The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):

Order, please. When debate was last adjourned on the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, the hon. member for St. John's West (Mr. Crosbie) had the floor. Is the hon. member prepared to continue?

Hon. John C. Crosbie (St. John's West):

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I think it is around 22 hours since I last spoke here, and I am glad I have the chance to continue my remarks. I know that if I need to go over the 30-minute time limit, because we extended the courtesy to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Mac-Eachen), the House will extend to me the same courtesy so that I can finish my remarks.

Of course, I am not as full of fire and vigour as I was 22 hours ago. It really spoils a speech to be interrupted for 22 hours in between. Not only that, the Minister of Finance is now on his way to West Germany, having escaped the confines of this House. He will be gone for the rest of the week, so it is hard to get indignant.

To come back to this situation, we have had a major budget statement by him on financial matters if we listened to the Minister of Finance today arguing a point of privilege that arose. But there was nothing on energy. That whole subject has been left open. That is all to be solved in the near future. We have the spectacle of the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources (Mr. Lalonde), who had some of his officials issue statements several days ago trying to show that the projected increase in oil prices in the next four years under the Progressive Conservative policy was going to be much more than the

public had ever realized before; it was going to be much greater than $4 a barrel this year and $4.50 a barrel in the next three years. This was going to open up limitless possibilities for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and this government to reach an agreement with Alberta where the increases could be $6, $7, $8 or $10, and hon. members will still be keeping to their commitment to a lower price for oil than we had made, using the fact that by January 1, 1983, we were prepared to go to 75 per cent of the international price or the Chicago price, whichever was lower, and, by January 1, 1984, to 85 per cent.

1 will just remind those hon. gentlemen that 1980, 1981 and 1982 were years that were not affected by those provisions at all so that there is no question about $4 and $4.50 a barrel. There is no way for them to avoid their obligations in 1980, 1981 and 1982 to keep prices of gasoline and oil products in this country lower than those increases. The minister did not deal with that at all.

The government is sending the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources to negotiate this delicate subject with the government of Alberta. As I said in an interview last Saturday, it is like sending a mongoose to trade with a snake. The only thing that can result from all of that is a mortal struggle, because the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources is going to be a man who drives anybody he is negotiating with into a positive frenzy of opposition to whatever he suggests. But this too is not dealt with in the statement of last night.

There is a $5.19 billion deficit in the current account in the balance of international trade in 1979. That has been forgotten about and not mentioned. We have a net foreign debt in Canada of $69 billion. It is double that, but when one takes out foreign investment abroad it is a net of $69 billion at the end of 1979.

In 1979 we had a net outflow of interest and dividends of $5.2 billion in this country. That is not dealt with in this purported budget statement of the Minister of Finance last night.

We have a situation in Canada of people who know and people who do not know. The people who do not know are widows, those connected with estates, and young children. But those who know anything about interest rates and what they should get for their money are cashing in their Canada Savings Bonds. We have a situation where $17.89 billion of the total debt of the Government of Canada, of the internal debt of $70.6 billion, is in the form of Canada Savings Bonds. Except for the fact that many people do not know the difference, the people unlearned, the people not wise in the way of the financial world, the widows, the children and the innocents, most of these bonds would be cashed in.

Those who have any knowledge at all of financial matters are cashing in their Canada Savings Bonds because 12 per cent interest is not high enough in today's circumstances for a lender of money. There was no mention of that problem in the statement of the Minister of Finance.

April 22, 1980

The Minister of Finance is like the old ancient mariner- Alone, alone, all, all alone; Alone on a wide, wide sea!-that is the Minister of Finance, a crafty old bird with an albatross around his neck. Who is the albatross?

Trudeau.

Mr. Crosbie:

The albatross is the faded gentleman with a faded flower sitting next to him, and the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce (Mr. Gray) who sits two seats down from him-tattle-tale Gray.

Alone, alone, all, all alone; Alone on a wide, wide sea!

All alone, John.

Where are they, John?

Mr. Crosbie:

This motley crew elected by the people of Canada to form a government for the next four or five years-

God help us.

Mr. Crosbie:

Yes, God help us-took the responsibility to defeat our budget, a co-ordinated approach to economic problem solving in Canada. They defeated a budget that took a long view that aimed to defeat inflation, that dealt with oil prices and energy issues, that stressed building up the private wealth creating sector of this country. They defeated all of that. When they came back to this House they brought in a ruptured version of that budget and presented it to the House last night. It is a ruptured duck of a budget. We have a Minister of Finance who cannot squawk for himself; he has to steal from somebody else.

Look where it got you, John.

Mr. Crosbie:

I would not tell you what I have got compared to you hon. gentlemen. It is in the same area, I can assure you.

Oh, oh!

Mr. Crosbie:

I know that we cannot expect the hon. gentlemen opposite to take these matters seriously. It is only the ruination of the economic system of our country.

I want to refer to an analysis made by the C.D. Howe Institute. I do not want to quote our own expertise-

Oh, oh!

Mr. Crosbie:

I want to quote from an independent source.

You have given up on that.

Mr. Crosbie:

We have two splendid representatives of New Brunswick here tonight. We can hear them squawking in the background. The albatrosses have woken up.

This is what the C.D. Howe Institute reported. I quote from their 1980 policy review which appeared in The Ottawa Journal for March 10.

The Address-Mr. Crosbie

Energy consumption is being encouraged by prices that are well below the cost of providing an adequate and secure energy supply base for the future. Debts are being increased at home and abroad to finance current public and private consumption. As a result, future generations will have to service and repay them.

That is the policy of hon. gentlemen opposite. They don't care. The hell with tomorrow. Let future generations pay.

They go on to say:

Throughout its history Canada has been exposed to, and strongly influenced by economic events in the United States and abroad, but during the 1970s it followed a course that was remarkably independent.

The 1970s when this tribe across the hall was in power. It goes on to say:

Unfortunately many of these policies turned out to be unsustainable,-

They certainly did.

-in fact they had contributed to a serious increase in Canada's vulnerability by the end of the decade.

They certainly did.

Canadian economic policy decisions became dominated by the need to sustain inflows of foreign capital to finance the fiscal and current account deficits.

Inflows of foreign capital. That is why we hear governor Bouey say we have no choice but to follow American interest rates, because the hon. crowd opposite for ten years followed those disastrous policies and put us in that position to finance the fiscal and current account deficits.

In effect, Canadian policies were dictated, in whole or in part, by decisions being made outside the country-decisions that were clearly determined by the interests of the OPEC countries or the United States.

That is what got us where we are today.

Then hon. gentlemen opposite had the gall to say they were going to have a made-in-Canada interest policy. They were going to have a made-in-Canada finance policy. The Minister of Finance admitted a few days ago that he is completely helpless-Samson shorn of his locks. He is helpless in the hands of the United States because of their past policies.

I go on with the C.D. Howe Institute:

The most obvious way to stop the use of foreign borrowing to finance current consumption is to increase domestic saving, and one method of doing so is to reduce the size of the fiscal deficit.

The size of the fiscal deficit, according to the statement last night, has been allowed to increase $3.5 billion.

Further on in their policy review they state:

The imbalances that have emerged in oil supply and demand, the federal fiscal deficit, and the current account are interconnected. The unfavourable trends in these three areas are generally not self-correcting; they can be altered only by deliberate policy actions. Most of the policy actions needed to turn these trends around will inevitably have immediate effects that are perverse-they will tend to increase inflationary pressures and dampen economic growth.

Yet there is a clear pay-off in the medium term.

I wish hon. gentlemen opposite would read this article. Medium term, that is what we were aiming for in our budget. We wanted to get Canada back on the track. We knew we had to aim for the medium term. However, hon. gentlemen opposite do not care about the medium term. They care about being in power now. They do not care what it takes to get them

April 22, 1980

The Address-Mr. Crosbie

in power and they do not care what it does to the country to stay in power. Well, that is the difference between us. We are hopeful that some time during the present century this medium-term approach is going to be successful.

Let us look at what the financial critic of the opposition said on February 4, before he learned he was not going to be in finance any longer. The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce said:

I don't think that allowing the dollar to have some downward adjustment would do as much harm to our economy as our present high level of interest rates.

That is what the minister said in the Toronto Sun of February 4-let the dollar go down, don't keep interest rates high, that is doing us more harm. That was his statement and his theory.

What does the governor of the Bank of Canada say? He made a speech a week or so ago, and the governor is backed up by the present Minister of Finance. On April 8 in Winnipeg, at page 10 of his speech, he was discussing this issue, should we let interest rates in Canada go lower and the dollar decline in value. He said:

Instead of merely trading off a lower Canadian dollar in exchange for lower interest rates, we would quickly find ourselves faced with more rapid exchange rate depreciation, more rapid inflation, and before long with even higher interest rates; in short, our economic problems would quickly get worse. To believe otherwise is merely wishful thinking.

The governor of the Bank of Canada said that the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is a wishful thinker. On what side does the present Minister of Finance come down? Well, he comes down on the side of brother Bouey. He does not come down on the side of his colleague, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce. Not likely! He agrees with governor Bouey as to what the result of those actions would be. Here is what the minister said on page 9 of his statement last night:

Canadian consumers would have suffered even more from higher import prices if we had not allowed our interest rates to rise and thereby checked the decline in the exchange rate for our dollar.

These two gentlemen exist in the same cabinet. One of them says that if interest rates should go down and the dollar decline with it, it does not matter. That is what he said when he was in opposition. He said it in February. The Minister of Finance says he suffers from wishful thinking, that if we had done that, if we had not allowed the interest rates to rise and check the decline in the exchange rate for the dollar, Canadian consumers would have suffered more.

Who is right? Is it the man now in charge of saving Chrysler, the Chrysler saviour, the second comer for Chrysler, or is it the Minister of Finance? The Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce is being kept busy at the moment trying to save Chrysler. He is going for the winner. That is his new industrial strategy, go for the winners, the corporations that have lost billions and have misjudged the market and have done all the wrong things. Go for the winners. That is his new policy. If you come from Windsor and have a plant there, you are a winner no matter what you lost in the past. That is what he is doing at the moment.

These are the hon. gentlemen who are presenting a coordinated approach to overcome the economic problems of the Canadian people. When the Minister of Employment and Immigration (Mr. Axworthy) was in opposition and sat on this side, how he made the welkin ring against higher interest rates. He said, as reported in Hansard of November 6:

-that if there is a requirement to raise interest rates, there is an equal requirement to help those people who are hurt by those interest rate increases.

He is the same man who fought against our mortgage interest and property tax plan to help home owners and mortgagors in Canada. Hon. gentlemen opposite fought against that plan. They would not let it go through the House of Commons. They said they are going to help renters and bring in a more equitable plan to help mortgagors and home owners. They have not brought in a thing. They have not brought in a squiggle. They have not helped anyone. They say they are going to help a few thousand of the AHOP home owners whom they enticed five years ago to go into homes they could not afford, but no one else.

The Minister of Finance says that unless you spend 30 per cent of your income on rent or mortgage payments, we are not going to help you. Imagine, 30 per cent of your income before you get help from the flint-hearted Minister of Finance. The Minister of Employment and Immigration has allowed interest rates to go up 2.2 per cent. They are only up now 1.96 per cent since these hon. gentlemen came into office. He has done nothing to help the people hurt by those interest rate increases. We no longer even hear him mention them. Those are the hon. hypocrites who are now governing this country.

Here is the Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce again, old tattle-tale Gray, in Hansard of November 6:

The Liberals and I generally want action taken now to prevent the hardships this Conservative high interest rate policy is creating for millions of Canadians and their families.

Some hon. members on his side of the House "quack, quack, hear, hear". What are they doing now they are over there? We do not hear a word from any of them about the effect.

Mr. Nielsen:

Oink, oink!

Mr. Crosbie:

Yes, oink, oink! They all have their noses in the trough. When are we going to have him as minister of finance? He said, as reported at page 1031 of Hansard for November 6:

For some members on this side, Mr. Speaker-

Yack, yack, yack.

It means a frontier has been crossed into dangerous uncharted territory-

Yack, yack, yack.

As a result, I believe it is right and necessary for Liberals to take a new approach and a new look at interest rate policy.

Where is the new approach? Where is the new look? The Minister of Finance gets up in the House and says proudly that he is following my policy on interest rates. This is the group of interest rate muscle flexers that were going to do something about interest rates.

April 22, 1980

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Blaker):

It is with some regret that I must interrupt the hon. member whose time has now expired-