Mr. Alexander:

Madam Speaker, on a point of order I should like the record to show that members of the opposition applauded vigorously for a very constructive speech, and no more than four members on the government side applauded.

Hear, hear!

Mr. Gray:

Madam Speaker, I think it would be fair to say that, if it could be shown, many more were with me in spirit.

Hear, hear!

Egg Marketing Committee Report

Mr. Ellis:

They don't need spirit, they need guts.

Mr. Fred McCain (Carleton-Charlotte):

Madam Speaker, the question has been very thoroughly covered already and anybody who wishes to make further remarks on this debate makes them with the fear of being repetitious. However, there are a few things which I think have not been said.

I am in sympathy with the farmers who decided they were not particularly anxious to see a representative of the Consumers' Association of Canada on their board. You do not find a president of General Motors as a member of the United Auto Workers. You do not find a farmer on the board of directors of a chartered accountants' association of Canada, you do not find a farmer on the board of directors that charts the course of the legal associations, the medical associations or nursing associations of this country. All of these people need food, however, and farmers need their services, yet they have never been invited to participate in the professional associations of any group in this or any other country.

While I agree in principle with a great deal of what has been said, I challenge hon. members and their professions to invite farmers to participate in the direction of those professions. When that happens I am sure farmers will reciprocate, and welcome consumers on their governing body.

All the various forms of information should be available to the public. All the public notices that the board has requested should be available to consumers, and consumers should know the basic cost of production. Farmers are entitled to this information but they could not get it from their own board, from the farm marketing council, from the minister or any other source. Like everybody else, farmers and consumers are entitled to the information.

What is the future of this board, Madam Speaker? The principle of national control of production of any commodity was precipitated by the chicken and egg war which, in turn, was precipitated by the policies of an urban oriented government, a government which had absolutely no concept of farm production or adequate supply of food. It encouraged production here and discouraged production there, until the Canadian agricultural picture became distorted. An area capable of producing grain found itself producing pigs and poultry by virtue of a federal subsidy which was contributed to by provincial subsidy-all financed by public money. Instead of grain pouring out of the west it was flying out in the form of birds, or it was shipped out in the form of eggs, because of a total lack of perception of what would happen if production of a particular commodity was increased by 2 per cent.

In any agricultural commodity on the North American continent-and virtually anywhere in the world-when a surplus of less than 1 per cent appears on the market, that market may plummet overnight. This was the knowledge that the urban cabinet did not like. The Prime Minister (Mr. Trudeau) could not understand it, and allowed the government virtually to annihilate agriculture from coast to coast under the misapprehension that, if he satisfied the westerners by getting rid of their grain, his government and Ottawa would seem like Utopia to them.

February 17, 1975

Egg Marketing Committee Report

If we had paid attention to fundamentals we should not have the egg producers on our backs. Eastern potato growers from P.E.I. and New Brunswick would not be on our backs if we had not abandoned traditional agricultural policies which worked in the past, and if we had not thrown away the concept of the stabilization board and said to the provinces, "This is happening in your area; you look after it." This is the sort of attitude which precipitated the call for orderly marketing. The call for agricultural production controls resulted from the absolute abandonment of responsibility for agriculture-and I cannot blame the minister, as he inherited the situation-on the part of the Trudeau government; it has neglected its responsibility ever since coming to office.

Government policies brought us to the catastrophic position in which, for six years, there was a drastic decline in the potato industry of this country. The government of Canada neglected the country's potato growers. The minister's efforts to help were thwarted. The Minister of Veterans Affairs (Mr. MacDonald) and I were thwarted as we pleaded on behalf of the industry in our respective provinces. We wanted the assistance which was so necessary for healthy agriculture, and a healthy agricultural industry is essential if food is to be available at reasonable cost.

CEMA was made necessary because of the workings of an urban-oriented cabinet. When farmers are mentioned, cabinet ministers either leave their seats or laugh. They know little of agriculture. Policies which allowed the importation of food duty free were detrimental to Canadian agriculture. In the end the government introduced that pernicious bill which allowed CEMA to be created. Let me be clear on one point-farmers wanted the agency. As things now stand, the farmers have to have it; and it has to work. Let there be no misunderstanding. The egg industry has been forced back into a corner and the agency must work. If it does not work, the result for a great many egg producers will be bankruptcy. So I say to the minister that the agency had better work, or else.

Anomalies must be corrected. The egg producing industries of our smaller provinces cannot compete with the egg producing industries of richer provinces such as Ontario and Quebec. If the federal government wants to help agricultural producers, and egg producers, it had better make certain that its policies apply from coast to coast in a fair way.

Let us look at the history of the matter we are considering. In early 1973 the council was advised by people in the know, people who know the egg business, that the egg marketing concept was not going to work. They said in so many words, "egg production is creeping up, and we are heading for trouble." How true. In late 1973 poultrymen who had studied poultry industry statistics as well as Department of Agriculture statistics, and figures released by Statistics Canada, said that the controls exercised by CEMA were not going to work, and there was trouble ahead.

The statistics kept piling up, until the climax came when 28 million eggs were reported as spoiled. Only heaven knows how many more were spoiled. Records have not been kept of total spoilages. Not even the minister may know how many were spoiled. The CEMA people were

very vague about total figures. They did not know where all eggs were stored and how many were involved in spoilage. I do not suppose anyone really knows the figure. Certainly the auditors do not. Without proof, they refused to certify that more than a certain number had been spoiled.

When this matter came to the minister's attention he should have called the appropriate federal and provincial authorities together and told them to sort out the mess. In any event the situation deteriorated, the number of spoilages grew larger and larger and, finally, the pressure of public opinion forced the government to act.

What is happening? According to statistics, a large number of pullets in various provinces are now getting ready to lay eggs. Some provinces may decide to go their own way and produce eggs at whatever rate seems appropriate to them. This is a matter for the Minister of Agriculture and the government of Canada to handle. I hope, for the sake of the producer and the consumer, that the minister can control all ten provinces, not just nine. This control is necessary for the sake of everyone.

Question.

Mr. Francis Fox (Argenteuil-Deux-Montagnes):

Madam Speaker, I thank you for having given me the floor. Unfortunately, the hon. member across the way has left me very little time, barely 45 or 65 seconds, to participate in the debate.

Several members, from both sides of the House, would have liked to take part in it, I believe. Though I have very little time, I should still like to emphasize one point which was raised a while ago by one of the previous speakers, and that is in part the role played by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Whelan) in the egg question.

Members have suggested that the Minister of Agriculture should have intervened unilaterally and imposed recommendations to the Egg Marketing Agency. As far as I am concerned, I feel that this is an unusual way of looking at federal-provincial relations in this country. To think that a federal minister should interfere with a federal-provincial agreement, signed by all the Ministers of Agriculture in Canada, strikes me as pure arrogance. Had that occurred, such a unilateral intervention on the part of the Minister of Agriculture would have been denounced.

Quite the contrary, in that case he did what he had to do; he met and consulted with his provincial colleagues in July and November of that year, and they agreed on a plan of action to try and put some order in the house. And finally it is very important to show that that marketing agency can work to meet the need of both consumers and farmers in Canada.

I think for my part that underlying the committee report was the fact that it recognized the true role the marketing agency must play within the Canadian economy. How else can we make sure farmers of this country have adequate incomes so they will continue to produce the kind of quality commodities we are used to receiving in Canada? Professor Ford who appeared before the committee had no other mechanism whatever to suggest to replace the marketing agency.

February 17, 1975

So, instead of looking at false problems the committee made recommendations. It determined who was responsible for the agency's problems. It submitted certain findings but agreed that in the final analysis the Minister of Agriculture did what he had to do.

Before attacking the Minister of Agriculture it is worth noting that no recommendations were ever made in that regard before the committee but they rather preferred to wait to do so in this House. No attempt was made to convince the committee-as they should have done as members-of what was suggested here tonight in this House.

Mr. Sinclair Stevens (York-Simcoe):

Madam Speaker, on February 11 the titular Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) misled the House. This is the background. In a budget speech dated November 18, 1974, delivered by the titular minister, but apparently not solely prepared by him, it is stated that indexing will reduce the tax liability of Canadian taxpayers by $950 million in 1975.

On February 10 of this year the same minister stated, as reported at page 3067 of Hansard that taxpayers would save $750 million as a result of indexing in the 1975 taxation year. The following day, as recorded at page 3101 of Hansard, I asked the minister:

Would the minister indicate which figure is correct, the one he gave us yesterday or the one he gave us on November 18?

The minister replied:

This is a great game of selective statistics again advanced by my hon. friend . .. One figure applies to the calendar year, and the other applies to the fiscal year.

On February 12 I asked the minister to supply the House with the proper figures for relevant years on a fiscal and calendar year basis. He replied he would look into it. The next day, again under questioning, the minister said, and I quote:

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member stated yesterday that in my November 18 budget speech I indicated that the reduction in personal income tax liability in 1975, as a result of indexing, would be $950 million, while on Monday I indicated that the reduction would be $750 million. That is how the question came up. The hon. member asked which figure is correct. In response I indicated that one figure was for the calendar year and another for the fiscal year. In so doing I misunderstood the question and perhaps misled hon. members. I ought to have responded that both figures are correct.

The $950 million reference in the budget speech was the total tax saving attributable to people in 1975 because of indexing; the $750 million figure is part of that $950 million which is attributable to the

Adjournment Debate

federal treasury. The other $200 million is attributable to provincial treasuries.

After admitting he misled hon. members, this sham minister, attempting to rationalize his mistake, only demonstrated the cleavage that exists between the Prime Minister's "Group of Seven" and his denuded Ministry of Finance. Mr. T. A. Wilson, a member of the "Group of Seven", wrote in an article published this month, and I quote:

The second round of tax indexing in January involves a reduction in federal and provincial taxes of $1,000 and $250 million respectively ...

Without the indexing of taxes therefore, federal and provincial revenues would be some $1,250 million higher in 1975, and the effects on the net budget position would be even larger. The additional fiscal drag which inflation would have generated with a tax-transfer system without indexing would have been sufficient to plunge the economy into recession in early 1975 unless offset by discretionary fiscal changes.

In his budgetary speech of May 6 last year, this titular minister said, "I have always tried to be frank with parliament and the people." In his last budget speech he stated only "I have always been frank with the Canadian people." Obviously the minister is a little embarrassed to maintain still that he is being frank with this parliament. The fact is that he has never been frank with this parliament. Nor has he been frank with the Canadian people.

We deserve a fuller explanation concerning the minister's statement in connection with indexing. At the time of my leader's speech, the minister so denounced the concept of indexing that it is only fair that he now state the accurate figures as to how much Canadians are benefit-ting at the present time as a result of indexing in the Canadian income tax field. I hope we will get a full and proper explanation of this unfortunate incident, which is only one in a series of incidents where this House has been misled by this minister.

Mr. Jack Cullen (Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Finance):

On February 11, Madam Speaker, the hon. member for York-Simcoe (Mr. Stevens) stated that in the November 18 budget speech the Minister of Finance (Mr. Turner) indicated that the reduction in personal tax liabilities in 1975 as a result of indexing would be $950 million, while on Monday, February 10, he said that the reduction would be $750 million. The hon. member asked which figure was correct.

In responding, the minister explained that one of the figures applied to the calendar year and the other to the fiscal year. It is indeed true that the reduction of personal income tax liabilities in fiscal year 1975-76 will exceed that for calendar year 1975. This is so because a new and higher indexing factor will automatically take effect on January 1, 1976, and will apply, for the last three months of the fiscal year.

In his budget speech the minister stated:

Indexing will reduce the tax liability of Canadian taxpayers by $950 million in 1975.

In saying this he was referring to the total savings to taxpayers-savings resulting from the reduction of both federal and provincial tax liabilities. In his statement to the House on February 10 the minister was referring to the reduction in federal revenues due to the tax cuts set out in the bill, and in that context he gave the 1975 estimated

February 17, 1975

Adjournment Debate

cost of indexing to the federal treasury alone. Both figures given by the minister are correct. The $950 million refer to the total reduction in personal income taxes, federal and provincial, and the $750 million to the cost to the federal treasury only.

Mr. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):

Madam Speaker, on Thursday, February 13, I asked questions about railway pensions which I directed first to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Munro) and then to the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand). In this area of railway pensions there are of course many angles, and I am concerned about all of them, but during this late show tonight I am concentrating on just one point. It is the point I presented as clearly as I could to the Minister of Transport last Thursday. My question-and it is my only question tonight-related to the escalation or the indexing of the pensions of retired Canadian National employees.

I am not tonight talking about the need to revamp the Canadian National pension plan to make provision for the escalation CN workers presently employed may enjoy when they retire. I am talking only about former CN workers already retired and now drawing their pensions. For many years pensions in this category were of a fixed amount with no escalation at all. After a while we got the CN to come through with an escalation of 2 per cent per year. This was done for several years.

When the ceiling was taken off other plans which came within the responsibility of the federal government, we put pressure on the CN to escalate pensions in accordance with the actual rise in the cost of living. Last year the CN at least broke through the 2 per cent ceiling and allowed an escalation of 4 per cent which, though not good enough, was better than 2 per cent.

My question tonight is: when is this year's escalation coming through and, when it does, will the amount be at least the full amount of the rise in the cost of living?

We can argue about what that percentage should be, but other pension plans that are under the aegis of the government have this year had escalations of 10 per cent or more. Therefore, Madam Speaker, I submit that the retired employees of the Canadian National should now be getting the 1975 escalation of their pensions, and that the amount of that escalation should be at least 10 per cent.

As I said the other day during the question period, I am asking for this pending the tabling of the Hall report. I hope my good friend, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion (Mr. Guay) who will be replying tonight for some other parliamentary secretary, will not tell me-indeed, I am sure he would not want to say it-that we will have to wait until Canadian National gets the Hall report. That may be many months down the road. The time for an annual escalation of pensions is at the beginning of the year, and Canadian National pensioners have the right to that escalation now.

The other answer that the Minister of Transport gave me the other day, and which I found a bit annoying, was one he has given me on other occasions, namely, that this is the subject of collective bargaining. The pension plan of the Canadian National Railways, in so far as it will affect those still working, when they retire, is now on the collective bargaining table. But escalating or making any changes in the pensions of those already retired is not on the collective bargaining table. Those people have a representative on the pension board, but there is no collective bargaining on behalf of those already retired. They will get an escalation under the present arrangements, depending on what may come out of the Hall report, only if Canadian National comes through with an escalation.

I know that we are told frequently that we have to let the Canadian National Railways make its own decisions. But the fact of the matter is that pressure by the government, pressure from the floor of this parliament by members like my good friend, the hon. member for London East (Mr. Turner), my good friend from St. Boniface, and their good friend from Winnipeg North Centre, has had an effect in the past.

I hope that the parliamentary secretary will be able to tell me tonight that the government will talk turkey to Canadian National, and will tell the CNR that this matter cannot wait any longer, that it cannot wait for the next round of collective bargaining by those still working, that it cannot wait for the Hall report. These retired employees of CNR, many of them in our constituencies, deserve an escalation in 1975 of at least 10 per cent, and they deserve it now without any further delay. The parliamentary secretary can make a good name for himself in St. Boniface and throughout greater Winnipeg tomorrow if he will give the answer tonight, that this escalation is coming soon.

Mr. Joseph-Philippe Guay (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Regional Economic Expansion):

Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity, in the very short time available, to discuss this very important matter with the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Knowles). As he is probably aware, there are many CN pensioners in my constituency, and the problem of coping with the ever-increasing cost of living is a major concern for all pensioners as well as for us.

In the past the increase of pensions for retirees has been averaging about 2 per cent per year, and this increase has been made on a sporadic basis. There has never been any specific timing for this increase, and I must agree that this situation has created some problems and hardships for the pensioners referred to by the hon. member.

I know the hon. member probably does not want me to talk about the Hall inquiry commission, but the fact remains that the Hall inquiry commission was set up in May, 1974, by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Munro), to make proposals with regard to pensions. Hearing began on November 28, 1974, and he has been holding hearings ever since all over the country. It is hoped that, as a result of this commission, the government will be able to act in a positive manner to protect the income of retired railway workers.

February 17, 1975

As the hon. member is probably aware, the unions have proposed to the Hall inquiry commission that the pension plan provide for automatic adjustment in accordance with the increases in the cost of living. But since the hearings are ongoing and Mr. Hall has yet to make his recommendations, we will have to await them to determine what action will be necessary and what action should be taken by the government. There is no doubt that the railway will give consideration to this important matter as soon as it has received the Hall report and the recommendations of the government in this regard.

In closing I would like to repeat what the Minister of Transport (Mr. Marchand) said on February 13 in response to the question, as recorded at page 3186 of Hansard, that if he became involved, he would be sympathetic to pensioners' demands in this matter. I wholeheartedly agree with this because not only do I sympathize with pensioners but I believe that this is something they rightly deserve.

Mr. Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):

And they deserve it now.

Mr. Otto Jelinek (High Park-Humber Valley):

Madam Speaker, last Friday, as well as this afternoon during question period, I asked the President of the Treasury Board (Mr. Chretien) whether or not his department, or in fact any government department, has considered or is considering the possibility of single sector bargaining, in other words, of having a single public sector as a whole dealing with the government, rather than the fragmentary way in which the general labour and trades group, for example, has done, thus adversely affecting and harming so many different sectors of our economy.

It is puzzling to see the government continue to accept this method of bargaining, knowing full well that the fragmentation effects of a strike such as the one with which we are faced today are widespread, to such an extent that they alone can be damaging to the extent of millions of dollars to our economy in a dozen or so different sectors.

I believe, however, that the majority of Canadians are fed up with the increasing inconvenience and economic impairment to the individual and the community alike of walkouts, legal and illegal, in essential services in this country. Let us remember that two-thirds of the Canadian taxpayers do not belong to any union and therefore are not protected by the gutless permissiveness of governments, or do not belong on the government payroll with armour-plated job security. I would think that a great many of these taxpayers are against all walkouts and strikes, legal or illegal.

They find it to be a form of blackmail and some people suspect that the public is becoming so outraged that it will demand that the labour clock be turned back and strikes outlawed, with real and heavy penalties imposed in the essential services. That would surely bring about some very rough confrontations.

Adjournment Debate

I believe, however, that there is a way around this whole affair. I believe that there is a way around this sort of fragmentation which would still give the individual within a union the right to strike but which, at the same time, would give the Canadian taxpayer the assurance that for the duration of a contract a specific single sector of the economy, such as air transportation, the post office, schools, food inspection, ports, trains and other public sector services, would be strike-free.

Surely in view of the number of strikes with which Canadians were faced last year, and the ever increasing labour unrest and militancy threatening public interest, some immediate alternative ways and means must be adopted before our economy deteriorates any further.

I believe that there is an urgent need for federal legislation requiring union groups in a single public service sector to bargain with the Treasury Board on a joint basis only for agreements of perhaps not less than two or three years' duration. This suggestion is not too different from a recent recommendation made to the cabinet in a memorandum regarding labour relations in Canada put forward by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Munro). I happen to have this memorandum which asks the cabinet to consider establishing a Canadian labour relations council with the purpose of finding solutions on a continuing basis to different problems of practice and perception in labour relations, including the problems of fragmentation in a union, a recommendation with which I am sure the public would agree.

It is fine to make the suggestion such as the one which was contained in the reply of the President of the Treasury Board to my question, that this sort of recommendation should be made to the joint committee presently studying the Finkelman report dealing with labour relations. But, unfortunately, before the dust settles after the completion of those committee hearings, our economy will have suffered the loss of millions of working man days as a result of walk-outs and strikes, and thus hundreds of millions of dollars, partially due to the fragmentary way of bargaining which this government seems to have adopted as a way of life.

The result of bargaining with a single public service sector as a whole, in the simplest terms would be assurance to the tax paying public that each essential service sector would be strike free except for the possibility of a walk-out every two or three years or so. By a wide margin the majority of public service strikes are at the federal level.

It was a Liberal government which gave federal public servants the right to strike back in 1967. We have seen this right abused at the expense of the taxpayer and so, quite fittingly, it is on the Liberal government, with its new strong majority mandate, that public responsibility rests to take the initiative to restore some balance between the right of the taxpayer to uninterrupted essential services and the right of the federal unions to withdraw them.

For example, if one happens to be grounded by an air service strike at the time of a business or holiday trip, the most frustrating and maddening aspect of the situation is the fragmentation of union power in shutting it down at

February 17, 1975

Adjournment Debate

different times. Most devasting also for management, and damaging to the economy, is the same idiotic spectacle of airline service, for example, having just been restored after a strike in one sector of the industry being closed down again by another union group walking out.

At different times in recent years air service has been grounded by striking firemen, runway maintenance workers, air traffic controllers, stewards, baggage handlers, ticket agents and other service workers. The railways, shipping, port services and the post office run the same risk of disruption by fragmentation of union bargaining.

Over the last three or four years the record of labour disruption of essential services, and the cost in money and inconvenience to the public make it plain to see that sooner or later a reasonable balance-

The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Morin):

Order, please.