Hon. Gerard Pelletier (Minister of Communications):

On the same question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to point out the existence-which I already knew-of the inquiry recommended by your Honour, and the fact that the hon. member has a rather dangerous way of using words. For instance, when he was speaking of that equipment as revealing the nature of a telephone call, I fail to understand what he means; he is using words in a very, very dangerous way. He spoke about the nature of the calls, insisting that the word nature did not mean contents. But what is the nature if not the contents? Then he went on to say that members of Parliament must be free to receive confidential calls. Confidentiality has nothing to do in the present circumstances. I wanted to suggest what you have just suggested yourself, your Honour, that the inquiry actually take place and that such abuse of vocabulary be avoided in the meantime, otherwise an overall commotion may occur throughout the country for nothing at all. This may happen now and again, but it should not be an every day occurrence.

Hon. Gerard Pelletier (Minister of Communications):

Mr. Speaker, I do not feel that this symposium excludes the possibility of the CRTC holding hearings. But to be more precise in my reply, I would have to refer the question before hand to the chairman of the CRTC.

Hon. Gerard Pelletier (Minister of Communications):

No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Pelletier:

Mr. Speaker, I have received copies of messages sent to the Prime Minister of Canada and the premier of Quebec, but to the best of my recollection, no communication was addressed to me personally.

Mr. Gerard Pelletier (Minister of Communications):

Mr. Speaker, I am unable to answer the second part of the hon. member's question on which I have no information. As for the first part, the government has been aware for a long time, much before the publication of the articles he alluded to, that telephone communications can be monitored because hertzian beams or microwave networks are used on some transmission lines. Because of that danger, of which the government is aware, recommendations are made to all those who have to transmit or receive so-called "classified" information against the use of the telephone to that end. When it is absolutely necessary to use the telephone, as it is in some cases, especially to convey information pertaining to our defence agreements with our allies, very costly equipment is used to code the information at one end and decode it at the other. The Department of Communications is also very much aware of the danger and always requires that the microwave networks are located in such geographical areas as can best be protected against that type of danger. However, I must say to the hon. member that, in view of the present state of science, we will have to wait for the development of communications by optical fiber, or by laser beam, to do away completely with the danger to which he alludes.