1927-03-21

PRIVATE BILL


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 175, to incorporate The Independent Order "Fior d'ltalia".-Mr. Odette.

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. A. ROBB (For the Minister of Railways) moved for leave to introduce bill No. 176, to amend the Canadian National Railways Act, 1019.
Mr. MANION:: Explain.


Mr. ROBB:: In the absence of the Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) I am unable to explain the bill, but I should like to have it introduced and recorded.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



CIVIL SERVICE-SUPERANNUATION

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Sir GEORGE PERLEY (Argenteuil):: In
connection with the working out of the Superannuation Act of 1924 my attention has been called to the position in which two deserving classes now find themselves, as I believe they are not legally entitled to receive anything under the wording of that act. I refer to the widows and minor children of former civil servants who died before the act of 1924 came into force, and also the wives and minor children of former civil servants still living who were superannuated before that date. Is the government taking steps to give these cases consideration?

Canada Grain Act


James Alexander Robb: This matter has ibeen under consideration for some time. The Superintendent of Insurance was instructed to make, and I believe he is making, a census of employees to come under the act, but I do not think he has quite completed it yet. He has not all the information from the various departments and recently matters have been somewhat complicated by the receipt of requests from civil servants who were employed in the maintenance of public buildings and others who had been retired under the Calder Act. The whole subject will be given careful study before a conclusion is reached.


Mr. McQUARRIE:: Referring to the same
matter, may I ask whether it is the intention of the government to extend the time for civil servants to elect to come under the act? I understand that on the eve of the last election the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), in a speech delivered1 in Ottawa, made a promise to this effect.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: I do not recall the promise, but if it was made it will be carried out.


William Garland McQuarrie: Will it be carried out? That is the question I asked.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If such a
promise was made it will be carried out. My hon. friend prefaced his question with the statement that the Prime Minister had made the promise. I say, if the promise was made it will be carried out.


William Garland McQuarrie: The Prime Minister
knows whether he made it or not.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am not so
sure.


William Garland McQuarrie: It is to be presumed
that the Prime Minister does not care to answer the question.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I have answered it.


Mr. CLARK:: With reference to the answer given by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Robb) to the hon. member for Argenteuil (Sir George Perley), I should like to know whether the Superintendent of Insurance has instructions to consider cases of employees in the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment. The employees of the Soldier Settlement Board are at present classed as temporary, and have been for the last nine years, and they are not entitled to consideration under the Superannuation Act.


James Alexander Robb: I will direct the matter to
the attention of the superintendent, although I think it has already been submitted to him directly by the board.


Mr. ARTHURS:: I suggest that this should be confined entirely to returned soldiers.



CROWSNEST PASS AGREEMENT

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. JOHN EVANS (Rosetown):: In view of the passage of a bill in June, 1925, for the equalization of freight rates and the fact that the Crowsnest pass agreement then in force in relation to commodities going west was abolished at that time, and in view, further, of the facts that the Crowsnest pass agreement does not apply to all lines of the railway in western Canada, and that since that bill was carried two crops have been hauled out, I want to ask the government whether they will see that justice is done the west in this matter.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Railways): The railway companies, I understand, take the ground that they have complied with the statute in question. Those who believe otherwise have made an appeal to the Board of Railway Commissioners with respect to the matter, and evidence and argument have, I believe, been heard. An appeal was brought to the Privy Council from the decision of the railway commission as to procedure. The judgment of the Privy Council on that appeal was given some weeks ago and, I believe, has been published. The railway commission has been requested by the government to give its decision in connection with the matter at the earliest possible date.



CANADA GRAIN ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. M. N. CAMPBELL (Mackenzie):: I
have a question to ask the government in connection with the proposed bill to amend the Canada Grain Act. The question arises out of an Ottawa despatch appearing in the Montreal Gazette of March 18. This despatch intimates that a compromise agreement has been entered into between the government and the grain interests in connection with this bill, and in the closing paragraph it states:
It was learned to-day that Mr. Malcolm, who will bring down legislation along this line this session, submitted the bill to the grain commission. The commission, after considering the question, has recommended that legislation be introduced compelling country elevators to guarantee grade but not weight.

Georgian Bay Canal Company
As anything less than the provisions of Bill No. 8 last year will be of no practical use to the farmers of western Canada I would like to have the assurance of the government that there is no truth in this report.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The government can
assume no responsibility for any report in any paper, but the government will assume full responsibility for its promise to introduce amendments to the Grain Act which I hope will be brought down this week.



RECOGNITION OP PEKIN GOVERNMENT

[Stage Direction]
On the Orders of the Day:
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: In view of the situation prevailing in China, does this government continue to recognize the Pekin government?
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING
(Prime Minister): Perhaps I had better say to my hon. friend that the matter is under consideration.



PRIVATE BILLS


[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from Friday, March 18, consideration of the motion of Mr. Chevrier for the second reading of Bill No. 78, respecting the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company, and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Guthrie.
Mr. E. R. E. CHEVRIER (Ottawa):: 
Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: May I ask the hon. gentleman a question? Since he has sought what I may call our juryship, would he be so good as to illustrate more clearly than he has so far done the lack of efficiency in the management of the Ontario hydroelectric system?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I do not
anticipate that my speech will be one which might be delivered from a bed of roses; this is an evidence of that fact. If the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) is anxious to find that out do not let him ask it from me now, but when he delivers his speech let him move that this bill be referred to committee, where the light of day will shine on that spot. It pleased the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) to ask a certain embarrassing question, not of us, at page 1208 of Hansard, when he said, in reading from a clipping:
The election in Ontario means in one sense the dawn of a new era as far as the electrical generation of power is concerned, for in future the electrical projects of "peepul" in Ontario will be carried out hand in hand with the so-called "St. James street" gang; in others words, the large power interests of the province of Quebec; a situation which perhaps may cause

Georgian Bay Canal Company
Sir Adam Beck to turn in his grave, but which will nevertheless be welcomed by all thoughtful people.
Then the hon. member continued, and asked this very timely question:
I do not know how long the debate will continue; but I hope, before it is over, my Conservative friends, with whom I have a good deal of sympathy at this time-
Probably the time will come when that sympathy will not be quite so great.
-in regard to their resolution, will be able to throw some light on an editorial of this character, and very definitely to assure us that there is no danger that the hydro electric of Ontario will be in any way imperilled. We ought to be very sure of that.
Many speeches have been delivered since then by members of the Conservative party, and the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre has not yet received his answer, but in that guilty silence I find the answer. If they have not been able to give him an answer I say it is high time for my hon. friend to make up his mind that there is something fundamentally wrong, and that this bill should be sent to the committee on railways and canals for a proper investigation.
Yes; I have said that public ownership is a great thing, provided it be carried out according to the principles laid down at its inception. I am a great believer in consistency; even if one is wrong, if one is consistently wrong I feel that it is not so bad. But to be consistently inconsistent is a very bad thing. I shall have something to say about the consistency of the hon. gentleman who has moved1 this amendment, but before I start dealing with that amendment let us see what has brought that amendment about. The hon. member for North York (Mr. Lennox) said that there were no papers in Ontario that would support this scheme. Of course there are no Tory papers in Ontario that would support this scheme, not since the present Minister of Railways and Canals (Mr. Dunning) cancelled the lease of the 26th August. The Ottawa Citizen every second day or so fires a broadside into this project. The Ottawa Citizen did not do it in 1924.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about the
Globe?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Oh, the Globe! I
repeat, the Ottawa Citizen did not do it in 1924 and why? Because in 1924 certain things did not exist that exist to-day. At that time the president of the chain of newspapers which owns the Citizen to-day 32649-88
was not a director of the International Paper Company. I hold in my hand a clipping from the Moncton Times of January 27, 1927, in which I find a very interesting bit of history. That clipping says:
Montreal, Jan. 26:-The Canadian International Paper Company announces the following as being elected to the directorate:
Now here is where we get some light upon the question as to why we are encountering all this opposition from the hon. gentlemen who sit on the Conservative benches. Here are some of the directors:-


James Arthurs: Is the hon. gentleman
trying to make this a political question?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I did not catch the
hon. gentleman's question.


An hon. MEMBER:: Never mind, it's not
worth it.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I always like to answer a question when it is put in the genial fashion characteristic of the hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. Arthurs), who gave his views upon this matter the other night in a very courteous way. But let my hon. friend ask for a reply to his question from the member for one of the Toronto constituencies, who said that this question should remain in politics and remain there forever.


James Arthurs: Who said that?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: The hon. member for
Toronto Northeast (Mr. Young). My hon. friend knows who I mean.


Mr. YOUNG (Toronto Northeast):: I beg the hon. gentleman's pardon, I did not make any such statement.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: The clipping from the
Moncton Times contains this statement:
The Canadian International Paper Company announces the following as being elected to the directorate: Hon. R. B. Bennett, K.C., F. N. Southam, Hon. Smeaton White-
Now, I am only concerned with these for the moment.


Mr. BENNETT:: The hon. gentleman has only quoted part of the statement.- He should read the whole of it.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I beg the hon. gentleman's pardon. I did not hear the question.


Edward Joseph Garland: Read the
whole statement.



Georgian Bay Canal Company


Richard Bedford Bennett: When the hon. gentleman reads what purports to be a list of directors he should not confine himself to reading only three names and omitting the balance. Suppose he names his colleague from Ottawa.


Edward Joseph Garland: Hear, hear.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I will do that with the
very best of grace.


Edward Joseph Garland: Under the
circumstances.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: The names are as
follows:
Hon. R. B. Bennett, K.C., Calgary; Hon. Raoul Dandurand, V. M. Drury, Sir Lomer Gouin, G. H. Montgomery, K.C., J. W. McConnell, Hon. Donat Raymond, F. N. Southam, Hon. Smeaton White, Brigadier General J. B. WThite, all of Montreal;
Now laugh;
Gordon C. Edwards, M.P., Ottawa;


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: J. II. Fortier, Quebec;
Now laugh, gentlemen of the opposition:
A. P. Graustein.
There is a wonderful gentleman. Why do not my 'hon. friends applaud the reading of that name? But let me continue reading:
Neil C. Head, H. C. Phipps and A. H. Wiggin, New York; J. Comber, Boston; J. M. McCarthy, Quebec; J. A. Russell and E. R. Wood.
I hope the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) is satisfied. He is in very pleasant and agreeable company as far as public ownership and private ownership are concerned.
Now, as I said, the Citizen in 1924 did not take the stand that it takes to-day, because at that time the gentleman who presides over the destinies of the Ottawa Citizen was not a director of the Canadian International Paper Company. Now we know why the Citizen today sheds these crocodile tears over this situation-because Mr. Southam is directly interested. That is one answer why the Ontario papers are not so much in favour of this project. He is interested in the Hamilton Spectator, the Winnipeg Tribune, the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, and the Vancouver Province, and is also very heavily interested as mortagee in the Vancouver Sun, and owns, of course the Ottawa Citizen.
Now we might go on a little further. I am still quoting from the Moncton Times:
Ottawa, Ont.. Jan. 26:-The Ottawa Citizen carries the following in its news lines-

And, Mr. Speaker, this time if I mention only one name it is because there are no other names referred to:
It is believed in local business and financial circles that the inclusion of Hon. R. B. Bennett, K.C., as a director of the Canadian International Paper Company portends either an amalgamation of the E. B. Eddy Company with the New York enterprise or it is to be purchased outright in the near future. Hon. Mr. Bennett is one of the principal shareholders and vice president of the E. B. Eddy Company, and a rumour has been current for many months that some vital change is forthcoming in connection with that company.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Rising to a question of
privilege I desire to say that 'the statement is wholly imfounded in fact and is known to the hon. gentleman to be such because of the statement I made here the other evening. There is no basis, remote or near, direct or indirect, for that statement.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, there are
many statements contained in this clipping, and in order to be fair to the hon. gentleman I should like to afford him an opportunity of saying which one of the statements is not true.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Every statement that
links up the E. B. Eddy Company with the International Paper Company or myself, other than as a director, about which I will presently enlighten the hon. gentleman.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: And for which enlightenment I shall be delighted indeed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I should like the statement to be withdrawn now. It is wholly unfounded in fact, and I think I am within my rights in asking that it be withdrawn. The statement made by the Ottawa Citizen that the E. B. Eddy Company has been or is about to be sold to the International Paper Company is untrue. There is no foundation for it directly or indirectly.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I have no desire to
argue with the hon. gentleman, but I ask why he does not defer his remarks-


James Arthurs: I ripe to a point of order. Where a statement made has been given the lie direct it should be withdrawn.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I have not had the
benefit of hearing any of the hon. gentleman's enlightening remarks so I cannot answer them.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: I think under
the rules of the House the hon. member is bound to accept the word of the hon. member for Calgary West. The hon. member for Ottawa has quoted from a newspaper clipping
13S3

Georgian Bay Canal Company
a statement with respect to the connection of
the hon. member for West Calgary with some company, which the hon. member for West Calgary denies. I think the hon. member for Ottawa should withdraw that statement.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Nobody in this House is more amenable to the rules particularly when they are interpreted with such grace as you have interpreted them, Mr. Speaker, but the statements quoted were not my statements. I am just reading what is contained herein.


Richard Bedford Bennett: You cannot use the
language of anybody else.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Let us be fair about the matter. I am willing to retract anything that should be retracted, but does the hon. gentleman say now that he is not a director of the International Paper Company?


Mr. GLTTHRIE:: We ought to have this
question of privilege settled. A statement was made and it was denied by another hon. member. The ruling was given that under the rules of the House the statement should be withdrawn, but my hon. friend now seeks to persist in the statement. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I ask your definite ruling.


John Frederick Johnston: With respect
to the last utterance of tjje hon. member (Mr. Chevrier), I think every one heard the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) distinctly say that he was a director of the Canadian International Paper Company. There is no question as to that. The question is as to the statement given to the House in connection with the E. B. Eddy Company, and the hon. gentleman should withdraw it.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: With the best of grace. I withdraw the statement contained in the Citizen.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Once more


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Richard Bedford Bennett: 
Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: In view of the fact that the matter is bad enough, I will retract the whole statement. We have, however, the statement that the hon. gentleman is a director of the International Paper Company. It will be most interesting then to see what stand he takes on this amendment and what stand he takes when we come to vote whether this bill is to go to the committee or not. We also find that Mr. Smeaton White and Mr. Southam are directors of this company. Therefore the attitude which the Citizen and the Gazette take in this matter is not surprising. These newspaper owners whose names I have just cited are either the partners or the hirelings of Mr. Graustein of New York. From whatever angle you look at this matter, from whatever side you study it, the picture reveals that these newspapers are under the direction of Mr. Graustein of New York to foster his interests in Canada. I say that never in all the history of Canada has such a gross attempt been made to muzzle the press of this country. An order in council was passed on the 26th of August last renewing certain leases and prior to that moment nothing has been heard of this discussion. That order in council was in these terms:
For the furnishing by the company, at no cost to the government, of greatly improved canalization facilities past the Carillon rapids m the Ottawa river, and the utilization by the company of the water powers adjacent thereto.
That was an order in council. In ordinary language that means bartering away privately and by subterranean means mir natural resources. If any other construction can be placed-on those words, I wou.' J like to have it. Surely that method of disposing of the public resources and utilities of Canada does not appeal to hon. gentlemen directly opposite.


Edward Joseph Garland: While I quite agree with the statement which the hon. gentleman has just made, I would like to ask him now if the government he is supporting is willing to withdraw the lease in its entirety. It has the power to do so.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Usually one asks payment of money from the one who owes it. With the greatest possible courtesy to my hon. friend I would like to answer that question, but I am, unfortunately, not in the secrets of the government. Let me however tell him that that lease will expire on May 1 of this year.


Edward Joseph Garland: We would
like to hear what the hon. gentleman's position is in regard to the matter.

Georgian Bay Canal Company


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Of course, I am not in
favour of the renewal of the lease. This renewal of the lease was granted on the 26th August, 1926, when the shadow government was supposed to be in power. Now we find the ghosts and survivors rising and fluttering in this House to oppose what in those days they themselves fixed or sanctioned. Out of their concrete form now, they remind me of the effigy on the old Roman coins looking both ways. How history repeats itself and how hon. gentlemen opposite who have spoken on this matter and particularly those who were members of that former government which granted this renewal, remind' me of the ancient king of Judea who, in order to get at the newborn Saviour, ordered the destruction of all males two years old and under.


George Halsey Perley: Was this same
lease that was renewed for a short time last summer by the Meighen administration not the lease that was extended three times by the King government prior to that, in August, 1923, November, 19(24, and October, 1925?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Yes, but there are two answers to that. One is the: Tu quoque, Brute 1 If you did wrong, should we have done the same thing? The other answer is this: that the original leases never contained the tremendously increased power which the shadow government granted to their supporters just before the election when they did not know which way they would have to jump. There is a tremendous difference in renewing a lease in the ordinary way of business and renewing a lease with tremendously increased powers just on the verge of an election and continuing it until kingdom come in the year 2005.	[DOT]
These hon. gentlemen also remind me of another prince of biblical times, and particularly the hon. gentleman who has moved the amendment reminds me of that ancient king who forced Moses into the bulrushes. ' Probably the day will come when the hon. gentleman would like to conduct his party into the promised land, but politically he will meet the same fate. There is still another picture which this brings to my mind and that is of the old god that used to devour his children because of the fear he had that they would one day dethrone him. This amendment was conceived for that purpose and under the same fear. It was for the purpose of hiding an accusing past. The best evidence of that is to be found in these two clippings, this one from the Ottawa Journal: No government of this country ought to take to itself the right to barter away privately in subterranean conferences the power resources of this country to powerful political friends and 
backers. Such proposed concessions ought to be advertised openly, with all the facts available to everybody, just precisely upon the principle that government contracts are let by public tender.
Those Journal editorials written in May, 1926, compared with the editorials that they write to-day, remind me unmistakably of the quilts that my grandmother used to make of so many multi-coloured pieces of linen and of so many different patterns that the dear old lady called them crazy work. That is what the Journal wrote on that date, that is not what it writes to-day.
It will be interesting to proceed a little further just to see how consistent is the amendment moved by the hon. leader of the opposition when compared with his attitude in the past. This charter was first granted in 1894 under Tory rule. It was renewed under Liberal regime until 1911. We ought to remember that date for the misfortunes that then befell the country. In 1912 the charter was amended, and Mr. White, the Tory member for North Renfrew, sponsored the amending bill. In 1913 the charter was renewed at the instance of the same Mr. White, and also in 1915; in 1918 Mr. Fripp, one of the two Tory members for this city, obtained a further renewal and not a word of protest was uttered by any of our friends opposite; in 1924 Mr. McGiverin, the senior Liberal member for Ottawa, obtained another renewal and not the slightest protest was made by hon. gentlemen opposite-because the renewal of the lease of August 26, 1926, had not yet been made. The hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) and the hon. member for South Wellington (Mr. Guthrie) were in the House in those days, but they kept consistently quiet.
Let me refer to some ancient history, but not so far back that it will be too uncomfortable. I bold in my hanid a memorial which was submitted to His Excellency the Governor in Council in 1909. It is in the words following:
We, the undersigned members of parliament,-
And may the House mark these words:
-after carefully considering the transportation needs which seem to us must urgent for the present and future commercial, industrial and agricultural interests of Canada, desire to humbly but earnestly submit that the construction of the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian bay canal should be commenced at an early date and completed as soon as possible.
It goes on, and I ask the House to mark the understandings:
We understand that the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company has made all necessary preparations and is ready and willing to commence and prosecute this work with all possible speed..

Georgian Bay Canal Company
I find the signatures of various hon. members of that day and among them is the signature of "H. Guthrie, S. Wellington." The hon. member at that time "after carefully considering the transportation needs for the present and future commercial, industrial and agricultural interests of Canada" affixed his name to the memorial asking His Excellency to authorize the carrying out of the scheme. To be wrong once is bad enough, but to be consistently inconsistent is worse. Here is another memorial presented to His Excellency the Governor in Council in 1903. The parchment is rather faded, and probably it would have been very much to the liking of somebody if the signatures also had faded out, but fortunately I find it reprinted in a memorial which was submitted to the government some years ago. Let me quote the following at page 22:
Confronted with the prospect of another delay and rebuff the friends and promoters of the canal in all parts of Canada called a meeting in the autumn of 1903 of members of parliament representing constituencies in favour of the Georgian bay canal.
The meeting was attended by a large number of members of parliament and the petition was submitted to Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Then
it recites:
We. the undersigned members of parliament, have given careful consideration to the subject of transportation in connection with the proposed ship canal from Georgian bay by Ottawa to Montreal.
And those gentlemen asked that the matter be at once dealt with and the scheme put through.


Edward Joseph Garland: Who signed that?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I find that the members for Ottawa at that time, Thomas Birkett and Mr. Belcourt signed the memorial and at page 3 it is very interesting to notice the signature of "Hugh Guthrie, South Wellington."	.


An hon. MEMBER:: He was a Liberal
then.	*


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: "Oh! consistency what
crimes are committed in thy name." Now we find that the hon. gentleman on two distinct occasions under his own signature has asked for the renewal of this charter and the completion of the canal after having given careful and considered attention to the question of transportation.


Edward Joseph Garland: Perhaps
he has reformed since he became a Conservative.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Well, the hon. gentleman himself has said nothing, but following out the thought of my hon. friend from Bow River I think the hon. gentleman looked better in his old clothes.
Now, after having twice sanctioned the principle, after having twice said that the problem of transportation had been carefully looked into, the hon. gentleman gets up in this House and moves his amendment, stating as his reason for so doing:
I cannot conjure up before my mind any graver matter of public policy at this moment in Canada than the great question of transportation. We have in this bill a proposal that a private corporation shall construct a great transportation work.
Exactly the same charter that is sought to be renewed to-day, a charter that was in existence when the hon. gentleman on two different occasions put his name to a memorial asking for its renewal. Oh, consistency, where art thou!
I have no apologies to offer for sponsoring this bill, and I trust that I shall be able to see it to a proper conclusion. I am particularly happy to oppose this amendment as one of the two members for this city,


Mr. ADSHEAD:: Does the hon. member
imply that the amendment submitted by the hon. leader of the opposition has some ulterior motive behind it?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I have said nothing else but that all along. I submit that the amendment is a smoke screen for the purpose of endeavouring to kill this bill without investigating its merits before a committee. As I say, I am delighted to sponsor this bill as one of the members for Ottawa. Others have done so before, and up to this moment not a single protest, except from the phonograph of Mr. Graustein and the vic-trolas of the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Journal, has come to my ears by way of objection to the stand I am taking. Ottawa in the past has always stood for the construction of the Georgian bay canal in exactly the same terms as the charter is now submitted for renewal.


George Halsey Perley: I should like to know, simply for my own information, what interest Mr. Graustein or the International Paper Company has in the Georgian bay canal either for or against it?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: They have no interest in the Georgian bay canal, but their interest is this: that just as the Hydro is purchasing power from the International Paper Company their intention is to stop anybody else from getting power in the manner in which
Georgian Bay Canal Company

I will show this company can get it; so that the power will remain in their own hands, and they will turn it into a gigantic monopoly. I realize that a member of parliament has the dual obligation of representing his own constituency, and at the same time forgetting when in parliament that he represents that constituency only, and that under our parliamentary system he must have regard to the good of Canada as a whole. In so far as Ottawa is concerned we favour the construction of the Georgian bay canal because it will reduce transportation rates, notwithstanding what the leader of the opposition says; secondly, it will turn Ottawa into an ocean port, with all the advantages that go therewith, and incidentally it will reduce the cost of fuel in this city by some $700,000 a year, as shown by the report of the Fuel board.


Edward Joseph Garland: I am sure my hon. friend does not wish to mislead the House, but in view of the contradictory statements in the editorial columns of the two daily papers I ask him to support his statement that Ottawa desires the construction of this canal, by reading a resolution from any representative body in support of the proposition.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: It would require as
much paper as my hon. friend consumes in writing his speeches if we introduced these resolutions and presented them in this House. Up to the moment, there has not been one serious resolution against it, except the small resolution of the Allied Trades and Labour Council. The city council has not said anything about it at all, and if they did I know where the opposition would come from- from somebody connected with the Ontario Hydro.


Mr. SPENCE (Parkdale):: Have you got
the city council muzzled that they do not say anything ?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I am in the very fortunate position of having nothing to do with the city council. This scheme would cheapen the cost of fuel in Ottawa by over $700,000 a year. In Arnprior it would reduce it by $1.33 per ton, in Pembroke by $1.90 per ton, Mattawa by $2.10, Haileybury $2.13, and so on.


Mr. PETTIT:: How does my hon. friend
arrive at that statement?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I did not arrive at the statement myself. I am reading a statement that was prepared by Mr. Neate, superintendent of the Fuel board in Ottawa. If he is wrong I am sorry, but I do not think he is wrong.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Why refer to this
question of navigation after the statement of the Minister of Railways?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: That is very easy to
answer, and I will come to that. I do not mind interruptions, I welcome them. I might just as well say now that this charter, as I see it, is a canal charter and nothing else. It is primarily a canal charter with certain rights and obligations incidental thereto. The primary intent of this charter is the construction of a canal before anything else can be done. I stand by that and by that alone, and my own legal training and understanding and my common sense tell me, after having read the charter, as I will do again later, that it is a charter for the construction of a canal, and the development of the surplus power resulting therefrom. I will read the section dealing with that matter later.
I am asked if anybody in the city is against the canal. I have before me an absolutely independent newspaper, neither Grit nor Tory, owing allegiance to no party, a paper which fought me in some elections and I propose to read to the House what this French-Canadian paper in the city of Ottawa, Le Droit, said in connection with the Georgian bay canal at Ottawa. I give that paper credit for expressing its opinion courageously and fearlessly. On March 8, 1927, Le Droit published the following:
The Georgian Bay Canal Company requests, for the fourteenth time since its inception, the renewal of its charter.
It was an excellent opportunity to re-open the discussion on the advantages which the country might derive from the construction of this essentially Canadian waterway, and the opportunity has not been allow'ed to slip by, seeing that since a week and a half it is the fourth time that the subject has been debated. A remarkable feature: the Tories, those haling from Ontario especially, condemn the project as being far less advantageous than that of dredging the St. Lawrence in order to reach the great lakes by way of the Welland canal, and upon which the government has unwisely invested as much as $75,000,000.
By this attitude, these Tories shatter the traditions of their party. In fact, if we refer back to Sir John Macdonald-
They tell me that in the time of Sir John Macdonald the question of power was not discussed. In 1898 a Senate committee, charged with investigating these conditions, reported as follows:
Furthermore your committee are unanimously of the opinion that the development and use of the enormous water-power along the route for electrical purposes in the mining and smelting of iron and other ores, which are so abundant in the Ottawa valley, and which cannot now be

Georgian Bay Canal Company
developed by reason of the want of cheap communication and transportation, would of itself alone warrant the construction of the canal.
Now, Mr. Speaker, could anybody in the House say that these statesmen lacked forethought and vision when they made this report^ Now we proceed with the citation from Le Droit:
-if we refer back to Sir John Macdonald, we find that he made a statement of this kind: "The Ottawa canal and the Pacific railway must be constructed and no voice should be raised against the great national work which would open the western states and colonies to the seaboard".
It is just exactly the opposite of what was advocated yesterday afternoon by General Ross of Kingstou, who wished to see the Georgian bay canal doomed because it -would compete with the railways. Much later-we come to the views held by Sir Alexander Mackenzie who, in 1876, declared himself irrevocably in favour of this canal-Sir Robert Borden, in 1914, at the time he was Prime Minister, stated: "Our aim is to retain Canadian trade over Canadian routes and to follow, as much as possible, the policy which consists in having this trade move from east to west".
These three Conservative opinions suffice to prove that the Tory party, up to recent times at least, were in favour of the dredging of the Ottawa, the Mattawa and the French rivers, in preference to that of the St. Lawrence.
The late Paul-Emile Lamarche, who died at the age of thirty-seven after a political career the usefulness of which was in inverse ratio to its duration, in February 1914, on the floor of the House expressed the view which all true Canadians should to-day study in its bearings in order to remain permanently Canadian. We advise this same study to those who are not enough Canadians and who would like to become more so. Mr. Lamarche. after having disproved clearly all the objections which were then brought to bear against the construction of the Georgian bay canal, faces the question squarely and shows the advantages which would result from this enterprise and which the interests of Canada necessarily require. "The Georgian bay canal scheme", he stated then, "should include among its most enthusiastic supporters all those who not only endorse but also sincerely believe in the motto: Canada for the Canadians!" The whole of his magnificent speech is permeated with this patriotic motto and those pages are not only a homage to the youthful orator who conceived them, but to the Canadian race which gave Canada such a statesman.
It is more and more evident that these opponents of this essentially Canadian water route are the victims of a narrow patriotism, a sectional patriotism, perhaps also the victims of large foreign interests. For, after all, if the Americans did not find the dredging of the St. Lawrence to their advantage, they would not support it so willingly. It is not among our neighbours to the south that practical philanthropy exists the most.


Edward Joseph Garland: Does it
exist among the Sifton interests?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Probably if the hon.
gentlemen knew these people he might be able to say so himself.
Therefore, the scheme of the opponents to the Canadian canal would be to discredit the project which has a chance of success in order to better establish the necessity of another dnter-prise which suits them better. It seems that the best advice which could be given to the latter would be to take a broader view so as to enable them to embrace more generously the interests of Canada and Canada only.
I oome now to the question asked me a moment ago: Is this a canal charter or is its object the development of power? Well, no matter how the question may be argued; no matter what is said, I affirm that under the terms of the charter which the promoters of this bill are endeavouring to have renewed, nothing is contemplated but the construction of the canal. Although there are other sections of this legislation relating to the disposal of surplus power in connection with the construction of these works, the fact remains that the backbone of the whole scheme is the canal. And the whole purpose of the opposition to the bill now before us is concerned, not with the fear thait the canal will not be built, but with the development of power at Carillon.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Did not the Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) make the statement that it was a struggle between two parties to obtain the power?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: The minister may have malde that statement but I now say what the position is. I say that the subject under discussion is an application by the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company for a renewal of the charter granted in the first place in 1894 and subsequently renewed until the first of May, 1927. Bill 78, presently under consideration, has been introduced for the purpose of extending the charter, not as it stood when introduced in 1894 but as it was at the date of its last Tenewal. Let us see what the charter was like when last renewed. Hon. members on the Conservative side of the House have spoken at length about this charter, but they have not quoted one section which has not been repealed. Every section they have mentioned has been repealed and reenacted, yet not one of these hon. gentlemen was aware of that fact. If therefore we are to listen to arguments based upon sections of an act which have been repealed and reenacted, it is high time that we sent this bill to the committee to have the whole subject properly aired.
The charter was first granted on July 23, 1S94, and the power provisions were then embodied in section 8 (a). But that section has been repealed, having been reenacted in section 4 of the act of 1896; and section 8 (g) upon which the hon. member for Fort William

Georgian Bay Canal Company
(Mr. Manion) based his whole argument was also repealed and reenacted in totally different form in 1912. The power clause of the original charter, section 8 (a), allowed the company to lay out, construct and build the canal, reciting the details, and it was repealed by section 4 of the act of 1896. The section which now empowers the company to construct the canal is to be found, let me say for the edification of my hon. friends opposite, in 60 Victoria, chapter 11, and is, as I have said, section 4. The act reads:
Section 8 of the said act is hereby repealed and the following substituted therefor-
My hon. friend did not know that.


Robert James Manion: Were any powers taken
away from the company by the repealing of that section and its reenactment in another form ?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Tremendously, in 1912
particularly, in the section with reference to power.


Robert James Manion: Go ahead and deal with it.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: In section 8 (a), which was afterwards repealed, the powers of the company are defined, the company being allowed to lay out, construct, maintain and operate the canal or canals, at and from certain points described, the canals to be of such dimensions as will make a navigable channel nine feet in depth. That is the provision of the original charter. Now let us look at section 8 (g) as quoted by my hon. friend from Fort William at page 942 of Hansard. The company is to have the right tolay out and lease or otherwise dispose of "water lots, and use, sell, lease or otherwise dispose of water brought by or for the said canals or works but not requisite for the same, and produce, lease and supply, or otherwise dispose of hydraulic, electric and other kinds of power in connection with the works hereby authorized.
That provision was repealed in 1912 and is now contained in section 5 of the amending act of that year. I will not now deal with it at length, because it enters into another portion of my speech which I do not wish to take out of its order.


Robert James Manion: Has the right to develop electrical power been taken away from the corporation?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: No.


Robert James Manion: That is the point I made. It is absolutely the only poipt I quoted the section to show.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: My hon. friend and I must agree to disagree. He knows the English language much better than I do, and if I make mistakes he will correct me. Section 8 (g) of the original charter was repealed in 1912-I will show under what conditions- and the following was substituted therefor:
-produce, lease, supply or otherwise dispose of surplus-
Mark the word " surplus " because I shall comment upon it when I sum up the argument.
-hydraulic, electric and other kinds of power developed in connection with and for the purposes of the works hereby authorized, the rates or prices at or for which such hydraulic electric power may be disposed of by the company to be fixed or determined by the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada in accordance with the provisions of section 360A of the Railway Act.
If my hon. friend will now revert to this section and read it he will see the vast difference between section 8 (g) of 1894 and section 5 (g) of 1912. My hon. friend and everyone else on the other side based their arguments on the power sections which have been repealed.


Mr. YOUNG (Toronto):: I rise to a question of privilege. I quoted the section from the act of 1912 precisely as my hon. friend is now quoting it, and it is not fair to say that all hon. members on this side were wrong in the citation they made. I was right and I was not the only one.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: The hon. gentleman
may have quoted the section I have given, and I have no quarrel with him if he did read section 5 (g) of the act of 1912. But if he followed that section to its logical conclusion he must inevitably have reached the decision that the power incidence of this charter is purely and simply subsidiary, and that the charter is one for the construction of a canal-the provision for the disposal of suiplus power resulting therefrom having been added subsequently. By no distortion of the English language, by no process of alchemy and by no vision of mind can anyone turn this section into anything else, or give it any construction but that wthich I have placed upon it.


Robert James Manion: May I ask a question? Did I not take as well the stand that I opposed the construction of a canal by a private corporation; that I opposed not only the power schedule but the canal schedule as well? I opposed both, and do so yet.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: That may be of some value in the eyes of my hon. friend.
13S9

Georgian Bay Canal Company


Robert James Manion: But my hon. friend is entirely trying to mislead the House in regard to the attitude I took.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: If I have said anything of that kind I am sorry; I do not mean that.
I mean that all through this discussion every hon. gentleman opposite-I grant you in absolute good faith and with the very best of intentions; they have discussed this matter with mo idea of deceiving anyone-have discussed this matter on sections which have been repealed and are not now in the law. If these sections were in the law to-day they would produce exactly the effect hon. gentlemen have said they would, but fortunately these sections are no longer in the act.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Did not my hon. friend tell me a few moments ago that the hon. gentlemen to my right were insincere and had ulterior motives in this matter?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Yes, and I repeat it. I said, Sir, that when these gentlemen quoted sections of the law which have since been amended, in that part of their argument they honestly believed they were discussing what was the law. As to that there oan be no difficulty; but I say as well that their argument, specious as it is, is purely and simply a smoke screen to prevent the construction of this canal. While we are at it, let us consider this section, because the whole of the argument turns upon its interpretation. When this charter was originally granted it was obtained for the purpose of constructing a canal; if Hansard is looked through the fact will be revealed that there was no discussion as to the desire of those promoting this bill simply to produce power and forego the construction of a canal. But power in those days was not an unknown quantity; power was not something out of the vision of those who granted this charter. I have just read an extract from the report of the Senate committee of 1898, the charter having been granted in 1894, and that committee considered the question of power to be of tremendous importance. But no matter how great or how important that power may be the charter must be read in the light of day and according to its exact wording; one must place an interpretation on the words contained therein, and by no construction can anyone say that the primary motive of this charter was the securing of power. So much has public opinion been distorted in this House, willingly in certain quarters and innocently in others, that the hon. member
for Toronto Northwest (Mr. Church) on February 16 asked for a return of the House in these terms:
For a copy of all applications, letters, reports, orders in council, correspondence and all other communications between the government and any other person or persons as to the renewal of charters or agreements, or extension of the same, regarding the Ottawa, Montreal and Georgian Bay Canal Company, for power and navigation rights on the Ottawa river.
There must have been some idea in the mind of the hon. member that some negotiations were proceeding for the purpose of securing the power alone, but what did he find? The return came down and there was not a tittle of evidence or a scrap of paper of any kind to show that at any time this corporation had expressed a desire to forego the canal rights and substitute therefor the power rights. The primary idea of this company was to build a canal, and that is the idea to-day.
I am an Ontario man and believe in public ownership; I have the greatest respect for the memory of Sir Adam Beck, and it is due to his genius and his perspicacity and sense of business that this system of public ownership was developed in Ontario. But I cannot say as much for those who have succeeded him. This charter was granted in 1894; section 8 (g) which I have just quoted was included in the bill until 1912, when Sir Adam Beck, seeing into the future, knowing the possibilities of hydraulic power in Ontario and looking to the future needs of the people of Ontario, saw that this charter of 1894 granted too many powers and rights in connection with the development of hydraulic power. He came to Ottawa and appeared before the committee which, Sir, shows the necessity of having a matter of this kind referred to a committee. When Sir Adam Beck appeared before that committee the matter was thoroughly threshed out and discussed, and what happened? The company agreed that its primary intention was the construction of a canal and nothing else, and they also agreed to the adoption of this amending section which took away the vast! powers granted in 1894 under section 8 (g). The new section reads as follows:
Produce, lease and supply, or otherwise dispose of surplus hydraulic, electric and other kinds of power-
What does that mean? I may not be quite familiar with the English language, and I may not be able to understand every word of this section, but when I see the word "surplus" I ask myself what it means. A surplus is something left after you have done something;
Georgian Bay Canal Company

what you have left after paying your debts is a surplus, something I do not have, but that is what the word means. Now, where is this surplus power; where can anyone get surplus power unless a canal is first constructed and unless some power is used for the development and maintenance of the works? Then what is left is the surplus, and that is what the company would have the right to dispose of under the control of the railway commission. I defy any hon. gentleman in this House, no matter how learned he may be in law or otherwise to place any other construction upon this section, which limits the disposal of power to that surplus. A canal must be constructed, after which that surplus may be dealt with.


Herbert Bealey Adshead: Which section was the
Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) referring to when he made the statement that this was a strife between two parties over this power?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I want to be courteous
to my friend, but I think that question should rather be addressed to the minister himself. I do not know what section the hon. gentleman has in mind, nor do I know what section the minister had in mind1 when he made the statement referred to. But no matter what statement has been made, at any time, anywhere or by whom, can we by any process of distortion argue that that section does not mean what I have just said it means?


Milton Neil Campbell: There seems to be a
direct conflict between the statement of the hon. gentleman and the statement of the Minister of Railways. That is what the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Adshead) is trying to get at.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: There is no difference
at all between us. It is dangerous to repeat a statement unless you have before you the actual language used, but the bone of contention was the power, and I suppose that is what the hon. gentleman refers to. Now any hon. gentleman in this House can make any statement he cares to if he is honest in doing it; but I refuse to change to the extent of one iota the interpretation which I place, and which everybody else should place, upon that section in reading it in the light of day.


Milton Neil Campbell: Mr. Speaker-


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I am trying to answer
the hon. gentleman. This charter is essentially a canal charter; on that we are agreed I think. True there is a bone of contention. The Tory party is anxious to secure that power at Carillon for those to whom they had already leased it. May I say that the power at Carillon is not worth anything to
[Mr. Chevrier.j
this company unless it has built the canal there. Until that is done, the power at Carillon does not mean five cents to this company, it is absolutely waste energy so far as this company is concerned. Because this company, under the terms of its charter, cannot sell any power until the canal at Carillon is constructed. Then if there is any surplus of power left it may dispose of it under the terms of the section.


Edward Joseph Garland: The hon.
gentleman again does not wish to mislead the House, does he? Therefore, will he answer this question?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: If I can.


Edward Joseph Garland: Is it a
provision of the bill that the sale of surplus power shall not take plane until the canal is built, or that it shall take place as each section of the canal is built?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: That is a very pertinent question, indeed, and one which at this stage of the proceeding^ I cannot bind anybody to, but the reasonable, logical, and honest proceeding would be this: the canall should be first constructed; that the surplus power should not be used until the whole of the canal has been built; that the proceeds derived from' the sale of the surplus power should not be used for the private purposes of the company, either in the payment of dividends or otherwise, until the whole canal has been built. That is a sensible view to take.


Mr. STEVENS:: Where can my hon. friend show this House any clause, sentence or reference, direct or indirect, that carries out such a suggestion?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: What suggestion?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I say that my hon. friend cannot point to any clause in support of his statement.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: What statement, please?


Henry Herbert Stevens: The one you have just
made, the preposterous statement you have just made. My hon. friend cannot point to any clause, any statement, or any inference in this bill before the House, or any of its predecessors, that carries out what he says. It is certainly the most preposterous thing I ever heard.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: It is a most preposterous thing for the hon. gentleman to make such a statement, in view of what this char-

ter contains. However I will say this: If there is not such a provision in the bill at the present time I will see that one is inserted when the bill is in committee.


Henry Herbert Stevens: You said it was there already.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I did not say anything of the kind. I said the objection was well taken, and that from a business point of view there ought to be such a stipulation inserted, but how can we get such a stipulation put in unless we send the bill to a com' mittee and have it investigated there? The course proposed by the opponents of this bill is a most inconsistent way of proceeding, and is a most unjust way to treat an application made to this parliament.
There is another feature about this bill. My hon. friend from Fort 'William (Mr. Manion) said-and I will deal with that point later on-and the hon. member for North York (Mr. Lennox) particularly put stress on it, that this company because of its charter has the right for the next nine years to take any water-power, to develop it, to refrain from expending the $50,000 called for, in fact not to do anything in the way of constructing the canal, and that after the nine years the government may step in and take only that portion of the works which were not completed, but that the power development, the power plant, will remain in the hands of the company.


Robert James Manion: Hear, hear.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: My hon. friend said
" hear, hear " too soon. Let us look at section 43 which was repealed.


Robert James Manion: Why not read section 1 of the bill before the House?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: We are talking about
the charter. We will talk about the bill when the time comes.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Section 43 of what act?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Section 5 of the act of 1906. That section reads as follows:
Section 43 of chapter 103 of the statutes of 1894 is hereby repealed and the following is
substituted therefor:
43. His Majesty, his heirs and successors, may at any time assume the possession of, and the property in, the said canals and works,-
Canals and works.
-and of and in all the rights, privileges and advantages of the company on giving to the company one week's notice of intention to do so; and thereupon all property in the said canals,
21, 1927
Georgian Bay Canal Company
works, rights, privileges and advantages shall become, and thenceforward shall be, vested in His Majesty, his heirs and successors; and by way of compensation His Majesty shall pay to the company the value of the work


Henry Herbert Stevens: Read the balance.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Of course, it is only a waste of time:
-actually done by the company up to the time of the giving of such notice in surveying, and in the making of plans, and otherwise upon the ground, together with the value of all tangible property of the company of which possession may be so taken,-such values to be fixed by three valuators, or the majority of them, one valuator to be chosen by His Majesty, another by the company, and the third by the two so chosen.
Now, for instance, suppose that we take up this work at Carillon. We have eight years under the bill to build it, but our powers are defined in the charter, and if we start to turn one sod for the construction of a power plant at Carillon or elsewhere, Thomas Jones, Bob Smith, anyone can take out an injunction to restrain us from going ahead. In other words we have no right to do it, the charter falls by the wayside and we have not got the right to proceed. I defy any man in this House to show how it can be constructed otherwise. We have not got the right to turn one sod for the construction of a power plant unless we have built a section of the canal that develops that power, and we can only sell the surplus of the power which results from the construction of such work. If, after this charter was renewed, we started to build a power plant along this youte, because of ignorance-no, it would not be ignorance now because I have divulged the whole thing. Had I not said what I have said perhaps hon. gentlemen would have not known about it, and then we could have gone along and for eight or nine years built up and developed this power. Nevertheless at the expiration of that time or at any time the government, on seven days' notice, could step in and wipe us out and that would be the end of the thing. Where are the jokers in this charter? The charter is absolutely clear and above board. After this charter has been ventilated in this House and before the committee on thirteen different occasions, will hon. gentlemen, like Daniels came to judgment, come into this House at the eleventh hour and find riders or jokers in this lease when none was found heretofore? Such a thing is preposterous and the smoke screen is getting thinner all the time.
Let us come to some of the statements that have been made by hon. gentlemen who have spoken on this matter. I have the greatest

Georgian Bay Canal Company
respect for the hon. member who represents in such a dignified1 manner in this House the wonderful county of Argenteuil (Sir George Perley). But I just wonder, and quite charitably also, what stand he will take when we come to vote whether this bill shall go to the committee or not. I quote his remarks as reported in Hansard at page 764:
So far as I am concerned I have no expectation or idea of trying to keep this bill from going to committee: we all know very well that cannot be done and we have no wish to do so. We do wish, however, to have it fully discussed here before going to committee in order that it may be thoroughly understood by every one.
Did the board of strategy consult the hon. member for Argenteuil when they drafted that amendment? If so, they have .put him into a box. At page 917 of Hansard he is also reported as saying:
It is not my intention to prevent the bill from being referred to and being considered by the committee on railways.
I am satisfied that at least one hon. gentleman on that side of the House will break that line of inconsistency and vote to send the bill to committee. In another place the hon. gentleman was asked this question by the hon. member for Marquette (Mr. Glen):
Mr. Glen: Before the hon. gentleman resumes Jus seat I would like to ask him, just for information, how it is proposed to separate the development of the water-power and the construction and operation of the canal, having in view the paramount need of navigable waters.
The hon. member for Argenteuil then said that if the bill was sent to a round table the matter might be threshed out. Why does he not send it to the committee now? The hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Maniom) as reported on page 918 of Hansard made this statement:
I am not trying to block it from going to committee.
I shall be delighted to see the hon. member for Fort William kill this amendment because-


Mr. MAN  ION@: I intend, with great pleasure, to vote to kill the amendment-or rather to vote for the amendment in order to kill the bill.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: My hon. friend may
expedite patients in the other world in any way he may be able to arrange, and distribute spirits in the way in which spirits may be distributed without any harm to the spiritual, but it may not be quite so well for him to take this stand and go back upon such a clear statement.


Robert James Manion: I am not trying to block
the bill from going to committee.

Mr, CHEVRIER:	What is the effect of
voting for the amendment? It would effectively block the bill from going to the committee.


Robert James Manion: The effect of voting for
the amendment is to kill the bill.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: The bill will not go
to the committee if it is killed in this House, and yet my hon. friend, as reported in Hansard, says that he has no intention whaG ever of blocking the bill from going to committee. Nevertheless he will put it on the block now and cut its neck off.


George Halsey Perley: I am sorry I was not in the House a few moments ago. Was the hon. gentleman referring to me in that remark?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: No. I am sorry the
hon. member for Argenteuil was not here when I mentioned him. I was through with the hon. member.


George Halsey Perley: I suppose the
hon. member had finished him.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I think he is finished
by this time unless he votes against the amendment.


George Halsey Perley: As the hon.
gentleman has referred to me, may I be allowed to explain? What I stated in my remarks on the second reading of the bill, I still stick to, I reiterate. I did not start out with the intention of endeavouring to keep this bill from going to committee, but to my surprise it has created such a feeling throughout the country that it is quite evident that the general public would like to see the bill defeated. I expected to see it go to committee and I hoped to defeat it there. My object was to see that this charter was not renewed. As the leader of the apposition (Mr. Guthrie) has moved the amendment in the way he has, in consequence of the general feeling of the public on the subject, I shall certainly, with great pleasure, support his amendment.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I am not at all
surprised at the quick turn-about and acrobatic feat of the hon. gentleman. It is well known to foe a Tory rule that hon. gentlemen can wiggle out of a tight corner faster than anybody else can, but sometimes that is not quite to their credit. There was no reason for making the statement which the hon. member for Argenteuil made unless he was sincere. This bill has been before the House on thirteen occasions; nobody knows better than the hon. member what is con-

Georgian Bay Canal Company
tained in it and what its (purport is. I have enough confidence in the hon. gentleman to know that had he known that amendment was to be submitted he would not have said what he did say. He can get out of the fix in any way he wants, but he stands committed in .Hansard as saying one thing and now he says that he will do the other.
I find another quotation from the speech of the hon. member for Fort William. When this question goes to committee, he said, and he was honest at the time-


Robert James Manion: And at that time the bill
had a chance of going to committee. We are hoping now it has not.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: My hon. friend did
not see the light of day. Has he been travelling to Damascus these last days, and will he say that the light which the leader of the opposition hung over his head was the light that showed him what to do in the matter?


Robert James Manion: I saw an easier method
of killing this bill; that was all.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: But my hon. friend is
doing neither justice nor adding grace to his statements in Hansard. If he intends to follow out his political career in that manner, that is, to say one thing and do the other, he is quite welcome to do so, but I would be sorry to see him do so. That is Tory consistency! Of course, Mr. Speaker, when we look across the House and see the consistency of these gentlemen, at one time sitting on one side and at another sitting on the other side, we are reminded of that virtue of Toryism. My hon. friend from Fort William asked, why not develop this St. Lawrence scheme and divide the total cost between the two countries in proportion to the benefits received. That is a wonderful scheme-so long as peace lasts. But what would happen in time of war?


An hon. MEMBER:: There will be no war.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I hope so, I trust that
Divine Providence will so ordain. But some five or six years before 1914 the same hon. gentlemen were saying the same thing. The construction of the Georgian bay canal, remote from the international border, is not a new scheme. It was ventilated in 1898 before a Senate committee, when Major-General Gascoigne gave evidence on this feature, showing that the authorities in those days were farsighted.


Edward Joseph Garland: floes the
hon. gentleman seriously wish the House to believe that in view of the great industrial future of this country, because of the danger -shall I say?-of a militant conflict with the United States, we are never to develop the St. Lawrence waterway? The suggestion is absurd.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I am not an idealist,
perhaps I am imbued with sentiments that are too practical. I do not like to propound wonderful theories and then bury my head in the sand as I have seen ostriches do in South Africa. I prefer to look everything square in the face and get the best solution possible.
I do not like to wait until a threatening danger crushes me; I try to get it out of the way.
One of the hon. gentlemen from Winnipeg said that when the charter was granted there was no idea of the value of electrical energy.
I have shown, that that element was considered in the Senate report of 1898.
Now let me refer to page 968 containing the remarks of the hon. member for North York (Mr. Lennox). If one should give attention to the wonderful campaign speech which the hon. member made it should be only the degree of attention which his remarks deserve after a reference to what he said at page 975. The hon. member for South Battleford (Mr. Vallance) asked this question:
The hon. member-
Referring to the hon. member for North York:
-said this bill went before the committee thirteen times. Was it not passed in the House without going to the railway committee?
The hon. member for North York answered: Perhaps I made a mistake. I apologize. If it went before the committee thirteen times, I would not object, but it was before the House thirteen times. The House extended the charter without even sending it to the committee.
Then the hon. member for South Battleford continued:
The hon. member said it went before the committee thirteen times.
To which the hon. member for North York replied:
I apologize. I should have said it went before the House, and the House extended it without sending it to the committee.
By wrhat process of alchemy or procedure can that be done? But that is the sort of information that the hon. gentleman furnishes
Georgian Bay Canal Company

to enlighten the House and the country with
reference to this charter. He continues in the same vein at page 9SS.
Upon payment of $50,000, which will be returned if the canal is not constructed, this company is getting a charter to build the canal and to develop the water-powers for a period of nine years.
With that fallacy I have already dealt and have shown that the company cannot turn a sod for the purpose of utilizing the power unless the portion of the canal developing that power has been constructed, and that it is only any surplus power that can be disposed of. The hon. member for Grenville-Dundas (Mr. Casselman) also spoke against the renewal of the charter. It is surprising that when hon. members discuss this matter in good faith they occasionally make statements which are in error, and unfortunately when this erroneous information appears in Hansard and is read by other members who have not had an opportunity of studying the subject they are likely to gain an entirely wrong impression. The hon. member for Grenville in the course of his speech stated:
When the charter was first granted it contained no clause authorizing the promoters to develop hydro-electric power .... To that scheme we now find added a power scheme.
That is wrong. The hon. gentleman did not read the charter, yet he gets up on the floor of the House and makes that statement. The charter did not contain those powers when originally granted, but it was amended in 1912, and he knew nothing about it. Then he proceeds to enlighten public opinion as I have cited. Apparently the board of strategy consulted the hon. member for Toronto Northwest (Mr. Church), because he said that he was opposed to the motion and to the amendment !


George Hamilton Pettit: Does the hon. gentleman
anticipate that there will be surplus power available?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I hope so.


George Hamilton Pettit: And considerable of it?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Mr. Speaker, I understand the hon. gentleman asks me if there will be power, and, if so, how much. I am able to say that undoubtedly there will be power. You cannot construct a canal on the Ottawa river where these water-powers are without creating power. But what will be the resultant power from that construction I do not know. I do know that no matter how much power is developed in the course of constructing the canal all that this company will be able to dispose of will be the surplus, 
and the rates to be charged for that surplus will be controlled by the railway commission.
Now, the hon. member for East Toronto (Mr. Ryckmlan) in the course of his speech last Friday stated at page 1358 of Hansard:
Here again I for one have to make a confession, which is something I do not like to do.
Well, the hon. gentleman had done nothing to be ashamed of. He continued:
This bill absolutely fooled me. . . . the bill of 1924 contained a saving clause which protected the rights of the country. That clause is omitted from the bill now before us.
He is mistaken. The section in question is No. 43, and the charter is still alive and will continue in any case until the 1st of May this year. It surprises me that such an able lawyer should make a declaration of that kind.
Now we come down to this statement of the question:	The building of this canal by the
corporation and the development of power therefrom; or no canal at all and the development of power by interests of some kind. The building of the canal under the terms of this charter will ensure under the Railway Act the supervision of rates by the railway commission and fair treatment to everyone. The construction of power under private interests assures the consumers of nothing at all. Under the present system, as will be found out in this instance, the Hydro-electric has been purchasing power from the Gatineau Power Company, the Ontario Hydro has no plant of its own to develop the power. The Ontario Hydro purchases power and sells that power, and it says it sells it at cost. But what is the cost? I am unable to say what the cost is, but surely there is an increase in these various transactions which would not exist if the sale were direct. The whole matter therefore simmers down to the question of the construction of this canal with power, or no construction at all, and the development of power by private interests.


Edward Joseph Garland: Is the hon. member advocating that the private interests develop the power under this canal scheme and sell the power direct to the consumers in Ontario, in violation of the principles of public ownership?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: No, I said at the outset that I believe in public ownership, but public ownership properly handled, not the public ownership we are having to-day. But, at the same time, in a matter of this magnitude,- with this amount of power to be developed, I am quite satisfied that this company may, by the conditions under which the charter is granted, dispose of power at

Georgian Bay Canal Company
/iarr-'{vi thrnnvh t.o (rood advantage. I want
such price as will be reasonable, and that there will be no increased cost other than that which the Hydro electric is now charging.	,
The statement has been made that the investigation of the rates could not be properly carried on by the railway commission. An hon. member has said that the railway board would have to take the figures of the corporation as they presented them. The railway board has been investigating transportation rates for months and they have been investigating the telephone rates, and surely we should believe in the sincerity and accuracy of the railway commission in an investigation of that kind. It is a slur on the railway commission to suggest that there will be a lack of confidence in the way in which the railway commission would investigate these rates and endeavour to come to a satisfactory conclusion. It is a slur which I resent. The International Paper Company is operating a plant across the river at Hull. It is operating another one at Des Joachims on the Ottawa river. Where are the apostles of public ownership in northern Ontario? Vhere are they when they find the International Paper Company is already on the scene preparing for further development? Of course that is the International Paper Company and my Tory friends will not interfere. Many of their friends are directors of the company. On March 11, 1927, the Ottawa Journal published the following:
The running streams commission of the province of Quebec is anticipating a request for a report from the Quebec legislature on the power resources of the upper Ottawa river, with a view to dealing with a request for development. is the information given from an authoritative source close to the Quebec government, The announcement is in keeping with the trend of events along the river, particularly at Des Joachims, where gangs of men believed to be in the employ of the International Pulp and Paper, or allied interests, were busy all last summer, and where preparations are being made for another season's work. The informer volunteered the information that the running streams commission is hastening its task of securing all possible data as to power development at* Des Joachims.
Here is another instance where the tremendous octopus is endeavouring to place its ramifications on all the water-powers of the Ottawa river, and where are the apostles of public ownership now? Why do they not interfere? Why does the hon. leader of the opposition not do something to stop this
proceeding?	.	,
I am not going to enter into a discussion as to the advisability of this canal or of ^ its conditions. Everybody is prepared, I think, to admit that it is feasible and that it can be
now to leave out the canal and the power question for the moment, because certain allegations have been made as to why this charter is still before the public. This charter was granted in 1894, and hon. members say that the charter has lain dormant ever since, and that is one of the reasons why it should be refused. That charter has not been dormant during these years. The charter was granted in 1894, and from 1894 to 1907 the company proceeded with a number of surveys. Hon. members know that this canal extends from Montreal to the Georgian bay. That is not an enterprise which can be completed or surveyed in a few days. It- takes years to survey it and years to investigate the conditions." From 1894 to 1907 surveys were made by the company. In 1907 the plans which this company prepared were filed with the then government. The government was not satisfied with the plans for some reasons, and some of those reasons were these: it was thought at the time that a nine-foot canal was not deep enough. The government considered there were many things in the way. It was a matter of magnitude and the government considered it for some time. In 1908 the Public Works commission was formed, and from 1908 until 1912 this Public Works commission went over the whole survey made by the company in previous years, because the government said, "We are not satisfied with an ex-parte survey; we want our own engineers to make the survey. We want a ebeck-up of your plans." From 1908 to 1912 the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier spent $825,000 on this additional survey, and the result was the production of those books, five volumes, which all hon. members would do well to consult. Here is the result of those four or five years of survey. It cost the government of Canada $825,000 to do it, and yet hon. gentlemen who were then in parliament come and say that during those years the company did nothing.


Mr. CHAPLIN:: The hon. member is confounding the company with the government.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I cannot answer questions from across the floor when I cannot hear them.


Mr. LUCAS:: Will the hon. member say
how much the company spent during those
years?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: If my hon. friend will
allow this to go to a committee-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.
Georgian Bay Canal Company


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: If my hon. friends are going to laugh, then that settles the argument. That ds my answer to my hon. friend (Mr. Lucas). Let him shuffle. I would not spend any time-


William Thomas Lucas: I am not shuffling. I asked the question in good faith, and I thought it might be interesting to know how much the
company has spent.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: The company has spent since 1894 thousands upon thousands, the amount of which I do not know, but any one of the hon. members sitting on the opposition benches now, including the leader of the opposition (Mr. Guthrie) and even the member from Fort William (Mr. Manion) who was then in the House-


Robert James Manion: Not in 1894. Do not make me too old.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Well, after the hon.
member came in. In the city of Ottawa, as every hon. member knows, offices were kept and employees retained at work on the plans. I am not prepared now to say just how much the company spent on lead pencils or on more costly undertakings up to surveys. That is a matter of detail for the committee to look into. But surely my hon. friend knows as a business man that a company of this magnitude could not possibly operate since 1894, obtaining renewals of the charter and keeping offices and a staff, without spending an enormous sum of money. I do not know what the initial survey cost, but inasmuch as the government expended $825,000 on the second, we may assume that the cost to the company to make the initial survey must have been upwards of a million. From 1908 to 1912 the company was engaged making this survey and preparing these reports. In 1914 the government surveyors were actively at work with the employees of the company, engineers and others, taking up these reports, and they continued their activities. If hon. gentlemen will send the bill to the committee they will get the whole history of the company, revealing in detail every step taken, every activity engaged in, every overture made to the government to bring the matter to a conclusion. I should be quite willing to stand here, if it were physically poissible, and recite the whole history of the undertaking for the edification of hon. gentlemen. If I did, I am sure they could not fail to be convinced that the company has not, as has been suggested, lain dormant all these years. Between 1914 and the end of 1918 we were

in the war period, and one hon. gentleman has magnanimously suggested that over that interval we should draw the curtain.
In 1921 there came the period of deflation, and in 1921 the charter was renewed, and there was not a single objection from any quarter of the House; no one protested. It was renewed again in 1924 without any protest from either side. No hon. gentleman at that time moved any amendment emphasizing the gravity of this matter from the standpoint of national transportation. My hon. friend himself signed his name twice to one of these memorials. In July of that year a renewal was obtained, and in December of the same year the company deposited new plans and specifications in accordance with the demands of the government. As a matter of fact plans had been submitted in 1907, and at the instigation of the government they were successively altered to increase the depth of the channel from nine to twelve feet, from twelve to fourteen, from fourteen to sixteen, from sixteen to eighteen and then to twenty. Now it is twenty-four feet.


George Hamilton Pettit: In view of the fact that the government's engineers figured on a twenty-four foot canal, surely they gave an estimate of the quantity of surplus power that would result from that construction. If so, what is that estimate?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I cannot give the information now, but if my hon. friend is anxious to have it I will secure it for him.


George Hamilton Pettit: I want it now.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I am sorry I cannot give it now; that is something that would come out in an inquiry before the committee. However, I can easily get the information and let my hon. friend have it if it will satisfy him.
Now we come to the year 1925. The last renewal, as I have pointed out, was in July, 1924, plans having been submitted in December of that year. In 1925 we find the company organized in accordance with the requirements of the Railway Act and ten million dollars subscribed, of which sum one million dollars was then paid up. There is where the company stands now. Will hon. gentlemen persist in the statement that the company has lain dormant all these years?
Let me say a word now about the proposed alliance between Ontario and Quebec.
A good deal of capital has been made of the resolution which the Premier of Ontario has forwarded to this House, and the statement is made that the Hon. Mr. MARCH 21, 1927
Georgian Bay Canal Company
Ferguson is about to enter into an agreement with the Hon. Mr. Taschereau. There is to be a mutual understanding in regard to the development of the Carillon power. The Hon. Mr. Ferguson and the Hon. Mr. Taschereau are to come to an understanding; they are going to fall upon each other's neck. Why, Mr. Speaker, it is to laugh! Will any hon. member in this House voice an honest belief that an alliance of that kind can be perpetrated between Tory Ontario and Grit Quebec? Can an alliance of that nature be formed between the people of Ontario, who believe so deeply, and properly so, in public ownership, and the people of Quebec who, equally properly, for that is their tenet, believe exclusively in private ownership? Is it possible, is it feasible for Ontario and Quebec to blend? Is it likely that such a happy marriage as is predicted will result? As the great Laurier said on a somewhat similar occasion-and I may safely use the simile here-"When I 'think of the proposed agreement and the proposed marriage in this regard, I say, What a salad!"
It is an open secret that the National Hydro of Montreal is in the hands now of Aldred and Holt. We heard nothing about it previous to 1926; we heard nothing about it so long as Robert and the others held the charter. But the moment it goes over to the Holt interests then our Tory friends oppose the renewal of this charter. Let me say to my hon. friend from Quebec province that they know that the National Hydro is now in the joint hands of the Aldred and Holt interests. It is an open secret that the same interests which are now endeavouring to prevent the renewal of this charter are the same interests that in the last general election brought forth and supported in the province of Quebec the spectre of Patenaude. Again I say, what a salad 1
I appeal to the members of the maritimes to show in this matter vision and forethought. Here is a great project realizable at once as a means of bringing them near to the central and western provinces and enabling them to have relations more freely with the other sections of Canada. Here is something that will make for the development of trade between east and West. And trade is one of the elements most conducive to a better understanding between the peoples of different localities. The maritime provinces through this route will be able to ship their coal to the industries of northern Ontario, their ores to the smelters, and grain to the flour mills and elevators. The members of Quebec too, I know, are deeply interested in the maintenance of navigation on the St. Lawrence; they
are interested in the construction of a deep waterway to the great lakes. In passing, let me congratulate the hon. gentleman (Mr. Laflamme) who at the moment occupies the Speaker's chair.


The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr. Laflamme):: Thank you.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: To continue. The members from the province of Quebec are particularly interested in a deep waterway running through the whole of Canada over Canadian territory, while to the members from Montreal the maintenance of water levels around Montreal is a matter of considerable importance. There was also a resolution passed by the Chamber of Commerce of the city of Montreal calling Tor the immediate construction and maintenance of this canal, and probably it would be just as well to place that resolution on Hansard.
Whereas the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company is asking the parliament of Canada the prolongation of its charter for the construction of the Georgain bay canal; and
Whereas plans of the said company have been submitted to the government for approval or otherwise, which delays the beginning of the work;
It is resolved that the council of the Montreal Chamber of Commerce endorses the said demand of prolongation of the charter of the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company.
The chamber of commerce having always favoured this construction, prays the government of Canada to give its kind attention towards its realization, such being to greatly help the western provinces.


Edward Joseph Garland: What was
the date of the resolution?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: February 23, 1927. I
read from a copy, but I have now in my hand the certified copy sent me by the secretary of the chamber of commerce of Montreal. I say to my hon. friends from Montreal that there is something more than that. Some of them are interested in the construction of the St. Lawrence ship canals and I have something ' in that connection as well. A report of the joint board of engineers on the St. Lawrence waterways project was made on November 16, 1928. Three engineers were named to this board by the United 'States and the three selected to represent Canada were Mr. Duncan W. McLachlan, of the Department of Railways and Canals, Mr. Olivier O. Lefebvre, Chief Engineer, Quebec Streams Commission and Brigadier General Charles Hamilton Mitchell, of Toronto. Questions were put to this investigating board, and the answers are now embodied in this report. Among

Georgian Bay Canal Company

others they were asked the following question:
To what extent may Water levels in the St. Lawrence river at and below Montreal, as well as the river and lake levels generally, be affected by the execution of the project?
To that question they gave this answer:
The irresponsibe operation of the power works proposed by the board, or indeed of any power works, however designed, that develop fully the power resources of any section of the river, would affect injuriously the water levels in the St. Lawrence river at and below Montreal; but it is feasible to operate these works under government supervision in such a manner that they will neither lower the summer levels in the lower river nor raise the winter and spring levels. With such control the improvements proposed will have no injurious effect whatever on the water levels oij the St. Lawrence at and below Montreal.
Then for the benefit of my friends from the province of Quebec I would like to quote a portion of a telegram sent by the secretary of the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company to the premier of the province of Quebec:
We draw your attention to the fact that the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company is compelled by its charter to safeguard the interests of navigation and to operate its works on the Ottawa river in the interests of navigation and in the interest of maintaining water levels in the Ottawa river, Montreal harbour and in the St. Lawrence at the best levels for navigation. Clearly, if the riparian owner's are permitted to develop power only on the Ottawa river their works will fall within the dictum of the international joint board and will injuriously affect the levels of the Montreal harbour and in the lower St. Lawrence. We appeal to you in the first place to support the interests of navigation, in the second place to prevent the erection of water-power works on the Ottawa river which will injuriously affect the water levels in the Montreal harbour and the lower St. Lawrence; in the third place to use your influence to defend the great vested interests of your province established in the trade of the harbour of Montreal and the lower St. Lawrence generally and in the shipping and general commerce which is entirely dependent upon the maintenance and the protection of water levels in that area.
I would warn my good friends in Ontario of the danger of disturbing the economic equilibrium of this province by furthering so easily the monopolistic development of power in one section only in order to draw to that section commercial enterprises, to the detriment of other portions of Ontario. We all know that because of the situation in Ontario, power is being given to the immediate vicinity of Toronto and Hamilton while all the other portions of the province, especially those to the north, are ignored..

Then I would just say a word to hon. gentlemen directly opposite, who are also interested in cheap means of transportation, in the development of our resources and in the national development of Canada. More than that, I appeal to them because I know their independence; I know they are affiliated with no party in this House; I know the sincerity of their tenets and the loyalty with which they are adhered to, and I do not want anyone to accuse me of just saying this because of the expediency of the moment. I have said it before; I say it now and I will say it again no matter when or where. But I say also that not only because of what I have submitted to the House but because of the speeches made by other hon. members in favour of this measure, there should now be in their minds enough doubt and uncertainty to defeat this amendment, to allow the second reading of this bill and to send it to a committee, there to meet whatever its fate may be. I do not believe my friends opposite would think of killing this billin the House without giving to its promoters a chance to submit their own arguments; I think in their honesty of purpose and in their loyalty to themselves they will send this bill to a committee of this House where all questions will be thoroughly ventilated. If the members of that committee find that what I have said to-day is not true-although I defy anyone to say so-if they find that there are any objectionable features in that charter which should be removed, with the consent of the promoters that might be done. But if it is there found that the charter is fundamentally wrong and that there is something absolutely reprehensible about it, they can do as they please, kill it outright or let it linger. I do say, however, that it is incumbent upon those hon. members as well as upon every other member of this House to make sure that a question of this kind should be referred to a committee.
I have just a few more words to add. After all, Mr. Speaker, I am not so much concerned about the building of this canal and the exploitation of power as I am concerned with a matter of much greater importance. It is true that the construction of this canal and the exploitation of these water-powers are of great importance to the economic welfare of this common country of ours, but that has more to do with the material side of things. When our early Canadian statesmen laid the foundations of our present national development, they did not do so in terms of

Georyian Bay Canal Company
dollars and cents. They did not do it in the terms of interest to this one or to that one, and the criticisms hurled at them were far in excess of the congratulations which they received. To-day the works of Cartier, Macdonald, Mackenzie and Laurier stand out in our national life as everlasting tributes to the memories of these great men. The preaching of the development of our internal trade, of the getting closer together of the various provinces in an endeavour to cure their common ills, of the blending together in the hearts and souls and minds of the Canadian people of their common desires and ambitions made feasible their materialization into those bonds and ties of steel that to-day bind together the provinces of this country, and have their origin in the construction of such works as that of the Canadian Pacific railway.
But that is not enough, we must not stop here. Much more needs to be done; much more can be done to bring closer together in one common spirit the various forces and elements of this country. Uttering this sentiment is good, preaching it is good also, but the furnishing of the means to achieve the desired end is better, and that can only be done by the construction and the maintenance of such works as the one under review, a work which will bring the component parts of this country into closer commercial relations and thereby to a better understanding and a rapid solution of their respective needs.


Mr. J. L. BROWN (Lisgar):: I could almost have wished, Sir, that the hon. gentleman who preceded me (Mr. Chevrier) had continued for another fifteen or twenty minutes, or finished fifteen or twenty minutes sooner. I am not sure that I shall be able to conclude my remarks within the half hour which remains before the House takes recess for dinner, but I shall try my best to do so.
I shall not, Sir, as has been done quite frequently by hon. members opposite, ride a different horse to-day from the steed I rods ten years ago. I do not think we can accomplish much by doing that.


Robert James Manion: Not if it is a good horse.


John Livingstone Brown: It is true that we sometimes like to twit our genial friend over there with having made a change in recent times, but I will do it in an entirely good natured way. If a man makes a change-


James Arthurs: There are others.


John Livingstone Brown: Yes, of course. If a man makes a change honestly he is not to be reproved. Therefore, after all, Mr. Speaker,
32649-89}	.
the difference between the patriot and the traitor, between the convert and the pervert, depends simply upon the point of view. I have never objected to a man changing his horse once in ten years. I do not like to see him change too quickly, or try to ride two horses in opposite directions at the same time, which of course is an entirely different matter.
I wish to say, as some other gentlemen have said, that I have no personal interest in this matter. I have not been canvassed by anybody, and I have not been lobbied by anybody, either for this bill or against it. I have come to my conclusion in regard to the bill, and the manner in which it should be disposed of, entirely from my general knowledge of the subject, as well as from the provisions of the bill itself and the arguments which have been advanced in the House. It ought to be a matter of gratification to those who believe in public ownership to hear the expressions of opinion that have come from across the House, even if we cannot believe there is as complete unanimity as the speeches which have been made on that side would seem to indicate.
An hon. member from Toronto made the remark that the line of cleavage between those in favour of public ownership and those in favour of private ownership ran down the centre of the House. I think in that respect he is entirely wrong. It seems to me that if you tried to draw a line between those in favour of public and those in favour of private ownership, it would cross the House a great number of times in order to include or exclude the hon. members in one or the other of these two classes. I cannot understand how it could possibly include those who would defend the order in council of August 26th last, neither do I think it could include those who were elected in response' to the "whisper of death" campaign that was carried on in Montreal some years ago. While we have heard many declarations in favour of public ownership from the other side it seems to me that I could detect at times a somewhat different note, a note that was not just as completely devoted to the idea of public ownership. Tor instance we could detect the note of the assertion of provincial rights. That, it seems to me, was a thought far more prominent in the minds of some of the speakers than the idea of public ownership.
I wish to call attention to the speech that was made by the hon. member for Toronto Northeast (Mr. Young). I need not read the

Georgian Bay Canal (Tompany
passages from his speech where he emphasized his attachment to the idea of public ownership. Having done that-of course, with all the fervour that might characterize the hon. member for Rosetown (Mr. Evans), or the hon. member for North Winnipeg (Mr. Heaps) or the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth)-later on in his speech he said, speaking of the matter dealt with by the order in council of August 26th:
I repeat again, that the National hydro contract to which my hon. friend from Marquette (Mr. Glen) referred, was a contract approved by both the provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
That is, he is intensely devoted to the * principle of public ownership, but when the government of Ontario sets its seal of approval upon a contract that violates all those principles, then his adhesion to the principle of public ownership goes by the board.
There is another need that seems to have been emphasized by some hon. gentlemen opposite, and that is the question of the St. Lawrence waterway. I have no doubt that-the matter of the deepening of the St. Lawrence had1 some place in the thoughts of my hon. friend from Fort William-


Robert James Manion: Hear, hear.


John Livingstone Brown: -for we know he is very greatly attached to that project. I am not going to find any fault with him for that, but in speaking of this matter the leader of the opposition used an argument that seemed to me to be absolutely fallacious. He contended it would not be wise for us to construct a waterway that might enter into competition with those other great lines of transportation that we have in mind-the St. Lawrence waterway, and I suppose he referred to our National Railways. I cannot see force in the argument that we should not allow a private right to compete with public enterprises, and the argument loses its force entirely when you remember that if the St. Lawrence waterway is ever constructed, the canals thereon will be thrown open to the public free, and we will not collect any revenue from them. Why then is it unwise for us to grant a charter in respect to a waterway coming into competition with another waterway from which the Dominion of Canada receives no revenue at all? If the argument is good against the Georgian bay canal scheme that it should not be allowed to enter into competition with our railways, the same argument is just as good against the St. Lawrence waterway. As a matter of fact that argument has been used against the construction of the 'St. Lawrence waterway-that it will enter into competition with our railways. I put these arguments

aside altogether, however, because I do not think they have any weight.
I can understand the attitude of hon. members from Ontario in regard to this matter because of the question of provincial rights. Naturally they have their attention fixed upon their constituencies; naturally they know what the people in their constituencies want, and if it became a conflict between the Dominion and provincial interests the weight of their support would go in favour of maintaining provincial interests. That is an understandable position from the standpoint of hon. members from Ontario; but we in this House ought to emphasize the interests of the Dominion. If there is a conflict between the interests of the Dominion of Canada and those of Ontario or Quebec, we should attach some importance to the interests of the Dominion of Canada.
What then is the situation? This is a measure which proposes to deal with a great internal waterway, a waterway that for three centuries has been a highway of commerce and traffic between Montreal and the Rocky mountains. That is a highway which the Dominion of Canada is interested in preserving for the use of the Dominion, and that is something to which we as representatives of constituencies in this Dominion parliament ought to give attention. We cannot for a moment concede that the people of Ontario and Quebec are the only ones who are interested in this matter. We who represent other parts of the Dominion 'have also an interest in seeing that, Whatever jmay be done in the development of this waterway, the interests of the Dominion as a whole are protected.
We have heard a great deal during the course of the debate about legal decisions -that have been rendered in favour of the claims of the provinces. I do not know enough about law or court decisions to know just what those decisions are or how far they go in determining the various matters at issue, but there is in the British North America Act a section that 'would bear study. Section 92 deals with the exclusive powers of provincial legislatures, and in subsection 10 we find that these matters are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the province:
Local works and understakings other than such as are of the following classes:

a.	Lines of steam or other ships, railways, canals, telegraphs, and other works and undertakings connecting the province with any other or others of the provinces, or extending beyond the limits of the province:
b.	Lines of steamships between the province and any British or foreign country:

Georgian Bay Canal Company
Such works as, although wholly situate within the province, are before or after their execution declared by the parliament of Canada to be for the general advantage of Canada or for ' the advantage of two or more of the provinces.
Therefore this parliament has the power to declare this work to be for the general advantage of Canada. Whether that should be done or not, I am not at the present time arguing; but I just want to point out that as there undoubtedly is a conflict between provincial and Dominion interests in this matter, this parliament has the power to declare that this particular work is not a matter in which the provinces alone are concerned, but that it is or may be a work for the general advantage of the people of Canada. The provinces and the Dominion alike derive their powers from this British North America Act. I am not a lawyer, but I think it is clear that this section is worthy of consideration in this connection. The leader of the opposition, speaking of the powers that lay within the jurisdiction of the province, made certain statements, but I notice that in section 91, which deals with the powers of parliament, subsection 12 includes "sea coast and inland fisheries." Therefore, when he declared that the fish in the stream belong to the provinces, that does not seem to me so absolutely beyond dispute unless some astute legal gentleman can show a distinction between fish and fisheries. Perhaps someone may be able to do that. We never know just how far astute legal arguments may carry. It would not at least seem to be so dear as hon. gentlemen have been endeavouring to assert, that the rights of the provinces are supreme in such matters as these.
Let us deal with the bill itself and I will try to state in terms that will not be misunderstood my attitude towards this question. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) produced the farmers' platform of Manitoba. I might as well confess that I had something to do with the preparation of that platform. I had the honour at the time of being president of the United Farmers of Manitoba and when we drew up that platform I was present. Indeed I am not sure that the particular clause referred to was not my own wording, and I . have no intention of departing from the position which I took then. I am opposed to the principle of this bill and I do not think it is possible to amend it in a way that would satisfy me. I think that is plain and definite enough for anybody.
What about the amendment? Technically, I admit that the amendment is correct. Undoubtedly the leader of the opposition when
he appealed to May, supported as he was by Bourinot, was correct in saying what he did in support of his amendment. I need not refer to his argument because it is well known. But while he is technically correct, it seems to me that the carrying of that amendment would not altogether meet the needs of the situation, because in my judgment it would leave unsettled a very important matter, a matter with which I think this House ought to deal promptly. The carrying of that amendment, it is true, would, so far as this House is concerned, put the whole question for the time being to one side. If we were to think of that amendment only in its own terms and no further, I for my part would have no objection to voting for it, but I think we are under an obligation to look further. Since I have been in this House I have learned that it is sometimes just as well, if you can get somewhere near where you want to go, to forget technicalities. Therefore, at the risk of being charged with inconsistency, I propose to take the other course. I have no hope that this particular bill can be amended in any way that will suit my views. My hope, in sending this matter to the committee, would be that from that committee might come some constructive proposition that would help us to deal properly with a great national problem. Now, somebody may say that this is not the right way to do it. It may not be the best way, it may not be the only way, but it seems to me that it is at least a good way.
We have heard a great many statements from both sides of the House in regard to the various interests that are concerning themselves with this or a kindred project for the development of power at the Carillon falls. What the exact situation is we have not the privilege of knowing. I think it well that we should know just as soon as possible what the exact situation is, and it seems to me that that could be brought out if this matter were placed before a committee of this House. I have no objection whatever to the terms of the amendment, but its acceptance would prevent our giving immediate consideration to the question. The great problem before Canada to-day is how we are to develop these great natural resources so that the people will receive the maximum good therefrom. It is with the hope that we may be able to do something immediately to solve the problem that I would cast aside technicalities and allow this matter to be referred to the committee, where we can get further information and probably suggestions that would be helpful to us. For example, it might very well be

Georgian Bay Canal Company
suggested that at once parliament should declare this whole work to be a work for the general advantage of Canada. I am mot saying that that would be done, but it is a possibility. It might be that the committee would suggest an immediate conference between the Dominion and the provinces. It might be that half a dozen suggestions would be made to bring us at once to grips with the situation. I have confidence enough in the members of this House, and certainly in the group with which I am immediately associated, to know that they stand absolutely firm on the question of the public control and development and operation of this great natural work for the general good of the people. There need be no question in the mind of any person on that point.
Speaking for myself, I take the position that we should send this bill to the committee, only in the hope that from the committee will come some suggestion to enable us to settle the question in the interests of the Dominion, whose rights in this great waterway are paramount. We cannot allow the interests of navigation to be sacrificed. I do not think for a moment that in the immediate future such a canal will be built either by private parties or by the Dominion; but who can foresee the future, who can tell us what the condition will be fifty years hence? We do not know. Whatever step we do take we must see to it that the rights of the Dominion in this great inland waterway are not permanently sacrificed. The rights of the Dominion must be protected. At the same time we must, of course, give consideration to the rights of the provinces. It is quite possible, as I have said, that this can be best done by a conference between the Dominion authorities and the representatives of the provinces. I am satisfied, Mr. Speaker, that this could be so done as to secure the end that we have in view-that these great natural resources shall be preserved and developed in such a way as to secure the maximum benefit for the great mass of the common people of Canada.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess
The House resumed at eight o'clock.


James Arthurs: You may remember, Mr. Speaker, that I was a member of the committee which was formed a year or so ago for the purpose of amending the rules of this House and making speeches as short as possible. Perhaps I should

apologize for taking part in the debate now, because I spoke for a few moments on the original motion. I shall not, however, occupy the time of the House longer than the time originally proposed for speeches in the amended rules-half an hour, or at the most, forty minutes, as the recommendation now stands.
My hon. friend from Lisgar (Mr. Brown) spent about half an hour trying to defend an absolutely impossible position. I might take his argument in the reverse order in which he presented it. His last proposition was that nothing should be done in this matter until a conference had been held between the two provinces. So far as that is concerned, there is no difference of opinion between the idea of the province of Ontario and that of the province of Quebec. Secondly, he says we should forget all technicalities, no matter what they were, as long as they got us where we wanted to go. I have no doubt that the hon. gentleman forgot all the technicalities that he ever knew, so long as they got him half way to the place to which he wanted to go. In other words, for many years he was strongly in favour of the Georgian bay canal, and now he is making an attempt in this House to hedge in every possible way.


John Livingstone Brown: Does the hon. member say
that I was for many years in favour of the Georgian bay -proposition?


James Arthurs: Yes, I said that.


John Livingstone Brown: I do not know how my
hon. friend got that impression.


James Arthurs: Every member from my
hon. friend's constituency, and every, member of the delegation which came from the constituency, and made representations to the government on the subject, took the same attitude, and I am sure my hon. friend did not oppose the decision to send the delegation down here.
He said that this proposition should go before the committee in order that parliament should pronounce upon the question whether or not the work was for the general advantage of Canada. The hon. member is exactly thirty-three years behind the times. In every act passed by the railway committee * of this parliament the first clause provides that "this act is for the general advantage of Canada," and this clause has appeared in this bill since 1894, so that my hon. friend is wrong there.
I want to take up for a few moments the argument, or the want of argument, of my hon. friend from Ottawa (Mr. Chevrier). He

Georgian Bay Canal Company
made a very fine peroration. He started off by throwing this matter into a political arena, without any question of doubt, making a dividing line from Mr. Speaker to the other end of the chamber.


John Livingstone Brown: That line was drawn by the hon. member for South Toronto (Mr. Geary).


James Arthurs: I am not talking about the hon. member for South Toronto, but the hon. member for Ottawa, and to-day he made exactly the statement I am making now. He drew a political line, and my hon. friend (Mr. Brown) tried to get away from that line, to hedge around it, or craw1! under it, or something of that kind. In fact he did not know what position he took, but the position of the hon. member for Ottawa was plain and distinct. In the early part of his remarks he made it a political question. Later on he spoke about sanguinary purposes and so on, and tried to connect the name of my hon. friend from Calgary (Mr. Bennett) with certain organizations in favour of one or other of the parties who are lined against us in favour of this scheme. He wias not very successful, and after that he appealed to everybody generally. He appealed to the members of parliament, the members from Quebec, the members from Montreal, and after he had made that distinct appeal to those members whom he knew were unfavourable to this canal project, or any other canal project for that matter, he appealed to the members from the west, and the only rise he got was from the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown)-the only member who would support him at this time.
When I spoke on this question previously I said without any equivocation that I believed this matter should go to the committee, the reason being that I believed in the canal. But I do not believe in the company. I have perfect faith in the canal scheme. I have no knowledge for or against the company which is behind the proposition at the present time. I have no reason to know, nor have I any reason to believe, that any set of parties, whether they be Siftons or Holts, are behind the proposition, and I do not care whether thej' are or not. All we ask is certain safeguards, and we can go along regardless of who may be behind the company. We believe that if any power is developed in the process of constructing the canal along the Ottawa river or the Frenoh river, or any portion of either or both of them, that power shall be under the control, eus to its distribution and price, of the Hydro Electric Commission, or of such other body as is appointed
by the province of Ontario, so far as Ontario rights are concerned. We believe equally that any power generated which belongs to the province of Quebec should be under the control of some body appointed by that province as to exportation or as to price.
The people of northern Ontario are absolutely in favour of this canal. They do not care anything about the power proposition, nor are they concerned with the company. As a matter of fact this canal project has been before the country for many years. The bill now under consideration is to all intents and purposes, according to parliamentary rules, one of a private nature, although I would point out to the ministry and particularly to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) that it is not a private bill in the ordinary sense of the word. The charter has been opposed by Quebec and Ontario, the only two provinces in the Dominion that are interested in the matter; and the bill is being opposed likewise. This is consequently a government question on which the government should say either yes or no. They should be prepared to state whether they are ready to dispose of any of the rights that they may have in any or all of the streams, international or interprovincial, running through this country, or whether they are going to allow any or all companies to have charter rights along those streams. And the number of international and interprovincial streams in Canada are very few, and this is one of them. I have no doubt that the average man in Ontario and Quebee is awaiting a pronouncement from the government to the effect I suggest, but the only information we have had from the ministerial side comes from the Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning), who declares in favour of submitting the bill to the committee-for what purpose? To pass it? I think not. I think the government is tiying in a quiet and easy way to kill the bill or, in other words, to have an opportunity of disposing of this power without the interference of this particular company.
For many years practically all of the provinces were in favour of this canal. Speaking for Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and the eastern provinces generally, I think it was the Consensus that this canal should be built: first, on the ground that it is all Canadian; secondly, that it would be over 300 miles shorter than the projected St. Lawrence route; thirdly, that it was cheaper to build; and in the fourth place- this is a secondary consideration-that it would not be affected by the levels of the great lakes. Originally the canal was projected on the basis of a nine-foot depth, to

Georgian Bay Canal Company
be built by the Georgian Bay Canal Company, and the next proposition was put forward, not by the canal company but by the Canadian Pacific Railway, who made complete survey of the French river section of the canal. I believe that had it not been for their financial condition at that time they would have 'built the canal on the basis of a sixteen-foot depth from the mouth of the French river to North Bay. We must bear in mind that when this proposition was put forward there was no such place as Cobalt. When the Canadian Pacific Railway were about to undertake the building of this section of the canal there was in northern Ontario no mining country of any description: Cobalt was entirely unknown and the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway had not even been projected. Indeed, even after the originally proposed depth had been increased to twenty or twenty-two feet our great paper mills of northern Ontario, which to-day are producing the greater proportion of our paper exports, had not been contemplated.
The government of Canada, under the administration of the present Prime Minister's predecessor, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, had a survey made of the whole canal proposition from one end to the other, although the report was submitted after that government had gone out of power. During their regime, however, a commission was appointed to look into the matter, and that commission afterwards reported. The commission cost Canada approximately one and a quarter million dollars and their report was that the canal scheme was absolutely feasible in every way. Nay, more, they said that there was not the slightest doubt that there would be plenty of water not only for the present but for the future. The building of the canal was delayed in many ways. In the first place there was the uncertainty as to capital; and, secondly, notwithstanding the favourable report of the commission, nothing could be done on account of the war, which came on soon afterwards. Next, a proviso was embodied in the charter whereby the government reserved the right to control this enterprise at all stages, so that no construction could be started until they agreed to the plans of the company. So far as I am aware these plans have never been agreed to by this or any other government. Another difficulty was this. After the government had taken away the power rights and had declared that all power generated should be at the disposal of the railway commission, and that no tolls should be charged on the canal, the company naturally asked for a guarantee of their bonds at three per cent; and this being refused, no construction has taken place.
IMr. Arthurs.]
Many of us on this side of the House were more or less opposed to the building of the present or the prospective Welland canal. The Welland canal now in course of construction was proposed by a government of which I was a humble follower, and the engineers' estimate was $50,000,000. We have already spent approximately $110,000,000 on that canal and the only result is that we are benefiting or will benefit ports on the American side. We have on the Canadian side no harbours which can receive boats of the capacity of the new Welland canal. The harbour of Toronto accommodates vessels of about sixteen feet, Cobourg, of about eleven feet, and so on along the lakes. The fact is that all deep water channels are along the other side of lake Ontario. Now, I believe the St. Lawrence oanal scheme is a good thing, and I have nothing against it. But Why should we not build from the ocean up? Why spend $110-
000.000 on the Welland canal when it is estimated that $108,000,000 would build canals up to lake Ontario? Our eastern friends can bring up their coal gradually ns the canals are built into the province of Ontario, but if you start at the Welland canal and work down the inevitable result will be that their American competitors will follow the canals mile by mile, and instead of getting coal or other products from Nova Scotia we in Ontario will find that American trade is using that canal.
I would also like to call the attention of the government to a very important point in connection with this proposition. It is all very well to sit back and say, we are going to build the Welland canal, or the St. Lawrence system or some other canal, at a cost of $500,000,000 or $800,000,000 or $1,400,000,000; the same proposition will come up in each case. Where are you going to get the water and how are you going to get the harbours? Our friends from Montreal know very well that there is very serious danger to the ship channel between Montreal and the ocean; they know that even there the level is being lowered. I hold in my hand a return of this House under date of February 28, in answer to a question as to what action the government had taken to ascertain the levels of the various lakes, and also to inquire what action had been taken in regard to a protest or claim at Washington. In answer to that we are told that the lowering of the level in lake Huron due to the Chicago drainage canal has been 0.5 feet, and that the lowering of the level due to the removal of gravel from lake St. Clair was 0.6 feet, or in all a lowering of 1.1 feet. I was not satisfied with that answer and asked a question later in this

Georgian Bay Canal Company
House, the answer to which I now hold in my hand. The question reads:
1.	Having regard to sessional paper No. 118, question No. 1. has any department of the government kept any record of the levels of the great lakes or any part thereof, for all or part of the last ten years?
2.	If so, what does such report show as above or below zero?
3.	What is zei'o for each of the great lakes?
The important part of the answer is that
given to question No. 2. According to this answer the actual lowering of levels as shown by the Department of Marine and Fisheries -not by the International Joint Commission, which showed a loss of 1.1 feet in lake Huron, one-half of which was attributable to the Chicago drainage canal-as measured daily and hourly throughout the year, is given as 3.19 feet, or 2.09 feet more than was given in a return to a question which was passed as an order for return four or five days previously. The thing is absolutely absurd. Those of us who live on the shores of the great lakes know very well that the levels of those lakes are lowering very fast, and that something must be done in this regard.
As I said before, Mr. Speaker, I am in favour of a canal but not a power scheme. I am quite willing to allow this bill to go to any committee of this House or to be thrown out by the House provided that the government will guarantee one or two very simple things. I have not the slightest doubt that each member of the government will say that in any power project along the St. Lawrence river the Dominion government will see that proper safeguards are included, and that no dam or other work be placed on that river unless and until such safeguards to the navigation of that stream have been provided. We believe that any dam or other work placed on the Ottawa or French rivers should also provide these safeguards in ever)' case. In many cases according to the plans of the government no additional cost will be entailed but in even the most extreme instance the additional cost cannot exceed more than 2 per cent to 5 per cent at the most, because each one of these lockheads so placed would act as a sluiceway in case of emergency, and that is one of the principal things we desire. If the government will say they are prepared to guarantee that in all these waters under their jurisdiction provision will be made to safeguard navigation according to the plans of their own engineers, I am quite prepared to back up the government in this proposition. That was the most important point I desired to bring out. I have already pointed out
that at the time the original charter for this canal was granted the resources of our north country were practically unknown; we had no mines in northern Ontario, no pulp and paper mills, and nothing of that kind was thought, of. This was then simply a canal scheme for the purpose of exporting grain from western Canada.
I do not know that I need go any further, Mr. Speaker. Just in conclusion- I might say that I am opposed to any private interest in this matter, and would far rather see this canal constructed under public ownership. As I have already said, all we are asking is that the government shall safeguard not only the interests of Ontario and Quebec so far as power is concerned but the interests of the people from Montreal to Mattawa and from the Georgian bay to lake Nipissing so far as navigation is concerned, and this will be found to be a small matter in comparison to the complete project.


Edward Joseph Garland: Mr. Speaker, I have no apology to offer for addressing the House to-night on this subject, because I do not think a question of greater importance has come before parliament during the five sessions I have had the honour of occupying a seat in this House. In my opinion the Petersen contract of such odoriferous fame was a mere bagatelle, so far as the evil nature of the contract was concerned, as compared to the charter now before us. At the outset of my remarks I would like to brand this charter as the most glaring example of commercial and political brigandage attempted in this House during my time, and for a parallel we will have to go back to the old days of railway exploitation, on which the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) is so well informed.	.
For a few moments now I wish to deal with the speech of the promoter of the bill, made this afternoon by the hon. senior member for Ottawa (Mr. Chevrier). At the outset he described the amendment of the hon. leader of the opposition as a smoke screen, and declared that the smoke screen was getting thinner and thinner as the debate proceeded. Well, that may be, but if a smoke screen was created, the only wind that is dissipating that smoke scieen is the aroused public opinion against the bill; it has not been the speech of the hon. member for Ottawa, (Mr. Chevrier). I had awaited his speech with intense interest in the hope that he would give us some arguments on behalf of the bill. He failed in his entire speech to produce a single argument as to why the bill should be supported. All he
Georgian Bay Canal Company

told us was: let it go to the -committee and there I will give you all the information. Well, we want the information now before we let the bill go to committee. We are trying to get what light we can, and I have, in my humble way, Sir, done all I could to secure the fullest knowledge of the question.
It is not so very many weeks since one of the kindly directors, a director I think he is, of this company asked me to give him an interview. I did so. I am always glad to have any gentleman inside or outside the House come and see me. In the course of the interview this gentleman aroused my interest on this question; -and on that point itself, Mr. Speaker, let me ask you to refer for a moment to some of the editorials written on the question of lobbying. Lobbying is declared by the Ottawa Journal to be a very fearful thing today, especially that of the professional lobbyist. Well, the professional lobbyist may have some influence upon some hon. gentlemen, but, I wish to assure you that the only influence thi3 lobbyist had upon me was to make me go further for some information of more value.
My ho-n. frienid from Ottawa (Mr. Chevrier) was kind enough subsequently to allow me to read -the brief which he possesses on behalf of this company. I think indeed he called it his own brief, and he allowed me to take it away with me and also to use it now. For that courtesy I thank him. I intend to use the brief, and I hope to use it to better advantage than the hon. gentleman, with all his eloquence, did this afternoon.
The hon. gentleman talked of a smoke screen, and yet the very first attempt on his part to influence the House was to draw another smoke screen into the debate by making a general allegation against the Ontario Hydro Electric Commission in support of which he did not produce a single tittle of evidence. He questioned the management of public ownership, but he did not tell us why. I gave him an opportunity. I asked him in what respects it failed. He waved the question to one side as a matter of absolutely no importance, and declined to clear up the very smoke screen that he himself had spread in this chamber. Well, I do not wish to go into that matter at any length, but in order not to leave the impression that he tried to leave upon the House-I do not think the impression was left, but he tried to leave it- let me again quote from a statement that has already been quoted in this debate; it is worth requoting:
The other day-[DOT]

Said the hon. member for one of the Winnipeg constituencies:
-I noticed the Electrical World, one of the most reliable of American magazines in this field, estimated in its issue of January 2, 1926, that the grand total of electrical consumption in the United States during 1925 was 47,997,000,000 kilowatt hours for which was paid $1,389,000,000, or an average of 2.9 cents per kilowatt hour.
Commenting on this ail American writer points to Ontario-
Under the Hydro Electric Commission, which -the hon. gentleman waves to one side as guilty of violating the principles of public ownership and of questionable management.
-as the bright spot on this continent in respect to cheap light, heat and power, and states: The grand total of Ontario sales was 1,157,-
000.000 kilowatt hours for which the people paid $19,137,000, or an average of 1.65 cents per kilowatt hour.
As compared with 2.9 cents in the United States. He says:
"If," we Americans had paid Ontario rates, wre would have saved ourselves in 1925, $600,000,000.
Surely that speaks well for the management of hydro electric; that speaks well for public ownership in the province of Ontario.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I do not wish unnecessarily to interrupt my hon. friend, but will he say that under a different management of the Ontario Hydro the cost would not be quite as much as it is now?


Edward Joseph Garland: It would be very difficult for me to enter the field of prophecy in a matter so extremely technical as this, but let me say that when the principle of public ownership, applied in a practical way in the province of Ontario, has secured such very satisfactory results over private ownership in the United States for which he is an advocate, it speaks very well for -public ownership.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: My hon. friend will admit it is not conclusive.


Edward Joseph Garland: It is more conclusive than any of the arguments my hon. friend used this afternoon.
The hon. gentleman then continued his exudation of the smoke screen, like one of those little aeroplanes that sometimes hover over the centre of New York city advertising ' cigarettes, and he reasoned very plausibly, but hardly logically, that the reason for the Conservative opposition-far be it from me to defend hon. gentlemen to my right, who do not need any defense in this case-the reason for

Georgian Bay Canal Company
their opposition was, if you please, because Mr. R. B. Bennett was a director of this new company? that is of the International Paper Company-that Mr. Southam was a competitor, or presumed competitor, of the Sifton interests-and that Mr. Smeaton White was another. It was very fortunate indeed that there was an hon. gentleman in the chamber at the time who was wise enough to take up the hon. gentleman's statement and to ask him to read the other names on the board of directors. Without going any further into that I think I may say that the answer the hon. member for West Calgary (Mr. Bennett) gave the hon. gentleman from Ottawa entirely destroyed that argument; indeed, it did not leave a fragment of it existing.
Then the hon. gentleman went on to say- and this, by the way, is an exceedingly interesting point-that the reason why the Ottawa Citizen is opposed to the Georgian bay canal is because Mr. Southam is a director of the Canadian International Paper Company. Well, it was an amazing statement, for which the hon. gentleman did not bring any proof; he simply made the assertion It may be quite true, I am not going to defend Mr. Southam. The hon. gentleman then said that he could , not state why the Ottawa Journal was opposed to the canal, and leaves us to assume as the reason the fact that it is a Conservative organ, but let me submit that the hon. gentleman overlooked many important papers. He overlooked for example the Toronto Globe. He will not say what personal interest the Toronto Globe has in opposing this charter or supporting the Holt interests of Montreal. He overlooked the Hamilton Herald, he overlooked the Port Hope Times, he overlooked the Gananoque Reporter, he overlooked the Brantford Expositor the Kingston Whig-Standard, the Hamilton Spectator, the St. Catharines Standard, and a dozen other papers, every one of which is unanimously, bitterly and unalterably opposed to the renewal of this vicious charter.
He then went on to discuss what is known as the lease to the National Hydro in Quebec, and he properly referred to the fact that the Conservative government in 1926, when in office for a few months, did renew an old lease endowing it with enormously increased powers. But he did not give us the history of that transaction; he did not tell us any more about it. Well, I will just summarize briefly what took place in regard to the Carillon power development in connection with the National Hydro. The first lease for the development of Carillon power was granted many years ago, not by my hon. friends to my right but by the gentleman who is now the Hon.
Senator George P. Graham. Senator Graham was then and is now a Liberal. The lease itself received several extensions, and just prior to the 1921 election the administration under Mr. Meighen granted a lease for a much greater amount of power development. This lease was also extended from time to time until two years ago, when an attempt was made to secure a lease for the development of all the available horse power at that point. This lease was never agreed to, was never signed. Why? Because there had arisen the question of provincial rights with respect to water. There is no question whatever that under the British North America Act once the Ottawa river had been declared a navigable stream the federal government assumed rights over navigation and to the water needed for navigation. But in addition to that there is the justifiable and asserted claim of the provinces for their share of the power possible of development from their share of the stream. Therefore, before this lease could be signed or agreed to, both the provinces had objected with the result that the lease was never signed and never agreed to. In 1926, however, as the hon. member for Ottawa (Mr. Chevrier) has stated, the hon. member for West York (Sir Henry Drayton), who was at that time I think Acting Minister of Railways, renewed the lease giving enormously extended powers. May I say I think that was a usurpation of power out of keeping altogether with the present attitude of the Conservative party?


James Arthurs: If, as the hon. member
says, the right of the provinces is absolute without a question of doubt, what possible right would the Dominion have to grant any of these powers to any company?


Edward Joseph Garland: It so hap-pent that there is a little navigation canal built at Carillon I believe by the Department of Public Works which gave the Dominion authority over a certain quantity of power there. There was a canal built and authority was given many years ago to a company of which the National Hydro of Montreal is the successor, to develop a certain small horse power from the flow of water. Subsequently they came for more powers, but the question of provincial rights had risen especially in connection with the development of public ownership in Ontario.
I need not deal much further with the hon. gentleman's speech. He went on to assail hon. members to my right because certain of their number had in past days signed certain memorials advocating the construction of this
Georgian Bay Canal Company
-COMMONS
canal. Frankly speaking, I cannot see what that has to do with the problem before us. They may have done so, it is true, for political expediency or any other reason, but this has nothing to do with the question and instead the hon. gentleman should have been raising arguments on behalf of this project.
The hon. member in a sort of premature- I hardly know what to call it-eulogy described the altruism of the Sifton interests and in glowing terms, continuing of course his smokescreen tactics, went on to talk of Canada for the Canadians. If the hon. gentleman had said to this House that this bill rather meant Canada for the Siftons, he would have been a great deal closer to the truth. For the life of me I fail to see what interest Canadians will have in the bill after the Sifton interests get hold of it.
Let us examine this question for a few moments. A deep waterway canal is the alleged objective of the bill and the hon. member goes on to say that there has never been any serious obstacle to the proposal as a constructive project. This afternoon in the course of his speech he raised the point saying that there was no question as to the feasibility of the canal. Then, without describing in detail the feasibility of the project, he went on with his speech. As a matter of fact the hon, gentleman's assertion was not correct. There has always been the gravest doubt a3 to the feasibility of this canal and in a moment I will give the House a few opinions in that regard. Let me, however, suggest to him and to his administration that it would have been much wiser, before sponsoring this bill, if he and his friends had taken the trouble to study certain of the memoranda submitted in days past by the engineers of the Department of Public Works to the administration. Amongst them we find one dated in- the year 1925 dealing with the plans to which my hon. friend referred this afternoon and which were then submitted to the administration. This is a memorandum to the deputy minister and signed by K. M. Cameron, chief engineer of the Department of Public Works. The memorandum, which is dated January 2, 1925, reads:
With respect to the application of the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company for approval of plan submitted with their letter of December 18, 1924, to the Governor General in Council, the plan covering that section of the Ottawa river between Hawkesbury, Ontario, and Pointe Fortune, Quebec, it is noted that the plan is an adaptation of the suggested route and layout of works as embodied in the 1908 report by the Public Works department on the proposed Georgian bay ship canal.

It was merely an adaptation of an old plan made by the engineers in 1908.
That project was based on the then existing depth for navigation in the great lakes and proposed depth of 22 feet on the sills of the locks, the locks to be 650 feet in length and 65 feet in width.
I wish at this point to make the assertion, which is of course supported in these memoranda, that this company of which my hon. friend is the advocate in this House has never yet submitted to the department a single plan of a concrete or concise nature. The government has never dared to give sanction to or approval of a single plan submitted, and to this very moment the government itself knows that the Sifton interests behind this bill have not a single intention, as shown by any plans of building a canal. The report of the engineer would confirm that. It reads:
The government has before it in report No. 2 of the inter-departmental committee on the St. Lawrence waterway the findings and recommendations of that committee on the most advantageous dimensions for the St. Lawrence waterway. As the canalization of the Ottawa would be a side, and possibly alternative route for the St. Lawrence waterway


The very argument used by my hon. friend. -the dimensions of the locks and channels should be made to conform with those recommended for the St. Lawrence waterways. The plan is very general in the information it gives as to the proposals of the company. Before, however, any work is allowed to be done by the company it is recommended that the company agree, in writing, to furnish additional plans and information in accordance with the following recommendations.
The engineer then goes on to give a number of recommendations, many of which should be placed on the records of the House, but it may	save time	if	I submit	this	long
report for publication in Hansard. It should be in the hands of hon. members but I hesitate to delay the House in reading it. The recommendations are as follows:
1.	Locks on the canal to be 30 feet deep
over the sills, 80 feet wide at the chamber and have a clear length of 800 feet in the chamber; the depth	of	water in	the	canal
reaches to be 27\ feet below low water for the reach.
2.	To	submit for	approval further	plansshowing	the details	of	the dam	or	dams
proposed, of the nature of the foundations of the dams as disclosed by borings, of the regulating works and of the power installation.
3.	The dam or dams to be designed, constructed and provided with a highway 20 feet clear width with a 4-foot sidewalk, with suitable approaches from one shore to the other, the highway to be capable of carrying 15-ton motor truck loads. Tolls for the use of the bridge to be as approved by the railway commission of Canada.
4.	To submit plans in detail for approval showing: (a) Areas of lands to be flooded and

Georgian Bay Canal Company
areas where flowage rights are to be acquired, with book of reference, and assessed damages;
(b)	Areas of lands to be acquired for right of way and works of the canal, with book of reference, including all federal government lands, works, or properties to be taken over, and valuation;
(c)	Plan, profile, sections and elevations of proposed canal, locks, channels, and works, showing soundings, borings, nature of materials of construction, details of construction and specifications covering works to be performed;
(d)	Location, plan and proposed type, size, loading and clearances of all bridges;
(e)	Location, plan and profile, size and capacity of all culverts and sewers with plans of areas to be drained;
(f)	Location, plan and profile, size, capacity, method of construction of all water supply systems for domestic and other purposes;
(g)	All plans and specifications submitted for approval to bear the signature of an engineer or engineers of recognized standing, to be dated and to have a distinguishing number;
(h)	Working plans or plans of work as actually built, and specifications, to be provided as soon as any part or parts of work are completed.
5.	To submit for approval before any work is undertaken a schedule or order of performance of the various works embraced in the general scheme.
6.	That officials of the Public Works department shall have access to and free control of the operation of the compensating or of the regulating sluices wherever situated, and shall have the right to measure the discharge of the various channels and passages and to adjust the flow in the public interest, any expense becoming a lien against the property of the company.
7.	The company to furnish, without cost, to the Public Works department copies of its records of the flow- of the Ottawa river in such terms, at such times and based on ratings satisfactory to the chief engineer, Public Works department, as that officer may require.
8.	The company shall save the government harmless should the construction of works in the St. Lawrence or Ottawa river above or below the proposed works, affect the level of the river above or below the works, and shall save the government harmless should the construction of the works affect rights heretofore existing above, below or comprised within the area of the proposed works.
9.	The works shall not be designed, constructed, or subsequently operated to prevent the passage at any and at all times of the regular flow of the Ottawa river, to the detriment of Montreal harbour and the St. Lawrence river.
10.	The company to be responsible for and to compensate for any damage which may be caused by its works to other companies or interest owning or operating water-power on the Ottawa river and its tributaries above Carillon and Pointe Fortune.
11.	A satisfactory fishway approved by the Department of Marine and Fisheries to be provided in the dam or dams.
12.	Statistics of shipping and of production and disposal of power to be furnished in the manner and when required by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics.
(Signed) K. M. Cameron,
Chief Engineer.
Not a single recommendation of the engineers has been carried out, and to-day with the bill before us asking for our sanction, the company has not submitted a single plan which the government can conscientiously recommend to the governor in council for his approval. Report after report, memorandum after memorandum, statement after statement by the engineers of the department responsible for ascertaining the facts about matters of this kind simply confirm this. For example, on the 13th July, 1925, the following statement occurred:
For reasons such as they may be, the department cannot recommend to the minister the asking of council to approve-this information to the company simply to inform them as to the cause of delay in an early advice.
And so on through report after report. It is true that they submitted some varying plans in the meantime, a little addition here, a little addition there of no material effect. Then in general effect a further memorandum dated January 20, 1925, goes on:
The charter authorized the building of a nine foot canal from Ottawa to Georgian bay and gave the company the right to produce and dispose of all hydro-electric power in connection therewith.
From 1910 onwards no mention is made of the depth of water in the canal or canals until the 1912 plan of which the hon. gentleman spoke this afternoon. The memorandum goes on:
This plan is a very general one, practically a duplicate of the Department of Public Works Georgian Bay ship canal scheme of 1908, at a scale of 2,000 feet to the inch, showing the centre line of proposed canal with locks of 650 feet by 65 feet by 24 feet at Pointe Fortune and Hawkesbury, and dams, power houses and regulating sluices at both Carillon and near Grenville.,


Herbert Bealey Adshead: A government plan?


Edward Joseph Garland: Yes. It
was an old and subsequently discarded plan. These plans are discarded; they are to-day worthless, and until the report of the engineers is carried out in detail, this House should not be asked even to consider something which the government has not dared to recommend to this House or to the governor in council. Subsequent to the 190S plan, upon which all the existing plans of the company are now based, an investigation was held into this whole question.


Mr. STEWART (Edmonton):: When were the plans asked to be approved?


Edward Joseph Garland: The only date I can find is December 12, 1925. This is simply a file, No. 223, tabled by the depart-
Georgian Bay Canal Company

ment on June 1, 1926, containing the correspondence lip to and including that date.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I have in my hand the two volumes of Sessional Papers, one for 1916 and the other for 1918, containing an enormous mass of information, indeed they are almost entirely devoted to the reports of the Sanford Evans commission. That commission sat for four years. It was appointed about 1916 for the purpose of investigating this whole project-the canal project, of which my hon. friend who has just taken his seat spoke. With the limited time at my disposal I have carefully studied these papers and have had others read them for me, and they contain not a single line or sentence that could be used by anyone in support of the canal project. On the contrary, as a result of the three reports made to the House since 1918, the canal project has been as dead as a herring. Why is it brought along at this time-why, after the government itself refused to. sanction the plans of the company, why after the government itself dropped the whole subject after receiving the report of the Sanford Evans commission? The reason has been given by several speakers; it is this: the power necessities of the provinces have developed so rapidly that they provide an excellent opportuniy for exploitation hitherto unknown. There is no doubt in my mind that that is behind the whole effort of the promoters of this bill.
So far as the feasibility of the construction end of the canal is concerned, I would simply call attention to parts of a report by engineers in which the following passages occur:
A glance at map "A" of the survey made by the Department of Public Works in 1908 shows that tliis canal as projected has its western terminal at the mouth of the French river, on Georgian bay, and ascends said river through 3 lift locks up into lake Nipissing, and through it to North bay, 821 miles.
This is the description given in the report of portions of the proposed Georgian bay and Ottawa canal route:
The Georgian bay coast is probably the most dangerous of any on the great lakes, and the entrance of the middle outlet of the French river, while not particularly difficult of navigation. is dangerous, being comparatively narrow and confined between submerged ledges of rock and small islands. At the mouth of French river, four miles out from the shore, are the Bustard rocks, and safe water in the lake is not reached until four miles beyond these.
So the entrance to the river alone for large steamers is so extremely dangerous as to render the canal project largely unfeasible. For eight miles you would have to travel in a narrow channel between submerged rocks and islands, and the rates of insurance as a result

would be enormously high, especially as that portion of the coast is described by navigators as the most dangerous of the whole Georgian bay coast.


Edward James Young: What is the width of the channel?


Edward Joseph Garland: It is not given. But in a high wind the hon. gentleman can readily realize that a vessel steaming up to the mouth of the French river, at reduced speed necessary in entering the canal having lost a good deal of its leeway, would be in great danger of being blown onto these submerged rocks. In fact the situation would be perilous. At any rate those navigators and engineers who have studied the local conditions are satisfied that the entrance to the French river is so dangerous as in itself to condemn the project from the navigation point of view.


John Livingstone Brown: Has the hon. member at hand the extent of the lift from lake Huron up to lake Nipissing?


Edward Joseph Garland: Yes, but it would take a long time to go through it all. There are three lift locks. Let me, however, say that in that portion of the report pointing out further difficulties in the canal situation it is stated:
Because the height of land separating the waters of the great lakes and those flowing to the Ottawa river must be crossed by the Ot-tawa-Georgian bay canal, there must be a summit level from which the canal can be fed east and west to its terminal harbours. A canal fed from a summit level requires twice as much water as end-fed canals like the Welland and the St. Lawrence. The height of land, which is a granite ridge is between lake Nipissing and I rout lake. At this height of land a reservoir is to be made incorporating Trout, Turtle and Talon lakes, and must contain water enough at all times for canal purposes. The summit level or reservoir has an elevation of 29 feet above lake Nipissing, 99 feet above Georgian bay, and 677 feet above sea level.
When one gets into the details of the report it is apparent that the engineers themselves in their preliminary plans saw that it would be necessary to consider plans for the installation of several heavy pumping plants, to be used, in addition to the natural flow of water, to pump water from Georgian bay or some other source into the height of land basin in order to provide sufficient flow of water for the canal.


Mr. LAPIERRE:: No.


Edward Joseph Garland: The hon. gentleman interjects a denial; then let me read the report itself, which devotes much

Georgian Bay Canal Company
space to the problem of maintaining the required volume of water at the summit level. The following extract from the report reveals the concern of the engineers regarding this question:
When the sufficiency of the water supply at the summit level of a canal is*in question, its correct determination is a most important problem.
Now I ask my hon. friend to note this. There was no doubt about the engineers being uncertain regarding the quantity of water that they could obtain to supply the summit level or they would not have proposed the following:
A pumping plant has been designed which would take the water from about 1.500 feet below the entrance to the locks to lake Xipissing and discharge it the same distance above the upper entrance against a head of 27 feet. There are to be five units, each consisting of
1,000	horse power motor, directly connected to a turbine pump of 200 cubic feet per second capacity. These pumps can keep the summit reservoir full and could be closed down for two months, while the demands of navigation are supplied from the reservoirs. It is true that in no large canal has such a principle ever been resorted to for supplementing a deficiency in the water supply.
I need not go further. I simply point to those extracts from the reports made by the engineers to indicate that the statement made by the hon. member for Ottawa this afternoon that the feasibility of the canal is unquestioned is not accurate. Its feasibility is most seriously in question.
Let me now come to another point raised. The hon. gentleman described with great vividness the altruism of the promoters of the bill. This bill was for the purpose of devlop-ing a canal, he states-always a canal, nothing but a canal. In the hon. gentleman's own brief, in the brief that many hon. gentlemen opposite have seen and some have been influenced by, the following statements occur:
By the 91st section of the British North America Act of 1867 the parliament of Canada possesses the exclusive legislative authority to deal with and control navigable waters for purposes of navigation and shipping.
Then comes the following:
It is clear that the Dominion does not possess any rights-
I want those hon. gentlemen who are anxious to ascertain the nature of the provincial rights in this matter to pay attention to what follows:
It is clear that the Dominion does not possess any rights on such rivers aside from or in excess of those derived by virtue of the above mentioned right of the Dominion to so deal with and control navigable waters for the purposes of navigation.
Therefore, according to the brief of the gentleman himself, all waters not needed for navigation belong to the provinces, by the very right of the provinces for development purposes. You will notice how this document contradicts itself.
The actual property in such navigable waters is vested in the provinces but is subject to an over-riding right of user appertaining to the Dominion for navigation and shipping purposes.
The Ottawa river was declared navigable and all works thereon declared to be works for the general advantage of Canada, by an act of parliament passed in 1870, being 33 Viet. chap. XXIV.
Now here is where the company gets in some of its nasty legal arguments:
By the special acts respecting the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian bay canal company, the parliament of Canada has authorized that company to develop the navigation of the Ottawa river.
By so doing the parliament of Canada exhausted during the currency of those acts, the rights of the Dominion in regard to the granting of the use of water on the Ottawa river. Any executive authority granted by the Dominion for the use of water on the Ottawa river for any purpose except navigation and shipping is invalid as being ultra vires.
Again they admit provincial rights, but before they get through they throw provincial rights to the winds in the following:
Therefore the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian bay canal have the exclusive and overriding right to the use of water on the Ottawa river, a right which, when put into force, destroys all other claims. Any existing users of water in the Ottawa river are, to the extent to which they interfere with the right of development and control of that river for navigation, interlopers with no legal status whatsoever.
But notice the qualification:
To the extent to which they interfere with the rights of development and control of that river for navigation.
Now turn back to paragraph (j) of their own statement, the statement of the brief of the hon. member for Ottawa. It reads:
As a matter of physical fact there is no water in the Ottawa river which is not essential for navigation.
The company behind the scheme claims that under this charter the Dominion of Canada will have relinquished not only all its rights but all other rights provincial or private now existing.	Let me ask hon. members
this question: after listening to the hon. member for Ottawa this afternoon, and other lawyers who have spoken, can you not imagine what a hideous mass of litigation the passing of this legislation would mean to the Dominion and the provinces? Do you think, after the statement of Premier Howard
Georgian Bay Canal Company

Ferguson, speaking for Ontario; after the unanimous resolution passed by the legislative body of that province, and after the position [DOT]taken by Premier Taschereau, who has asserted, in respect of the Ottawa river, the rights of the province of Quebec-do you think the parliament of Canada could get away with such a violation of provincial rights as to pass this bill and give to a private company the right to declare everybody and every interest now using the river an interloper with no rights whatever? The situation is utterly absurd. One would fancy no development had taken place. There have been some developments on the river. If this measure were passed the first litigation we would be up against would be in reference to the Carillon power and then there would be litigation about the power at many other points. If parliament desires to turn the Dominion into a sort of inciter of litigation for the benefit of lawyers by passing such legislation, then I submit parliament could well devote its time to much better purpose.


Mr. STEWART (Leeds):: I do not know
about that.


Edward Joseph Garland: My hon.
friend, being a lawyer, does not know about it. I, being a layman, having to pay taxes, do know about it. Again in their own brief they say:
This is the first occasion in the history of the Dominion of Canada that it has been possible to secure the construction of a great public work without the expenditure of public money, directly or indirectly.
How altruistic, how delightful! I cannot for the life of me, with all the kindness I have in my heart, conceive that the Sifton interests, so powerful commercially, so notoriously known throughout Canada for their ability to secure much of the public domain for their own use and aggrandizement, are now becoming altruistic and are going to build a canal without exacting anything from the public. It is true it will not come out of the treasury directly, but from the pockets of the power users. Well, we will come to a point in connection with that later on. The brief continues:
The present opportunity to secure enormous, immediate construction activity, with concomitant large circulation in Canada of foreign and new money and the consequent immediate general stimulation to business in the Dominion should, we submit, not be lightly cast aside.
Once this measure is passed the private interests control it. The Sifton interests with their board control it. I want hon. members to imagine any hard-headed Wall street (Mr. E. J. Garland.]
financier advancing to the Siftons or anyone else sufficient funds to undertake the development of this canal or these power projects as long as the terrific danger of litigation which is now threatened rests over their heads. It is absurd to think of it. I do not believe for that single reason alone that the Sifton interests could secure a dollar of United States money for the development of this canal project, because no man with common sense in his head is going to invest large sums of money in the building of a canal and subsequent power projects while there is a danger that it may be held up indefinitely by provincial as well as private legislation. The brief proceeds:
Incidental to the construction of the Georgian bay canal an enormous amount of electrical energy will be developed.
Yes, about a million horse-power. Now note:
Upon this fact hinges the present opportunity. It is this incidental electrical development which makes possible the building of the canal other than at the expense of the taxpayer.
You know that is a pretty ingenious way of getting round the taxpayer, but let me point out for a moment, as has been pointed out before in this debate, the stupidity and the absurdity of the argument. The taxpayer is not, going to be assessed directly for the building of the canal, but the poor beggars along the oanal route in the zone to be served by the electrical energy developed are to pay for the whole development of what should be a national project. It would be a grievous violation of every known principle an connection with canal construction. Well, there is no use going further than that.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Quite mo use.


Edward Joseph Garland: I cannot
imagine an hon. gentleman coming here with a brief of that kind-they practically say, "let us soak the local consumers of electrical energy for the purpose of building a canal several hundred miles in length, in order that it may become a national transportation link. A private company should never be permitted to develop any large transportation project of this nature. It is a violation of the old principle that the Dominion government shall build and control canals and that they shall be toll-free to the public. Yet here, not only is it a violation of that principle by allowing private interests to undertake the construction of it, but we are proposing to allow the company to charge tolls. It is true they admit they do not expect to get very

Georgian Bay Canal Company
much revenue from these tolls. They do not expect to get enough to pay the interest on the investment and operating costs on any fair proportion of the total capital. They expect the total cost to be about $282,000,000, and the consumers of electricity are to be asked to pay the fixed charges and operating costs on $250,000,000 of that total. They expect to pick up something additional in the way of tolls from the users of the canals to cover the charges on the $32,000,000 balance. The brief says:
A large part of the expense of developing the potential hydro-electrical energy along the route of the Georgian bay canal is inherent in the building of the canal.
Yes, surely it is.
The canal cannot be constructed without at the same time constructing the dams and practically everything necessary for the electrical development.
Quite right. Not only that, but I make this assertion that the company can at any time step into any part of this canal project and build any dam for the alleged purpose of canalizing that part of the system, and then pass on to some other district, building another dam and .there is not a single obligation upon them to complete the water-way. There is no obligation in the charter to compel them to do so, and I defy the promoter of the bill to contradict this statement. The hon. member is in his seat and if he can dissuade me from this view I shall be pleased to have him do so.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I made my argument
this afternoon and the hon. member can read it in Hansard to-morrow.


Edward Joseph Garland: I listened
to the hon. member's whole argument this afternoon, if it was indeed an argument-and I wish to be kind to him-but I repeat, he cannot disprove the statement I have just made. The company's brief proceeds:
For the comparatively small additional expense of installing the power houses and turbines, the power can be developed as well as the navigation. Private parties are willing to take the no inconsiderable risk that the sale of power plus the tolls on the canal will pay interest, maintenance, etc., and sinking fund- that is, all fixed and operating charges on the cost of the canal plus power, whereas to do the same, tolls on the canal alone would have to be so high as to be prohibitive. Therefore, without the coincident development of power, the canal could not be financed. With it it can.
Furthermore, as a matter of cold engineering fact, the same excavations, foundations, dams, sluices, embankments, raising of levels, etc., etc., are required for navigation as for power.
That is their own statement: the power is to pay for the whole business.
So they can proceed to put up dams, foundations, sluices, embankments, and' so forth, develop power at any given point and then pass on to another section, but there is no obligation upon them to complete the canal.
The reverse is not true, the power can be developed without undergoing the expense of canal cuts or locks.
Certainly. I submit this point to show that because of the ease with which as they themselves admit the canal can be built, the federal government should undertake the construction of this waterway if it is at all feasible although as I have already shown I have serious doubts in the matter. The brief goes on:
The real fact that in navigable rivers the Dominion of Canada and those holding title from the Dominion of Canada can control the water-power as against the rival claims of the provinces,
There again they frankly confess that there will be rivalry.


Mr. HEAPS:: Will the hon. gentleman
explain what he means by a "brief"? I did not know that hon. gentlemen in this House were allowed to read briefs prepared by any company.


Edward Joseph Garland: I was also under that impression, but I know that on many occasions briefs are prepared and submitted to hon. members. I will not press the point because I am indebted to the courtesy of my hon. friend from Ottawa (Mr. Chevrier) who has been very fair with me in this matter.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I wish my hon. friend were as fair with me.


Edward Joseph Garland: I try to be
so. The statement goes on.
Upon the issuance of the order in council approving the plans of the Montreal and Georgian Bay Canal Company, the special acts referring to that company (which until then are in some respects in suspense) becomes wholly operative to the complete exclusion of any and all other conflicting leases, rights, authorities or claims, and particularly to the complete exclusion of the various so-called impediments to that company, now so strongly supported by various claimants and interim interlopers on the field of navigation. On the issuance of such an order in council, the chartered company's special acts become operative with the full force which it is possible for the sovereign right of the parliament of Canada to give.



Georgian Bay Canal Company
The adjustment of all claims would then be a matter of litigation. What a pleasant position for the parliament of Canada to be placed in. And why? Paragraph 17 contains the following explanation:
For the reason that the money made out of power development, which money should construct the canal, would under those conditions have been granted to the shareholders of such power companies as profits and would thus be lost forever.
This could be used to help the construction of the canal. Again we see the object in view.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Will my hon. friend be fair with me? He is quoting from a brief with which I have nothing to do. I am not the father of it. This afternoon I submitted to the House my interpretation of the charter, and I stand or fall by that charter and not by the brief which is being quoted. The hon. gentleman is not quoting from any speech of mine nor from any submission I have made.


Edward Joseph Garland: I am glad to have my hon. friend's refutation of what I presumed to be his brief.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: I never said it was.


Edward Joseph Garland: I understood that to be the case, but I accept the hon. gentleman's word.


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: It is not mine; and just to prove that it was not prepared by me I may point out that what the hon. member has read is in absolute contradiction to section 43 which I quoted this afternoon.


Edward Joseph Garland: Certainly. But does the hon. gentleman deny that this is the brief distributed by the Sifton interests?


Edgar-Rodolphe-Eugène Chevrier: Of that I have no knowledge.


Edward Joseph Garland: I have. It happens to be the same brief they distributed to certain members of the House.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not throughout the House.


Edward Joseph Garland: Not throughout the House, but to as many members as they could get hold of. The brief goes on:
Power profits can be fairly expected to pay fixed and operating charges on about $250,000,000, leaving about $32,000,000 of additional capital to be found for canal alone.
It is really unnecessary to go further. The whole thing is replete with contradictions and assertions which definitely damn the report in the eyes of any man who believes in public ownership or in the retention of the public domain for the use of the people. The brief

condemns itself. I wish all hon. gentlemen had secured copies of it, for I have no doubt that if they had read it there would have been removed from their minds any doubt whatever as to the proper action this parliament should take in respect to the bill now under consideration: they would reject it ruthlessly.
There is another point to be considered. The hon. member who has just taken his seat, (Mr. Arthurs) made a 'brief reference to it and I may mention it once more because it is one of the strongest arguments against the charter. Surely Canada has had sufficient lessons in the duplication of transportation systems. Surely we have been cured of the mania for grasping at visionary plans of promoters and allowing them to secure public property with a view to realizing some extraordinary ambitious grandiose scheme of transportation. The lessons we have .learned with respect to our Canadian transcontinental lines should have convinced us forever of the danger of grasping too easily at such projects. A few years ago we started the Welland canal in which we have sunk nearly $100,000,000 and it will cost the country another twenty to twenty-five million dollars, and possibly more to complete that undertaking. Now if we assume, although I am not willing to do so, except for the sake of argument, that every statement made is correct in relation to the possibility of constructing the canal now under consideration, that the canal can be built to serve a useful purpose, that it will secure the mass of tonnage which the brief of the promoters alleges it will, then I have this to say, that it would take away from the Welland canal project the last possible hope of salvaging one dollar of the taxpayers' money invested in this project for it would then completely replace that canal and render it useless. Are we still mad that we are going to commit ourselves to such a folly? Do we want to lose $110,000,000 already invested in a canal which is almost completed in order to satisfy the promoters of this charter?
Another reason given for the construction of this canal, rather than the completion of the Welland or the deepening of the St. Lawrence waterway, is the possibility that in the future we may be faced with the horrors of a conflict with the United States. Let me say to the hon. member who made that suggestion that he did not do himself justice. No matter what fears any individual may have to-day regarding our future relationships with the United States, no argument of that kind could ever justify our stopping the development of the St. Lawrence waterway.

Georgian Bay Canal Company
That project will be commenced and completed just as soon as this country is ready for it, just as soon as the people want it and when we are prepared to undertake our share of the expense in connection with it. All the smoke screen which my bon. friend so unfairly brought before the House this afternoon will never dissuade me from the illogical nature of the plan now proposed and the logical nature of the St. Lawrence deep waterways proposal.
All through history and even to this moment, Mr. Speaker, this charter has been surrounded by the most sinister influences. I am now adopting, I will admit, some of the tactics of my hon. friend in referring to it in this way, but I am compelled to do so because many editorials have appeared recently referring to the extensive and highly efficient professional lobbying which has been carried on among members of this House. Personally I have no objection to a lobby if it is reasonable; I am glad to hear all sides of a question, but when a lobbyist comes to my room, as a rule he simply incites my curiosity and causes me to seek information in other places. Nevertheless, it seems to be the fact that people are inclined to regard lobbyism as something suspicious. There is one question, however, which I would like to ask. Why did the ministry through the mouth of the Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) the other day, virtually declare that if thus bill had not been introduced by a private member it would have been introduced by the ministry? Why would the government father a bill which had been dropped by a former government as not being feasible? Why should the ministry introduce this bill when their own engineers and their own Department of Public Works condemn the plans which have been submitted up to the moment? Mr. Speaker, there must be a reason behind it. I am not going to impute motives to the government but I am going to tell them that there are rumours going through this House which the government would do well to refute, rumours that this bill is the result of pre-election pledges. Is that true?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Edward Joseph Garland: Very well. I have in my hand an editorial appearing in the Catholic Record of London, Ontario, under date of Saturday, March 19. With reference to the sale of royal honours in Great Britain, this editorial says:
Campaign funds are perhaps a necessary evil.
Stable government, with an assured majority, is a good thing. But a government with an 32649-90J
assured majority may do things that a government with a precarious majority would not dare to do.
After all, while the sale of royal honours may muddy up the fountain of honour, it does not cost the common people anything. It is a distasteful way of raising party funds, but it is not stealing from the people.
There are men in public life who would scorn to enrich themselves by dishonest or /dishonourable means, but who would not hesitate to buy campaign funds with the gift of public property.	_
Just now in Canada there is the question of reviving the old dead and buried Georgian bay canal.
There is one and only one reason for this revival.
It is party funds.
A stable government, with an assured majority, may look to this source of party funds and dally with it; perhaps put over this gift of electric power to private interests under the pretence of constructing a canal for the benefit of the people. But not if the people show themselves alive to their own interests.
It would be ten thousand times worse than the sale of royal honours. There is no reason in the world for such a shameless transaction other than the necessity of raising party funds. And to rob the people in order to pay the pirates who will contribute to party funds is infinitely worse than to sell royal honours for cash.
Along with that, we had an incident which occurred during the life of this charter not so many years ago. The House suddenly discovered, after it had passed the bill, that the bill before the Senate was not the bill which had been passed by the House. Something had happened to it in the meantime, some sinister influence had been at work, and the major part of the framework of the bill had been altered. Let me quote from Hansard of February 20, 1913, at page 3741, where Mr. Lancaster, then chairman of the committee on railways and canals moved, seconded by M|r. White of Renfrew, the following:
That a message be sent to the Senate requesting their honours to return to this House Bill No. 45, respecting the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Canal Company, as it appears that the said bill as sent to the Senate is not printed as passed by the House of Commons.
Some members asked him to explain, and he proceeded as follows:
It has come to my notice that their honours in the Senate will be called upon to consider a bill presumably passed by this House, but which, if considered in its present form, would put this' House in a very ridiculous position. The House of Commons, after due deliberation, passed the bill referred to, and section 4 of the bill as sent to the Senate undertakes to repeal the whole of chapter 123 of the statutes of 1912. This House never did any such thing. It was never suggested by any member that we should. What we did was to repeal section 1. In some strange way-I do not want to impute motives, but I have to have a good deal of

Georgian Bay Canal Company
charity in my disposition to think this interference was not intentional-after the House dealt with the bill the bill was printed in such a way as to strike out the whole chapter instead of what the House actually did. The effect would be that the company would have no directors and provincial rights with regard to water-powers would not be protected. It is a strange thing; the House will have to deal with it afterwards as they see fit, but it is my duty now as chairman of the railway committee of the House of Commons to call attention to the fact that this House has been placed in the position of having sent a bill to the Senate which we never passed as sent, and I move that the Senate be asked to send that bill back to us in order that a proper bill as passed by this House may go to them for consideration.
This motion was agreed to unanimously. Now, Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to delay the House very much longer in this connection. I do submit, however, that this charter should not be renewed for many reasons, first perhaps because of the utter failure of the company to even file plans that could be accepted, the utter failure of the company to do the least thing in keeping with recommendations of the engineers of the Department of Public Works. The company have had thirty-two years in which to do this and nothing has been done as yet. And then again, there is the engineering feature of the scheme. I will be as kind as possible to my friends opposite, but the very best that can be said is that there are grave doubts of the feasibility of this canal scheme, and in any case let me submit what I said before, that if the canal is found to be feasible it should be undertaken as a national enterprise by the Dominion government, and not by a private corporation. Again, the granting of this charter would be a violation of the principle of public ownership, and of the control of the provinces over their own water-powers. The statements of the promoters which I have just read prove conclusively that as soon. as the charter is granted they will assume, by virtue of the overriding right vested in the Dominion government, and surrendered to the company to complete and utter control of every interest located along the canal which may- interfere with their own project. Again it violates the principle of toll-free canals, and interferes with the development of national ownership of our waterways. It would place at the mercy of an utterly merciless corporation-a private group of some notoriety, which has not public interest as its guiding influence-all those users of electrical power in the immediate vicinity of these works. Any reasonably-minded man knows that the objectives of a commercial corporation such as that seeking this charter are not altruistic and that they are not work-
ing for the good of the people. Commercialism to-day has become too bitter for that; it is too vicious a system to ever grant to the people justice and equality. It would place at the disposal of private interests a heritage of the people, and would subject those people in the immediate vicinity of the canal almost to a condition of subjugation in connection with the power for use in the factories and mills and on the farms of the district. It goes to the length of suggesting that those who use power should pay for what should be a national avenue of transportation. That, perhaps, is one of the most vicious features of the whole proposal. It will in the opinion of the hydro-electric commission, according to the statement of Mr. Magrath, and I believe the statement to be perfectly true, prejudice the whole future of hydro development in the province of Ontario. Let us not forget that the hydro-electric commission has reached the limit of its present development, and for its future expansion there are only two great sources of water-power left. One is the St. Lawrence, and the time may not have arrived when we can undertake that development, and the other is the Ottawa river. Do we propose to stop the expansion of public ownership in Ontario by granting to private interests their half-and I say it with all my belief behind it-of the rights to the water-powers of the Ottawa river? Shall we prejudice the whole future of hydroelectric and with that the whole principle of public ownership in the province; to do so would be an indefensible flouting of the expressed, the unanimously expressed, will of the province of Ontario; it would be a flouting of the expressed desire of the province of Quebec through the mouth of its own premier, and it would destroy the last vestige of hope left to the shareholders in the nation, the taxpayers, of securing one dollar back out of the enormous investment of one hundred and twenty millions to which we are committed in the Welland canal.
For all these reasons, and for other reasons which I do not wish to delay the House in reciting, I am opposed to the granting of this charter. I am opposed to this bill even going to committee, because no committee can change the principles under which this charter is being sought. Why waste the valuable time of members of this House by asking them to investigate a bill the underlying principles of which are in violation of the recognized principles I have referred to? That Would be stupid and futile. It would be stupid to let a bill, the fundamentals of which

Georgian Bay Canal Company
you could not change, go to a committee and be killed there. Hon. members opposite have said: Jet it go to committee and we will kill it there. Why waste time talking over this bill for a couple of months just to kill it in committee? Kill it now. The principle of the bill is unsound, absolutely unsound in every respect. Whether as regards the canal development or as regards the power development, it is unsound in principle. It is a violation of the rights of the people. It is a clear, absolute and complete theft of the people's property. It is a deliberate attempt to surrender the heritage of the Canadian people to private interests. I support the amendment because it proposes to kill the bill, and if the amendment is defeated I will vote against granting the charter.


Mr. E. D. R. BISSETT (Springfield):: I
intend to take very little time this evening in discussing the amendment to this bill to renew the charter of the Montreal and Georgian Bay Canal Company. To begin with I am opposed to the bringing into effect of the legislation sought by this measure, because I believe that such a move will alienate the rights of the Canadian people as regards water-power and other rights on the Ottawa river, and other rivers concerned. The Minister of Railways (Mr. Dunning) stated during his remarks the other night that this was a fight between two rival companies for the. control of the power at Carillon. I trust, Mr. Speaker, that before this debate is ended the people of this country will, through their representatives in this House, claim those rights for themselves, that they will claim what the Minister of Railways told us was the bone of contention, namely, the power on the Ca/rillon falls.
In common with the hon. gentleman who has just taken his seat (Mr. Garland, Bow River) I believe the big question under discussion to-night is not one of allotting power rights to certain interests. The whole question is: are we for or against public ownership? I believe that there is a movement on foot to-day to monopolize to a great extent the available hydro-electric energy in this Dominion. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) pointed out in his admirable address quite clearly that two or three groups of financial interests controlled the hydro-electric energy in Canada to such an extent that their income almost equals that of the Canadian National Railways, or the total income of the province of Ontario. The control of electrical energy in this country to-day will, I contend, mean the
absolute control of the industrial life .of the country before many years have gone by, and with the rapid advance in the development of electrical service .that day is steadily drawing nearer. The question, therefore, which faces the people of Canada to-day is: shall they control Ithe power, or shall the power interests control them?
In the constituency which I have the honour to represent is developed all the hydro-electric energy used in the province of Manitoba, and the history of the circumstances surrounding the entry of the city of Winnipeg into the hydro business is one which would convince anybody who happens to live within that vicinity of the advantages of public ownership over private control. Before the city of Winnipeg went into the hydro-electric business they were paying 20 cents per kilowatt hour for the power used in that city. Immediately following the building of their plant at Pointe de Bois the price of power dropped to 10 cents, and to-day it is only three cents, which goes to show the advantages of a publicly owned utility.
As an example of the monopolies existing in certain parts of the United States I should just like to quote one or two facts. On July 25, 1925 it was announced that the Middle West Utilities Company had perfected mergers and consolidations that gave control of public utility services in 1,269 cities, towns and villages in 18 different states. In other words the public service utilities in 18 different states, and in 1,269 towns, were at the absolute mercy of a private corporation. This question of the monopoly of electrical energy is one that is engaging the most serious attention of the nation just south of the international border. It is engaging their attention because of the fact that they have awakened, when it is too late, to find that they are at the merey of the power interests in that country. In this connection may I quote what Governor Clifford Pinchot, of Pennsylvania, in his message of transmittal of the report of his Giant Power Survey Board, made public in February, 1925, had to say regarding the power trust in the United States. Speaking of the power trust he says:
Nothing like this gigantic monopoly has ever appeared in the history of the world. Nothing has ever been imagined before that, even remotely approaches it in the thoroughgoing, intimate, unceasing control it may exercise over the daily life of every human being within the web of its wires'. It is immeasurably the greatest industrial fact of our time. If uncontrolled, it will be a plague without previous example. If effectively controlled in the public interest, it can be made incomparably the greatest material blessing in human history.

Georgian Bay Canal Company
That is the opinion of the governor of one of the largest states in the American union after a thorough investigation had been made by a committee. Senator Norris, who has filled page after page of the congressional record with facts regarding this trust, states that he has been dumbfounded and amazed to learn that over twenty millions out of fifty-five millions horse-power of potential hydroelectric power in the United States have been already awarded to or applied for by private organizations.
I notice in a Washington paper dated March 19 of this year an article on the power situation as it affects the United States. It is headed "Federal Commission discloses how small group dominates electric field", and it reads:
Responding to a resolution introduced by Senator Norris of Nebraska, asking information on the power trust and its interests in Muscle shoals, the Federal Trade Commission has made a report which more than justifies every warning of monopoly uttered by Senator Norris and Senator Walsh of Montana.
It shows that a little group of interests controls almost 90 per cent of the power development of this country, that these interests are interlocked, and that the profits make Croesus look like a piker.
Owing to the holding device, the concentration of power is almost unbelievable.
"In one instance," the commission says, "less than a million dollar investment in the majority of the voting stock of the apex holding company gave full control of the entire organization of the group, having scores of underlying companies and several hundred million dollars of investment."
Another item appearing in a New York paper under date of March 14 of this year states:
Power Issue Splits Smith and "G.O.P." N.Y. Republican Leaders Favour "Private Enterprise" Against "Government Control" New York, March 14.-The long expected break between Governor "Al" Smith and the Republican organization which controls both branches of the state legislature has developed.
The governor insists that New York's waterpower resources must be developed under state control.
That is what the Governor of New York state says about the matter:
The Republican leaders are determined that the power trust shall have a chance to do the job.
The G.O.P. leaders propose to name a commission to study the hydro-electric problem, with authority to consider both public and private development. Governor Smith maintains that the inquiry should be confined to the feasibility of public development.
The result will probably be a deadlock of indefinite duration.

The power trust is willing to permit things to remain as they are. It hopes that Smith will go out of office in 1928 and that he will be succeeded by someone who is more favourable to the trust.
Those two items dated only this month give quite a clear idea of what the power situation is in two of the largest states in the great union just south of us and show that it is a problem which is engaging the earnest attention of many at the head of public affairs in both of those states.
As I stated a few minutes ago, and I think, the hon. member for Peace River (Mr. Kennedy), in his address the other day, suggested it, the control of electrical energy represents in great measure the control o-f the development of the industrial life of the country. I notice that in the city of Chicago 45 per cent, in Indiana 60 per cent, and in Ontario 85 per cent of the industrial plants use cheap electrical energy for their operation.
Why, may I ask, are so many branch factories of United States manufacturing concerns coming to Canada to-day? Some hon. gentleman would say: because of the tariff. Whatever relation the tariff may have to the question of building up industries in Ontario, I believe the real answer is the hydro electric system of that province. In support of that statement, I might state that in the hearings before the Senate committee of the United States on the Fordney-McCumber tariff bill, the chamber of commerce of Niagara Falls, New York, presented a memorial in which it is stated that the manufacturers of Ontario enjoy a power rate of one-half of that which is charged by the privately owned corporations of the state of New York, and therefore it prays for tariff rates to protect them from the competition of Ontario manufacturers. It will be seen from this that cheap hydro electric power is a greater factor in the industrial life of the country than probably any other single factor. I would like just at this point to give a few striking examples showing the rates before and after municipal or public ownership:
Place	Before	After
	cents	cents
Chicago	12	5Cleveland	12.05	3Palo Alto. Cal	20	7Seattle, Wash	20	5.50Jamestown, N.Y	10	5Pasadena, Cal	15	5Springfield, 111	11	6Winnipeg	20	3London	9	3Calgary	
Hydro Electric Power	14	5Commission of Ontario 247 municipalities 	9.85	3.45
per K. W. hour

Georgian Bay Canal Company
I think these figures will demonstrate the advantages which have accrued to many municipalities and cities by taking over this hydro-electrical development. I contend that the organization, unification and inter-connection of vast and far-reaching electrical power systems are inevitable for the reasons which I have already briefly pointed out. We are coming more and more face to face with that self-same situation. The economic advantages to be gained by such a system are so great that, whether we like it or not, we are rapidly being drawn into it. The question which this country has to face to-day is this: Shall this be a private or a public monopoly? For that reason I contend that the bill under discussion means nothing more nor less than this: Are we going to hand over to private interests the potential electrical energy of the great waterways of Canada, or are we going to see that they remain and are controlled and developed for the general advantage of the people of this country. Because I believe the water rights of this country should be retained, owned and controlled by the Dominion of Canada for the general benefit of the citizens thereof, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Dauphin (Mr. Ward):
That all the words after the word " therefor " in the said amendment be struck out and the following be substituted therefor:
That inasmuch as the construction of the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian bay canal and the development of the water-powers incident thereto are essentially of the nature of public utilities,
That these undertakings, including the development of all works for water-powers or others, on the Ottawa river, Mattawa river and French river, if not within the class of works which have been declared for the general advantage of Canada or the advantage of two or more provinces under the statute of 1870, shall be so declared.
That in the opinion of this House such natural resources should not be alienated,
And also, that no further leases or extensions of leases on the Ottawa river, Mattawa river and French river should be granted without the consent of parliament.	[DOT]
That all existing rights, claims and leases in private hands, as affecting the Ottawa river, Mattawa river and French river, with the exception of those power sites already fully developed, should be recovered for the general benefit of the people of Canada,
And further, that this House is of the opinion that the developments on the Ottawa river, Mattawa river and French river should be taken over by the government of Canada as part of a comprehensive scheme for the supplying of navigation facilities and hydroelectric power to the people of the Dominion of Canada at the lowest possible cost.


Mr. SPEAKER:: This amendment is out
of order for the reason that the bill is a private bill. It is true that by reason of the
discussion the bill has assumed a measure of public importance, so much so that the hon. leader of the opposition moved an amendment in these terms:
The character and object of this bill involve matters of grave national and provincial importance, and are such as to constitute it a measure of public policy which ought not to be dealt with by any private bill.
But his amendment does not pretend to advocate a policy which naturally should originate with the government. The purpose of the bill apparently is for the construction of a canal. There is no mention of water-powers, although personally I may be of the opinion that there is some water-power development behind the canal project, but as a matter of fact the bill is simply for the extension of time for the construction of a canal. According to Bourinot, page 509:
All amendments "must strictly relate to the bill which the House by its order has resolved upon considering."
I find in the twelfth edition of May at page 358 the following, which on the one hand supports the point of view of the leader of the opposition in moving his amendment, and on the other is against the subamendment:
On the 21st of February, 1854, an amendment was made to the question for reading the Manchester Education Bill a second time, that "education to be supported by public rates is a subject which ought not, at. the present time, to be dealt with by any private bill," which gave legitimate expression to the opinion of the House.
What I have just read is in accord with the amendment moved by the leader of the opposition. Now, as against the subamendment, May adds:
Amendments, however, to the question for the second reading of a private bill, which seek to substitute for that question a resolution declaring the opinion of the House on a matter of public or general policy, are out of order.
Basing myself on May and on many precedents, I rule that the subamendment is out of order, and I so declare.


Mr. J. A. BRADETTE (North Timiska-ming):: Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention to take part in this debate as I thought that this being a private bill it would have been referred to a committee at least two weeks ago. As a representative from northern Ontario, which is directly interested in the construction of the Georgian bay canal, I am bound to express my views. I do not intend to be partisan and I shall confine myself strictly to what I believe to be the truth. In our section of t'he country without private
1420	COMMONS
Georgian Bay Canal Company ' *
development we would never be enjoying our present measure of prosperity if it were not for private capital and enterprise. I hold no brief for private or public ownership interests. We know that it is impossible for us in northern Ontario to ever expect to have hydro-electric development under public ownership, for the simple reason that the provincial government for the last fifteen years has seen fit to alienate practically all the water-powers in that settled section of the country.
I have never had an opportunity to meet the Sifton brothers, but judging from what I read in the newspapers it would be wise for me to be on my guard if I ever come in contact with them, for they are described as very bad people. However, in my section of the country we judge men not by newspaper reports but by our actual contact with them and by the way they are developing the province. As for public ownership, I repeat, that in northern Ontario we have no hope of ever getting development under the Hydro Electric Power Commission. Indeed under that commission some illegalities and considerable injustice have been imposed on northern Ontario as a whole.
But it seems to me that the subject of public ownership has been confused with governmental control of industrial enterprises. These two categories are not merely separable, but they are in reality fundamentally distinct. The right' of eminent domain or the universal right of the public over property is embodied explicitly or implicitly in the law of every civilized country. The right of eminent domain by the state during the war was exercised by every belligerent nation, and under it lands, plantations, forests, oil wells, railways, telegraphs and cables and telephone lines, telegraph cables and even private residences and industrial establishments were taken over by every belligerent state except Russia, in order that the nation might exert its maximum war effort. This has been the ruination, not only of the individual and of the public, but of the nation as a whole. I am bound to put the facts before the House as they exist. I represent one of the largest portions of the province of Ontario, and the richest one in developed and undeveloped natural resources, and it is a territory worth fighting for.
I quote from the Hamilton Herald the following:
Worth Fighting For
From Premier Ferguson it is learned that a resolution will be introduced in the Ontario legislature protesting against the granting to the Georgian Bay Canal Company of any power rights in the Ottawa or French rivers. Such a resolution will have the solid support of public fMr. Bradette.]
opinion in this province, and it is to be hoped it will be unanimously endorsed by the Legislature.
Let this company go ahead and build the canal if it can raise the money to do it. But the people of Ontario will not tolerate the alienation of any water-powers belonging of right to the province, to any private corporation, to be exploited for private gain, now that the achievements of our hydro system have revealed the value of these public assets.
I must take that statement with a grain of salt. If you travel over the province of Ontario to North Bay and through that northern section of the province you will find that many of these utilities and water-powers, including some rivers attached to lake Nipissing basin, are owned by private interests. If you go to Iroquois Falls, you will find that the same condition exists. You will find that the power in the Abitibi river belongs to the Abitibi company, and if you go to Frederick House you will find' these utilities are operated by private interests. If you go still further to Smooth Rock Falls" and Jackson-boro, you will find that the same condition exists. The water-powers on the Mattagami river have been sold to private interests, and the same condition exists all through that district, including the Kapuskasing and Ground Hog rivers, where $25,000,000 is being expended under private capital.
I represent one of the largest ridings in Canada, and I believe that ninety per cent of the utilities in that country is actually in the hands of private interests. And how does the system work out? It works out well up there. The natural resources in many cases are sold to private interests and developed, and such developments are a cause of prosperity. Under the hydro commission we are actually paying taxation which we never expected to pay, and which is not logical. I have heard the hon. member saying that people in northern Ontario are against the hydro-electric. I may say that we are in favour of it, but I think the primary development of the Ottawa river is for canalization purposes. I am' going to read an article from an independent paper, the Cochrane Northland Post, of March 4, 1927, which says:
North Bay's pet child, the Georgian bay canal, is once more in the limelight. Bill No. 78 is now before the House of Commons for the purpose of once more renewing the old charter given to the Montreal, Ottawa and Georgian Bay Company.
The north has always backed up North Bay in the attempt to get the canal put through, which would materially assist in the development of northern Ontario, and will continue to stand solidly behind it. We have always felt that probably the same interests which

Georgian Bay Canal Company
right from the beginning tried to choke the Transcontinental railway are behind the efforts to kill the Georgian bay canal. One thing is sure, the government will never be permitted to undertake this project as a national work; and unless private interests are given the charter, nothing will come of it. This of course offends the public ownership minds, and the attempt is made to throw out the child with the cradle.
The Toronto Globe on Wednesday comments as follows:	_
When the charter was granted this company in 1894 Ontario had not entered upon its program for public ownership of water-powers. The project was received with enthusiasm not only in the Ottawa valley and along the French river but throughout the province because of the transportation frcilities promised as much as for the prospective power development. Since hydro has demonstrated itself the conditions have changed, and the people are no longer willing to turn over to private ownership hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of natural resources which can and should remain part of the public domain.
The Globe of course has particularly the Carillon power site in mind, the rest of the long stretch of canal (which also abounds in water-powers) runs through sections of the country too remote for the Hydro Electric Commission to touch, owing to the sparsity of population. In fact conditions are about the same as they are here, and yet we have not heard them bewail the fact that our wonderful water-powers all along the Abitibi have just recently been handed over to private corporations.	.
As we said before, we do not object to the water-powers being given away to private interests as long as the existing municipalities here are sufficiently protected as regards their power uses.
The Globe need not have any fear of seeing the Georgian bay canal constructed to create a short cut between the east and west and leave the matter to private interests, as long as future generations are properly protected as regards power development. As we said before, if we would have to wait for national building of this canal, we are afraid the country will remain undeveloped for generations to come; and after all it is right in the centre of Ontario where these private interests will bring about the transformation from wilderness to settled communities.
That is what we are seeking in our section of the country. We are the connecting link between the east and the west and our position allows us to judge impartially. We want that development. For the last eighteen years the Ontario government has seen fit to sell to the private interests the powers in northern Ontario. Even if we wanted public ownership in our section of the country, it would be an absolute impossibility for the government to enter into the development of that section. In Kapuskasing the development of the land under public ownership was tried, but after hundreds of thousands of dollars had been spent in the development of the land, the result was complete failure. But
to-day under private ownership that section of the country is very prosperous.
Then let us take the wonderful districts of south Porcupine, Cobalt, Matheson and Kirkland Lake. These districts never would have been developed without private capital and enterprise. Under the conditions it was the only logical solution of the problem in the north. What would it mean if we now apply the principle of hydro-electric development after private capital has been invested in enormous sums, under many risks, and the initial stages have been passed in opening up the country, and often these utilities will be out of the experimental stage, would it then be fair for the hydro-electric to take them over? After a good deal of money has been spent in those utilities and they are just beginning to put them on a profitable basis would it be fair to take them away from the private interests? We are in favour of the hydro-electric in our section, but our hopes are very remote of ever getting such development, In northern Ontario we are paying taxes on which we never expect to receive any return. I am going to read a brief article from The Nugget of September 24, 1926, which reads:
Cost Million to Give Hydro Power to Ontario Farms
Toronto, Ont., Sept. 24.- (Canadian Press). -^The contribution of the Ontario government to the extension of hydro power to the rural districts of Ontario during the fiscal year will approximate $1,000,000 Premier Howard Ferguson estimates. In a statement yesterday the Prime Minister said that three-quarters of this amount had been expended to date in making hydro service available to farming communities of old Ontario. Compared with last year's aid to rural electrical extension, made by the government, this year's expenditure represents an increase of approximately $650,000.
I am going to quote an article from the Canadian Engineer on an address delivered by Mr. R. G. Cook, a member of the Hydro Electric Commission, delivered at Toronto at the occasion of the twenty-fifth convention of the Ontario Good Roads Association, showing subsidies paid the rural sections of southern Ontario, showing again that we cannot expect any hydro developments in the distant or near future; we are nevertheless helping in the construction and maintenance of hydro, in the southern section of the province. He said in part:
The people of the country are isolated but they are doing a work that is absolutely necessary for the prosperity of the country.
It was with this thought in mind that the government of the day, in October, 1923, made the first payment of $425,000 for the construction of rural electric transmission lines in Ontario.

Georgian Bay Canal Company
Since that time, new legislation has been passed in 1924 that has practically doubled the government assistance to rural transmission lines. The result has been that it has so stimulated the rural demand for extensions that during the last fiscal year the commission have constructed an average of 2J miles of transmission line in the rural districts for every day of the year. This has brought about conditions whereby the commission is now operating over 2,000 miles of rural lines and serving 20,000 rural customers. Under that legislation the government of this province are handing over to rural customers in the construction of their rural distribution systems at the present time a free gift of over $2,000,000 and I think, Mr. President, that no better investment has ever been made by any government on behalf of agriculture, because under our system it is so altogether unlike our legislative grants to rural schools or highways- in this respect that it entails no further annual charges upon the government, because the funds for renewals, contingencies, maintenance and sinking funds all form part of the monthly bill to the rural customer, just the same as it does to the urban customer with the result that at the end of the sinking fund period the farmer finds himself the owner not only of a half of the distribution system that he has paid for, but the owner of the other half which the government has presented to him. He also finds himself with sufficient reserve to maintain these things at 100 per cent efficiency.
Further cm he says:
It is only fair to say that this ideal condition in Ontario has only been created by the sympathetic cooperation of every party and every class and every group in the House. I question if there is another country in the civilized world where in its legislature every party and every class and every group give such sympathetic consideration to all the problems of rural life.
The northern section of Ontario, which is part and parcel of that wonderful province, endorsed the bond issues of the Ontario HydroElectric, and we are also responsible for some of its taxation. I believe it was under the Drury administration that an inquiry was made and it was proved that the province as a whole actually paid $7,000,000 in interest in connection with this enterprise. To-day we are paying in the province of Ontario millions of dollars in the way of subsidies to the farming population, and while we in the northern section never expect to benefit from electrical development and have proved that we are willing and ready to shoulder the respon-sbilities of the hydro development in the southern section, why should1 they not be anxious to solve our transportation problem in the way proposed in this bill? Is it not logical under present conditions to ask the support of the southern section of the province for the Georgian bay canal scheme? Surely it is only reasonable to ask hon. members from the southern section of the province at least to allow this bill to go to the commit-

tee so that it may be thoroughly discussed. We in northern Ontario sympathize with the needs of the southern portion of the province, but I am bound to say that there does not seem to be on the part of southern members any appreciation of the wonderful heritage we have in the north. Northern Ontario represents 85 per 'oent of the total1 area of the province. The other day the hon. member for North York (Mr. Lennox) in reply to a question I asked him, whether he was aware that the Hydro-Electric Commission was not functioning in my section of the country, declared that it was too far north for him to know anything about it. I would quote for the information of the hon. gentleman a statement made by the Hon. Mr. Finlayson whom I met in Cochrane, my home town, a week ago tonight at a banquet tendered the Toronto Board of Trade. He said that in very many instances it had been found difficult to get legislation enacted in the House in Toronto for the development of northern Ontario because of the lack of knowledge of that section of the province displayed by representatives from southern Ontario. The same remark applies to representatives in this House from the southern section of the province. May I take this opportunity of extending to those gentlemen who come from southern Ontario, as well as to hon. gentlemen in other sections of the House, a hearty invitation to visit my part of the country and find out for themselves what a wonderful heritage we have there. If they will come up I can assure them that we will give them the hearty reception which would always be extended to them by the people of northern Ontario-but not modelled after the civic recaption committee of the city of Toronto, because in our section of the province we judge a man far his citizenship, not for his political affiliations. They will experience the hospitality of the northern country which is called the spirit of the north, and which, coupled with the spirits controlled by the hon. member for Fort William (Mr. Manion) would make not only a very instructive journey Ibut also a very interesting one. The fact is, we are not known enough. Hon. gentlemen in this House do not sufficiently realize the possibilities of that part of the country. Business men do, ibut very few politicians in either party, provincial or federal, are aware of conditions there. If hon. gentlemen would come up they would become more familiar with those conditions and they would better understand our problems. An hon. member from Toronto the other day, ridiculing this proposed canal, suggested that more navigable waterways might be found on Mars. Well, it seems to

Georgian Bay Canal Company
me that the hon. gentleman knows more about Mars than he does about northern Ontario.
I for one have never believed in the wisdom of secession, nor do I think that the people in the part of the country I represent want anything of that kind. I must confess, however, that in my judgment we have not been getting a fair deal. In this very bill it is evident that we are not being fairly treated, for hon. gentlemen opposite seem determined to kill the bill. I do not say that this canal project in its entirety is feasible at the moment, but I do urge that the House allow the bill to go to the committee where the possibilities of the scheme can be thoroughly investigated. The hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Garland) has been quoting expert documents in support of his contention that the building of this canal is impracticable, while other members are equally positive that it is feasible. In face of this conflict of opinion a new member finds it difficult to come to a conclusion. Is this not all the more reason why we should refer the whole matter to the committee in order to have it looked into? As a representative of northern Ontario, realizing the responsibility that rests upon me in a matter of this kind, I am bound to look at the question from the standpoint of the nation as a whole -something that will give northern Ontario a chance of developing. I would not support the contention that this scheme should be considered purely from the point of view of hydro development, if I thought that such development were really possible; but it seems to me that the thing of primary importance to us is the construction of the canal. If we were considering the question of a partnership between the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, with the federal government constructing the Georgian bay canal and the two provinces in question developing the surplus power, that would be quite satisfactory. But where it is a matter of linking up east and west the question of chief importance is one of transportation. Southern and northern Ontario are both parts of one province and the problems of one section are naturally of concern to the other, they should not be burning in one section of the province, what they worship in the other. I do not say that hon. members from southern Ontario are necessarily opposed to our interest, but I do say that they should not object to this bill being referred to the committee. There are good things to be said for hydro development, but we must consider Canada as a whole before any particular section of Ontario. And although I have no technical knowledge of canals, I have no doubt of the future possibilities of this proposed waterway for the development of the country at large.
I have not much more to say. I again tender an invitation to hon. members from north and south, on both sides of the House, to come to our section of the country and especially to the riding which I represent and which was represented in 1914 by the Hon. Mr. Cochrane. What was then the original riding is now divided into three sections federally and my own riding is now divided into two sections provineially, and in the very near future, new ridings will also be formed federally in that section of northern Ontario.
I want the House to realize that the coming part of the country is northern Ontario; it would be time well spent if every member of the House came to our section and studied our problems. I was pained and grieved to see the sectionalism which has been displayed by some members of the House in discussing this matter; they have what amounts to a parochial viewpoint, and do not consider the province of Ontario as a whole in the study of this question.
I might just make a brief allusion to the fact that my home town of Cochrane has been brought into this discussion; I think one of the members for Toronto said that a delegation had been sent to Premier Ferguson and that that was done because of some grievances against some private interests in that town. Let me give a history of the case. In 1909, when the town of Cochrane received its charter, the government promised that our water rights at the Long Sault, thirty-five miles from the town, would be protected and developed. Again in 1911 and in 1914 Hon. Frank Cochrane repeated that statement, but for some reason or other the government sold the power to the Hollinger interests, who developed them, and they were then bought by the Abitibi people, and Cochrane is now getting its power from that company. Following the promise of the government that our water rights would be protected we asked for the services of a hydro engineer, who made a report that we should not pay more than $35 per horse-power for that electricity. That recommendation was submitted to the provincial government, through the premier, and we expected they would act upon it, but it was absolutely ignored. We are not protesting to-day against development by private interests, but we are protesting against the fact that the provincial government has not seen fit to protect the town of Cochrane, following the report of one of the government officials.
It was also mentioned by an hon. member opposite that the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario railway could not inaugurate electrical service on their line. I have enough confi-
Private Bills

dence in the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Commission to believe that that railway will reach its natural terminal at James bay, that they will see their way to electrify that road with powers developed from the Moose river basin. I say now that if that railway wants to electrify its line, we still have some water-powers left with which that can be done. We in this section of the country represent almost a quarter of a million people. We are a growing section, we are the connecting link between the east and the west. In the past our voice has not been heard, but I believe that in the future our situation and problems will be studied and given careful consideration. In the matter under discussion all we ask is that we be given the opportunity to discuss it in all its details in a standing committee of this House. We are all interested in this question and believe that such a development would work for the advancement and development of Ontario and of Canada as a whole.
On motion of Mr. Bennett the debate was adjourned.




[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 117, respecting a patent owned by The John E. Russell Company, Limited.-Mr. Chevrier.
Bill No. 118, respecting certain patents of James McCutcheon Coleman.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 148, respecting a. certain patent owned by Chester Earl Gray and Aage Jensen. -Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 154, to incorporate "North American Relations Foundation."-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 155, respecting Commercial Travellers Mutual Insurance Society.-Mr. Anderson (Toronto).
Bill No. 156, for the relief of Dorothy Helen Murray. Mr. Spence (Parkdale).
Bill No. 157, for the relief of Lotta Maria McGregor.-Mr. Spence (Parkdale).
Bill No. 158, for the relief of Harriett Louisa May MacCarthy.-Mr. Garland (Carleton).
Bill No. 159, for the relief of Adelaide Mildred Maguire.-Mr. Geary.
Bill No. 160, for the relief of Dmytro Pushkedra.-Mr. Luchkovioh.
Bill No. 161, for the relief of Muriel Helen Louise Dunn.-Mr. Casselman.
Bill No. 162, for the relief of William Henry Poultney.-Mr. Church.
Bill No. 163, for the relief of Cecil Chester Richardson.-Mr. Arthurs.
Bill No. 164, for the relief of Bertha Amelia Bertelet.-Mr. Hocken.

Bill No. 165, for the relief of James Edward Barniaby.-Mr. Garland (Carleton).
Bill No. 166, for the relief of Evelyn May Bateman.-Mr. Edwards (Ottawa).
Bill No. 167, for the relief of Fannie Louise Dance.-Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 168, for the relief of Sarah Simpson. -Mr. Jacobs.
Bill No. 169, for the relief of Percy Compton-Mr. Anderson (Toronto).
Bill No. 170, for the relief of Hazel Green Anderson.-Mr. McMillan.
Bill No. 174, to incorporate the Red Lake and Northwestern Railway Company.-Mr. Lapierre.

[Stage Direction]
A message from His Excellency the Governor General, transmitting further supplementary estimates for the year ending March 31, 1927, was presented by the Hon. J. A. Robb (Minister of Finance), read by Mr. Speaker to the House, and referred to the committee of supply.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the House adjourned at 10.33 p.m.
Tuesday, March 22, 1927