this program was really forced down the throats of Canadians without adequate consideration.
I thought that The Financial Post of July 31, 1982, put this whole issue into perspective, in the following words:

March 23, 1984
Metric Conversion
Forced metrication is an obvious violation of the rights of Canadians to freely transact with one another on any commercial basis they choose. Although the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has been silent about this issue, metrication is a clear and present danger to our civil liberties, which encompass far more than rights to speech, drugs, sex, criminal procedures, and so on. Our civil liberties include, as well, the right to engage in 'capitalist acts' between consenting adults, whether measured in pounds or grams, inches or centimetres. People should have the right to sell by the hatful, if they can attract any customers that way. In the words of Howard Bradfield, metric protester, 'Your freedom to measure is a measure of your freedom.'
I think this whole exercise demonstrates another classic example of the Government's penchant for intervening in the lives of Canadians. It is part and parcel of its whole approach that it alone knows what is best for Canadians, collectively and individually. It refuses to submit this issue to the proper legislative process and it refuses to be held accountable. I repeat that this situation is a product of the bureaucrats and politicians who have remained in their ivory towers and failed to recognize the difficulties and consequences that have arisen therefrom.
I say that we have an opportunity here to correct a wrong, to provide a mechanism that would ensure that the producers of food in this country would be blessed with some measure of convenience simply by allowing dual labelling on these very important commodities which they use in the production of agricultural products. It is practical, sensible and will give Canadian producers an opportunity to go through a transition period without facing the prospect of suffering losses.
Quite frankly, I think that this is a small issue but one that has a far reaching impact that could provide benefits to agriculture, individual farmers and indeed rewards to the Canadian economy.


Mr. Russell MacLellan (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of National Health and Welfare):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to rise on the motion but forward by the Hon. Member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) concerning the dual labelling of farm input products. The Hon. Member is certainly aware of the support given by all Parties to metric conversion in January, 1970, when the Government introduced its white paper on this subject. He is also aware that the Government met with more than 2,000 representatives from provincial governments, business and agricultural organizations to plan metric conversion in the agri-food sector. That program was unanimously supported by the provincial governments both in 1973 and again at the Federal-Provincial Conference on Metric Conversion on July 26, 1976.
I believe the metric question has been well explored and extensively debated both in this House and by Canadian society generally. Now the Hon. Member wishes to raise again the issue of dual labelling on all goods and products used in the production of agricultural commodities. I do not see how we can support this.
Metric amendments and conversion dates for feeds, seeds, fertilizers and agricultural chemicals were all established in consultation with the agri-food sector. Bulk grains were converted to metric in February 1977. Feeds, seeds and fertilizers were all converted during 1979-80. Agricultural chemicals were to be converted to metric measurements during 1978.
However, a review of the program showed extra time was required for farmers to become more familiar with metric measurements. So, Mr. Speaker, we agreed on a new date, that of January 1, 1981, for metric conversion in the agricultural chemicals industry. We have always been flexible in the matter of metric conversion.
At that time, there was also agreement that any form of dual labelling was inappropriate. That is because there are many calculations involved in the application of agricultural chemicals including not only package size, but tank capacity, nozzle rating, the speed of the spraying equipment and so on. The Hon. Member is well aware of the many calculations involved, I am sure.
I am sure he can appreciate also the dangers of switching, either intentionally or not, from one system of measurement to the other during these calculations. Consider, Mr. Speaker, the danger of attempting to switch to imperial units for spraying rates after making the correct dilution and mixing the required quantity for application in metric units. An error could destroy one's crop, and the chance of making such an error in this case is high.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: That is exactly what is happening now.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: It was felt that this could lead to real and serious problems in this important sector.
Of course, the Government recognized there were risks in having metric-only labels. We concede that, but it was agreed that fewer risks were involved than with dual labelling.
I should also point out to the Hon. Member the results of a series of tests run at evening classes in Manitoba in February, 1981 to determine whether farmers were adapting to metric. It was found that the error rate was much higher when calculations were done in imperial units compared to calculations presently done in metric units.
Metric is a much easier system of measurement with much less chance of error if it is used throughout. And when it comes to agricultural chemicals, simple calculations are crucial to the safe use of pesticides.
Both the federal and provincial governments have been working with agricultural organizations and the Canadian Agricultural Chemicals Association in an ongoing educational and public awareness program for farmers and food processors to minimize calculation errors.
Safety must be the primary issue here and not convenience of the procedure. Certainly it would be convenient to have dual labelling.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Let's do it then.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: But it could lead to more cases of improper mixing and application that would threaten the health of the producers themselves and of our entire food industry.
March 23, 1984

There is another issue here, as 1 see it. How do we approach this whole question? Are we looking at it with the future in mind or simply in a reactionary way?


Donald Frank Mazankowski: In a realistic way.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: In a realistic way. The Hon. Member referred to Wayne Gretzky and hoped to be able to score here today. I think the House would agree with me when I say that I think the Hon. Member has fanned his shot.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: He uses an imperial hockey stick.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: We must remind ourselves that we are living in a metric world.
Today, 90 per cent of the world's population use metric measurements, and by the end of the decade 90 per cent of the world's standards will be metric only.


Jesse Philip Flis: The Tories are back in the Dark Ages.


Russell Gregoire MacLellan: As a nation dependent on trade, we would be foolish to ignore this. Even now, 85 per cent of our agricultural exports are to countries using the metric system. As well, the U.S. is continuing its program of metric conversion, and metric conversion in our own agri-food industry now is 95 per cent completed.
This is the fourth spring that Canadian farmers will be buying agricultural chemicals with metric-only labels. It would be improper to turn back the clock with dual labelling and tempt some farmers to return to imperial calculations. It would only mean continued controversy and debate and another painful round of conversion sometime in the future.
Much of the pain of conversion is behind us. Experience has shown Canadian farmers have adapted to metric and, in fact, have found it simpler to understand and apply. Admittedly, most Canadians have grown up with the imperial system, but we cannot let this influence our ability to look to the future. A new generation of Canadians today are growing up with metric. Metric has been in our educational system for a decade now, and these young Canadians will soon be entering professions, including farming.
Such actions as dual labelling are not forward thinking. Farmers are accepting metric. Our young farmers have grown up with metric. The only responsible course for us as the Government to take is to use metric measurements only. It is in the best interests of our farmers and of all Canadians in general.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: Mr. Speaker I sympathize with the intent of the motion of the Hon. Member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski). I suspect that he and I and others like us are of the age where it is pretty well too late for us to learn the intricacies of metric. I find that students, young small-businessmen and young farmers have learned metric well in school and at their places of work and can handle it very well. But I want to remind you, Sir, and other Members of this House that from 1969 to 1974 I sat on a committee on
Metric Conversion
a number of occasions with a former colleague from Vancou-ver-Kingsway, Mrs. Maclnnis, dealing with amendments to the Weights and Measures Act and other pieces of legislation. We heard from numerous witnesses. They were almost unanimous in supporting a systematic, intelligent conversion to metric over a period of years. At first, 5 years was talked about, then 10 years, and then 25 years, but then a consensus was reached that we would need a period of 15 years. That is about the time that it will take before it is all in place.
I think the Hon. Member for Vegreville is correct when he talks about dual labelling in the case of any product that is poisonous or hazardous and that in those circumstances extra precaution has to be taken so that the user of that product is fully aware of how to use it. If it requires an additional label or an additional pamphlet, whether it is a farmer or anyone else using the poisonous or hazardous product, it is better to be safe than sorry. In those circumstances it should be incumbent upon the packaging and labelling industry and upon the chemical industry to make certain that the extra information is available for every user of any dangerous, hazardous or poisonous product.
I was somewhat amused by some of the matters raised in the House by Hon. Members such as the hon. gas pumper from Peterborough. When metric legislation was introduced, I recall how the Hon. Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen) and the Hon. Member for Burlington (Mr. Kempling) castigated the Government for taking so long to do it. I appreciate that there is something of an intellectual and sometimes physical trauma when making a change in people's minds concerning measurement, but there is no turning back the clock. I think of what it would cost farmers and their organizations if we reverted to imperial. We must remember the millions of dollars which elevator companies have invested in scales alone.


Donald Frank Mazankowski: I am not saying that.


Leslie Gordon Benjamin: I appreciate that, but the Hon. Member for Vegreville has a point about the dual description of measurements, particularly in the case of hazardous and poisonous products.
In committee we heard from representatives of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, the Food and Labelling Association, the Chamber of Commerce and all farm organizations. We heard from various transportation companies and all kinds of witnesses, from consumers to scores of individuals with expertise in the area of measurements, be they national or international. As I said earlier, there was overwhelming agreement to make the conversion.
The question is not whether or not we make the conversion. The question is how intelligently and how safely we do it. Surely that is a question any government of any political stripe has to be concerned about on a day to day basis. If the Government cannot accept totally what the Hon. Member for Vegreville wants, at least it could look at instructing the Metric Commission by Order in Council to ensure that those

March 23, 1984
Metric Conversion
who manufacture and distribute wholesale and retail hazardous and poisonous products accompany metric labels with imperial labels to reduce any possibility of misunderstanding or error. Surely that only makes sense in the process of converting completely to metric, something to which the next generation will be attuned. There are many hundreds of thousands of people today-and I am one of them-who are still struggling with the metric system. I do not have much trouble with kilometres, but I still have a little trouble with Celsius and I am totally lost with kilograms. My children know it 100 per cent; the next generation will have little or no difficulty.
The Standing Committee on Transport visited the Bombardier plant at La Pocatiere, Quebec. It was proud that it had received three contracts with one State and two cities in the United States. The plant was successful in its tenders for transit equipment and railway equipment, and the tenders called for them to be submitted in metric, not imperial.
I noticed the other day when looking at the commodity exchange in Chicago that the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced some sales of specialty products all in metric, not in imperial. That is fine, but they were not dangerous, hazardous or poisonous products. It is part of the international picture. In reality, both the United States and Canada have no choice if they are to export and import internationally with other countries. The two of us cannot deal only with each other. That is the reality.
If the Government will not accept the Hon. Member's motion as is, I urge it to ensure, particularly in the case of agriculture but in the case of other industries as well, that dual labelling of hazardous and poisonous products continue for a few more years. Not only should there be dual labels, but there should be accompanying literature so that there can be no misunderstanding in the use and application of the products. Surely that makes good sense. It is better to be safe than sorry.


Stanley Kenneth Schellenberger: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion of the Hon. Member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) that the Government should permit dual labelling on a voluntary basis of farm sprays, chemicals and fertilizers in both the metric and imperial systems.
The constant argument of the Government is that back in 1970 there was an agreement that we would move to metric conversion. That was a couple of years before I arrived in the House, but in looking at the Debates, I find that that was not the case at all. At that time we agreed to allow the establishment of the Metric Commission to look into whether it was sound to move toward metric conversion.
In fact, the gentleman who responded for our Party, Mr. Ged Baldwin, stated some reservations at that time while agreeing to the establishment of the commission. He said:
We should think particularly of our trading relations with the United States, which of course is and has for some years been examining its position with regard to adoption of the metric system. Whether we like it or not, what we must do to a considerable extent is keep pace with what is being done in the United States. I think it might well be suicidal for us to adopt the metric system without considering what is being done in the United States.
He had reservations at the time the commission was set up, but the Government then took that as its guiding light and said that there was no need to bring it back to the House of Commons for Members of Parliament to agree or disagree. From that point to this time, except for one piece of legislation from which Hon. Members in fact removed hectares and included acres, there has never been a bill dealing with metric in the House.
Therein lies the problem. People will accept a policy which is in their best interest, if they feel that they are a part of it. If they feel that it is in their interest and agree with it, they will take the time to learn the changes. However, if the best policy in the world is implemented improperly, people will reject it. That has been the case with metric. There is a feeling in the country that it is being shoved at people, particularly those who are beyond the educational system and do not understand it. We all know about mental blocks. It is very difficult, if one does not want to sit down and study, to learn it.
I know of many cases in my constituency where farmers have indicated-and I have the same difficulty-that they will not trade in their sprayers which are in gallons because they have many years of use left. In the last few years the label on chemical spray containers has indicated so many litres per hectare. I do not carry a calculator in my shirt pocket when I am measuring spray on the farm. It is impossible to do so. It would not last very long in the dust. Often you scratch in the dirt. Sometimes there is a layer of dirt on the machine. I have seen that done often. Calculations are being done on something of great significance to a farmer's livelihood, the number of ounces per acre or litres per hectare of chemical to be put on his or her crop.
Efforts have been made. Nothing is worse, and I know this from experience, than having put effort and your life savings into a crop only to find that you have made an error in spraying because the nation's Government will not allow the can of spray to have dual labelling. That is absolutely ridiculous. It does not cost the manufacturer anything more once the machinery is set up. Why are we doing this? Is it because the bureaucrats feel that everything has to be put on its convenient little shelf, or because it is not acceptable? Is that the reason?
Surely we as Members who are here to provide leadership and guidance ought to be able to suggest that in the areas of pesticide sprays and fertilizer, which are so important to the production of food, because the average age of our farmer is still over 50 years dual labelling should continue for a number of years. It should continue until younger farmers who are familiar with the measurement system take over or until the older farmers with computers are able to comprehend the changes in measurement. It does not cost this Government anything. It is not a matter of pride to say that we have metric and therefore no one will ever use the imperial system again. That is ridiculous. Members should seriously look at this motion going forward.
March 23, 1984

The livestock people of this country rejected the system for sales in metric. They put up such a lobby that the Government backed off on changing the measurement of beef in sales rings. According to the Department of Agriculture, the livestock industry is one of the Metric Commission's problem areas. Many more are starting. People are beginning to have second thoughts about a program which is being forced upon them. They are starting to reject it. They say that it is their right to accept something, but if it is to be forced on them, they want the right to reject it.
The trucking industry, in a letter to the then Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Member for Yukon (Mr. Nielsen), said this:
The Alberta Trucking Association has been opposed to metric since it was first introduced to Canada. It has led to a great deal of confusion in the marketplace and it has cost far more than ever contemplated.
The cost of forced conversion has been tremendous. If we had not been so rigid in the forcing of metric on our citizens, the cost could have been distributed over 20 or 30 years. Why the rush? I fail to comprehend why we have to rush into putting this system in place.
I support the Hon. Member's motion for reasons of convenience, rather than having to convert. I have seen farmers take a metric can and pour the spray into a gallon can so they have the correct level. Then they pour it in the sprayer. They often forget that the chemical is not the same as it was five, six or ten years ago. The number of parts per million of concentration in that spray may be higher or lower than previously. Hence, an error is made.
On the basis of safety, a very small indication on a can of pesticide, farm poison, chemicals, sprays or fertilizers should be put in place. Duel labelling should continue for a number of years until the people are used to the change to metric. That is not too much for the farmers of this nation to ask for.


Mr. David Berger (Laurier):: Mr. Speaker, in dealing with this motion I want to refer to a couple of words mentioned by the Hon. Member for Vegreville (Mr. Mazankowski) in his opening statement. He suggested that the motion is realistic, practical and makes common sense. He also used the word "voluntary". One of the strong arguments made by Members opposite is that this process should be voluntary. I want to deal with those aspects.
First, 1 want to deal with the voluntary part of it. As we have heard on many occasions, the conversion to metric is being shoved down the throats of the Canadian people without adequate consideration. This argument was made by the Hon. Member for Vegreville and the Hon. Member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Schellenberger). This is a compelling argument. The only problem is that it is not true.
Subsequent to the acceptance of the white paper by this Parliament and the establishment of the Canadian Metric Commission, many industries indicated their interest in forming voluntary committees to plan and manage the conversion of their industry to metric measurement. The number of such volunteer groups eventually reached 104 in every sector of the
Metric Conversion
Canadian economy. One such group was formed to represent the chemicals and chemical products sector. This group held its first meeting on July 10, 1973 in Ottawa. In total, some 14 different associations maintain representation on this committee. Three groups in particular were responsible and highly supportive of conversion to the exclusive use of metric units in agricultural chemicals and pesticides. They were the Canadian Fertilizer Institute, the Canadian Agricultural Chemicals Association and the Canadian Chemical Producers Association.
In addition, it is important for people listening to this debate to know that each of these committees worked through an extensive program which included investigation, planning, scheduling and implementation. In the course of its work, the committees prepared their own timetables for implementation of their plans. This was not imposed by the Government. Members opposite always say that the scheduling of implementation was imposed on the affected sections of the economy, but that clearly is not true. With the few exceptions where ordinarily regulated items are involved or where the sector committee felt regulation was desirable for orderly and fair treatment of all concerned, the schedules were implemented by those sectors represented on these committees.
This process goes back to 1973, and before that to the white paper of 1970. We must understand that the white paper did not originate in the mind of the Government but in the fact that teachers, businessmen, farmers and representatives from all groups of the Canadian economy came to the Government and said that this process was important to them and that it must take place. It is a process in which thousands of Canadians have been involved for 15 years.
When Hon. Members opposite say that there is a mad rush to impose metric, that is a nice and compelling argument, but it is not true. The Hon. Member for Vegreville claimed that his proposal was realistic. How can we determine that? I suggest there are one or two factors that should be considered. The first factor is safety and the second is economic considerations. I should like to deal with safety first.
It is precisely because of safety that the chemicals and chemical products industry sector and its 14 associations insisted that labels should carry only one system of units and recommended against the use of dual units. I know that the Hon. Member for Vegreville is not listening to this because obviously the correct facts are of no concern to him. What is of concern to him is simply-


Donald Frank Mazankowski: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Hon. Member from wherever he is cannot impute motives. I hear what he is saying. I am in my seat and that should be recorded. It is not customary for any Member of the House to talk about another Member's presence or whether he is paying attention. I have heard every word the Hon. Member has said and it is not very enlightening.

March 23, 1984
Metric Conversion


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: The point raised by the Hon. Member for Vegreville is well taken.


David Berger: Mr. Speaker, if 1 misrepresented the presence of the Hon. Member in the House I did not presume to suggest that he was not here. If I could refer to the times when Hon. Members opposite argue that some of our Ministers are not in the House, this might just even things up a little bit.
It was precisely for safety considerations that the chemical and chemical products industry sector insisted that labels should have one system of untis and recommended against the use of dual units. It was clear that the farming community would have to be sufficiently familiar with metric units to be able to apply agricultural chemicals and pesticides effectively and safely. Such concerns were identified to both the federal and provincial Departments of Agriculture, which agreed to share the responsibility of ensuring that the user, the Canadian farmer, would be sufficiently conversant with metric units. I understand that many courses were conducted by provincial Departments of Agriculture in order to familiarize agricultural producers with the changes.
On the first item the Hon. Member said that what recommends his motion is that the labelling is to be voluntary, and then he argued that his suggestion is realistic. I have just proven that on grounds of safety it is not realistic at all.
I should like to deal with the other aspect of the matter, whether we can consider this motion to be realistic by some economic standard. That is the consideration that I find the most compelling. What are we concerned about day in and day out in this House if not with exporting products and creating jobs for the many thousands of Canadians who unfortunately cannot work because of some of the impediments in the economy?
I do not understand how the Hon. Member for Vegreville can come into the House and ignore the overwhelming economic considerations. I do not think he could have considered all of the issues. I do not think he has attended any information meetings on the subject before having made the arguments he presented today. I have had limited experience in this area, Mr. Speaker-


Donald Frank Mazankowski: You are certainly showing it now.


David Berger: I have had enough, however, to understand the importance of the economic arguments.
Last April I attended a conference in Washington of the American National Metric Council. I should like to relate to the House some things that I learned at the conference. A letter was addressed to the conference by the President of the United States, who is not exactly known as a fanatic about things un-American. He wrote as follows:
In the past year, the issue of metric transition has become increasingly important in the area of international trade and productivity. The National Productivity Advisory Committee has recommended that the Federal Government continue to support conversion to metric measurement to enhance U.S. international competitiveness and hence productivity in several industries.
I do not think anything could be clearer. The President of the United States is talking about international competitiveness and about productivity. These things are certainly of concern to the United States because, as we are all aware, it has a tremendous trade deficit. Perhaps we are one step ahead of the Americans in this area. I think it is incorrect to say, as the official Opposition always does, that we have to follow the Americans. When it comes to trade and international trade I do not think that we have any lessons to learn from them.

At that congress, the Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce stated that "the Reagan Administration favours conversion to the metric system for the same reasons that aroused the opposition of John Quincy Adams in 1821: international trade. In 1821, all international trade was between the United States and England, and both countries used inches and pounds. Today, 95 per cent of the world is metric". Someday, the conclusion will have to be that if we want to export products, we have to do so according to the metric system.

There is one thing about that conference that the Hon. Member might understand. A speaker who was arguing very persuasively in favour of conversion on the grounds of competitiveness and productivity told the story of a Japanese businessman and an American businessman. They were walking down the street and all of a sudden were confronted by a great, big grizzly bear comming at them at tremendous speed. The Japanese businessman, who happened to be a health nut, had his jogging shoes with him. He got down on his hands and knees and started to put his shoes on. The American businessmen asked, "What are you doing, my friend? You don't honestly think you can outrun that grizzly bear, do you?" The Japanese businessman stood up and said, "You perceive the question incorrectly, my friend. All I have to do is outrun you".
That is what this is all about-international competitiveness, exports and productivity. These are the factors that Hon. Members opposite are always crying about, yet these are the factors they are not willing to face. As the Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) has said on many occasions in this House, they are the coalition of the antis-they are the people who are always "against". They are always saying that now is not the right time, let us wait 20 years, whether that applies to the Constitution, the Crow rate or the metric system. I suggest that the Hon. Member for Vegreville wake up one of these days and start to consider some of these things.
March 23, 1984

[ Translation)


The Acting Speaker (Mr. Guilbault):: Order. The hour provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired. It being five o'clock, this House stands
Metric Conversion
adjourned until Monday next, at 11 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 2(1).
At 5 p.m., the House adjourned, without question put, pursuant to Standing Order.

Monday, March 26, 1984