Mr. Axworthy:

Madam Speaker, as 1 pointed out to the hon. member beforehand, there was no conflict of interest. The approval of Mr. Leary was based upon the application for him to appear in several other cities, but it was never brought to my attention that he was to appear in Winnipeg. I set out those facts before the Prime Minister; he has the letter.

I think there is absolutely no conflict involved, and I think the hon. member's own peculiar obsession with the hotel is one on which I would be very glad to sit down and clear up with him, as well as his interest in the hotel business. I should also say that I have now divested myself of the interest, which is now in a blind trust, and I hope this will further ease his mind.

Mr. Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South):

I have a supplementary question for the Minister of Employment and Immigration. The minister issued a special permit for the temporary immigration into Canada of one Timothy Leary.

Did the minister get the list of hotel engagements before he issued the permit? If he did not get the list of engagements, will the minister please table in this House the terms of the application and how the application was approved? Would the minister give us this exact detail, because this is a matter of serious conflict?

Oh, oh!

Mr. Blenkarn:

If what the minister has said is so, he should be happy to table the details of the application for the permit

and the nature of the permit offered. Would the minister do that?

It is a question of acid rain.

Mr. Axworthy:

As the hon. member well knows, there are literally hundreds of applications to this government for temporary work visas in this country.

If you are not going to read them, why sign them?

Mr. Axworthy:

Several of them, where there may be a question of safety to the country involved, require ministerial application and approval, which I gave. The initial application, which I point out again to the House-I am repeating myself and I ask for your indulgence, Madam Speaker, because 1 gave that answer last week-the original application and recommendation that was forwarded to me on March 6 exclusively asked for Mr. Leary to appear in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal. I approved that in principle.

No further notification was given to me at that point. But I did unquestionably-as I would do again-allow Mr. Leary to come to the country on the grounds that whatever he has to say, some Canadians might want to hear it even though the hon. member might not want to hear it.

Mr. Blenkarn:

Dealing with this question of a permit, the minister is quoted in an article in the Winnipeg Free Press as having said:

Our judgment was that he (Leary) didn't constitute any major problem-

He went on to say that he had granted several permits on compassionate grounds, one to a Polish seaman and one to an Indian girl who is blind. Is there any compassionate ground on which Mr. Leary was given access to Canada-

Oh, oh!

Mr. Blenkarn:

-or is it a question of LSD promotion, or was this a question of business reasons to do with the minister's hotel? If the permit, as the minister has suggested, was only for Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto, is Leary in default of the permit by appearing in Winnipeg? Will the minister please explain why the permit was only for Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa, and why, all of a sudden, it turns out the appearance was at Winnipeg?

Mr. Axworthy:

my attention, and 1 would have to say, Madam Speaker, that there was absolutely no occasion whatsoever for any conflict to occur. I suggest that the hon. member, by suggesting that, is really stepping out of turn and should be answering to his own privileges. I simply made the judgment on the grounds of operating the act as it should be operated, and that is not to censor opinions of people coming to this country.

Hon. Stanley Knowles (Winnipeg North Centre):

Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Transport. In view of the fact that the council of the city of Winnipeg has taken a stand in favour of relocating the Canadian Pacific railyards- a matter of great importance to the future of the city of Winnipeg-and in view of the fact that this position has been supported for a long time by the four members in this party who represent the city of Winnipeg and also by the two Liberals from Winnipeg, the Minister of Employment and Immigration and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, will the minister tell the House, now, that the government is prepared to consider favourably federal participation in this important relocation project?

Hon. Jean-Luc Pepin (Minister of Transport):

Madam Speaker, the question is not about federal participation or non-participation; it is about the level of federal participation. The federal government is already committed to spending, if I remember correctly, about $7 million of UTAP money in Manitoba. But what the municipality is doing now is to come up with another type of project, the most expensive one with respect to the relocation of track yards, at the level of about $ 167 million.

In their assessment of the situation, they have assigned roles under which the municipality would pay about one-sixth, the province about one-sixth, and the federal government about two-thirds. Two-thirds of $167 million-I do not have a computer with me-is a heck of a lot of money. I am sorry, but we do not have it. So we have to be reserved in the extent of the commitment we make to this very worth-while project.

Tracking operations.

Mr. Knowles:

Madam Speaker, the minister has said that agreement to participate has been announced already by the federal government, that all that is at stake is the level. Unless the level of participation is adequate, that participation will mean nothing.

I ask the minister this supplementary question: in view of the fact that the relocation of these yards is terribly important to the economic and social future of the downtown part of Winnipeg, and in view of the government's commitment to assist other municipalities with relocation, will the government

Oral Questions

give favourable consideration to the appeals to be made to him by the delegation from Winnipeg representing the city council and the legislature of Manitoba when that delegation meets with him on Thursday of this week?

Mr. Pepin:

This has been done already, Madam Speaker. I will receive the group and listen to their arguments. I am just trying to indicate the size of the project in Winnipeg, and also that similar projects exist elsewhere. All over Canada there is hardly a municipality which does not have a track relocation problem to solve: Regina, Toronto, Montreal-name it-all over Canada. So, obviously, measures less expensive than the full relocation of tracks and yards will have to be taken because probably the country cannot afford to go the whole way in remedying this problem and embellishing all the cities of Canada in the coming years.

Mr. Jesse P. Flis (Parkdale-High Park):

Madam Speaker, I should like to direct this question to the Minister of National Health and Welfare. In view of the fact that the mortality rate of asbestos workers is increasing-for example, 43 employees who work for the Canadian Johns-Manville company in Scarborough, Ontario, have already died of asbestos cancer-what steps does the minister plan taking to ensure that owners of asbestos plants reduce asbestos dust levels for workers to at least the levels regulated by the federal government on December 31, 1978?