Mr. Peters:

May I ask one question, Mr. Chairman. In respect of this particular situation on the reservation, I am wondering whether the Indian agents are provided with any type of assistance that would allow them to provide counselling service in this field of

March 26, 1968

retraining or training people so that permanent employment might be provided for those who have the necessary education to take advantage of it. Because of the distance to the centres where the training would be available it would seem to me that this counselling service should be provided. It seems that in this case the agent did not have the opportunity or perhaps the facilities that would enable him to provide this type of counselling. I am wondering whether there are any counsellors available who could be sent around once in a while to help in this field of job retraining.

Mr. Laing:

Mr. Chairman, I do not have the information which would enable me to answer the hon. gentleman's question. I will endeavour to obtain it and give him an answer.

Mr. Schreyer:

Mr. Chairman, vote 36c is quite small but it has to do with national parks and allied matters. I should like to ask the minister whether his department has had any success in recent months in making a determination concerning the site of the proposed second national park in Manitoba. As the minister knows, this has been a subject of continuing study and investigation over the past 18 months and perhaps more. Has the province of Manitoba been more easy to deal with and has a decision been taken in this regard?

Mr. Laing:

Mr. Chairman, I think in a reply some time ago in the house I indicated a survey of two areas had been taken. One I believe was close to the Ontario border. There has been some discussion but there has been no indication of haste on the part of the provincial government at this time.

As my hon. friend knows, our act requires that the provincial government obtain these properties and turn them over to us free of encumbrances. In most instances this involves an expenditure of funds and there has been a tendency of recent origin for them to postpone such expenditures. I do not wish to charge them alone with having this tendency, because that might be our posture at the present time too. However, in those areas where capital expenditure is not required I think we should move forward.

Mr. Peters:

Have any overtures been made to the department concerning the development of a national park in northeastern Ontario?

Mr. Laing:

My reply to that is that there are several areas which have been under rather intensive survey for the last year and a half. This is continuing at the present time.

The Chairman:

This completes the supplementary estimates of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

The committee will now proceed to consideration of the supplementary estimates of the Department of Labour.

The Chairman:

This completes the supplementary estimates of the Department of Labour.

The committee will now proceed to the consideration of the supplementary estimates for the Department of Justice.

Mr. Gilbert:

Mr. Chairman, I wonder whether the Solicitor General, who is handling the estimates for the Minister of Justice, could tell us what this item is which refers to a contribution to Queen's University in defraying the costs of a Canadian conference on computers and the law to be held in June.

Mr. Pennell:

Mr. Chairman, the supplementary estimate lc of the Department of Justice is a $1 item. This is to authorize a grant to Queen's University to assist in defraying the cost of a Canadian conference on computers and the law. The item is included only to obtain the necessary authority to make the grant.

The conference is scheduled to take place at Kingston, Ontario, early in June, 1968 and is being hosted by the faculty of law at Queen's University. Emphasis will be placed on legal information retrieval techniques, legislation consultation and editing programs, central registry and data banks and on property rights, privacy and related legal questions.

It is hoped to bring together at this conference delegates from Canadian and American universities, from the federal and several provincial governments, from law publishing firms, from computer manufacturers and from law firms already employing such methods for commercial purposes. Mr. J. W. Ryan will be a representative from the Department of Justice and has been asked to act as a commentator on several papers which are to be given on legislation editing, revision and consultation.

Mr. Gilbert:

Would the Solicitor General or the Minister of Justice consider sending a representative from the standing committee on justice and legal affairs to this conference?

Mr. Pennell:

Mr. Chairman, since this is only a $1 item, at the moment I am not in a position to grant the suggestion of the hon. member. However, if it is possible to obtain reports of this conference I will certainly see that they are made available to the hon. member and any other interested hon. members.

Mr. Orlikow:

Mr. Chairman, I should like to direct several questions to the minister. I realize he is only the acting minister, and that he may not be in a position to answer today. However, these are questions to which I would hope the government is giving some consideration.

First of all, I wish to raise a matter which has been raised several times with the Minister of Justice. This has been highlighted today by reports which appeared in a Toronto newspaper concerning a high school student who had never been in trouble with the law before, who had an unblemished record up until now, who had planned to go to university and who appeared in court yesterday on a charge of being in posession of marijuana.

March 26, 1968

This person was given a sentence of six months.

Mr. Chairman, I do not profess to have the answer to the marijuana problem, but I do know that all the experts, if there are any- and I do not believe the police are experts -are agreed that marijuana is being used, if only once or twice, by a very large number of young people and is readily available in every university in Canada. I am sure the minister knows more about this subject than I, but I believe the experts do not agree among themselves concerning the danger of marijuana. There certainly is a good deal of argument against the suggestion which has been made by certain police authorities and others that from marijuana one frequently graduates to the traditional narcotics. The experts certainly are not in agreement that the way to deal with the marijuana problem is to sentence everyone to a prison term. Yet, according to the answers to some questions asked recently, that is the policy the department apparently is following.

[DOT] (8:50 p.m.)

I hold no brief for this young man who was convicted yesterday. It may be that he had a relatively large amount of marijuana in his possession, and it may be that he was not a user but was actually selling it. However, from the two newspaper accounts which I have read there does not seem to have been any investigation in depth carried out or any evidence that he was in fact selling or pushing the marijuana. It seems to me the department ought not to fall as easily as it seems to have fallen into the policy whereby crown prosecutors are virtually instructed to advise the courts to impose jail sentences on first offenders.

It seems to me that if the police are very active it will follow that we will have thousands of young people in jail. I do not think the minister would like that to happen. However, from what I have been able to discover there are thousands of young people who on occasion try marijuana, perhaps for the first time. It is conceivable that the police in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa or Winnipeg may find 15 young people smoking marijuana, 12 of whom are trying it for the first time. Under present circumstances they would all get a jail sentence. I hope the department will have a very hard and careful look at this whole question in consultation with medical authorities.

In addition, I should like the minister to advise us what the department intends to do

Supply-Justice

about bail problems. Today's Toronto Globe and Mail reports that two youths spent six weeks in Don jail because they were unable to raise $500 bail. Apparently they were awaiting trial after pleading not guilty to charges of possession of marijuana. It seems to me there is something wrong with our system which permits individuals to get out on bail if they have money or friends who have access to money, while at the same time it keeps two young men, such as I have mentioned, sitting in a jail in Toronto for six weeks.

I commend to the minister's attention, or to the attention of the Minister of Justice, the words of Dean Maxwell Cohen of the law school at McGill who said at a human rights conference, as reported in the Montreal Star on March 25:

-this country's bail system is at best semi-satisfactory and corrupt. Many socialists .. . feel that most of those placed before the courts could and should be released on their own recognizance.

I am wondering whether the department is giving any thought to changing the law in respect of bail, which I think is completely unfair.

Will the minister make some comment about government intention to deal with wiretapping? Let me remind him, in the event that he has forgotten that before he became a minister he had a bill on the order paper dealing with this matter. I am disturbed by the reports on the news last night and in the papers today to the effect that Quebec provincial cabinet ministers feel they have strong evidence that their telephones are being tapped. It is a sad day in this country when ministers of the crown, let alone ordinary citizens, have to worry about what they say on the telephone when talking perhaps to deputy ministers because their telephones may be tapped. Is the government giving any consideration to legislation which would make wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping a crime punishable by something which would at least discourage this widespread practice? I am sure the minister will agree that this is taking place.