1934-04-24

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 59, for the relief of Archibald Bruce Elliott Smart.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 60, for the relief of Lilac Violet Grumbell Reid.-Mr. Casselman.
Bill No. 61, for the relief of Lily Archer Watson.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 62, for the relief of Annie Isabel Tinning Meldrum.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).
Bill No. 63, for the relief of Lois Theresa Malcolm.-Mr. Bell (St. Antoine).


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. CHARLES MARCIL (Bonaventure):: I wish to thank the Minister of Railways and Canals for his kind attention to the matter to which I directed his notice the other day regarding the interruption of service at Matapedia on the Canadian National railway. I understand from press dispatches that there is some improvement. I would like to know from the minister whether there is any further information.


Hon. R. J. MANION (Minister of Rail-waj^s and Canals):: I have been more or less in touch with the matter and I have sent to my hon. friend and also to the hon. member for Gloucester (Mr. Veniot), who have been inquiring, a number of statements regarding it. To-day the report from Montreal is that the flood at Matapedia has subsided, the track has been repaired and the trains are running on regular schedule.



MARKETING ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, April 20, consideration of the motion of Mr. Weir (Melfort) for the second reading of Bill No. 51, to improve the methods and practices of marketing of natural products in Canada and
2472	COMMONS
Marketing Act-Mr. Mackenzie King
in export trade, and to make further provisions in connection therewith, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Mackenzie King.
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order; when on Thursday the 19th instant this measure came up for second reading, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens), at the outset of his remarks, in reply to mine, raised a point of order. This will be found on page 2352 of Hansard:
Hon. H. IT. Stevens (Minister of Trade and Commerce):	Before I address myself, Mr. Speaker, to a discussion of the measure before the house I should like to raise the point of order whether the amendment submitted by the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Mackenzie King) is in order, inasmuch as it constitutes what might be termed a declaration of policy, instead of offering reasons why consideration of the bill should not be proceeded with or should be postponed, or proposing something else germane to the actual motion before the house. I do not raise the point of order with the view of getting an immediate ruling but would request Your Honour to give it consideration, and my remarks also will serve to give hon. gentlemen opposite notice of the point of order.
What I wish to point out now is that thus far there has been no opportunity to discuss the point of order which has been raised and I hope before Your Honour gives a ruling you will see that such an opportunity is given to hon. members.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I think this would be a proper time to discuss the point of order and if any hon. member wishes to address the chair on it, I shall be glad to hear him. I have been giving the matter a good deal of attention since it has come up.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I would like to submit that the amendment is entirely in order. In doing so I wish first of all to distinguish clearly between the purposes and the principles of the bill. The Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) himself noted the distinction between purpose and principle when in speaking on this measure in the house on March 26 he said as reported on page 1809 of Hansard:
In moving his resolution the minister is not supposed to do more than to state the general purposes of the measure. On the introduction of his bill, when asked, as I understand the rules he should, he may give a succinct statement indicating the general purposes of the legislation, and the principles to be crystallized into legislative form.
I draw attention to the distinction which the Prime Minister very properly made, and at that time drew to the attention of the house,

between the purposes of the legislation and the principles to be crystallized into legislative form. The Prime Minister further said as reported on page 1810:
The motion for second reading will involve the approval or the disapproval of the general principle indicated by the bill.
A little further on he said:
But general legislation, upon which the government has determined its policy, is usually submitted to a committee of the whole house.
And the government pursuing the intention therein expressed has in mind I understand submitting the bill to a committee of the whole house rather than sending it to a standing committee. In other words, the government has decided its policy as it is expressed in the legislation, and there is not open for further discussion in committee the question of policy with respect to its provisions as was the case for example in connection with the bill respecting the creation of a central bank. In that case the Minister of Finance made it quite clear that the question whether there was to bo public or private ownership of shares, or public or private control, was a perfectly open matter, something that could be discussed in the committee to which the bill would be sent. But in this case, in the light of what the Prime Minister has said, the government has indicated by its action in not permitting the bill to go to a standing committee, and the reasons given by the Prime Minister therefor, that the principles embodied in the legislation indicate the government's final policy.
At the time of submitting the amendment I was careful to look up Your Honour's previous rulings in the house, to see that the amendment that was moved would be in order. I would like to read the amendment itself and then Your Honour's latest ruling on a question of order in the case of an amendment on second reading, to see if the amendment does not give ample evidence of being entirely in order. The amendment is:
This house, while prepared to support legislation for assisting the orderly marketing of natural products, is unalterably opposed to the enactment of any compulsory measure which delegates to unnamed and undetermined individuals, groups or organizations, sweeping powers over the production and trade and commerce of the nation, and which confers upon a minister of the crown and upon the governor in council unprecedented authority and unusual powers to restrict production, and interprovincial, inter-imperial, and foreign trade as regards both exports and imports, as well as other autocratic powers.
Your Honour in ruling the other evening in regard to a measure before the house, the last I think on which Your Honour gave a

Marketing Act-Mr. M-ackenzie King
ruling, namely that relating to the freight rates bill, drew attention under standing order 75 in regard to second reading to citation 755, as set forth in Beauchesne which is as follows:
It is also competent to a member who desires to place on record any special reasons for not agreeing to the second reading of a bill, to move as an amendment to the question, a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from, the principles, policy, or provisions of the. bill, ...
My purpose in moving that amendment was to give special reasons for not agreeing to the second reading of the bill, and in so doing I therefore moved an amendment which would be declaratory of some principle which is adverse to the principles and policy and provisions of the bill.
As to what are the principles, policies and provisions of the bill, there can be no mistake, once one looks at the measure. As I have said, the purpose of the bill as set forth in the title is to improve the methods and practices involved in the marketing of natural products and export trade by means of regulation. Regulation is a method, a process, a matter of procedure, not a principle. Regulation is a purpose which all parties in this house hold in common. That is not the principle of the bill, any more than the establishment of a dominion marketing board as such is the principle of the bill. The purpose of the bill is that of regulating and improving production-


Mr GUTHRIE:: If I may ask a question; suppose my right hon. friend's amendment were to carry, what would become of the bill?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The second
reading could be revived later on. The amendment declares, in the meantime, for its being based on a principle that is adverse to that which hon. gentlemen opposite have embodied in the legislation. The amendment would mean that the bill would not now be read a second time et cetera. May I go on and refer to the question of the principle? Without any question the principle of this bill-one of its principles-is to take away from parliament and to entrust to bodies delegated for the purpose the right of making regulations which would have the force of law and be enforceable by fine and imprisonment; to take that power away from parliament itself and give it to other bodies still to be created. That is a principle that from our point of view completely undermines the authority of parliament. It is, I contend, a principle that should be maintained above all others by the House of Commons. But the bill goes still further and gives to the governor in
council power to restrict trade, to prohibit both imports and exports by order in council. Our contention is that the regulation of trade is a duty which should be performed by this parliament, not delegated to any governor in council. The governor in council should have no more right to place an embargo on exports and imports or to restrict importation or exportation of commodities than to do away entirely with the tariff. The control of the tariff should remain with this parliament. The amendment is declaratory in the clearest terms of the assertion of the willingness of the opposition to have parliament pass the necessary measures for the regulation of trade and marketing, but it contemplates having this done by the House of Commons itself, combined, of course, with the Senate.
In case there should be any question whatever as to principles underlying the present bill being those of taking away from parliament control over trade and over production, also over expenditures arising out of the legislation, and being the principles underlying limited production and restricted trade and the creation of monopolies, let me refer specifically to certain provisions; because as the rule I have just read points out, an amendment may declare principles adverse to or differing from the principles, policies or provisions of the bill. These are some of its provisions. Section 3 provides:
(1) The governor in council may establish a board to be known as the dominion marketing board to regulate the marketing of natural products as hereinafter provided.
With this should be read subsection (a) and
(f)	of section 4 which shows how it is "hereinafter provided."
(a)	to regulate the time and place of marketing the regulated product, and to determine the manner of distribution and the quantity and quality or grade of the regulated product that shall be marketed by any person at any time, and to prohibit the marketing of any of the regulated product of any grade or quality;
(f) to require any or all persons engaged in the production or marketing of the regulated product to register their names, addresses, and occupations with the board, or to obtain a licence from the board, and such licence shall be subject to cancellation by the board for violation of any provision of this act or regulation made thereunder;
Then section 5 provides:
(1) A representative number of persons engaged in the production and marketing or the production or marketing of a natural product may petition the governor in council to approve a scheme for the regulation of the marketing of such natural product by a local board under the supervision of the board.
(3) Upon receipt of a report from the board recommending the approval of the scheme as submitted or as amended by the board, the minister may recommend the approval thereof,

Marketing Act-Mr. Mackenzie King
and the governor in council may thereupon approve the said scheme and fix the date when the same shall be effective.
Section 6 provides that:
(1)	When a scheme has been approved by the governor in council, the minister shall give public notice thereof in the Canada Gazette.
(2)	The provisions of the scheme as approved shall have the force of law, and the local board shall, from the date of the publication of the said notice of approval, be a body politic and corporate.
And again section 9:
(1)	Notwithstanding that no petition in relation to any natural product has been filed, the minister may, if he is satisfied that the trade and commerce in the said product is injuriously affected by the lack of a local board to regulate such product, at any time propose a scheme for the marketing of such product, and the governor in council may approve of such scheme and authorize the board to administer such scheme directly or through any agency which it may establish. Such scheme shall continue in force until terminated by the governor in council.
12. (1) The governor in council may, by order or regulation published in the Canada Gazette, restrict the importation into Canada of any natural product which enters Canada in competition with a regulated product, and the governor in council shall have power to make regulations to provide for the licensing by the minister of importers, or otherwise to enforce any order made hereunder.
(2)	The governor in council may, by order or regulation published in the Canada Gazette,-
(a)	provide that any natural product shall not be exported from Canada without a licence;
(b)	prescribe the forms of such licences, the terms and condit:ons thereof and the persons who shall have authority to issue the same;
(c)	impose penalties for breach of any such order or regulation or of any licence issued thereunder, and, generally, make such provision or authorize the doing of such acts or things as may in his discretion be deemed necessary or expedient for giving full effect to any orders, regulations or licences made or issued hereunder.
Then I refer to section 14:
14. Every person who fails to comply with any order or determination of the board or of a local board or any regulation of the governor in council shall be guilty of an offence and punishable on summary conviction with a fine of not less than twenty-five dollars and not more than five hundred dollars, or to imprisonment not exceeding three months, or to both fine and imprisonment.
In part 2, which deals with investigations, it will be found that very similar powers are given to bodies as yet undetermined. I submit that the reading of these sections leaves no doubt whatever that the principles underlying this measure are first that of limiting production, second that of restricting trade and third doing both these things by creating monopolies with regard to certain products that are

to be marketed. And fourth, all this is to be done, not by an act of this parliament which will leave the matter in a known and finally determined condition when the bill is signed by the representative of the crown and becomes law but by giving these powers to bodies that are still to be brought into existence and giving to the governor in council, rather than having held within the control of this parliament, the power to restrict both imports and exports and the control of all expenditures under the act. Our position, Mr. Speaker, is that we are wholly favourable to the regulation of trade to improve marketing conditions, but that the regulation and marketing should be by act of this parliament in accordance with parliamentary procedure and practice and not by bodies other than parliament itself.
In conclusion may I by way of illustrating what I have in mind direct attention to the amendment that was moved on the second reading of the Unemployment and Farm Relief Continuance Act, Bill No. 24, which amendment came before the house on March 30, 1932, and which Your Honour permitted to remain before the house and to be voted upon as entirely in order. I submit that the present amendment as regards the points at issue, is on all fours with that amendment, which was moved by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) and seconded by the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth (Mr. Ralston). The name of the bill was Unemployment and Farm Relief, that was its purpose. The amendment, which was directed not at its purpose, or name, but at the principles upon which it was based, was as follows:
That this bill be not now read a second time but that it be resolved:
1.	That this house has been from the commencement of the session and continues to be ready and willing to consider and vote without delay any money or grant, submitted and asked for by the government for relieving distress and providing employment throughout Canada.
2.	That this house cannot surrender the rights of the people of Canada, through their representatives in parliament, to maintain direct control over matters of taxation and expenditure, nor vest in the governor in council or in any other body absolute and despotic powers under the guise of dealing with peace, order and good government, particularly while parliament is in session.
I repeat that as regards the points involved in this discussion the amendment now before the house in regard to this marketing act is on all fours with the amendment which was held to be in order in 1932.


Mr. BENNETT:: Surely the right hon.
gentleman does not mean that.

Marketing Act-Mr. Stevens


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The right hon. gentleman has just read that previous amendment, which contains the words " that this bill be not now read a second time." There is nothing like that in the amendment now before the house.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There is a
declaration of principle adverse to that set forth in this bill.


Richard Bedford Bennett: "That this bill be not
now read a second time."


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is not
the essential point, if I may say so with all deference to the Prime Minister. The rule governing the matter reads:
It is also competent to a member who desires to place on record any special reasons for not agreeing to the second reading of a bill, to move as an amendment to the question-
Not that the bill be not now read a second time, which is what the Prime Minister is saying, but-
-a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from, the principles, policy, or provisions of the bill-
I submit that this is exactly what is done in the amendment to the marketing bill now before the house. That amendment is declaratory of principles that are adverse to and that differ from the principles, policies and provisions of the bill before the house.


Hon. H. H. STEVENS (Minister of Trade and Commerce):: Mr. Speaker, the other
evening I raised the point of order in connection with this amendment. In .the first place may I point out to you, sir, that the motion before the house is that Bill No. 51 be now read a second time. The right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) has moved a rather lengthy amendment which he says is a declaration of principle, but I would invite Your Honour to give attention to the first three lines of the amendment. It must be borne in mind that the motion is that the bill before the house be now read a second time. On the second reading of a bill it is customary to discuss the main principles of the bill, leaving such matters as the detailed interpretation of clauses to the committee of the whole, where it is understood the minister can give individual replies. The amendment opens with these words:
This house, while prepared to support legislation for assisting the orderly marketing of natural products-
Bill No. 51 is clearly for that purpose; its title reads:
An act to improve the methods and practices of marketing of natural products in Canada and in export trade, and to make further provision in connection therewith.
That is the main object and principle of the bill, and the mover of the amendment says he is quite willing to support legislation to assist orderly marketing. Then he continues with a series of declarations, and the right hon, gentleman now argues that according to his interpretation certain clauses in the bill do violence to certain principles which he chooses to include in his amendment. I submit, sir, that this is all a question of opinion and subject to debate. In order to point out to the house the way of consistency in these matters I should, like to direct attention to Bill No. 26, respecting fruit, which passed through this house a few weeks ago and was given third reading, and which has been sent to another place. In that bill, which already has been approved by the house, many of the clauses are very similar to .the clauses which the right hon. gentleman complains are objectionable to him in the bill now standing for second reading. I find the following section in the bill which has been passed by the house:
The minister may from time to time make regulations:-
Then follows a long list of regulations which may be made. I invite Your Honour to recall that the right hon. gentleman specifically dbjected to subsection (a) of section 4 of the bill standing for second reading, which provides for the fixing of grades and so forth in order to control the quality and the movement of goods by quality as well as by quantity. In this act, which was approved by the house, and in connection with which the house has placed itself on record-
The minister may, from time to time, make
regulations
(a) To establish one or more grades for each kind of fruit and in establishing any such grade, provision may be made to allow for variation-
"Variation," and all the details are not mentioned in the bill. The minister is empowered to do this by regulation. That is the point the right hon. gentleman complained about. Then, farther down in the bill we find this:
(g)	To prescribe the time when any regulation shall come into operation, the particular kind or kinds of fruit and fruit packages-
And so on. And in the light of the right hon. gentleman's complaint, I ask the house to follow this:
(h)	To provide that all or any kind of imported fruit or fruit packages shall be subject to certain or all regulations made under this act-

Marketing Act-Mr. Stevens

In other words, we have already exercised the powers which the right hon. gentleman now presumes to condemn in his resolution. Mr. Speaker, in the first place I challenge the declarations contained in the amendment offered by the right hon. gentleman as being a fair criticism of the bill. I challenge them as being the principles which he declares he wishes to enunciate in contradistinction to the bill itself, because the measures in the bill are not in any sense a violation of many of these so-called declarations of principle. It is merely the extreme interpretation he may put upon them. That is a fair matter for debate in the house, but it is not a question which can be, shall I say, eliminated or overcome by the moving of an amendment.
Now then, sir, may I make some observations as to the effect of the amendment. This bill is a government measure, and if the amendment were accepted I presume the effect would be. that which usually follows the defeat of a government measure. I repeat, this is a government measure. Then, the right hon gentleman moves a resolution,-it is not an amendment to the resolution before the house, at all. It is not an amendment to the motion that the bill be read a second time. There is no reference to that at all, and that is what is before the house. But it is permissible at that point to discuss the bill.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I think the hon. member is mistaken. The right hon. leader of the opposition's amendment begins:
That all the words after the first word "that" be struck out and the following substituted therefor.
The words that follow the word "that" are in connection with the second reading.


Henry Herbert Stevens: May I, with all due deference to Your Honour, submit that although he did not include that in the amendment, it does not alter my point at all.


Mr. CASGRAIN:: Yes it does.


Henry Herbert Stevens: No it does not.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: Look at page 2352 of Hansard second column, fifth line, where the right hon. leader of the opposition said:
I beg to move, seconded by Mr. Stewart (Edmonton) that all the words after the first word "that" be struck out.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes, but it does not say a word about this bill not being read a second time. It does not touch the point or the resolution before the house, at all. It is pointed out that all that is left of the original motion is the word "that." I pointed out that

the amendment does not make any reference as to what shall be done with the reading of the bill. The motion before the house is "that the bill be now read a second time." The right hon. gentleman has just cited the rule.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: What is the rule?


Henry Herbert Stevens: The rule which the right hon. gentleman invoked in his own support reads as follows:
It is also competent to a member who desires to place on record any special reasons for not agreeing to the second reading of a bill, to move as an amendment to the question, a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from the principles, policy, or provisions of the bill-
But my right hon. friend has not so done. He has said he is in favour of the principle.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: "Or provisions."


Henry Herbert Stevens: My right hon. friend said to-day, he said it the other day, and he said in his amendment that:
While prepared to support legislation for assisting the orderly marketing of natural products-
That is an approval of the principle of the bill.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: That is the purpose of it.


Henry Herbert Stevens: That is the principle of it, without any question. Then the rule goes on-
-or expressing opinions as to any circumstances connected with its introduction.
There is nothing in this amendment to meet that point. Then-
-or otherwise opposed to its progress.
He does not offer an amendment "that it shall be read this day six months" which is the common method used. Then the rule goes on-
-or seeking further information in relation to the bill by committees, commissioners, the production of papers or other evidence

In other words, should this bill involve matters which have been dealt with by some public body, involving public documentation, it is competent to a member to request delay in reading in order that these documents may be laid on the table of the house. That is as far as the rule goes.
But the preceding rule deals with the matter in a different way. It states:
The opponents of the bill may vote against the question that the bill "be now read a second time"; but this course is rarely adopted as it still remains to be decided on what day it shall be read a second time, or whether it shall be read at all; and the bill therefore is still before the house, and may afterwards be proceeded with. The ordinary practice is to move

Marketing Act-Mr. Mackenzie (Vancouver)
an amendment to the question by leaving out the word "now" and adding "six months" or any other term beyond the probable duration of the session.
My submission is, first, that the resolution or amendment is out of order inasmuch as it does not directly apply to the resolution before the house. In the second place I suggest that the right hon. gentleman has not offered to the house in support of his amendment arguments to justify the position declared in the amendment. And, in the third place, I submit to the house, as I said a moment ago, that if the house desires to be consistent it ought to bear this in mind, that a similar bill, carrying many provisions including penalties, regulations which were not set forth, power to make regulations, power to impose penalties and many other matters included in Bill No. 51, has already been approved by this house during the present session.
Therefore, Mr. Speaker, my argument is that the amendment is not in order, and is not competent to be accepted by the house.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I should like to say just a word or two on the point of order. The first objection taken by the hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Stevens) was to the style and cause of the introduction to the amendment, namely, "That all the words after the word 'that' be struck out and the following substituted therefor." I submit that the proper introduction to an amendment such as that now before the house is that appearing in the amendment. The striking out of the word "now" could apply only to the six months' hoist. I state that this amendment is entirely different, because it is a determination of principle, a matter entirely different from a six months' hoist.
In the second place, Mr. Speaker, I should like to refer to the remarks of the Minister of Trade and Commerce when he raised this point of order. His objection was on one point, and on one point only. May I quote his words:
I should like to raise the point of order whether the amendment submitted by the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Mackenzie King) is in order, inasmuch as it constitutes what might be termed a declaration of policy, instead of offering reasons why consideration of the bill should not be proceeded with. . . .


Henry Herbert Stevens: May I say it will be recalled that we had no notice of the amendment. I never saw it until the right hon. gentleman read it. I was compelled to make a brief statement, and I simply reserved the right to make the point of order later on.
74726-157 J


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I am not in the slightest degree criticizing my hon. friend, but I do submit that the only point of order before the house at the present time is that this amendment which was raised by the right hon. leader of the opposition was out of order on one ground, and that the ground was then, in the language of the Minister of Trade and Commerce-
Inasmuch as it constitutes what might be termed a declaration of policy, instead of offering reasons why consideration of the bill should not be proceeded with. . . .
Now, let us read again the general rule, namely section 755, which is amplified in May at the foot of page 390, also at page 39 of the same volume and by Bourinot at page 509. These rules describe the procedure adopted in moving the six months' hoist, in connection with which the proper introductory appellation is as mentioned by the Prime Minister. But the proper appellation for this amendment, the amendment now before the house is found in the words used by the leader of the opposition. The rule is as follows:
It is also competent to a member who desires to place on record any special reasons for not agreeing to the second reading of a bill to move as an amendment to the question, a resolution declaratory of some principles adverse to, or differing from, the principles, policv or provisions of the bill.
Although my hon. friend the Minister of Trade and Commerce and my right hon. leader may differ as to what the principle of this bill is, I say that even that is not germane to the question whether or not the amendment is in order because it goes much further than the word "principle" and deals with policy-the very question which the Minister of Trade and Commerce himself raised on the point of order, as to the policy or provisions of the bill. My friends opposite may say that the principle of the bill is marketing. We say that it is not. We say' that the principle of this bill goes much further and that the policy and provisions of the bill establish and prove the truth of the language that is used in the amendment. What is that language?
-any compulsory measure which delegates to unnamed and undetermined individuals, groups or organizations, sweeping powers over the production and trade and commerce of the nation.
My hon. friends may say that that does not exist in the bill. But that has absolutely no relevance, not in the slightest degree, to the argument whether the amendment is in order. We can enunciate, by way of amendment, the general principle which we believe
2478	COMMONS
Marketing Act-Mr. Mackenzie (Vancouver)
to be embodied in the clauses of this bill, and whether or not our friends opposite differ with us that is a matter of political argument. The amendment goes on:
-and which confers upon a minister of the crown and upon the governor in council unprecedented authority and unusual powers to restrict production, and interprovincial, interimperial and foreign trade as regards both exports and imports, as well as other autocratic powers.
The only argument which my hon. friend the minister brings up here is: You passed the Fruit Act the other day. Does he seriously think that the extraordinary and extensive powers of this bill are comparable in the slightest degree to the provisions of the Fruit Act? Where do we find in the Fruit Act the unnamed and undetermined boards and the tremendous delegated authority that you have in this bill? If I wanted to indulge in an argument on the merits of the bill, I might say that I am prepared to support a marketing bill such as is asked for by the producers of British Columbia. But that is not Bill No. 51.
My hon. friends opposite will tell me that we can alter the bill in committee, but I say, Mr. Speaker, that it is the duty of every member of this house who is opposed to the actual principle, policy and provisions of Bill No. 51 to vote against that bill on the second reading or to vote for a generous amendment such as we have now before us, and not simply to be satisfied with the assurance of the Minister of Agriculture and of some other speakers that this bill may be amended in committee. We do not know what the amendments are going to be.
I am not opposed to the principle of marketing; I am in favour of orderly marketing; but I am opposed to this unprecedented delegation of authority to unnamed boards and to an unnamed number of boards throughout the country, to which are to be delegated powers which never before have been delegated by a parliament of Canada.
To recapitulate, Mr. Speaker, there is not the slightest comparison between the Fruit Act and this bill. The Fruit Act is under the control of the minister. It contains provisions for regulations; but what have we in this bill? Unnamed and undetermined boards functioning throughout Canada, together with most unusual provisions and policies.
There is another question in regard to the Fruit Act. I am aware, Mr. Speaker, of the rule which you will find referred to in May, and under which the words "any compulsory measure" might be taken objection to. But May had reference to an old English case 
where an amendment containing the words "any compulsory measure" and imposing burdens on the people was ruled out of order because at that time there were other bills before the house by which such burdens were imposed. But I say, Mr. Speaker, that there is no other such bill before this house. The Fruit Act has been disposed of. This imposes compulsory obligations upon the people and establishes unnamed and undetermined boards. So I submit, Mr. Speaker, on the actual point of order raised by the minister himself that he is absolutely ruled out of court by rule 755 and by Bourinot and May. In the second place, it is not the principle of this bill; it is the policy and provisions of this bill which are referred to in section 755.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, it is a little difficult to explain just why this amendment should be in order. In the first place, we have to determine what the rules are with respect to debate on the second reading of a bill. The rules of this house are the rules of the English house, that the principle of the bill is to be discussed, but instead of the principle being discussed the right hon. gentleman has to-day again discussed the sections.
The other evening when the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Coote) raised a question as to the principle of the Bank of Canada bill and referred to the provisions in that bill dealing with the ownership of the shares he said, "One of the principles that I declare for is public ownership." The right hon. leader of the opposition then rose in his place and asked: "What is the principle of this bill?" And he went on to say that the principle was that there is to be a central bank. Now the principle of the bill before us is that there is to be a marketing board.
Secondly, the right hon. gentleman has this afternoon suggested that because that Bank of Canada bill was to go to a committee of the house there was a distinction to be drawn between it and this bill, which is to be considered by a committee of the whole house. But the conclusion that he should have drawn was exactly the opposite of that which he did draw, for a committee composed of part of the house can never have the power that a committee of the whole house has, and it was competent, as the Minister of Agriculture said, when he introduced the bill, for this house to make suggestions which it thought proper for the purpose of amending this bill. When the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) suggested that we did not know what the amendments were to be, he immediately begged the question for it is for this house to suggest such amendments as may

Marketing Act-Mr. Bennett
seem desirable after debate and discussion in order that there may be a clear appreciation and understanding of the desirability of accepting any amendment in lieu of the existing sections. That is the position as it stands up to the time when the amendment is moved.
Now what is the test? The test is a simple one. What will happen if the amendment carries?


Mr. YOUNG:: Withdraw the bill and bring in a better one.


Richard Bedford Bennett: But the bill will not be withdrawn. It will disappear.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: No. Read rule 756.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The bill may be moved to be put back on the order paper, but it disappears from this order paper and it can only be put back upon a motion being made to that effect. When it disappears from the order paper what takes its place? A bill? Oh no; a pious hope that straddles the fence and speaks for both sides. In other words, their principle is: "We want to be on both sides of this measure. We want to say in the country that we have supported orderly marketing. But also we want to say we opposed this bill."


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: Right.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. member is perfectly frank, but the rules are not predicated on that assumption. The rules are predicated
on the assumption that members of parliament have opinions and convictions which they are prepared to back up with their votes.


Mr. McINTOSH:: As the electors of South Oxford did.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I would not for a moment, Mr. Speaker, miss any pearly word of wisdom. I thought I heard one, but it seems I wSs mistaken. I was about to say that the test is: What would happen if this amendment carried, if it is in order? If it is in order there must at least be something happen in the way of destroying the bill that is before the house. But that is not what hon. gentlemen opposite want to do. They say in the preamble of the amendment:	We are for
marketing. Then they go on to say: But we are against this kind of marketing. That means that they are in favour of the principle of the bill, and the principle of the bill is marketing.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The right hon. gentleman stood in his place the other night and reproved the hon. member for Macleod because he was asserting that he had a right to advocate a publicly owned bank as one of the principles of the Bank of Canada bill, and he asked; What is the principle of the bill? And he answered, that we have a central bank. The principle here is:	Shall we have a
marketing board? Yes or no? You cannot escape your responsibility under our rules by setting up a resolution that lets you support the bill in one breath and oppose it in another. That is what the rule is designed to prevent. It insists that there should be a clear cut division of opinion upon the issue. The issue is a marketing bill-yes or no?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Is this bill
confined simply to marketing or is it by its
title not also related to export trade?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Anything that is incidental to marketing must be dealt with and marketing touches every phase of trade and commerce so defined. The principle is a marketing bill and if the genius of the house evolves better provisions than those that obtain, it is open to the house to suggest what they should be. That is the position at the moment. The amendment is that all the words after "that" be struck out. The motion is that the bill be read a second time, therefore, all the words after " that " are to disappear and in place of those words we are to have substituted a mere safeguard which says:	We are in favour of the principle of this bill, namely, a marketing board but we do not like some of the provisions that arise out of the application of that principle. Can that be in order? It is not in order, it is a matter for the committee. The principle of the bill is to be decided on second reading and there is an assertion of adherence to the principle in the first three lines of the amendment now before the house. If this were to be adopted instead of a motion for the second reading of the bill we would have these words:
This house, w'hile prepared to support legislation for assisting the orderly marketing of natural products, is unalterably opposed to the enactment of any compulsory measure-
That cannot be an amendment to this motion because it declares favourably to the principle. The very words read by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) were, " opposed to the principle of the measure." That is, you can move a resolution opposed to the principle of the motion but you cannot move one that asserts your proud adherence to the principle of it and your abhorrence to the provisions in its details. I submit that the motion is out of
24SU
Market my Act-Mr. Ralston

order for that* very reason.. Yon cannot approbate and reprobate in the same amendment, to use the language of Lord Elgin. Here they approbate by stating that they approve of a marketing board, then they reprobate, not the motion but the details of it. This is the reason why I submit with confidence that the amendment is out of order.
Hon. J. L. RALSTON (Shelburne-Yar-mouth) With regard to the matter of principle to which my right hon. friend (Mr. Bennett) has referred, I submit that he is mixing up the principle with the name of the bill. I do not think he ought to suggest and I do not think he can fairly suggest that because this bill happens to have in its title the word "marketing," therefore that is the only principle or provision in the bill. He cannot by introducing a bill which has the word "marketing" in its title prevent us from moving an amendment to the motion for second reading in order to register disapproval of its many provisions which are not germane to marketing and which may have a much wider significance. My right hon. leader has referred already to the fact that this bill contains not only provisions for marketing but provisions for restricting imports and exports. It contains also provisions to make crimes where no crimes existed before. My right hon. friend is suggesting that by calling it a marketing bill, you make marketing the principle of the bill and that if you are in favour of marketing, then perforce you must let it have second reading and go to committee no matter what other objectionable provisions there are. Reference has been made to rule 755 but my right hon. friend has missed entirely some words which are most important in connection with this resolution, namely, that we can move a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or different from the "principles, policies, or provisions" of the bill. I emphasize particularly the word provisions. That is exactly what we are doing.
My right hon. friend mentioned the central bank legislation. In that case it was distinctly laid down by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Rhodes) that a central bank was the only thing to which we were committing ourselves by that resolution. The questions of share ownership and other possible knotty problems were to be left quite open for discussion. The Prime Minister is now suggestng that we must simply open our mouths and shut our eyes because of the fact that the term "marketing" is in the title to this bill and that we must swallow the whole bill and allow it to go to the committee if we are in favour
tMr. Bennett.]
of marketing. I submit that that is not what the rules provide. They provide that simply because the word "marketing" appears in the title you are not bound to accept that as the only principle of the bill, that you have a right to examine it to find out what else is in it. The rules provide that you may move a resolution declaratory of your non-adherence to some of the provisions which are contained in the bill, even though they are provisions which are not covered by the title. 1 looked up Bourinot just before I came in to find what cases he cites in which amendments have been submitted. The citations are rather old but I found one which referred to an amendment moved in 1882. This was an amendment to a bill to readjust the representation in the House of Commons. I hope the Prime Minister will note that. According to him, if any hon. member was in favour of readjusting the representation in the House of Commons in any way he would have to vote in favour of the motion for second reading and allow the bill to go to committee. The amendment moved at that time showed that the house was in favour of readjustment but was not in favour of the readjustment proposed in the bill. The amendment appears at page 412 of the Journals of 1882. The motion was for the second reading of a bill to readjust the representation in the House of Commons and Mr. Mills moved, in amendment, seconded by Mr. Rymal:
That all the words after "that" to the end of the question, be left out, and the words "in readjusting the representation of the people in parliament, there should be no needless interference with existing arrangements, and the principle of justice and fair play towards both political parties should be observed;"
There was an admission that the house was in favour of readjustment but was taking direct issue with what was regarded as one of the provisions of the bill, namely, the provision which did not give fair play to the parties in the house. The amendment went on to say:
That the bill contains numerous needless changes, and is framed with a view to concentrate large bodies of the Liberal voters in a few electoral districts, and to add Conservative voters to, or remove Liberal voters from, many electoral districts, and thus weaken the effective strength of the Liberal party, and to pack the constituencies of Ontario in favour of the Conservatives.
That amendment shows that on the motion for second reading they were discussing the different provisions of the bill, not just the title. That amendment admitted that there should be a readjustment but it complained of the provisions of the bill. It is cited in

Marketing Act-Mr. Guthrie
Bourinot as authority for rule 755. The house divided upon the amendment but under the circumstances which existed at that time, the amendment was lost. I am pointing out that that amendment is similar to the one we have before us. It went into the heart of the bill, it dealt with the provisions of the bill and made a declaration that certain of the provisions were not acceptable to those who supported the amendment.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: Was there any point of order raised in connection with it?


Mr. RALSTON:: No, but I would point out that Bourinot cites this very case as one of the authorities in connection with rule 755. I do not think we could have much better support for our contention that an amendment having to do with the major provisions of a bill is perfetly in order.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The hon. gentleman will observe that in the amendment to which he has referred there is no substantive approval of the principle of the measure, it is only read into it by inference.


James Layton Ralston: I do not think my right hon. friend will adhere to that point. Surely there was a pretty plain inference. This is a bill to readjust the representation. The amendment says that in readjusting the representation-


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is provided for by the British North America Act.


James Layton Ralston: No, in readjusting the
representation-


Richard Bedford Bennett: The readjustment is provided by that act.


James Layton Ralston: Yes, but the bill was for the readjustment as provided for under the British North America Act. The bill was being introduced under the powers which that act gives permitting parliament to readjust the representation. The readjustment was being made under that act. My right hon. friend suggests that this amendment did not approve the principle of readjustment. I say that it could not have approved it in much plainer language when it says that in readjusting the representation, certain definite principles should be observed.


Hon. HUGH GUTHRIE (Minister of Justice):: I do not want to delay the house or Your Honour in your decision of this question, but I have carefully listened to the argument and after giving it the best consideration I am able to bestow upon it, in my opinion, the amendment is out of order. I shall try briefly to give my reasons for the opinion I have just expressed. I do not see
how anyone can argue that this is not purely and simply a marketing bill; that is the main principle of the measure: For the more orderly marketing of certain natural products of Canada. The hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth (Mr. Ralston) suggests that the bill goes much further than the question of marketing because it touches on the question of exports and imports. But surely exports and imports of natural products are so related to the general question of orderly marketing that they form part of it.
The next point mentioned by the hon. member was that penalties are imposed for breaches of the provisions of certain of the clauses in respect of marketing. Those penalties are consequential; they appear in all such bills, md in our revised statutes there will be found many acts incorporating the imposition of penalties. One is almost shocked when one considers the matter. I believe in the revised statutes there are no less than one hundred and twenty-five such acts where penalties are prescribed for breaches of regulations. But this fact does not detract from the general principle that this measure is a marketing bill, purely and simply.
The trouble I see with the amendment moved by my right hon. friend is that, as the Prime Minister has stated, it is an attempt to bestraddle the question, to favour both sides of the question, to blow both hot and cold, which is contrary to the rules of the house. The rules provide inferentially and, I think, very distinctly that a member shall express his opinion one way or the other on questions which arise, and, indeed, until recently, a member could be compelled to vote, if present in the house.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: What
about the freight rates bill?


Hugh Guthrie: I think the first objection to the amendment is fatal. The next objection, to my mind, is that the first three lines of the amendment constitute a declaration in favour of the principle of the bill; I do not think there is any question about that. In regard to the other portions of the amendment and all the denunciations heaped upon the various clauses of the bill by my right hon. friend's amendment, every point he mentioned is a proper one for the consideration of the committee of the whole house. When the bill is in committee my right hon. friend may move an amendment on every one of those points, and the house may adopt his amendments if it sees fit. Those are matters which do not pertain at all to the principle of the bill; they are merely details designed to carry out the prin-

Marketing Act-Mr. Marcil
ciple. When .the house is in committee every statement contained in my right hon. friend's amendment may be dealt with by the committee; he may move motion after motion, taking the opinion of the committee and it may be that on many points his views may prevail. But the amendment must not anticipate the committee stage of the bill. In my humble judgment the amendment as drawn is certainly out of order and should be so ruled.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I ask the Minister of Justice a question before he resumes his seat? If instead of the provision as to imports and exports reading:
The governor in council may, by order or regulation published in the Canada Gazette, restrict the importation into Canada of any natural product-
It were to read:
The governor in council may remove any duties with respect to any article of trade and commerce-


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is in the statute
now; it is the Customs Act.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am speaking now of the provisions of this bill as it is framed. If it were to read that the governor in council may have power to remove or to increase duties, would the minister say that the mere fact that the measure is entitled " An Ac.t for -the Improvement of Marketing," would make the provision quite regular, and the principle of the bill one of marketing rather than one of changing the tariff?


Hugh Guthrie: WThen you get into the
realm of duties an entirely different principle applies. There is power in the Customs Act for the governor in council, I think, to wipe out duties altogether.


An hon. MEMBER:: Not to increase them.


Hugh Guthrie: The question of increasing duties is different. That would be a matter of imposing taxation on the people by order in council and that is not permissible. When taxing bills are introduced in the house, they are introduced by way of resolution and not by way of a direct bill.


Charles Marcil: I would like to point out that it has been the custom from time immemorial to discuss the principle of a bill on the second reading to enable members to express their views and if so desired to change the form of a proposal which is made to the house. The same rule applies to all amendments. When a motion is made by a member and put to the house by the speaker, it is the right of any other member to move to amend it in accordance

with certain rules. Members may not be willing to adopt the question as proposed to them and may consequently desire to modify it in various ways. When we are voting on the supply bill, we very often preface the amendment by saying that while the house is willing to vote supply to His Majesty to carry on the public business, we object to such and such an expenditure. Bourinot at page 509 states:
The second reading of a bill is that stage when it is proper to enter into a discussion and propose a motion relative to the principle of the measure. The Senate has a rule on the subject:
"64. The principle of a bill is usually debated at its second reading."
The commons have no rule on the subject, but the practice of the house is always to discuss the principle of a bill at this stage. Any member may propose as an amendment a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from, the principles, policy or provisions of the bill.
We may favour a marketing board on certain conditions, a marketing board whose expenditures, whose cost to the country, would be controlled by parliament. That is not the proposal which is now being made. The present proposal is that the administration of the measure will be carried on by a board created by the governor in council and that the expenditures involved will be controlled solely by the governor in council and that parliament will have nothing whatever to say in the matter and no control over this expenditure. Surely a member may be in favour of a marketing board, but not of one of that character, a board to which the rights of this parliament are delegated. I am sure the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) and the Minister of Justice (Mr. Guthrie) who know the rules of parliament will confirm this rule of Bourinot that this is the only opportunity we have to express an opinion on the principles of the bill as presented to the house. For that reason I submit very humbly that the amendment is in order.


Robert James Manion: May I add one word to the argument? The argument of the opposition that this amendment is in order is based upon paragraph 755. That after all is not a rule of the house; the rule of the house is standing order No. 75. Paragraph 755 is after all merely a quotation from May. I happened to look up May a moment ago, and paragraph 755 which is quoted here complete from May starts at the bottom of page 357 and goes on to page 358. Let me read the next two clauses. The last word in 755 is "Judges." May continues:

Marketing Act-Mr. Manion
The principle of relevancy in an amendment governs every such proposed resolution, which must, therefore, "strictly relate to the bill which the house, by its order, has resolved upon considering/' and must not include in its scope other bills then standing for consideration by the house.
Then listen to the following:
Nor may such an amendment deal with the provisions of the bill upon which it is moved, nor anticipate amendments thereto which may be moved in committee, nor attach conditions to the second reading of the bill.
I submit that this amendment does deal with the provisions of the bill, because, as pointed out by the Minister of Justice, all the clauses in the amendment could be moved as amendments to the bill in committee.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: What page is my hon. friend reading from?


Robert James Manion: The continuation on page 358 of May, twelfth edition of the same clause, 755.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My hon. friend has a different edition from that which we are using. The thirteenth is the edition used by the house generally.


Robert James Manion: The quotation in 755 comes from the exact page I have used, and it is continued on page 358.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: It is out of date.


Robert James Manion: Then my right hon. friend's whole argument is out of date.


Pierre Édouard Blondin: It having been moved that Bill No. 51, an act to improve the methods and practices involved in the marketing of natural products in Canada and in export trade, and to make further provision in connection therewith, be now read the second time, the Right Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King moved in amendment that all the words after the first word "that" be struck out and the following substituted therefor:
This house, while prepared to support legislation for assisting the orderly marketing of natural products, is unalterably opposed to the enactment of any compulsory measure which delegates to unnamed and undetermined individuals, groups or organizations, sweeping powers over the production and trade and commerce of the nation, and which confers upon a minister of the crown and upon the governor in council unprecedented authority and unusual powers to restrict production, and interprovincial, inter-imperial and foreign trade as regards both exports and imports, as well as other autocratic powers.
The Hon. Mr. Stevens raised the point of order as to whether the said amendment is in order inasmuch as it constitutes what might be termed a declaration of policy instead of
offering reasons why consideration of the bill should not be proceeded with or should be postponed, or proposing something else germane to the actual motion before the house.
The Right Hon. Mr. Mackenzie King in moving the amendment quoted paragraph 755 of Beauehesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms-which paragraph is published as a quotation from May, thirteenth edition, page 390, and is repeated by Bourinot at page 509- as follows:
It is also competent to a member who desires to place on record any special reasons for not agreeing to the second reading of a bill, to move as an amendment to the question, a resolution declaratory of some principle adverse to, or differing from, the principles, policy or provisions of the bill, . . .
This rule is subject to certain limitations. If the right hon. member had continued to quote from May, he would have found the following reference to an amendment to a motion for second reading of a bill:
Nor may such an amendment deal with the provisions of the bill upon which it is moved, nor anticipate amendments thereto which may be moved in committee. '
(May, thirteenth edition, page 391.)
The precedent cited in May in support of this is found in 188 Parliamentry Debates, fourth series, column 76, The Education (Scotland) Bill:
Mr. Speaker: I have to rule that the amendment standing in the name of the hon. member for Glasgow and Aberdeen universities-to the effect that the house while welcoming educational legislation for Scotland regrets that the present measure does not propose change in the educational areas which is urgently required in the interests of efficient administration-is not technically in order, because it does not challenge the principle of the bill. The question raised can be decided by an amendment to the bill itself. If the hon. member wants to object to the second reading, he should move that the bill be read this day six months.
The amendment moved by the right hon. leader of the opposition does not challenge the principle of Bill No. 51, and it anticipates the committee stage. It declares that the "house is prepared to support legislation for assisting the orderly marketing of natural products," and the bill is intituled "an act to improve the methods and practices of marketing of natural products." There is so much similarity between those two propositions that one cannot be moved as a resaon to reject the second reading of a bill enunciating the other.
The amendment further declares that the house is unalterably opposed to the granting of certain powers and the application of certain methods in the giving of government assistance to the marketing of natural pro-

Marketing Act-Speaker's Ruling
ducts, but does not connect the granting of those powers or the application of those methods with the bill. It does not declare any principle adverse to or differing from the principle, policy or provisions of the bill. The bill deals with powers and methods which may be altered in committee.
The objection .to the enactment of any compulsory measure which delegates to unnamed and undetermined individuals, groups or organizations, sweeping powers over the production and trade and commerce of the nation can be dealt with by amendments when the committee of the whole is considering section 3 of the bill which establishes the dominion marketing board, and section 4 which defines the powers of the board. The action to be taken by the governor in council and the minister in administering the act is described in almost every section of the bill and may be strengthened or weakened by amendment when the bill is in committee.
The case cited by the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth differs from this case. There a definite declaration as to what the mover was in favour of was laid down; in this case the amendment declares as to what enactments the mover is opposed to, without connecting them with the bill or the principle of the bill.
The objections raised in the proposed amendment cannot be looked upon as reasons why Bill No. 51 should not now be proceeded with and, moreover, they may be considered after the bill has been read a second time. For these reasons I find the proposed amendment to be out of order.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I regret that
I am obliged to appeal from Your Honour's ruling.


Mr. DUPRE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Joliette (Mr. Ferland). Had I voted, I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. GAGNON:: I was paired with the hon. member for Bellechasse (Mr. Boulanger). Had I voted, I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. BAKER:: I was paired with the hon. member for Prescott (Mr. Bertrand). Had I voted, I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. SPENCE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Northumberland, Ont. (Mr. Fraser). Had I voted, I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. BELL (St. Antoine):: I was paired with the hon. member for Beauharnois (Mr. Raymond). Had I voted, I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. ANDERSON (Halton):: I was paired with the hon. member for Toronto West Centre (Mr. Factor). Had I voted, I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. PERLEY (Qu'Appelle):: I was paired with the hon. member for Vancouver North (Mr. Munn). Had I voted, I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. MacDONALD (Cape Breton South):: I was paired with the hon. member for Colchester (Mr. Urquhart). Had I voted, I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. MALONEY:: I was paired with the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young). Had I voted, I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. BOYES:: I was paired with the hon. member for West Elgin (Mr. Hepburn). Had I voted, I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. AHEARN:: I was paired with the hon. member for Frontenac-Addington (Mr. Spankie). Had I voted, I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling being sustained.


Mr. ELLIOTT:: I was paired with the hon. member for South Waterloo (Mr. Edwards). Had I voted, I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling being sustained.


Mr. SANDERSON:: I was paired with the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn). Had I voted, I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling being sustained.


Mr. BEAUBIEN:: I was paired with the hon. member for Champlain (Mr. Baribeau). Had I voted, I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling being sustained.


Mr. BOUCHARD:: I was paired with the hon. member for Welland (Mr. Pettit). Had I voted, I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling being sustained.


Mr. LAURIN (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for St. Hyacinthe-Rou-ville (Mr. Fontaine). Had I voted I would have voted to sustain the Speaker's ruling.


Mr. FAFARD (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Levis (Mr. Fortin) Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling being sustained.


Mr. McGIBBON:: I was paired with the Mr. DUBOIS (Translation): I was paired hon. member for Quebec South (Mr. Power), with the hon. member for St. John-Albert Had I voted, I would have voted to sustain (Mr. Bell). Had I voted I would have voted the Speaker's ruling.'	against the Speaker's ruling being sustained.

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell


Mr. THAUVETTE (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Matane (Mr. Lame). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling being sustained.


Mr. BRADETTE (Translation):: I was paired with the hon. member for Algoma East (Mr. Nicholson). Had I voted I would have voted against the Speaker's ruling being sustained.


Hon. W. R. MOTHERWELL (Melville):: Mr. Speaker, this marketing bill which I hold in my hand is one of the greatest compounds of good, bad and indifferent that it has fallen to my lot to analyze and decide upon. So much is that the case that at times and in places the bad features of this bill seem almost to supersede the good. Notwithstanding that, however, and having regard to the fact that I hope we will have two opportunities before two committees to expunge the bad features and preserve the good ones I have decided to support the second reading of the bill. That is my best judgment. At this stage, and before giving my reasons for so doing, I should like to read an extract from Hansard of May 13, 1932, in which I gave expression to these words:
I think we have reached a time in our history when agriculture is simply staggering to its fall, and we can afford to ease up a little in our extreme political alignments and work on behalf of agriculture even if we have to work through a Tory government, which is the only avenue available at this time. That is pretty straight talk, but that is the way I feel. I am in opposition now; there are not enough of us here to perform the functions of government. The electors, in their wisdom, elected another government and we have a new minister of agriculture. I have not very long to assist agriculture now, perhaps ten or fifteen years more, and I am prepared to work through this government until the electors provide us with a better avenue. Things are so bad in connection with agriculture that I believe I would work through Beelzebub himself if necessary, and therefore much more through the minister. Conditions are so distressing on many farms that we cannot afford to quibble as to where the good things may come from at this time.
That is exactly the way I still feel, and I am thinking not of the government or even of parliament but of the farmers and producers throughout Canada who asked for this legislation.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: For this legislation?


William Richard Motherwell: What they think this legislation is. Having made the merits and demerits of the bill the basis of my decision I think it is up to me to mention some of the good features of the bill, and I think it has good features. In passing I might say,

Mr. Speaker, that I think the bill contains more than one principle, and that is the difficulty we have been up against. There are many principles involved, but to me the outstanding point is that a long deferred marketing act has been presented to us, and I have to decide what I am going to do with it. My decision is to support the second reading of the bill and, before the agriculture committee, where I hope it will go, to expurgate the bad features and "hold fast to that which is good." I believe it is quite safe ground when I take that attitude. We have then a marketing bill-and may I say that we are the last part of this British Empire to have such legislation. All the dominions, with the exception of Canada, have a marketing act. I do not say that that in itself is sufficient argument in favour of accepting any bill; as a matter of fact I believe in the principle of standing alone for the right, if you have to. But it is worth while to think about that feature, namely that we are the last part of the British Empire to pass such legislation. As a matter of fact we will soon be the tail end of creation with respect to marketing legislation, because more than thirty other countries have it. That is also worth thinking about.
We have before us a marketing bill, and I believe in part of it as at present drafted, but the bill which I hope will go forward from this house after we have concluded our deliberations I hope to be able to support almost in toto. I believe, further, in a marketing board. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, the government to which I belonged is responsible for a wheat marketing board act. In connection with the wheat board we were successful in ou.r methods of reconciling the jurisdiction of the dominion with that of the provinces. The legislation in this connection was passed in the year 1922, and to it some rather unfair references were made by the hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull). However, we shall not go into that matter now. The method of passing enabling legislation and concurring legislation is laid down in this bill, and was laid down twelve years ago by the government to which I had the honour of belonging. At that time the same principle of enabling legislation was involved. Of course, we did not deal with the same objectionable details, but we did have to deal with the same constitutional difficulties as are herein dealt with in this marketing act. The province of British Columbia established a satisfactory system of marketing boards, but in that province they always ran up against the final difficulty of

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell
standing the test in the courts, and without this legislation they were unable to carry out their marketing programs.
I have given three reasons why I like this measure. Then we come to a feature of the bill to which a great many people have taken strong objection. Owing to the paucity of information given by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) in his speech one cannot wonder at such objections. I am sorry to have to make that statement. Of course, the minister w'as labouring under this tremendous difficulty, namely, that when he proposed the second reading of the bill the recesses and rafters of this building were reverberating witih the Liberal cheers of victory from South Oxford. At that moment my good friend the minister was put into the front line trenches to explain this bill. Under those circumstances I think the enthusiasm would have been taken out of anyone, I do not care how young or old a political warrior he might be. However, I have no brief for my hon. friend, nor do I intend to make excuses for him. The fact remains however that in view of the meagreness of the information he gave the house I am not surprised that the opposition of many hon. gentlemen was invited. I did not know then what many of the features of this bill meant and I do not know yet.
Then, we find the provision prohibiting the export of certain unnamed commodities. Is it any wonder, without any knowledge of what is meant, there has been strong opposition to this also. That is a provision we should have had long ago, a provision at least some portion of which we have already exercised. It would prohibit low grade commodities, such as low grade live stock, low grade wheat or, in fact, low grade anything being shipped to the export markets of the world. The Antipodes have had that legislation for I don't know how many years. Denmark has it. They export the good and leave the bad at home, or do something else with it. When one understands this provision he realizes that instead of it being an objection to the bill it is a virtue.
At the present time we have a congested European and British wheat market. Would it not be the part of wisdom at this time when there is justification for it, to tell those who have low grade wheat, say No. 6, that it is not fair to send such wheat to a market already congested and thereby pull down the value of the higher grades. That is not a wise procedure. This is the time to say, I repeat, that the low grades should not be placed on already congested markets, thereby in some measure lessening the opportunities afforded for sale of the higher grades.
Especially is that true when there is an opening for the same low grade wheat in the Orient, if there is another opening for wheat anywhere at the present time. As every hon. member knows, the only way to compete in the orient is by offering low grade wheat at prices in competition with rice. I do not know whether the government understands this situation as do some other hon. members, but certainly they have not explained it. For thitf reason I am not surprised that this particular feature of the bill has met with strong opposition. However, having had conversations with some of the staff in the Department of Agriculture, and being in a position to guess the rest of it, I have assumed-and I believe I am right in my assumption-that this provision is for the purpose of meeting such situations as we now' have whereby low grade commodities are authorized to be kept off congested markets. That is good practice. I may state frankly, Mr. Speaker, that the late government did, without any of this legislation, refuse the shipment abroad of poor live stock. We had no legislation to support us, but we just took chances, when exporting cattle to Great Britain shortly after the major portions of the embargo were removed in 1923. We did take the responsibility at Montreal and at other ports for saying that certain low grade cattle could not take ship. No one objected. We just took it for granted that we had that authority. Possibly that may not have been the right procedure for us to adopt, but may I say it did keep low grade animals off the British market, and that is what this legislation proposes to do legally.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Was the action to which the hon. member refers taken by order in council?


William Richard Motherwell: I do not think we did it by order in council.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Just did it?


William Richard Motherwell: We did not even have an order in council.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is what I thought.


William Richard Motherwell: I do not think we had. We were simply assuming that it was the sensible thing to do and, acting sanely in the matter, we prevented such low grade stock from going anyway.
I now turn to the section which has to do with the storing and preserving of farm commodities. I am bound to take the stand that I would have gone even farther in this connection. I should like to have seen the processing of commodities included, a procedure which would have my support. If processing were included the board would have the

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell
right to establish somewhere in Canada a demonstration packing plant, without which we will never get to the farmer the information he must have in order to secure his confidence in our packing plants. This principle was demonstrated in connection with terminal elevators. Do you ever hear any cry about the terminal elevator now? No, because the government established one. May I say it was not our government, but the government of my hon. friends opposite. Although I do not think it is always a paying concern, I do believe it established the fact that there were not in connection with the terminal elevators the abuses that many had believed. Since that action was taken there has been no difficulty. Therefore I say that if processing were added, the proper authority would have the right to establish an experimental abattoir which would show the farmers just what profits were being made and could be made or not be made in the matter of processing live stock. I believe one such abattoir would be sufficient, and that it should be placed in the stock yards auction market and not away from the yards. It should be favourably situated in a position convenient to the animals. I have outlined six good features in this legislation. It would be sufficient to take those six favorable features as a nucleus for the bill and while adding others thereto try to eliminate the really bad ones- and I tell you they are here in abundance as the bill now stands.
Then, some people shy at the bill because it is said to represent state socialism. Well, as I understand the dictum and policies of our friends to the left, the C.C.F., it is that which they have preached in this house on many occasions, namely, the doctrine of "production for use and not for profit." Why, Mr. Speaker, the avowed purpose of this bill is to make more profits, and if my friends of the C.C.F. believe in "production for use and not for profit," they should oppose this bill because avowedly it is out for more profits for the producers, and it is because of that, that I am supporting it. So this bill does not present any feature of state socialism in that respect.
State socialism also implies and declares for a change in ownership. Is there any change of ownership even remotely implied in this bill? Not at all. This bill however is a piece of social legislation gone to excess in the matter of control, gone to folly, and that is what is causing so much opposition. My hon. friends opposite are not familiar with this class of legislation, and they seem to think that the farther they go the better. Did you ever hear the saying, that too far east is west?

Did you ever hear about Paddy's chimney being so plumb that it was over plumb, or did you ever hear of a man walking so straight that he leaned over backwards? Now the government in their anxiety to have a wonderful bill, different from any other bill they ever knew of, made this bill reach out to all creation and include not only farm products but nearly all the natural resources of the nation. Anybody who knew anything about reforms would not act in that way, because it can only invite opposition and disaster.
I do not want to refer unnecessarily to the former government's policy of standardizing various farm products, but what would have happened if we in one bill had attempted to standardize all at once all the farm products that we finally succeeded in standardizing at the end of nine years of effort? If we had put the whole of that in one bill, we would not have got to first base with it, but by bringing about measures of grading gradually, and familiarizing the house and the country with the policy of standardization, we finally consummated that policy at the expiry of our term of office.
I have given some of the reason why this bill is not state socialism. I shall be interested to hear my C.C.F. friends, who are supporting this bill on the ground that it is state socialism, reconcile such support with their doctrine of "production for use, and not for profit."
I have many reservations regarding many of the features of this bill, and I must say that unless some of these features are eliminated or substantially altered during the committee stage I shall be obliged to vote against the bill in committee and on the third reading, but if these objectionable features are eliminated or substantially removed, if the bill is expurgated, and cleansed of these bad features, I shall continue to support it through to the end.
The bill is too comprehensive to start with. Why experiment on such a ghastly big scale? Is it wise to include all these commodities to which the bill refers? Every new commodity outside agriculture that you are going to control by this bill only creates further opposition to the measure. Why not start out with a limited number of commodities where control is likely to be supported strongly by the community in which it is started In many of the communities control is already under way in regard to some commodities, and the only difficulty is that they run up against the decisions of the privy council.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: They will do that again.

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell


William Richard Motherwell: Not under the enabling legislation. We had some experience in the Department of Agriculture with regard to live stock and live stock products in that respect. One of the first duties I performed on coming to Ottawa was to write to every one of the provinces sending them a copy of our proposed legislation with respect to live stock and live stock products, and asking them if they could see their way to passing enabling or concurrent legislation as the case might be, and after four or five years every one of the provinces did. So we had that principle recognized in the department in connection with the grading of hogs, the grading of eggs, and the control of stock yards. Any legal difficulties in the way were removed by enabling legislation.
I think it is also a big mistake not to mention in the bill who is going to administer the law. We have the Minister of Agriculture sponsoring the bill, and this is supposed to be a marketing act for agricultural products mainly, but as a matter of fact the door has been thrown so wide open that it deals with the products of our fisheries, of the forest and what not, and three or four ministers might well claim the right to administer the act. It is true that the preponderating feature of the bill is agricultural, but nevertheless there are many other commodities dealt with, and knowing the ambition and the flair which the Minister of Trade and Commerce seems to have for agriculture, and not knowing in the bill who is going to administer this act, on that ground alone I would oppose it if I thought that any other minister than the Minister of Agriculture would be in charge of it.
Then we have the wide open interpretation of "natural products." Just imagine all that that includes! My right hon. leader and other members on this side have not misinterpreted the bill in its definition of "natural products." It includes almost every natural product and products processed therefrom under the sun. Did hon. gentlemen see Mr. Taschereau's interpretation in this morning's paper? There are all kinds of possibilities of difficulty and danger associated with grabbing the whole practically of our natural resources and putting them all into this one bill that is supposed to be primarily for agriculture. It really looks as if a lot of kindergarten legislators were in charge of this measure and are endeavouring to bring within one act what nobody ever saw the like of previously-practically the whole natural production of this country.
Nevertheless, I believe still that we can make a good act of it. Let the Minister of Agriculture take this bill to the agriculture
committee as he has done with similar bills. Bills of this nature have always been sent to the agriculture committee, unless it was simply a matter of making sosie trifling correction or something like that. As a matter of fact, last week the Minister of Trade and Commerce referred to the standing committee on agriculture a bill that was not one-hundredth so important as this. I certainly disagree with this amendment to the grain act as it stands, but as it was going to be sent to the agriculture committee I agreed to it with such reservations as I am now making to this marketing bill.
I wonder if I might get the Prime Minister's attention for one minute.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am following the hon. gentleman very carefully.


William Richard Motherwell: I have not the
faculty myself of talking and listening at the same time.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I could tell the hon.
gentleman the last thing he said.


William Richard Motherwell: Anyway, I should
like to have the Prime Minister's and the minister's special attention for a moment I plead with them to reconsider their decision and have this bill referred to the agriculture committee. We would not bring the whole earth to that committee as witnesses. All the witnesses I have in mind are in Ottawa right now. There is one here from the Pacific, and others, and the staff is here. Why not take this regular and proper course? I urge that, Mr. Speaker, with all the earnestness and sincerity of which I am capable. Also, why not name a limited number of commodities to which you know there will be no or little opposition and put them in the natural products interpretation clause, and that will help carry the bill both here and in the country.


James Houston Spence: Would you have done that yourself?


William Richard Motherwell: Sure. That is the way we always proceeded in similar matters.


James Houston Spence: I remember you all right.
I will tell a story later on.


William Richard Motherwell: My hon. friend
does not know what he is talking about. It was always the policy of the former government to refer agricultural bills to the agriculture committee and to bring about reforms gradually. Practical reformers invariably start with something that you can handle, to avoid running into difficulties and disaster

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell
by having too ambitious a plan and spoiling the whole lot-in other words, creep before attempting to walk. That is my suggestion to the government. It will not cost anything, and they do not need to follow it.
Under the provisions of this bill wheat is included, and that is sufficient to make me oppose the bill. The situation in the west has been fierce since some tried to bring about a hundred per cent pool. If that is being considered as desirable the government will be simply putting the fat into the fire. The controversy is dying out, so why stir it up at this stage? This commodity should not be included in the bill at present, in my estimation. I am willing to take my chance when I make the statement I do in connection with this highly controversial problem, which should not be stirred afresh now. My proposal would be to start out with say milk and its products, fruit and its products, bacon, cattle, honey, maple sugar, perhaps a dozen or so all told, in connection with some of which marketing schemes are already under way. All that would be necessary would be to provide the necessary legislative machinery and put it in motion, and the government would be on safe constitutional and democratic ground. There would thus be the minimum chances of opposition and subsequent failure. Ten or twelve commodities could be mentioned and then the words "and such other commodities as may be added thereto from time to time by parliament."


Richard Bedford Bennett: Perhaps the hon. gentleman is aware that it is a matter of legal construction that it is far more desirable to use a general term than to endeavour to specify. All the branches of an industry would be included in the declaration of the industry, so therefore there is no purpose in that argument.


William Richard Motherwell: We have the same provision now in connection with the weed acts of the west. Those acts state that noxious weeds are so and so and so and so, naming the kinds, and such other weeds as may be added thereto from time to time. Lawyers always place great value on precedent, and I am giving one to the Prime Minister. Even if there were no precedent, I think my suggestion is quite sensible. It would be safety first anyway.
There is another section of the bill which is open to justifiable criticism. It reads:
The board shall consist of such number of persons as the governor in council may from time to time determine, and each member shall hold office during pleasure-

There is a general rumour that this board will consist largely of departmental officials. As far as I am concerned, I am willing to accept these officials without any reservation but everyone does not know them as I do. The government will be open to the charge of establishing a centralized bureaucracy. "Let not your good be evil spoken of," is good advice. No one is so perfect and above suspicion that he can afford to place himself under suspicion. Why not state that the members of this board shall be say the deputy minister of agriculture, the director of farm economics, the dairy commissioner or such other officials as the government may choose? The same principle is employed in appointing many members of the grain standards board. There should also be on this board a practical farmer who also knows the technique of agriculture. There should also be one more member. What about the consumer? Great Britain has taken every precaution on behalf of the consumer. The government is turning loose a lot of boards and giving them unprecedented powers and is making no provision to protect the consumer. I realize the consumer quite often is a doubting man who frequently disbelieves that anyone is thinking of him very much. He does not seem to care a great deal, even at election time. Some of them were quite willing in 1930 to pay more for their butter and then paid less. However that may be, I suggest that on this board there should be a representative business man, one who knows the needs of the consumer. The government should not assume that the producers will be always so comprehensive in their outlook that they will think of the consumer's viewpoint at all times. I believe that this board would be greatly improved if all interests were represented thereon, but the government has the power and it can do just as it pleases. This would be a step to disarming the criticism that this is bureaucracy; it would be a board upon which everyone was represented, including the consumer. I am sure that such a board would appeal to the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young). I believe it would appeal to all sensible people and if it were submitted at any public meeting it would receive approval, I think.
Subsection 7 of section 4 has been discussed, and apparently this has to do with quotas. When we make provisions for quotas against commodities coming in from Great Britain, they will say, we are accommodatingly inviting the establishing of quotas by that country against Canada. By means of a gentlemen's agreement with this government, Great Britain has put into force a quota against our cattle and there is talk of quotas

Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell
against our oats, dairy products and other commodities. This would simply be an invitation to Major Elliot, the British Minister of Agriculture, to put on further quotas against Canada. Provision is being made also for reprisal quotas on our goods by foreign countries. This looks bad to me and I should like to know more about it in committee. I may be wrong in this, but that is my understanding of the clause. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) just whispered the word " quota " in his speech. I do not believe there were half a dozen members who heard what he said. Quotas are not mentioned in the bill but yet they are snuggled and smuggled in in a confusion of words and terms. The government has launched this bill without proper explanation and is amazed when it receives opposition. I am amazed that I do not oppose it myself, but my love of some of the things that are in the bill is greater than my dislike for some of the objectionable things. I hope the government will reconsider its decision and send this bill to the agriculture committee where the winnowing takes place.
Nothing is said in the bill as to the percentage of vote which shall determine the action to be taken by the minister. The government is pretending to follow the British act but this bill does not hint as to what size of vote will be necessary to launch a marketing project. What is it to be? Is it to be a straight majority? Any one of us is glad to get here on a straight majority of two or three, and I have even known hon. members who have been permitted to sit in this house by the vote cast by the returning officer. But these marketing matters are looked upon differently; there should be somewhere between a 66 to 75 per cent favourable vote before these marketing proposals go into force. There is no hint of what it is going to be so long as the minister is satisfied. Let me appeal to him. He should not put himself into that position. Let him consider the immense responsibility he is assuming of being the only determining factor with nothing to guide him but his own judgment and that of his staff in regard to so important a matter. Even assuming they will be absolutely right, how will the great body of the people be convinced that that is the right way to carry out that plan? That is not the proper way to deal with the matter. The British act places the majority at 66 per cent. May I say there again the Department of Agriculture has been determining policies on a two-thirds vote in connection with slaughtering animals for tuberculosis. Before a restricted area can be established, you have to get the consent of 66 per cent of the stock owners
of that district. On that 66 per cent basis the government staff in the health of animals branch, after providing for all the preliminaries in connection with the matter, go out with inspectors, organize a veterinary crew in the affected area, test out the reactors, kill them and salvage them at the nearest abattoir. Will the other third agree to that? They do agree with very few exceptions. It is common sense that they should. The interest of the whole is greater than that of a part,-a third. That is being proposed by me in connection with some features of this bill with even more favourable modifications.
Another proposal I would make-and I feel my leader is absolutely right in regard to it- is that until the board builds up public confidence in itself these marketing proposals should in the interests of everybody be submitted to parliament After parliament sees that the board are using their powers wisely and well in the interests of those whom we are all desirous of serving, that is the producers, then the necessity of coming to parliament could be discontinued after, say two or three years. Parliament is giving the Minister of Agriculture greater powers in his recent bills than it did to the last Minister of Agriculture, and to the last minister parliament gave infinitely greater powers than it did to his predecessor. How do we account for that? It is because the various ministers administered their standardization legislation in conjunction with the various producers' organizations concerned and gave constantly growing satisfaction. I know some producers will raise the objection: Oh, we shall have to lose another year if we have to come to parliament for its approval of a marketing project. We can avoid losing another year in connection with this scheme in this way for this year. Let us get this bill through the committee on agriculture as quickly as possible; let us get it through the commitee of the whole also as quickly as possible, then through the senate and royal assent. If I know anything about the matter, we are likely to be here until the middle of July. Before that date one or more marketing schemes can, I feel, be got ready for submission to parliament for approval, as they are now already under way. I know how impatient farmers are in regard to getting any reforms that they may already have been waiting years for. It is far better to make sure of one's ground and then go ahead rather than to be precipitate in one's action and find it necessary to retrace one's steps. That is a proposal, I think, worth while considering and after a year or two or even three years parliament would have no hesitation in saying:



Marketing Act-Mr. Motherwell
All right; so long as you are conducting this business the way you are doing, we will let you go ahead with your new marketing proposals, always reserving the right to withdraw that power from you if you abuse it.
The clause with regard to the right to restrict imports was brought up by a number of speakers on this side. That may mean quotas; it may be aggravating regulations or it may be tariffs; I do not care what it is, we have no right as a parliament to delegate power to local boards to control imports. I believe in delegating powers where that is warranted, to producers as is now done to the legal profession, to what we call the learned profession, to which is delegated powers and remarkable administrative powers too. We have the same authority and right to delegate powers to farmer groups or marketing bodies. But there is a point to which I do not think we should go and that is to delegate the control of imports. That control is something that should surely belong to parliament. Let us not fall over ourselves trying to be good to the farmers as it is not really being good to them when we go this extreme length. The farmers who asked for this legislation do not approve of a great deal of the stuff in this bill; they are not particularly concerned so long as they have in it what they want; the bad things do not interest them much. They are all wondering why we are objecting to the bad things. It is our duty to protest against the bad features, to protect the people who are asking for this legislation from the consequences of the government's proposed actions, and to eliminate the bad features so that we can go out to the country and defend all the features of the bill. I would like this bill to go out to the country as the product, not of the Conservatives alone but of the whole parliament of Canada, and then it would be launched without any bias or bigotry. I have had experience in these matters; I have met not with this kind of opposition but with direct opposition from almost every manjack on the other side in connection with our standardization proposals; in regard to hog and egg grading particularly, with the result that nearly every Tory in the country was opposed to the legislation and greatly hampered the acceptance of it throughout the country. This parliament, from all sides, should get reasonably behind the measure. Let us work out the best bill we can, get it started along the line of least resistance, get our noses through the door jamb first, then our heads and shoulders, then our whole bodies, and we shall find the confidence of the country will go out towards this proposal and all hands will be for it. Some

may say that is an ideal not attainable, although I believe it is. May I point out that this is not a vision; It is not a case of either young men seeing visions or old men dreaming dreams. In this parliament in connection with the grain act in 1929 and 1930, we worked out in the committee on agriculture and the subcommittee a solution that has stood the test of time ever since, and to which we gave one hundred per cent approval.


The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr. Lawson):: I regret to inform the hon. member that his time has expired.


William Richard Motherwell: I regret that very
much myself. I think I shall embrace an opportunity of continuing this story, maybe on the budget.


Mr. W. J. LOUCKS (Rosetown):: Mr. Speaker, permit me, before commencing to discuss the bill, to extend my congratulations to the department and more particularly to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) on the vision they had in bringing down such a bill as that now before us. At the outset I may say that it was my privilege for six years to be a delegate on the wheat pool and from that experience I gained some knowledge of cooperative marketing. When the wheat pool started it was recognized that we must have a certain sign-up before it could be operated. Our objective was at least fifty per cent. We succeeded finally in getting nearly an eighty per cent sign-up on the second contract, as the ex-Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Motherwell) will remember. What was the reason for the wheat growers in Saskatchewan getting together to the extent of say eighty per cent? It was that they realized the need for orderly marketing. We were all convinced of that. The other night the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) mentioned some of the farm organizations we have had: he mentioned the Grain Growers Grain Company, now the United Grain Growers. I admit that that company did considerable good to farmers in western Canada. I myself am a shareholder in it. He mentioned also the Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company that did much good. But I think it is beyond question that we did not go far enough. We found, after all we had done, that there was still a lack, and that lack was orderly marketing. It is not necessary to explain it to western men, but for the sake of eastern members I may tell the story, which was this: In the fall wheat began to flow to Winnipeg in such volume that the price was depressed; in other words we were our own competitors. I think we are all ready to

Marketing Act-Mr. Loucks
admit that the purpose of this bill is orderly marketing. Prior to coming here in January I believe all the federal members from Saskatchewan, both Liberal and Conservative, were invited to Regina to discuss the marketing bill. I believe the hon. member for South Battleford (Mr. Vallance) was there. Prom our side Mr. Turnbull and myself met the solicitor and the president of the Saskatchewan wheat pool, and they intimated to us what they wanted. I feel that this bill pretty well covers what was suggested by them. Their desire was for the orderly marketing of the primary products of our province. I do not know whether the hon. member for South Battleford committed himself to what they suggested. Recently I met the solicitor of the wheat pool again, and his only condemnation of the bill is that it does not go far enough; yet the opposition say it is too radical, too far-reaching. I want to compliment the ex-Minister of Agriculture as a Saskatchewan member on the attitude he has taken; I think it has been very fair. He has at least straddled the fence; I do not know whether he is going to get over, because he says that when the bill gets into committee there are certain clauses to which he is going to object. At any rate I think he has endorsed the first six clauses; and that is gratifying. On such a bill as this, having no purpose but to help the farmers, all the farmers, not only those of the west but of the east, I think we should get together, knowing as we do the present state of agriculture in this country.
I am rather amazed to find some hon. members so suspicious about the powers to be given under this bill. It is contended that it takes from the farmers the control of their products, giving too much power to the Minister of Agriculture or the boards that may be set up. In that connection I notice in the bill the following provision:
7.	(2) A representative number of the persons operating under a scheme approved under section five of this act may petition the minister to revoke the scheme.
That is, when the farmers themselves, or a certain number of them, have petitioned the minister to set up a board, and the board has been set up and has operated, should they find that there is any failure in it, the same number of men or others, if I interpret it aright, would be empowered to come with a petition to the minister and ask for the revocation of this scheme. I think that is sufficient protection; I do not think the farmers should be afraid in view of that.
Then it has been said by several speakers that the rights of the farmers are being taken 74726-158J
away. I want to ask who in that calling has any great rights to lose at the present time? In other words, what have we to say about any commodity when we go to market it? Very little, I think we must confess, as to the merchandising of it.


Mr. VALLANCE:: You will not have any under this bill.


William John Loucks: I think my hon. friend will admit that that is the situation. Some six weeks ago I had occasion to go to the market in Ottawa. Walking around I priced eggs, which I shall use as an illustration. I asked one farmer, "How much do you want for your eggs?" He said, thirty cents a dozen, and I guarantee them to be fresh." I asked the adjoining farmer what he wanted for his eggs. He said: "Thirty-five cents a dozen." "How can you expect," I said, "to get thirty-five cents for your eggs when your neighbour here is offering me eggs for thirty cents, and guaranteeing them just as fresh? He said, "Is he really offering them for that"? I said, "Yes." I called them together and asked them how they liked their system of marketing. That is the condition prevailing even on the Ottawa market, which I believe is considered one of the best in Canada for agricultural products. I can go back to my boyhood days when I drove a one-horse wagon here in old Ontario and took my mother to market; I remember my mother being just as disappointed in selling her eggs as that man was. Who was her competitor? Her next-door neighbour. And that condition still exists. I asked these farmers how they would like what this bill provides for, a scheme making it possible for them to cease competing with each other. That is the trouble, the same as with this vast amount of wheat.
Now What happened after we operated a wheat pool for some six or eight years? Do not forget that while starting with the pool was optional, it was compulsory after we had signed. Something has been said here about the penalties. Let me tell you that when I signed the contract of the wheat pool I agreed to be subject to a penalty of twenty-five cents a bushel should I market outside the pool. That would have meant to me probably about $2,500 on a crop of 10,000 bushels. Why did I do that? Because I was convinced that I should not be a competitor of my neighbour or the other farmers of Saskatchewan. The penalties provided under this bill are from $25 to as much as $500 or three months in gaol. The farmers of Saskatchewan were willing to subject themselves to more than that to save the situation for orderly marketing.

Marketing Act-Mr. Loucks
If ever there was a time in the history of Canada that regulated marketing was necessary it is now; I think we all agree on that.
Another feature on which this bill has been criticized but which I think necessary is this. Last fall, for instance, in my part of the country-and I think this would answer the hon. member for South Battleford-we had thousands of pigs weighing perhaps fifty to sixty pounds each, and the time came when the barley or whatever grain they had ran out. The farmers had not a dollar to buy grain to finish these pigs, so what did they do? They sent them to the Saskatoon stock yards, and the price realized would not average $2 each. Would it not have been a good thing for those farmers if there had been in effect some measure such as this, so that the board could come to their rescue, go to the bank if necessary and get a loan to buy barley, which was only twenty-five cents a bushel? Just imagine the earnings that could have been made if a bill similar to this had been in force, and that applies equally to cattle. Thousands of cattle were taken to market when they were not fit for sale at all, and so far as prices were concerned they were practically slaughtered on the markets of Saskatoon and all over western Canada.
Some mention has been made of quotas. We know we have a wheat quota to-day, and I found it very gratifying to read in the newspapers recently that some fifteen nations were getting together, in Rome, to agree according to the report, upon a world pool. They are not only the producers and exporters; they are the importers as well, the producers and consumers, if you like. There is an example of cooperation between the consumer and the producer. We have read the evidence brought out in the price spreads -committee, and surely it must be agreed that it is a step in the right direction if we can prevent such spreads. I believe hon. members will agree when I say that the farmers cannot go on unless we do something to raise commodity prices. How can we do that? One way is by means of this marketing board. I was told by a solicitor for the wheat pool that they are well satisfied with the proposition, that they would not want one clause removed though they might add two or three more. Surely by setting up this board we can eliminate a great deal of that spread; surely we can raise commodity prices. When I go down the street of any town or city and pass the stores I often think that while I might go in and offer so much for an article, it is not possible for me to dictate the price that any merchant need accept. What would happen to their businesses if

they had nothing to say with regard to the price for which their articles were sold? When we come to the farmer, however, that is exactly the situation that prevails. He has never reached the point of being able to say anything as to the price for which he shall sell the commodities he produces. Surely no one is going to object if he tries to do that now.
The hon. member for South Battleford (Mr. Vallance) referred to the Scottish cooperative in his own home county. Naturally they would take exception to the activities of Mr. McFarland and to this government guaranteeing the banks in an attempt to secure some decent price for our wheat. I know that when we organized our pool the Scottish cooperative took exception to our action, naturally enough, since they have elevators scattered here and there over our province. Why did they take exception? They did so because, when we had eighty per cent of the wheat under one control, it hurt their business. Yet the hon. member for South Battleford gets up and almost applauds the Scottish cooperative while condemning the government for having come to the rescue of the farmers of western Canada by guaranteeing the banks in order to take the wheat off the market. Let me point out to my hon. friend that if the growers of Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta had signed contracts for another year; if we had retained that control of the wheat which we possessed when we had about eighty per cent of the farmers united and if we had continued to make the initial payment to the farmers there would have been no need of the government stepping in. But wheat got out of order again and it was necessary for the government to come to our rescue. That was the reason that action was taken, and that was the only reason. We reached the point where we refused to sign our contracts and to-day, while we claim we have wheat pools, the farmers are putting their wheat through any elevators at all. I will agree with the hon. member for South Battleford that the price dropped so low that the initial payment would not have been sufficient to finance operations for the coming year, but that was what happened.
I want to make it very clear, as a member from Saskatchewan, that I am interested in other commodities than wheat. It is a great mistake to suppose that Saskatchewan produces nothing but grain. Saskatchewan is the leading producer of horses; it stands second in poultry, third in milk, third in pigs and fourth in the number of cattle. So I am doubly interested in seeing that everything

Marketing Act-Mr. Loucks
possible should be done to assist agriculture in this country, because we are vitally concerned in almost all agricultural activities.
When the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) introduced this bill a few days ago he referred to several commodities and mentioned the extent to which they were produced and consumed in Canada. For instance, more than ninety-nine per cent of all the eggs we produce are consumed here. Surely something can be done to raise that commodity price. I do not mind telling you, Mr. Speaker, that when I was home at Easter eggs were worth barely eight cents a dozen in our town. What farmer can continue at that rate? My son received 38 cents for five dozen eggs, in our own town. In connection with sheep and lamb, ninety-nine per cent of the production is consumed in Canada, yet the farmers have no say as to what price they shall receive. When I hear hon. members talk about the need for foreign markets it seems to me we had better set our own house in order first, and I believe this bill goes a long way in that direction. We consume 98.9 per cent of the butter we produce and over 98 per cent of the poultry. Let me say that last fall, in November and December, I saw turkeys brought to the market in Saskatoon, and I actually saw women with tears in their eyes because they had to sacrifice their poultry. Why was that? There was no order about it. I actually saw one woman come out of a store with tears in her eyes. She had gone there expecting to get so much for her poultry, but she did not get anything like what she hoped. That was because John Jones, Tom Smith and other people had been there before her and too many turkeys had been placed on the market. Surely we can regulate that, to some extent at least.
I want to say again that I am glad the government of Canada have come to the point where they see the possibility of doing something in this direction and are bold enough to take a step forward. In connection with cattle and beef we consume over ninety-seven per cent of our production according to the official statistics; more than ninety-six per cent of our potatoes, ninety-five per cent of our pork products, ninety-four per cent of our oats and eighty-eight per cent of our barley are consumed in Canada. Yet we have been sitting here looking at each other and doing nothing. I do not think they mean anything by it, but I sometimes wonder why some hon. gentlemen in this house object so strenuously to the farmers doing as others have done in an attempt to guarantee at least a reasonable price for what they produce.
In the amendment which was ruled out of order this afternoon the leader of the opposition moved against compulsion. I want to say right here that this measure would not be worth the paper it is written on if there were not compulsion in it. What good would it be? I believe I can make myself clear by explaining the situation in regard to wheat. Last year and for two or three years prior we did not have the farmers in western Canada, and particuhrly the province of Saskatchewan, on contract, and because there was no compulsion the wheat was rushed on to the market at Winnipeg. I admit that I was not bound to sign a contract-it was optional-but after I had signed, what happened? I was under compulsion to live up to that contract and to do nothing else. That is what compulsion means, and it does not mean anything else.
I do not think we should become fearful of the set-up of the boards. I have no doubt that the local boards will consist of men drawn from agriculture. There is no doubt about that. I was pleased to hear the ex-Minister of Agriculture state that he would like to see something done very quickly. He intimated that if the bill went to the committee on agriculture probably thirty days would be required for discussion. In that connection I want to say this: I hope we are not going to waste thirty days in the passing of this bill. If there is any one thing which more than another is disgusting to the people out in the country, it is that very thing. They see us coming down here and sitting day after day, day after day. What did we do this afternoon? We wasted nearly all of it disputing the amendment offered by the right hon. leader of the opposition. I wonder what the people back in the country think of us when we sit down here arguing, arguing. We argued for weeks to get the relief measure through the house, and we argued this afternoon on a little point in connection with the amendment. That is not what the farmers are thinking about.
When I landed home on a Saturday a meeting in my home town had been arranged. The farmers who crowded the hall wanted me to give them an outline of the marketing bill. As I had a copy with me I took it clause by clause; I explained it to the best of my ability, and I tell hon. members right here and now that in regard to that bill there was not a dissenting voice. They were one hundred per cent behind it. They said, "If you can do something like this, your government is working, and working in the right way." There were men in that meeting who would not consent to wheat pool contracts; they refused to sign, but they see now the results of their folly. I want to say in all fairness, however,
249(i
Marketing Act-Mr. Loucks

that you may go into any community you like and you will always find that minority which did not cooperate. Even when the telephone system was being developed in western Canada, over twenty-five years ago there was a minority which said, "No, we want to see the telephone in operation and we want to know what we will receive from it before we will have anything to do with it or take any share in its operation." We will always have such minorities, and we had them when we signed those contracts. Do hon. members mean to tell me that when a minority refuses to cooperate for its own good and for the welfare of the majority, some rule should not be brought in whereby-for their own good, mind you,-they may be forced to come in and to cooperate? Certainly there should be. It is not harmful to them; it is in their own interests. That condition however will always exist, because there is that class of men. And while we have adopted cooperative measures in western Canada I should like to be fair to those who would not cooperate; their attitude is due to lack of education. But to-day there is a greater grasp of what cooperative marketing will do than there has been at any previous time, because men-even that minority which kept out of the wheat pools-are beginning to realize that by so doing they did not help themselves. They are helpless so far as the marketing of their wheat is concerned. They would cooperate to-day.
In my section of the country, whether they be Liberals, Conservatives or members of the Cooperative Commonwealth party, almost one hundred per cent of the people are giving credit to the government because it helped to finance wheat operations and to see that wheat w'as stabilized at a certain price. The people are behind that action; there is no doubt about it.
On a certain day in Regina I met the sixteen directors of the wheat pool who said, "Mr. Loucks, you may tell this, if you like, that irrespective of politics, if there is one man to whom we want to give credit it is the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett. We give him credit because he went to London and while there cooperated with representatives from twenty-one countries in order to obtain a quota and to help the wheat growers in western Canada." The executive of the wheat pool made that statement, and in making it they were only fair. They realize what the government has done. They realize, further, that such action must come. I believe that in connection with every commodity there may have to be a quota; there is no question about that. To-day the problem is not one

of production but one of merchandising that which is produced.
Only this morning some members visited the experimental farm in order to observe experiments being made along certain lines. I could not help thinking: After all, what good will come of these experiments? I do not want anyone to think that I am undervaluing the work being done at the experimental farm, but no matter how well an animal is bred, no matter how carefully it is developed, if it cannot be marketed in an orderly way so as to obtain something from its sale, there can be very little use in taking special care in breeding. While visiting the farm we observed experiments in connection with poultry, but my mind went back to the fact that eggs in my constituency were worth only eight cents a dozen. I had to think of those facts, because I know the circumstances. If after all these experiments have been made at the experimental farm, through a bill such as the one before us we can make it possible for the farmers in Canada to obtain some profit, then I say we should act promptly.
But this bill goes even, farther than that: it .provides for investigations. Why is that provision made? If the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) were in his seat I would assure him that the investigations could go far enough to see that we as producers do not exploit the consumers. No farmer will object to that provision, because he does not wish to exploit the consumer. The bill takes care even of that possibility.
For these reasons I cannot see why we cannot get together and set an example. Why cannot representatives in this House of Commons, coming from all parts of the dominion, for once present a: united front in connection with this bill? All hon. members know that if at a later time one clause or another did not meet with the approval of an hon. member he would be at liberty to move an amendment. True, there may be weaknesses in the bill, but they could be remedied in committee. In the event of an hon. member opposite offering an amendment in the interests of the farmers, I believe I would be open minded enough to accept it. If agriculture would be helped by such amendment, I would agree to it.
There is a further condemnation of the bill in. that it promises subsidies. That is, whenever a farmer is dictated to, if you choose to use that term, in connection with cattle or any other commodity, there is a clause providing for a subsidy; he will be helped because he has had to hold back a shipment of

Marketing Act-Mr. Loucks
cattle. In my view that part of the bill particularly commends itself. It has been the subject of much great criticism, however; it seems that in some cases guarantees are considered necessary, but when it comes to the farmer objection is taken. This bill goes to the extent of subsidizing when it is felt that it is not desirable to ship a certain commodity. We ought to cooperate with the farmers in Great Britain, but how are we going to do it if we do not have some means of effecting that cooperation? Certainly we do not wish to flood the English market. We say to the farmer who is not allowed to ship wheat, "We will subsidize you for a certain amount." I hope the Minister of Agriculture will for the time being leave that clause as it is.
The farmers are not able to finance the setting up of the machinery and I would not like to see the act crippled for the lack of funds to set the machinery going. I make this prediction, however, that once it is established, almost automatically the farmers will take care of it. They are not the ones who are always wanting to go to the consolidated revenue fund-not at all. I would remind hon. members that the farmers of western Canada financed the machinery under the old wheat board. There was no objection whatever to doing that. The farmers do not object to financing the marketing of their own products. We have financed millions and millions for the wheat pool, two cents a bushel for the elevator and one cent a bushel for reserve. I hold over $2,000 in certificates myself. I did not object if I was going to get a better price for my wheat, and I do not think I should ask someone else to pay that for me. But things are so serious for the farmer at the present time that for the first year at least I hope this clause will be retained in the bill whereby the government can come to the rescue and help with the financing of things in which the farmers will need a little assistance.
I have spoken at considerable length, Mr. Speaker, and I do not think it is necessary to occupy the time of the house further in expressing my approval of this bill. I am not one of those who feel like criticizing altogether hon. members of the opposition for their attitude in regard to this bill because there are some things about each other that we do not very well understand. For instance, my hon. friend from South Battleford (Mr. Vallance) and I have cooperated in pretty nearly everything, but he cannot cooperate with Mr. Loucks on this bill. His constituency adjoins mine and his people need this bill just as much as mine do, but I notice that his last
words in addressing this house were that he was going to oppose the bill. I fear for him when he tells the farmers of his constituency that Mr. Loucks of Rosetown supported this bill and he did not. I am afraid of what the farmers will say to him, but I am generous enough to be ready to go and help smooth things over for him and patoh it up. But when I go back to Rosetown constituency myself I know that I need have no fear at all because of my attitude on this bill.
The bill is very simple. There are only about three clauses that are important. The most important provisions are those providing for orderly marketing and the regulating of the things that we produce. My hon. friend from South Battleford and I have cooperated in different organizations out there. I have listened to him speak many times on agricultural matters but I confess that I never heard him labour harder than he did when he was addressing this house the other day and endeavouring to justify his opposition to this bill. The first time I met him he was organizing a farmers' union. I have always looked upon him as a man who was trying to help agriculture, and therefore I was more convinced than ever when he was opposing this bill that he was labouring under a handicap; but I will help him if I possibly can.
I have been informed that the hon. members in opposition in this house were told that they must oppose this bill; that has come to me pretty authoritatively. I can tell them further that the solicitor of the wheat pool went around to some of the members from Saskatchewan and tried to whip them into line, and told them that if they did not support the bill it would be very serious politically for them. He came into my office the other morning-naturally he comes to me because we have discussed it-and he said that he would like to see the bill go further. He and I have spoken from the same platform and we are in sympathy in regard to agricultural problems, although we do not agree politically. So I will advise my hon. friends opposite from Saskatchewan not to go too far in opposing this bill. I am glad, Mr. Speaker, that I am free. I feel fully justified in supporting the bill because it is trying to do something for the farmers; it is giving them a chance to live.
We are not living in the past. As I said earlier in my remarks, I drove my mother in a one-horse wagon to the Kingston market, and she had to be penalized in selling her butter and eggs. Do hon. gentlemen think that with the vision we have to-day we are going to be content to live in the past? Not at all. It has been suggested that this gov
Marketing Act-Mr. Totzke

eminent is becoming too socialistic, but I want to warn those who have made that suggestion that we have got to step forward, and this bill is a step forward. That is why I can support it and go back and defend my attitude in Rosetown constituency one hundred per cent, and if necessary when I go back I will try to fix up things for my hon. friend from South Battleford.


John Vallance: May I ask my hon.
friend a question in regard to the statement he made respecting the solicitor of the wheat pool? Would he mind telling us just who the members were that the solicitor saw and told that they had better not raise any objection to this bill?


William John Loucks: He did not mention the
names but said he went around among the Saskatchewan members.


Mr. TURNBULL:: He got the hon. member for Melville (Mr. Motherwell)
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILL


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 58, to amend an act to incorporate the Discount and Loan Corporation of Canada-Mr. Sullivan.


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Weir (Melfort) for the second reading of Bill No. 51, to improve the methods and practices of marketing of natural products in Canada and in export trade, and to make further provisions in connection therewith.
Mr. A. F. TOTZKE (Humboldt):: Mr. Speaker, just before the house rose at six o'clock we were listening to an address by the hon. member for Rosetown (Mr. Loucks). I paid close attention to his remarks, but about all I could gather from them was that he was in favour of the bill. He had nothing particularly new to bring forth, so I am sure he will pardon me if I do not follow him in the few remarks I wish to make. However, the hon. member said one thing which I do not think I can allow to pass without comment. He made a positive statement to the

effect that the solicitor for the wheat pools had gone around to some of the members fiom Saskatchewan to try to whip them into line by telling them if they did not support this bill it would prove very serious politically for them. The hon. member said that the solicitor had come to his office the other morning, the inference being that the solicitor had told the hon. member that he had gone to see some of the Saskatchewan Liberal members to whip them into line. I know the solicitor for the wheat pools very well and I do not believe he said anything of the kind.


William John Loucks: I take exception to that.
I claim he did say just what I said.


Albert Frederick Totzke: I still say that I do not believe the solicitor for the wheat pools said anything of the kind and I do not think I am departing from the rules in making that statement. I submit that that is a matter between the hon. member for Rosetown and the solicitor for the wheat pools. I say that that statement is entirely incorrect so far as I am concerned, because the solicitor did not try to coerce me in any way either to support or to oppose the bill, and so far as I have been able to learn from my colleagues from Saskatchewan, the solicitor did not try to coerce any of them.
During the course of his remarks the hon. member for Rosetown said that he was glad he was free. I am glad also that he is free and I am sure he will have still more freedom after the next election. We are responsible to our constituents for our actions, and I am sure all hon. members on this side are willing to leave any judgment upon their actions to the constituents who sent them here as their representatives.
I should like to deal with some of the provisions of the bill now before us, and to give as clearly and as concisely as I can my interpretation of them as well as my reasons for the action I intend to take upon the motion for second reading. The bill is entitled :
An act to improve the methods and practices of marketing of natural products in Canada and in export trade, and to make further provision in connection therewith.
'If that title gave us a true picture of what was intended to be done by the bill, I think all hon. members on this side would be only too pleased to support it. However, as I read the bill it is a long way from doing that. Instead of tending to improve the methods and practices involved in the marketing of natural products, the bill really tends to restrict that marketing. In introducing the bill

Marketing Act-Mr. Totzke
the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) started out by saying that he would not speak at any great length at that time. He said:
. . . there will no doubt be ample opportunity to make any observations that I think it necessary to make when the bill is before the committee.
To me that seems a very strange attitude for a minister to take in introducing a bill having the supreme importance of this one. At a stage of the procedure when the principle of the bill is being discussed he did not take the opportunity of developing fully the provisions of the bill in order to show the people throughout the length and breadth of this land just what this bill means. These people are waiting anxiously for that information, but he did not take the opportunity to indicate to them precisely what was in his mind as to the meaning of the provisions of the bill. Perhaps the minister was not any too sure himself as to what its provisions mean. I am sure he knows quite well what the people of Canada, and especially those of western Canada, have been expecting in the way of legislation to take care of the marketing of their products. It is my impression that the minister himself was not any too sure about the bill and was not any too well satisfied with it.
The minister in his speech first gave us a history of marketing as it affects agricultural products and the reasons for the failure of some of the cooperative associations that have been trying to take care of marketing natural products in different parts of the dominion. He said first of all that they did not have the proper men at the heads of the organizations; second, he said that the cooperatives themselves lost sight of the necessity of improvement in the quality and quantity, and of continuity of supply; third, he said that efforts had been made by private interests throughout the country against the success of the cooperatives and in that way a good deal was done to prevent them from succeeding. He said also that the executives of the cooperatives were chosen for their business ability and had no vital financial interest in the production of the natural products which they were undertaking to handle. Again he said that the number of producers who had remained outside the cooperatives depressed the market and thus undermined the efforts of the cooperatives. He said that the bill would take care of all, or at least the majority, of those difficulties and bring about better marketing conditions. In other words, he said in effect that if provisions similar to those contained in the bill had been in force the cooperatives could have been successful in
the past. As I develop my argument I intend to deal with some of these matters.
The minister said that a great deal of thought and consideration had been given to the preparation of this marketing bill. I do not doubt it, but I wonder by whom that thought and consideration were given. I feel satisfied that it could not have been the Minister of Agriculture who was responsible for the bill. Anybody who has studied it and knows the minister; who knows the part of the country from which he comes, knows he is fully aware of the ideas and the desires of the farmers at least of western Canada in connection with a marketing bill of this kind, and I do not believe the minister himself, had he been drafting the bill, would have done anything other than put into it what the farmers, those who had been taking part in those cooperative movements, desired in connection with the marketing of their products.
This afternoon there was a considerable argument on the principle of this bill. The Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) said that there was only one principle, that of establishing a marketing act; that that was the whole principle contained in the bill and on that principle we should vote on the second reading. But after listening to the speech of the Minister of Agriculture and reading it over in Hansard I notice he says that three principles are contained in the bill: first, to give the producer control of the regulation and marketing of his products; second, that organizing and getting closer to the market would show the necessity of improving the quality; third, that this plan was necessary so that the primary producers might devote their entire time to production and be assured of no interference fn marketing. With these principles I wish to deal at more or less length. I think the summary I have given of the remarks of the Minister of Agriculture, together with his statement that agriculture is the basic industry of Canada and that the country cannot succeed if agriculture and other primary industries do not succeed, will pretty well cover his speech.
I want to congratulate him on his speech, not so much for the explanation he gave of the bill-because, indeed, explanation was conspicuous by its absence-as for the tone of his speech. He was very moderate, more moderate than he usually is; and I should like to congratulate him upon the fact that in his speech there was nothing in the way of political partisanship. But I am disappointed that he did not go into the provisions of the bill. If in his dissertation on the problems
Marketing Act-Mr. Totzke

and difficulties of the primary producers in marketing their products he had indicated the manner in which this bill was to take care of those problems and difficulties, it would have been much more to the point and more what the people generally desire.
The minister said that he had received many resolutions supporting this bill. I wonder how many resolutions he has had in support of it since the people throughout the country have had an opportunity of studying its provisions. I wonder also, since the bill has been studied, how many resolutions he has received expressing dissatisfaction with its provisions. I have under my hand a news item from the Winnipeg Free Press of March 28 of this year, giving an account-


Mr. MORAND:: That is not news.


Albert Frederick Totzke: I know the editor of this paper is one of those who sits in an office and gets a few paltry dollars a month and therefore should not know anything about what is agitating the minds of the Canadian people, but this article does not happen to be an editorial. This is an interview given by Mr. W. A. Landreth, of the poultry pool. Time will not permit me to quote the whole interview, but I wish to read just one sentence- and I may say that this gentleman in this interview was inclined to support the bill. He says:
The aim of the bill is producer control based on the British marketing act.
We know that producer control in this bill is not based on the British marketing act, and I have often wondered what this gentleman's reaction was when he actually got a copy of the bill and studied its provisions. I am satisfied that he would give an entirely different interview from that wlych he gave to the Free Press at that time.
It is significant that so few of the members supporting the government have risen to speak in favour of the bill.
It is true that a number of them have said they are in favour of it, but invariably in the course of their remarks they had to read something into the bill. They said they were in favour of it if so-and-so were incorporated; or they were in favour of it but felt the government was going to make certain amendments. That was invariably the case in all speeches made by hon. members opposite, and I want to give some short quotations from their remarks to show that I am correct in making that statement.
The first to speak from the government side following the address of the minister was the hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling). I have

a very high regard for him; I believe he is sincere in everything he says in the house, and I know he is particularly interested in marketing legislation because he represents a number of fruit growers in the Okanagan valley who have in the past tried to market their products through a scheme of compulsory cooperation, and only the fact that the bill was declared ultra vires by the courts prevented them from carrying on that method of marketing. So I say that he is very much interested and very sincere. I quote from his speech on page 2255 of Hansard:
Under section 5 of the bill the producers may join together in the preparation of a scheme which is submitted to the minister for his approval. The minister must satisfy himself that there is a sufficient volume of support behind the scheme. How is he to do that? In my opinion the only way he can do it is to have the figures of a poll laid before him. It is most desirable that the scheme should make provision for registration and polling.
The hon. member for Yale is supporting the bill, but one of the very essentials that he asks for is not in the bill, and we have no assurance that it is going to be embodied in it.
Then I take another quotation from the hon. member's speech, found at page 2256:
It is almost certain that any scheme will contain the idea of a board selected by the producers to be in charge of the fruit or whatever commodity it may be which they have to handle.
He says "it is almost certain," but again there is nothing in the bill to warrant the assertion that the producers will select the board.
Here is another quotation from the speech of the same hon. member, found at page 2257:
Therefore the practical method of doing it is for them to market where directed by the regulatory body, and for the receipts of that variety and that grade to be pooled. There is no doubt, I maintain, that under subsection (a) of section 4 that power is covered by the bill, but it appears to me it would be a desirable thing for a definite statement to be made by the government as to whether I am correct in reading that into the bill, because it will have a very considerable effect on the volume of support which this measure will receive in certain farming communities.
Once again he wants the government to say that he is correct in reading this provision into the bill. I maintain that these things are not provided for in the bill as it stands.
Then I wish to refer to one or two remarks made by the hon. member for Brome-Missis-quoi (Mr. Pickel). At page 2311 he is reported as saying:
This criticism from the other side of the house is simply for political purposes.

Marketing Act-Mr. Totzke
Now, Mr. Speaker, if the criticisms coming from this side of the house are simply for political purposes, how about the criticisms that are coming from behind the government itself? Are they also for political purposes? Or is it perhaps that the bill has been introduced for political purposes? Is it that an election is in the offing and this bill will be put through and the election held before its provisions may be tried out.?


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Surely they would never do that!


Albert Frederick Totzke: Lower down on the same page the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi is recorded as saying:
Well, Mr. Speaker, I am an eastern farmer and I am opposed most strongly, not to the grading acts themselves, but to their administration and operation. That is what I am opposed to.
I am in favour of the grading of products. In respect of our products for export it is necessary to have grading systems, proper quality and continuity of supply, but I say to the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi that if these boards are established there will be just such grading as there is at the present time. Does he think for a moment that the grading done by the officers of these boards will be any better, any more satisfactory than the grading done by the inspectors under the present act? I say it will not. And the average farmer, who after all is human, will not be satisfied with any system of grading if he thinks the grading of his products has not been done fairly, if he thinks he should have had a better grade than the grader gives him.
Lower down on the same page the hon. member is reported as having said:
And the packers will buy butter at fifteen and sixteen cents this summer and sell it at fifty and sixty cents a pound next winter. Is there any justice in that? Do we not need a marketing board?
Are these marketing boards going to be in a position to do what the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi wants them to do? Are they going to be in a position to take butter and eggs and perishable products in the summer, give the producer a reasonable price for them, and carry them over to the winter? Why, the very bill prevents them doing that. They are not buying and selling agencies, they are only directing and regulatory agencies. While they have under this bill power to build cold storage plants and in that way take care of perishable products, who is going to advance the payment to the producer? These boards have no right to do that. Therefore I say that the hon. member for Brome-Missisquoi was reading into the bill something which is not there.
Further on he was asked if this bill was going to fix up all our troubles, and he said, "It should, let us try it; I am willing to try anything." I also say that the bill should make provision to deal with the difficulties of which the hon. member speaks, but it does not do so; therefore we are not justified in supporting it in its present form. We are all ready to do anything we can to improve the position of the producer, but surely the combined wisdom of the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Trade and Commerce and other members of the cabinet, not to mention the Prime Minister, could have evolved a better marketing bill than this.
I want to make one or two quotations from the speech of the hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull). He usually is a very able debater. Seldom is he at a loss for arguments in support of any bill introduced by . the government, but in this particular case I was very much disappointed in him. I felt that he had to labour very hard indeed to find some justification for supporting this bill. At page 2381 he is reported as follows:
The farmers of Saskatchewan had lean cattle and, he said, the board would prohibit the selling of them.
He was referring to an hon. member on this side.
It will do nothing of the kind. What the board would do would be this. It would direct that those lean cattle be placed where they could be developed into fat cattle and sold to proper advantage.
Where is there anything in the bill that provides for places and men to take these lean cattle and fatten them to the proper condition for the market? There again the hon. member for Regina is reading something into the bill which is not there. Under this bill I say that these difficulties cannot be overcome. For example, when hogs are in the proper stage as regards weight and conformation they may be sold as bacon hogs or as selects, but if you have to keep them even two or three weeks longer they become too heavy and the producer loses the advantage of the price paid for bacon hogs and the dollar premium for select bacon hogs.
I am afraid I am not going to have time to go into the provisions of this bill as carefully as I should like, but there are certain things that I wish particularly to speak about. This bill does not give the producer the control over the marketing of his products which he desires, and which in my opinion he should have. In the first place, it sets up a dominion marketing board which is to be under the control of the government and governor in council, but it makes no pro-
Marketing Act-Mr. Totzke

vision whatever for any control on the part of the producer. All through the bill I have been looking for any provisions that might give the producer some control over the marketing and regulating of his products, but I can find none. Subsection (a) of section 4 provides that the board shall have power:
To regulate the time and place of marketing the regulated product, and to determine the manner of distribution and the quantity and quality or grade of the regulated product that shall be marketed' by any person at any time, and to prohibit the marketing of any of the regulated product of any grade or quality.
The board has complete control as to what shall be done in the way of regulation and marketing. In subsections (e) and (d) provision is made for compensation to the farmer on account of any loss that he may incur in consequence of any order of the board. That is all right so far as the farmer is concerned; I am all for compensation for him in such an event. But I would point out that there -would have to be found an army of investigators. And who is to decide whether the compensation is just or not? No opportunity is given for the farmer himself or his peers, his fellow farmers, to have anything to say as to whether the compensation provided is satisfactory or not. I say therefore that under this provision it will be very difficult indeed to give satisfaction to the producer. Subsection (e) gives the board power:
To assist by grant or loan the construction or operation of facilities for preserving, storing, or conditioning the regulated product and to assist research work relating to the marketing of such product.
That is a very good provision; facilities of one kind or another should be afforded to take care of storage and processing of farm products. Such facilities are very necessary, but we should pause to consider the expense to which all these things will lead. Here, however, is one section that I cannot allow to pass without comment. I refer to the provision contained in subsection (f) of the section I am considering:
To require any or all persons engaged in the production or marketing of the regulated product to register their names, addresses and occupations with the board, or to obtain a licence from the board, and such licence shall be subject to cancellation by the board for violation of any provision of this act or regulation made thereunder.
In this section the board, over which the farmer will have no control and in the composition of which he will have nothing to say, will have absolute control over the producer, and by the cancellation of his licence they may restrict his production or refuse altogether to allow him to produce any goods at all.
TMr. Totzke.]
I am afraid, Mr. Speaker, that I shall have to leave the various sections of the bill which I should like to deal with, inasmuch as there are some general remarks I wish to make in connection with the matter. Let me say first of all that this bill does not meet the situation; it does not give those powers which the farmers, more especially the producers of western Canada, are looking for. I know from my personal experience in western Canada something of what the farmers wanted, something of what the cooperatives wanted in connection with this marketing legislation. In the first place, they wanted power to form compulsory marketing pools. There is no question of that in my mind; I have no doubt that those who have been agitating most strenuously for marketing legislation of some kind such as some of our producers have are absolutely in favour of compulsory pools. The producers in the west are not unanimous on this, but there is considerable agitation and there are some arguments to be advanced in favour of it. What the pools themselves, or at any rate the majority of them, want is power to make it compulsory, but they do not want that power in any arbitrary manner; they want the producers to have an opportunity of voting on the question whether there shall be a compulsory pool or not. The only thing they want is that a certain majority should be fixed at a very high percentage, and if that high percentage of a majority vote in favour of it, then the minority shall be forced to come into the pool. I am not advancing as my own opinions any of the statements which I am now making, but rather my impression of what the farmers of the west, or at least some of them, are asking for.
In the second place, I am sure that the boards and those advocating a marketing plan want the power to buy and sell; at any rate they want the power to act as selling agents. I am sure they want control of the boards themselves, and they want the power to disband the board if necessary. As I said before, I have no doubt that all those who are agitating in favour of these powers are averse to having the powers without an opportunity being given the producers themselves of voting on the scheme, so that by their vote they may say whether they want it or not.
I wish to say a few general words now. The Minister of Agriculture, in the course of his remarks, said that agriculture is the backbone of Canada. I have no doubt that every one in this dominion will admit that agriculture is our main industry, and that if agriculture

Marketing Act-Mr. Dorion
is not prosperous the rest of Canada cannot be prosperous. In my own province of Saskatchewan the farmers are not prosperous; indeed, they are in very bad shape, because they need markets for their products. The members of this government admit that that is what is needed by the producers, but they say that at the present time the markets of the world are restricted and we should regulate our supplies. Well, there is nothing in this bill to promote the extension of markets for our products. What the farmer of western Canada wants more than anything else is for someone to sell his products for him. He wants somebody, whether it be the Department of Trade and Commerce or whoever it may be, to go on the markets of the world and sell his goods. The time has passed when we in the west can sit back complacently and say, "We have the best wheat in the world; the nations cannot get along without it and therefore they will come and buy it." We have had the experience of being unable to sell our wheat in that way and I say therefore that we need someone to sell it. If we cannot find a means of disposing of it, it will be a very short time before the farmer of the west is out of business.
What has this government ever done to sell the products of the western farmer? An imperial conference was held in Ottawa and we were given a six cent preference on our wheat. We were to sell it at the world price. Has this made a market for our wheat? Not at all. The hon. member for South Battle-ford (Mr. Vallance), in his remarks the other day, read a letter from an old country firm setting out the situation with regard to wheat in Great Britain. There was a table which he wanted to put on the record; I have it before me but I am afraid I shall not have time to put it on either. Not only have the farmers of Saskatchewan, Mr. Speaker, suffered from poor crops due to climatic conditions, but the prices for their products have fallen away below production costs, and now we are asked to restrict our production in the hope that prices will go up. The farmer in western Canada does not want restriction; what he wants is a bumper crop and fair prices, otherwise he will never get out of the hole. I say that this government should go to those countries in Europe which formerly imported our products and make trade agreements with them. We should say to those countries, "We will take some of your products if you will give us the opportunity of sending wheat to your country." At the conference recently held in Rome, Fiance made the offer
that she would be willing to reduce her wheat acreage if she were given the opportunity to place some of her manufactured products on the Canadian market. Why do we not accept that offer? Is it not time we got away from the idea of protecting some of the little secondary industries in eastern Canada? Is it not time that we gave proper consideration to the primary producers? Is it not time that we gave the western farmer a chance to buy some of his implements of production and necessities of life at more reasonable prices, in order that he may more nearly equalize the cost of production with the price he receives for his products? The farmer in western Canada through all these years has been paying through the nose. To-day he is in the position where he can see no hope. All the agitations and radical speeches made in the western provinces are the result of the position in which the western farmer finds himself. What he wants and what he needs is an opportunity to trade his products for those which he requires produced in other countries. He wants an opportunity to carry on that trade in a fair and reasonable manner. That is the only way in which he may hope to survive.


Mr. C. N. DORION (Quebec-Montmorency) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, representing a county which comprises a population three quarters of which are farmers, I deem it my duty to briefly comment on this bill No. 51.
The title "The Natural Products Marketing Act" summarizes all its economic purpose.
Ever since the mechanization of industry which gave birth to economic liberalism-the primary cause of the ills from which this modern world suffers, at present-numerous measures have been enacted by various countries; however, such legislation, as a whole, only concerns trade and industry. The present bill under consideration is one of the most progressive measures ever submitted to the parliament of Canada, and that is what gives it such importance, because by this legislation we are resolutely resorting to regulated economy, particularly in connection with natural products.
Since the government introduced this bill, we have read some criticism in the press which sides with the oppsition, especially in the province of Quebec.
The conservative party is charged with having borrowed part of its program from the radical party, the C.C.F. We may reply, as Disraeli once said:
I am a conservative to preserve what is sound; a radical to suppress what is unsound.
250}
Marketing Act-Mr. Dorion

For too long a time-we are aware of this, to-day, more than ever-the state has neglected to carry out one of its primary functions: to regulate the economic activities of the nation, not in the interest or for the benefit of the private individual or group of persons, but in the interest of the collectivity or community.
Up to this day, economic liberalism-which prompted Jean Baptiste Say to state: "Production opens markets to products"-made it a rule to prohibit any interference by the state in the economic field of activities. The rule of supply and demand was the law. Where has this principle in practice for over a century and a half led us? What do we see throughout the world after such a long period of indifference or "laissez faire"? Why has the state so long been reluctant to interfere in order to regulate the prices, salaries and markets? Those are as many questions which we have a right to ask and which the present bill will be a solution for many.
Indeed, it is not sufficient to have discovered new methods of wealth production, the means of specially putting such production in circulation and distributing it must be resorted to. I repeat what I stated a moment ago as regards mechanization of industry and economic liberalism; the first of these two sciences has attained a high degree of development; however, the second through abstention on the part of the state has lamentably dragged behind.
As George Boris wrote in his work intituled: "Probleme de l'or et crise mondiale":
There is no lack of motive power or means to create it. Neither are the building materials wanting; nor are we short of food to feed humanity or fuel to keep the people warm; nor are the textiles or leather wanting to clothe us. Large mills exist, new ones can easily he built and equipped to turn the raw material into articles of consumption. And the hands are also willing, only awaiting the order to start work.
However, the means of distribution and exchange are not in keeping with the methods of production which could probably fill our requirements and wishes. That is the reason why the iron rule remains in force making the poverty of some the ransom for the welfare of others.
The period between 1914 and 1918 should serve as examples to us. It happened that troops were marking time on certain battlefields while others were almost overwhelmed by the enemy. What did those in command do under such circumstances? Did they send back home these unoccupied soldiers? No such blunder was made but there was a new distribution of the various units, troops were massed where the enemy was on the point of breaking through. So must we act in the economic field of activities. The duty
TMr. Dorion.]
of the state is to regulate the purchasing and marketing of natural products so that those who are short may purchase them from those who already have too much.
Why produce wealth if we do not know how to put it in circulation or distribute it? In fact, are not the two results sought by this bill to circulate and distribute our natural products? Mr. Albert Rioux, president of "l'Union Catholique des cultivateurs de la province de Quebec," doctor of agricultural science, has a deep knowledge of farm problems-not only from a theoretical viewpoint but also as regards the practical side-he is one of the most brilliant Canadian scholars who studied the question, he wrote in the "Devoir" on April 10 and 17, two very interesting articles in connection with the act relating to the Natural Products Marketing Board. It will afford me pleasure, indeed, to see these two articles translated into English for the benefit of our friends who speak the English language and who do not read the "Devoir."
In the first of these articles, after having noted that, from the very outset of the crisis, all industries had taken measures to adapt themselves to the law of supply and demand by reducing their output and exercising a strict control over their members, the author adds:
The farmers carried on their production, they even attempted, in a number of cases, to increase this production so as to compensate themselves for the loses sustained in the drop in prices.
Moreover, agriculture is incapable of quickly adapting its production to the changing conditions of the market. Many factors which influence the agricultural output are uncontrollable by man. Isolated, essentially individualists, farmers cannot organize and easily group themselves to regulate their production and' marketing activities.
Free competitive methods have afforded an opportunity to large corporations to monopolize the distribution of most of the farm products.
Ever since the crisis prevails, we note that, in all countries, the margin, between the prices paid to producers and exacted from the consumers is continuously increasing. The cost of distributing farm products is too greatly increasing. Briefly the situation of farmers demands state intervention.
New conditions are developing, we are rapidly passing from a system of free competition to that of economic control.
Regulated economy, means deliberate control of economic activities not for the benefit of one or groups of private interests but for the benefit of the community.
In the past economy meant that the state was prohibited to interfere in the economic sphere; it trusted to the hazard of indifference or chance to solve social problems; it looked upon as sacred the law of supply and demand, abstained from influencing prices, wages and the market. This free competition

Marketing Act-Mr. Donon
brought on chaos in the distribution of products, the fleecing of producers and consumers by trusts, overproduction and deflation of prices.
Agriculture, the industry of primary importance to society is also the one which has felt the crisis most and is the most helpless to react. Most of the countries have first attacked the wheat problem, the importance of which is foremost. Wheat is the foundation of agriculture; it fixes the prices of the coarse grains and, indirectly, the price of animal products. Even in 1925, Italy levied a tax on imported wheat and inaugurated a vast program known as the "wheat conflict." In Germany the general tariff on imported wheat is almost three times the price it sells on the London or Liverpool market. Great Britain adopted its "Wheat Act" in 1932 so as to give to her producers a sufficient market, at a profitable price. France, Belgium and all the countries of central and eastern Europe developed a vast system of customs tariffs, regulations in the charges for grinding, in the importation quotas, in licences to import or export. These competitive measures against imported products were everywhere accompanied by a program of protection and assistance to national agriculture.
Soon, not only wheat but all other products will come under the control of regulated economy. In England, the Agricultural Marketing Act provides for the organization of producers of certain farm products for the purpose of regulating prices on the market. In the United States a whole chain of legislation embodies all economic activities, "the Agricultural Adjustment Act, Emergency Farm Mortgage Act. Farm Credit Act, Emergency Banking Act, Unemployed Relief Act, National Industrial Recovery Act." The agricultural and industrial program of Roosevelt constitutes the most complete scheme put into practice heretofore. By creating The Natural Products Marketing Board the dominion government boldly takes the path leading to regulated economy.
In the Devoir's issue of April 17, Mr. Rioux adds:
The hon. L. A. Taschereau has just enacted a measure in the legislative assembly intituled "An Act to assist in putting into effect in this province any regulation helping the marketing of the natural products of Canada." The provincial government is therefore authorized to enforce by orders in council the act creating the Dominion Marketing Board. We wish to congratulate the Prime Minister for his diligence in cooperating with the dominion authorities; we hope that, in the administration of this act, the cooperation of Quebec and Ottawa will be perfect.
Mr. Speaker, I think Mr. Rioux was too hasty in congratulating the hon. Prime Minister of Quebec in having the Legislative Assembly adopt an act permitting the enforcement in the province of the Natural Products Marketing Act. If we are to judge from the interview published in " Le Canada " of this date, Mr. Taschereau desires to protest against two measures at present under consideration by the House of Commons. First, Mr. Taschereau referring to the Marketing bill, states:
Ottawa desires to take over the control of our forests, mines, fisheries and natural products.
An hon. MEMBER (Translation): Shame!


Charles Napoléon Dorion: Evidently
Mr. Taschereau has not read this bill because the Dominion government has no intention of encroaching on provincial rights as regards ownership of forests, water powers or mines, but simply wishes to legislate in connection with products of the forest, water powers and mines.
Mr. Taschereau after having referred to the new tax on gold, adds:
The danger is at our door.
Mr. Taschereau must have probably thought that he was another Mirabeau. Rising before the Assembly of the States General, in 1789, Mirabeau exclaimed: "We are discussing and the danger is at our door." Danger is perhaps at certain doors but not in the sense which Mr. Taschereau wishes to convey. The danger lies at the doors of certain large industrial corporations and trusts.
Mr. Taschereau has no need to fear we shall permit him to sacrifice, as he has done for ever so long, the natural resources of Quebec, to dispose of them at shameful prices and thus rob us.
I return to the article of Mr. Rioux, of April 17:
Mr. Taschereau expresses, however, the opinion that this measure encroaches on the rights, prerogatives and autonomy of Quebec. The Dominion Marketing Board will only regulate the forest, land and sea trade, it will not have the authority to sell or concede to foreigners at wretched prices, our forests, mines, water powers, lakes, rivers and all our natural resources. As in the past, such prerogatives will remain with the province. . . .
A number of newspapers have charged the dominion government with assuming an economic dictatorship.
They are unaware, no doubt, that this Marketing Board' is requested by farmers' associations of all the provinces.
A few years ago, British Columbia at the request of those interested, organized a closed cooperative society of fruit growers. Within two years, this organization succeeded in giving a considerable impulse to the fruit production of that province.	, ,
When referred' to the tribunals, the British Columbia legislation was declared ultra vires. Since then, fruit growers have been requesting a federal measure which would permit them to revive their compulsory cooperative association. They have found again that the minority of growers who do not join a free cooperative society spoil the good effects of such cooperation.
Marketing Act-Mr. Dorion

As the hon. Mr. Taschereau pointed out, the western provinces are favourable to such a proposal. But so are also the eastern farmers. At its annual congress of 1932, "l'Union Catholique des Cultivateurs" requested a federal commission to supervise the marketing of farm products, especially, to regulate the trade of dairy products. At the congress held in November last, our society again made the same request so as to organize the marketing of our important farm products.
In April, 1933, the representatives of the principal Canadian dairy associations met in Ottawa. They unanimously adopted quite an elaborate resolution requesting the Dominion Minister of Agriculture to create immediately a Farm Produce Marketing Board.
In November, 1933, delegates of the principal farming groups of all the provinces again met at Toronto. After three days of debate in the presence of Hon. Robert Weir, who was assisted by a number of experts from Ottawa and Toronto, together with the collaboration of representatives of British and Australian Cooperative societies, the congress passed a resolution requesting the Dominion Minister of Agriculture to prepare a measure based on the British Agricultural Act of 1931, so as to facilitate the marketing of farm products.
Instead of assuming an economic dictatorship, the dominion government simply acquiesce to the ever pressing and repeated' solicitations of the farmers throughout the country. It is the first time that farmers have been able to obtain such a broad national agricultural policy.
Mr. Rioux who, I repeat, possesses a wide knowledge of farm problems of our province, speaking on behalf of " l'Union catholique des cultivateurs de la province de Quebec " approves of this bill, and I think he is quite right.
I think, sir, in order to dispel the crisis from which suffer certain national products -especially agricultural products-the duty of a government, conscious of its responsibilities towards the people, is to regulate these products, to assure their marketing, supervise the quantity and quality and even-if it becomes necessary in the interest of the people, as a whole-to establish a kind of monopoly by the state on some of these products.
One may designate this as regulated economy, however, whatever name is given to such a system, it is without doubt preferable to the chaos existing at present which is so detrimental both to producers and consumers.
May I quote, sir, what some author wrote on the causes of unemployment:
The fault lies in the system of mass production, of rationalized and concentrated production, when unaccompanied by an endeavour to increase consumption and the purchasing power in all countries, where bankruptcy exists. Unrestricted and uncontrolled competition, unlimited production, out of proportion with consumption, are neither desired nor possible.
All those who feel uneasy about the duration of the present depression, admit it: the present crisis is a natural sequel of the disorderly state in which is to be found the distribution of wealth in connection with its production. That is the primary cause of the financial, monetary and social troubles from which we suffer.
The present bill under consideration is of a nature to remedy this disorder. No doubt, as the hon. Minister of Agriculture stated, it [DOT]is subject to improvement; however, such as it is, sufficient benefit can be derived from it to warrant our support.
It is futile to imagine that the future will be like the past. We are passing through a period of economic evolution. No doubt schemes like this one are totally contrary to our preconceived ideas; however, the necessity for a new economic organization is clearly seen by those who are willing for a moment, to observe the changes taking place these days throughout the world. Ever since the Christian era, many economic systems have been tried out, each adapting itself to the circumstances and conditions of the times and locality. Providing that at the basis of all economic systems, we always adhere to the great fundamental Christian principles, nothing should prevent us from seeking improvement and even perfection.
All legislation which affords us the means of controlling production in quantity as well as in quality, allows us to regulate such production according to consumption, insures the distribution under the best conditions possible -bath in the interest of producers and consumers-deserves the approval of well thinking citizens.
Such is the aim of the present bill. That is also why, I deem it my duty to give it my support.


Mr. MICHAEL LUCHKOVICH (Vegre-ville):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the fact that the statement was made by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) and other members to your left that the legislation now before us is somewhat socialistic I think it might be in order for me to address you as Comrade Speaker rather than as Mr. Speaker. It looks now as if the vested interests have transferred their affections to the members to the left of the Speaker and that the members to the left of the Speaker have transferred their affections to the vested interests.
I am very thankful to the hon. member for Melville (Mr. Motherwell) for the only really constructive speech on this legislation that has come from hon. gentlemen to my

Marketing Act-Mr. Luchkovich
right in this debate. Indeed he has gone so far that I am inclined to believe that he has knocked the wind out of the sails of the constitutionalists who sit with him, and I am now wondering what the poor old Liberal boat will do now that it has been cast upon that stormy sea in which it is now wallowing. I am also wondering what the boy on the burning deck from Weyburn will do in this regard.
I shall state at the outset, Mr. Speaker, that if liberty was being abused I should fight like blazes to defend it, but I certainly refuse to be led on another false scent by this old smelly red herring that has so often been thrown across the path not only of hon. members of this house but of the public generally. As I have already said, I am thankful for the statement made by the hon. member for Melville in regard to this legislation. What he said was that there were certain sections of the bill that he did not like, but more sections that he did like. In other words, he felt like Brutus, not that he loved Caesar less but Rome more. Similarly it is not that the former Minister of Agriculture loves the arguments advanced by his party less, but he loves the legislation that we have before us more.
I think we had a parallel case in regard to the amendment moved by the leader of the opposition not so very long ago when there was moved from this corner an amendment to the Bank of Canada bill. I noticed that at that time the opposition voted against the amendment moved by us. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and both the amendment that was moved on that occasion and the amendment now before us dealt with the provisions of the bills that were and are before the house.
I am sorry I was not able to follow the hon. member who has just sat down (Mr. Dorion) as I do not understand his language. I am glad that the hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Totzke) did not, like some of his friends, use again that outworn argument on liberty and constitutionalism.
We in this part of the house, Mr. Speaker have been criticized because we believe in the idea of a planned economy, but I notice that the Hon. Vincent Massey in a statement which he made the other day said:
The primary conflict is not therefore isolation versus internationalism, but planning _ versus improvisation, and in this trouble planning will I believe be victorious.
I suppose after making a statement like that Mr. Massey, if the leader of the opposition ever gets into power, will not again be appointed minister plenipotentiary to Washington.
Stuart Chase has had this to say in regard to liberty in his book, What is an Economic System For?-
The whole history of legislation refutes the abstract argument on liberty in so far as each law does curtail liberty.
I understand that during the regime of the leader of the opposition many bills were passed containing similar provisions and providing for similar penalties, and yet the members of the opposition who now so vociferously criticize this legislation did not criticize the curtailment of liberty in that legislation which they helped to pass during the Liberal regime. I think all this talk about liberty in connection with this bill is nothing less than a travesty on justice and a burlesque on liberty.
The principle of the marketing bill now before us is, broadly speaking, that there shall be a body between the primary producer and the ultimate consumer to facilitate a better and more economic distribution of natural products to the consumer, or, in the language of the bill itself, this is an act "to improve the methods and practices involved in the marketing of natural products in Canada and in export trade."
Since my constituency want to know how I stand on this matter I shall have to put myself on record. This is a bill which the farmers of the west have been fighting for during the past decade, and if its opponents think otherwise they have another thought coming to them. I am quite satisfied that the agriculturists of my part of the province of Alberta at least are wholly in accord with the principle which I have just enunciated.
I strongly deprecate, however, the stand taken by the hon. member for Melville when he advanced arguments to show that this bill was aimed at the consumer. Never in the history of Canada have the consumers been getting away with such shameful and disgracefully low prices for farm products. Do hon. members who advance this argument expect that the farmers of Canada are going to produce indefinitely at below the cost of production in order to benefit the consumers? Do they expect that the primary producers will be willing to remain in eternal bankruptcy in order that the consumers may obtain their produce at next to nothing? I can see neither rhyme nor reason in the contention that the consumer is being discriminated against by the provisions of this bill when not so long ago eggs were selling at four dozen for twenty-five cents, turkeys at seventy cents each and grains below the cost of production. The consumer has had his innings, and I think it is about time the farmer should be allowed to come to

Marketing Act-Mr. Luchkovich
been turned into a kind of farce by the innumerable and irrelevant references to this idea of liberty. The idea of liberty has always been represented as a pure, simple, lovely and excellent young maiden, but after the way in which the hon. member for Wey-burn (Mr. Young) misapplied her ideal, I am afraid she will not talk to him any more. I am surprised that a man of his age could be so flippant and flirtatious in regard to matters of this kind. I certainly believe the manner in which she was embraced by the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) will certainly not enhance the chances of permanent wedlock that he might have had, had he adopted some other attitude towards the idea of liberty in this lovely damsel. As for the method employed by the leader of the opposition of virtually dragging this fair maiden by her long tresses into this discussion will forevermore condemn him to a life of celibacy and all the other idiosyncrasies that go with bachelorhood. Of course I can visualize him as saying: Give me liberty or give me death, whether that statement applies to marital, economic or political problems. But it certainly does not destroy my contention that this fine virtue, liberty, has been wrongly construed as applied to the discussion on this particular bill. It is not political but rather economic liberty that is at stake at this time. In this age of great industrial development we have evolved an industrial system in which there is no liberty, in which the producer has to take the price that is offered him on the basis of laissez-faire, the policy of rugged individualism that the Liberals have upheld for the past one hundred years, but which now seems to be out-dated and obsolete. We have attained political freedom; what we want now is economic freedom. The trouble with many people is that they have one-track minds. They have been in the rut so long and have
Germany. . . .
France	
Italy	
Czechoslovakia
Japan	
Mexico	
worn it so deep that they are not able to look over the edges and see what is going on in the world about them. When one realizes that under this rugged individualism cattle are being burned in the Argentine, oranges thrown into the ocean, and other food products being wilfully destroyed, one certainly concludes that the economy which permits such insanity cannot be very much planned.
The world's markets at the present time are being shot to pieces. Purchasing power in the w'orld generally as well as in Canada has been reduced to almost nothing. In answer to all this what do we get from the hon. member for Weyburn and other hon. members to my right? Nothing but cries of, "Negotiate; why don't you negotiate?" When we analyze this feature thoroughly we find that the chief protagonists of negotiation have been largely responsible for negotiating this country out of business. For lack of time to develop this point further I shall just submit comparative figures for one staple product, wheat. Thereby hangs a tale. But before I come to that let me say that the hon. member for Weyburn, being a Scotchman, doubtless sings often the old ditty:
My bonnie lies over the ocean,
My bonnie lies over the sea;
My bonnie lies over the ocean,
O bring back my bonnie to me!
"My bonnie" may be taken to refer to international trade. So one can visualize the hon. member singing of it in the following paraphrase:
I'll bring it back through negotiation.
I'll bring it back with a treaty or two; With tariffs and free trade devotion,
I'll bring good times back unto you.
If it were not unparliamentary I would ask all hon. members to join in the chorus.
Here are some significant figures as to the rates of duty charged on wheat by various countries:
Lowest rate Free in 1922 $0 11 in 1924 Free in 1921 Free in 1921 0 18 in 1921 0 60 in 1923
Highest rate
$0 9S	in	19300	85	in	19300	731	in	19291	36	in	19330	34	in	19301	05	in	1930
(per cwt.)


Edward James Young: Will my hon. friend tell us what were our exports of wheat in 1929 and each year since?


Michael Luchkovich: Our exports of wheat in 1927, 1928 and 1929 were very large. But that is aside from the point. The point, is that you have charged the government with failure to negotiate, but what about negotia-
tion during the time these conditions came into being? My point is that these markets were lost to us between the years 1921 and 1930 when the duty on wheat was raised as indicated by the above figures.


Edward James Young: If my hon. friend would give the figures that I have asked for we would be able to check him up.

Marketing Act-Mr. Luchkovich


Michael Luchkovich: I would give them if I had them here but I have not got them.
If my hon. friend wants to know he had better look them up for himself.


Mr. GOTT:: You are clever in arguing from figures you have in your head.


Michael Luchkovich: These figures show that the duties against our wheat have been slowly rising ever since 1922. Who was in power then, and who lost this trade? Certainly not the C.C.F., certainly not the Labour party, certainly not the United Farmers. It was lost by these mighty negotiators.


Edward James Young: Hear the new allies of the Tory party!


Michael Luchkovich: The great defenders of liberty in this country were the ones who lost this trade for us. Yet they keep on crying. "Why don't you negotiate?"-completely forgetting what a sad lot of negotiators they turned out to be when they were in power. If negotiation is the criterion by which the Liberals are to be measured, how would they explain the enactment of the Fordney-McCumber tariff in 1922, which killed our cattle trade? They did not do much by negotiation there. What excuse have they for the Hawley-Smoot tariff of 1929? That certainly did not do us any good. In view of these facts I should think they would be the last to mention negotiation.
I should like also to refer to the "brick for brick" tariff policy that was considered so great a virtue in the time of the Dunning budget, but so terrible a sin under the Right Hon. Mr. Meighen; but I do not wish to rub it in too much. I think I do Mr. Dunning an injustice by not enumerating some of the great benefits that accrued to Canada when the Liberals in 1930 put hay, straw, oats, wheat and cut flowers on the free list of imports. Of course Canada has not enough of these things, but must bring them in from foreign countries! It is only right to give the credit for so profound a discovery to the Liberal statisticians of the day. It was when the farmers of this country began to see the ridiculous futility of such a free list that the party had to look into their bag of tricks for some other scheme to fool the public. Their latest device has been to make goo-goo eyes at Miss Liberty and try to win her over to their way of thinking. But by their crude ways and lack of good behaviour and proper etiquette they have estranged her affections. I heard the hon. member for Lisgar (Mr. Brown) heave a couple of sighs and saw him cast a few flirtatious winks in her direction. I saw the hon. member for North Battleford
(Mr. McIntosh) also throwing kisses by the handful, the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) give a long series of "yoo-hoo's," the hon. member for Weyburn plead on bended knee, the leader of the opposition whisper a lot of sweet nothings in her ear, but generally sireaking the amorous technique of the Liberal would-be Romeos made no impression whatsoever upon her; for while any of these so-called liberty lovers might be able to supply the veil, the ring, the trousseau and all the other paraphernalia incidental to a wedding, with the hon. member for Lisgar hanging around to tie the knot,
I verily believe that honest Bob Gardiner could step right up to the very altar like Lochinvar of old and snatch away the unwilling bride from the whole lot of them. One can almost imagine Bob saying: I cannot offer you castles in the air, like the leader of the opposition, or sugar-coated hokum like the member for Vancouver Centre, or the luxuries of free trade like the hon. member for Weyburn, or the paradise of good old Liberalism like the member for North Battleford-


Edward James Young: Why don't you speak for yourself, John?


Michael Luchkovich: I am not offering her anything at all, because I did not make love to her like you fellows did-Bob Gardiner saying: "All I can give you is true love and an honest average living," and Miss Liberty saying: "I understand. Bobby darling, but that is more than I expect from those fellows over there."
Now all that this bill purports to do is to facilitate marketing, and in my opinion it in no way infringes upon the liberties of the individual; rather, it aims at the lightening of the burden thrown upon the producers of this country in consequence of abnormal marketing conditions. Why, therefore, should we theorize and elaborate on abstract problems of liberty? Why should we warp facts to fit them into preconceived ideas of freedom? This marketing problem is an actual condition in Canada and it must be met by direct action and not by long quotations about liberty from men whom the worms have eaten a hundred or a thousand years now. To defeat this bill, it seems to me that the Liberals must even resurrect the dead instead of allowing them to lie in peace-or in pieces as one hon. member behind me suggests.
Once again we have had this weird ghost of constitutionalism taken out of its musty and mouldy casket in the dark and damp parliamentary dungeon from amongst the
Marketing Act-Mr. Gott

cobwebs, worms, lizards and other crawling creatures existent down there; and once again we have this fleshless and ghoulish skeleton trotted out on the floor to haunt hon. members and destroy their peace of mind. Once again we have this soulless, fleshless, meaningless old bugbear flaunted by the leader of the opposition to scare the wits out of the spinsters and bachelors tnd sisters and brothers and fathers and mothers and cousins and uncles and aunts and grandmas and grandads to show them how devilish and damnable is the legislation which we have now before us.
Mr. EOCLES J. GOTT (South Essex): I rise to occupy the time of the house for only a few minutes, and I doubt whether I would have taken part in this debate had it not been for the remarks of the hon. member who has just taken his seat (Mr. Luchkovich) relevant to the exportation of cattle from Canada to the United States. Having the figures before me, I wonder whether he realizes the importance of that trade.
I had some questions on the order paper a few days ago in which I sought to ascertain the trade between Canada and the United States in cattle alone for the past few years, and I learned from the report that came to hand the other day that in 1928 Canada exported to the United States 200,013 head of cattle. After the application of the Fordney-McCumber tariff and the Hawley-Smoot tariff in 1930, before the Liberal party went out of power, Canada exported 1,976 head of cattle. I quote these figures merely to direct to the attention of the house the importance of the cattle trade. The result has been, not only in cattle but in all classes of trade, that the United States has practically refused to deal with us.
I rise to support this bill, having been solicited by a number of my constituents, because I represent the most diversified farming section in the whole dominion, and this bill Stands to benefit every solitary person I have the honour to represent. That is why I am supporting this measure, Bill No. 51, An Act to improve the methods and practices of marketing of natural products in Canada and in export trade, and to make further provision in connection therewith.
I desire to place on record a letter which I received from the South Essex growers under date April 12. The gentleman who writes me this letter calls me Ecc, and although he aspired to the Liberal nomination in the riding some time ago he writes as follows:
I have your letter of April 10 re marketing act and' certainly am pleased that you are familiar with the act and are supporting it. 
The Canadian Horticultural Council, of which I am vegetable representative for the province of Ontario, have been fighting for an act of this kind for a couple of years. Now that the act has actually been drafted and had its first hearing we hope nothing will prevent it being passed by the house.
At a largely attended meeting of the fruit and vegetable interests of the province held in the parliament buildings in Toronto on April 3 the feeling was unanimous that this bill should fill all our requirements in regard to sane control of marketing our agricultural products.
The only opposition, so far as we are aware, is from the chambers of commerce in the larger cities who are, apparently , opposing the measure, acting in the inteersts of possibly their wholesale and jobbing interests who feel that their control of setting farm prices will pass to the farmer.
And why should it not pass to the farmer? Why not? The farmer has been the under dog in this country for years; why therefore should he not have control over his products? The letter concludes:
We would ask you to contact our members and ask them to support this measure. I tried to get in touch with you during the Easter holidays but was unable to do so. Your support to this measure would be greatly appreciated by the South Essex Growers and also all others in the industry who are aware of the real purposes of the act.
Thanking you for your support, I am,
Yours sincerely,
Ed. Atkin.
There have been utterances in this house to the effect that this measure is radical, but it is not to be compared with the assertions of the hon. member for West Middlesex (Mr. Elliott) when he spoke in Windsor last year. On that occasion the hon. gentleman was heralded as the coming leader of the Liberal party, the coming Prime Minister of Canada, and a gigantic picnic was advertised for weeks and weeks. When he went to deliver his speech, however, less than one hundred people were in the audience, but owing to the fact that he had his speech all prepared for delivery, and had already handed it to the press, he had to deliver it. The Border Cities Star the next day appeared with the following:
Sees Canada Under N.R.A.
Liberals Will Devise Similar Plans if Given Power
J. C. Elliott's Pledge
Ex-Minister Assails Tory Spending With No Results Gained
Canada will have its N.R.A. campaign of higher wages, shorter hours and planned production if the Liberals are returned to power, Hon. J. C. Elliott, who was minister of public works in the King government, promised a Grit picnic late Saturday afternoon in Baby Park.
"What Liberalism is doing on the other side of the line, I believe it will do if given that chance as soon as the people of Canada have an opportunity of voting."

Marketing Act-Mr. Gott
This pledge was dropped into a section of the former minister's prepared speech to some three hundred persons who attended the rally of Ward One Liberals.
It was supplemented by warm and detailed praise of the Roosevelt program by Mr. Elliott, who stated: "Mr. Roosevelt has accomplished more in the last three months in the way of carrying out his pledges to end unemployment than Mr. Bennett has done in the last three years."
If ever there was a radical statement, an expression without thought, I submit that the speech delivered by the hon. member for West Middlesex in Windsor was such. Now I want to show you some of the things that have been done as indicated by the report of the United States emergency hog marketing program, the objective of which was to take off the market 6,200,000 pigs.
A scale of bonuses on desirable weights and grades is paid by federal government. The pigs are sold on the markets and' the bonus (if payable) is over and above the market price which applies.
It was desired to draw out 20 per cent of the objective in the form of sows (to lessen pig population next year).
Up to October 16. 1933, they had slaughtered six million, and paid out in hog beenfits thirty million dollars and secured only a comparatively small proportion of sows.
I ask hon. members to compare the price of hogs in the United States to-day with the price in Canada, and see if this experiment, this expensive experiment, which has taken place in the United States has been beneficial to the farmers of that country.
The hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot), speaking some time ago-and I regret he is not in his seat; in fact he has not been in his seat very much of late-made reference to some passes which were issued to hon. members of this house. Although this inference may be a little bit aside from the subject under discussion I want to tell the house the number of passes which have been issued, and thereby definitely establish that hon. members do not abuse the privileges given them.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Eccles James Gott: All right. I will dispense with that. But I do wish to say that out of a total of 744,480 there were only 11,078 passes issued, to members of the House of Commons, which is a substantiation of my statement that hon. members do not abuse railway privileges.
Under this bill the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River (Mr. Heenan) could probably be controlled very well. For instance, he has been waving a one cent cheque throughout the province of Ontario during the last few weeks. And the hon. member for North Wellington (Mr. Blair), who has just come
into the chamber, has been talking about a one cent cheque. He had ten subjects which he discussed in the South Oxford campaign. This one cent cheque has been photographed and presented to the people of the province of Ontario. I say to the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River that if these are the tactics he intends to use in the coming provincial election in Ontario he will not get ten feet down the first base line. I would ask the people of the province of Ontario to compare the one cent cheque he is waving throughout the province with the cheques he drew in 1930. In the month of March of that year he drew $620 sessional indemnity, $700 for expenses, and as Minister of Labour he drew SI ,200, making a total of over $2,500 for that one month in 1930. I ask hon. members of this house, and especially the hon. member for ICenora-Rainy River, to photograph those cheques, and put them beside the one cent cheque he is now showing the people of Ontario.
I have before me a letter from the Ontario Swine Producers' Association. Under date of April 20, it is as follows:
Dear Sir:
I have much pleasure in enclosing a copy of a resolution passed unanimously at a meeting of the executive of the Ontario Swine Producers' Association.
In submitting this request to you we have every assurance that the bill, when passed, will provide producers of primary products with the necessary ways and means of not only establishing confidence in their own business, but also of guaranteeing to the primary producer his fair share of the consumer's dollar.
Trusting that you will lend your support in effecting the passage of this bill, I am Yours very truly,
W. P. Watson,
Secretary.
This is signed by several of the solid citizens of the good old county of Oxford. The copy of the resolution passed by the executive of the Ontario Swine Producers' Association in support of Bill No. 51, the Natural Products Marketing Act, is as follows:
Whereas it is generally recognized that the prosperity of any country is directly dependent on the state of prosperity of its producers of primary products;
And whereas the prosperity of its producers is governed to a large extent by the system followed in the marketing of these products;
And whereas a proper and efficient system of marketing includes such important factors _ as grading, the control of quality, the regulation of supply and the spread between producer and consumer;
And whereas all of these factors have been taken into consideration in the drafting of the Natural Products Marketing Act;
Therefore we the executive of the Ontario Swine Producers' Association go on record as
Marketing Act-Mr. Gott

favouring the said bill in the form in which it was drafted for first reading March 26, 1934, and respectfully request your support and cooperation to bring about the successful passage of the bill.
This resolution is signed by some of the best citizens of the county of Norfolk. There was a by-election in that county only recently which was stampeded on the last day by the Liberal party. I do not take the result of that election as an indication that there is any public sentiment against the party now in power. I say that the party in power in Ottawa to-day has saved the Dominion of Canada from financial destruction, and thank heaven we have a Prime Minister who has backbone enough to put into effect policies which have been helpful to every Canadian citizen.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Heaven had not anything to do with it.


Eccles James Gott: Speak out, and I shall try to answer you. The Conservative party to-day has as many seats as it had immediately following the election of 1930. After all the hullabaloo following the by-elections, the Liberal party has identically the number of seats in this house to-day as it had following the general election in 1930. And if to-morrow there were an election in Canada the present government would sweep the country from coast to coast. That is my prophecy. Where is the right hon. leader of the opposition going to run in the next election? Will someone answer that?


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Prince Albert, of course.


Albert Frederick Totzke: Prince Albert.


Eccles James Gott: Well, he has to go a long
way from home to find a seat, I must say. There was some talk of his running in South Essex-


Pierre Édouard Blondin: I suggest that the hon.
member ought to confine himself more strictly to the subject in hand.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: All these matters are
irrelevant to the matter under discussion.


Eccles James Gott: This resolution is signed by
B. B. Wamica, A. J. Bradshaw, F. M. Chap-roan, AValter Galbraith, John H. Reid and D. D. Gagner, all resident in Simcoe and Perth counties. These men are good solid citizens, and no one would suggest that they are radicals. They have been good enough to express their views, and I regret that I am held down to a discussion on the second reading, because there are many comments 
which I should like to make but will reserve until I occupy a few minutes of the time of the house in the debate on the budget.


Mr. W. G. WEIR (Macdonald):: 
Hugh Guthrie: That would not stand in the way.


William Gilbert Weir: This is a most important piece of legislation and we should hesitate before we pass it. I think that particular feature of it is going a little too far. Like other hon. members I too have received representations with respect to this measure.
I feel, however, I am fairly accurate when I say that this bill is not altogether what our cooperative organizations want, and in my judgment it is likely in the long run to do them more harm than good. It is certainly going to interfere with their own initiative in carrying on their activities. I cannot see how parliament can afford to delegate its power and authority to an independent board and still have the members of this house function as they properly should. I am not a very old member of the commons, but I have vision enough to think we should have some control over the different bodies that are set up by this institution and I am not as yet prepared to delegate the authority of parliament to some outside body, if for no other reason than that if this delegation of authority continues for a little longer the people might think parliament unnecessary and I might be deprived of my position.
I repeat-and I want to make this abundantly clear-that I am absolutely in sympathy with the cooperative movements of this country and I think they should be assisted in every legitimately possible way, but I hope people will realize that there is some responsibility on the part of members of parliament in dealing with these different matters. This bill, in my opinion, is not a marketing bill at all; that is altogether a wrong conception of it; it would be more rightly called a regulating measure. May I submit with all deference that the various objects the bill attempts to carry out in the way of grading and standardization of natural products can be and are being carried out

very largely under legislation provided with respect to those different products. This year we have passed amendments to the Dairy Produce Act, the Fruit Act and some other acts under which we dealt with these very matters, so that in connection with them I do not think the bill is necessary.
Another weakness in the bill is that it fails to indicate where the board would be directed to extend any of its efforts toward promoting trade or getting markets. That is something that should have been in the bill as a duty of the dominion marketing board, and it is not there. In this regard I should like to refer to a matter with which the hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Totzke) dealt. We saw the other day in the press a communication from the wheat conference indicating that France had asked, if she restricted her acreage in wheat or the assistance to her own growers, what she could expect in return from other countries. The committee, quite properly, I think, said they could not promise anything, as that was the responsibility of the respective governments. The point I wish to make is this: France having made that statement, which we have no reason to think was not made in perfect good faith, what are we going to do to meet her? Is this marketing board to be clothed with power to deal with matters of that kind? There is no indication of it in the bill. The bill, however, does make it abundantly clear that if the situation were reversed and France were under agreement delivering goods to this country, this board could take steps by way of regulation to curtail the importation of such goods. That seems clear under section 12.
I submit that before this bill was presented and the house asked to deal with it we were entitled to have and should have had the advantage of the findings of the committee investigating mass buying and price spreads. If the minister can explain why that course was not pursued and this bill delayed until the report of that committee was more nearly ready, I should appreciate it. Personally I should like to see this bill referred to a special committee or a select standing committee of the house so that witnesses could be called to speak for the people interested-


Hugh Guthrie: You can move that.


William Gilbert Weir: -and have them present their views concerning the various matters. I do not think this legislation is what our cooperative organizations are looking for, and they after all are the people most vitally interested.

Marketing Act-Mr. Myers


Mr. J. H. MYERS (Queens):: In rising at this time to say a few words concerning this marketing bill I assure you, sir, that it is with no desire to prolong the debate, which to my mind has already been too long. Session after session for the last three or four years, hon. members opposite have filled page after page of Hansard in putting before the house the lamentable condition in which the farmers of Canada found themselves. This lamentation relates largely to western Canada; it does not apply with equal force to the farmers of eastern Canada. I have the greatest sympathy with the farmers of the west. I visited their country last August, and what I saw in some of the western provinces made me feel very glad indeed that I lived just as far east as I could possibly get without getting my feet wet. I do not say this in any light way; I am a farmer myself, and perhaps no man sitting in this house who is not a farmer realizes fully what it means for a farmer to go out in the spring, prepare his soil, sow his seed, put in long hours of labour with high hope in his heart, and then when the autumn comes find that he has absolutely nothing to reap. Let me say in passing that no matter what measures may come before the house at this session for the purpose of alleviating the sufferings of my brother farmers in the southern portions of the three prairie provinces, I would vote for them cheerfully and willingly and give them my most hearty and loyal support.
As I was saying, for the past three or four years hon. members opposite have dwelt upon the condition of the farmer's of Canada, and then they jauntily ask, "What are you doing about it? What are you going to do? Why don't you bring down some policy to alleviate their sufferings and improve their condition?" They have said so much along that line that the farmers of Canada are looking to us to do something. Now when the government brings down a bill that has been carefully considered, not by the minister and the Department of Agriculture alone but by agricultural organizations and societies all over Canada, they having given their advice to the minister on the matter on many occasions, what do we hear from hon. gentlemen opposite? It appears that they are afraid now that this government are really going to do something to better the condition of the farmer. That is what I gather from the very stiff opposition that is being put up against this measure.
I am not sure what the effects of the measures embodied in this bill may be. No
man is sure, not even the minister himself. But I will say this: the bill is at least an honest effort to make it possible so to regulate the marketing of the products of the farm that the spread between what the producer who toils in the fields gets for his product, and what the consumer in the towns and the cities pays for it, is subject to control. This bill is an attempt to bring those two figures a little closer together, so that the producer may get a fair and equitable share of the consumer's dollar and the consumer at the other end shall not be exploited.
The hon. member for Macdonald (Mr. Weir), who has just taken his seat, raised the objection that the bill is premature, that we should have waited until the price spreads committee which is now carrying on its investigations had completed its activities and brought in its report. My answer is that days and days ago enough evidence had already been brought out in that committee to justify the adoption of this bill. Then the hon. member said that the minister in introducing the bill did not give a sufficient explanation of the way it would work out and the final results to be expected. The minister, I take it, gave all the explanation he could give. It must be borne in mind that this bill merely sets up a central marketing board, but the working out of the bill, in other words the bill itself, cannot come into operation or be effective until enabling legislation has been passed by the different legislatures throughout the dominion. Further than that, the legislation that may be passed by the different legislatures cannot itself become operative until the producers of a specific product get together and say to themselves, "We want to take advantage of the provisions of this bill." That is the way the bill will operate, and the local marketing boards that will be set up in the various provinces, and the primary producers of these products themselves, will I take it have more to do with the regulations governing the operation of this bill than will the Minister of Agriculture himself. That is a strong statement to make; I know it is a strong statement, but I believe in my heart that it is correct.
The hon. member for Macdonald also laboured the point very heavily that this bill was aimed at cooperative organization. To my mind nothing is further from the fact. It is true, as the minister pointed out, and as other members of the house who have spoken on this question have pointed out, that these cooperative organizations have not always been one hundred per cent successful. Their intention was right; the object for which they were organized was right; but often those who

Marketing Act

Mr. Myers
were placed in charge of them lacked experience in the business that they were called upon to undertake.
I am a farmer myself and I know our ways, our faults, our peculiarities and our failings. I have attended a great many meetings in my time leading up to cooperation on the part of the farmers and I have not one word to say against it, remember that. But I have often noticed that some chap-might I be permitted to call him a smart Aleck-who knew a lot less about farming than about talking and putting out ideas, was sometimes responsible for getting the farmers together. He would say, "Boys, let us have a meeting in the hall a week from to-night and we will talk about marketing eggs, or poultry or potatoes or some other commodity." So the farmers meet there. This chap is usually chairman and secretary and spokesman, and as a result a number of motions are made And resolutions passed and they come away with a cooperative organization established, and this chap who knows absolutely nothing about the business, about establishing trade connections in foreign countries or in other provinces, finds himself suddenly at the head of an organization about which he knows very little. Yet, let me repeat, we have throughout Canada a number of fine cooperative organizations that are functioning very well, and this bill is by no means intended to interfere with their activities. In fact, I can see where it will be of great advantage to cooperative organizations of this kind. Take for instance in our own province, and I speak of that province because I know it best; we have a number of cooperative organizations known as marketing clubs for the marketing of our hogs. We have a number of them throughout our little province. Under the provisions of this bill, instead of doing away with these local marketing boards, we would centralize them together in one, and they as one cooperative marketing organization could operate under the provisions of this measure.
The hon. member for Macdonald, in closing his remarks, said he feared that this bill was nothing more or less than a setting up of the quota system in Canada and the application of quotas to the marketing or exporting of Canadian farm products. With all due respect to the hon. member, and I know that he is a gentleman of great ability, may I say that he seems to put the cart before the horse. As I take it, countries do not set up quotas for the purpose of exporting their own goods, but they do set up quotas to regulate the import of goods into their own territory; and it is that

angle of the question that we in Canada may have to deal with in the near future. In other words, we with our products, seeking to get into outside markets, shall have to meet the quotas that are established in the different countries with which we have to trade.
The hon. member-and I might as well finish dealing with his remarks first-saw something in section 12 of this bill, and it was pretty much the same bogy that was raised by his right hon. leader-that old question of parliament renouncing its rights and passing them over to order in council. He read section 12 of the bill which provides:	,
The governor in council may, by order or regulation published in the Canada Gazette, restrict the importation into Canada of any natural product . . .
And so forth. Has the hon. gentleman forgotten that for the past four years that very clause, embodied in other acts, used in the same way but in other lines, has been the greatest safeguard that the dairy industry of Canada has ever enjoyed? Does he not know that we dairymen of Canada are protected against the undue importation of New Zealand butter by regulations and orders in council? Has he any fault to find with that? I fancy that if he had taken time to think that matter over he might well have left that part of his address unsaid. Then he concluded his remarks by saying that this bill is not a marketing bill at all, and he followed other members on the opposite side of the house who have taken serious objection to the bill all the way through. They have criticized it, even the title, clause by clause, section by section. But I have yet to hear one single member of them get up and read a better bill. I have yet to hear a single one of them get up and from his place announce something that is better. Their attitude is this, "We will object to this bill: we will do our best to pull it to pieces, to tear it down, but we are not building up anything better to take its place".
I want to tell hon. gentlemen opposite that the farmers of Canada are to-day watching them very closely and very narrowly. Newspapers circulate into every home; radios are operated every night. Hon. members must know that the radio is an invention which is calculated to make politicians tell the truth; they can no longer make one statement in British Columbia, another in the prairie provinces, another in central Canada and another in the maritimes, because the radio takes the voice from east to west. Therefore hon. gentlemen opposite will have to be very

Public Archives of Canada
careful in the objections they are making to this attempt to give Canadian farmers a better deal.


Edward James Young: You used the radio in South Oxford.


Joseph Philippe Baby Casgrain: Your leader used it in South Oxford.


John Howard Myers: At this point I should like to speak about the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young) who to-night has been referred to as the boy on the burning deck. With him I may include other hon. members opposite. The hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Totzke), the hon. member for South Battleford (Mr. Vallance) and, of course, I would not like to leave out the fine looking member for North Battleford (Mr. McIntosh)-


Cameron Ross McIntosh: The hon. member for North Battleford has not spoken in this debate yet. A little later he will.


John Howard Myers: The hon. member will likely speak, so my remarks will refer to him later.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Do not prognosticate too much.


John Howard Myers: I have in mind about the same idea that the farmer had in regard to the pig. He said that you could always kick a pig because if he was not coming out of trouble he was just going into some. While hon. members opposite were speaking I was wondering if they ever go out alone after dark. I think not, because they are afraid of ghosts. As I understand it a ghost is a sort of hallucination of the mind which leads one to think he sees things which do not exist. Sometimes it is a state of mind created by exterior influences-


Edward James Young: No, interior.


John Howard Myers: Yes, or interior consumption. They have attempted to read into this bill words which do not appear in it. However, as it is almost eleven o'clock I shall not go into these details at the moment, but will move the adjournment of the debate.
Motion agreed to and debate adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Bennett the house adjourned at 10.57 p.m.
Wednesday, April 25, 1934