1934-04-20

ROYAL ASSENT

Mr. SPEAKER:: I have the honour to inform the house that I have received the following letter:
Ottawa, April 20, 1934.
Sir,-I have the honour to inform you that Right Hon. Sir Lyman P. Duff, acting as the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General, will proceed to the Senate chamber to-day at 5 p.m. for the purpose of giving the royal assent to certain bills.
F. L. C. Pereira,
Deputy Assistant Secretary
to the Governor General.



STANDING ORDERS

[Stage Direction]
Mr. A. U. G. BURY (East Edmonton) presented the third report of the select standing committee on standing orders and moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day.
Mr. J. L. BROWN (Lisgar):: On the first reading of the sweepstakes bill the Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) suggested that the government might fix a certain day for discussion of the matter. Is it the present intention that the bill will be proceeded with this evening or shall we take up public bills in the ordinary course?


Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Prime Minister):: I thank the hon. gentleman for directing attention to the matter. It is proposed to suit the convenience of all members of the house in fixing a day for discussion of the sweepstakes bill, possibly some day next week. The Secretary of State will lay on the table as soon as he can have it prepared, a copy of the resolution that was passed by the legislative assembly of Quebec and a copy of the bill that was passed at the last session of the assembly. I think that can probably be done on Monday. Then we can fix some convenient day for the discussion of the sweepstakes bill after consultation with the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) and others who may be interested.



CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS

[Stage Direction]
WASHOUT AT MATAPEDIA, BONAVENTURE COUNT?
On the orders of the day:
Hon. CHARLES MARCIL (Bonaventure):: I would call the attention of the Minister of Railways (Mr. Manion) to a Canadian Press dispatch appearing in this morning's papers concerning a very serious interruption to traffic on the main line of the Canadian National Railways in Matapedia in my county, where passengers, baggage and mail have had to be transferred by canoe over the Resti-gouche river. Owing to the very heavy fall of snow in the Matapedia valley during the past winter there has been a washout of several hundred yards of the main line, and trains have been held up three or four at a time. I have been urging for many years the erection of protection works for the main line and village of Matapedia and I hope that with this occurrence the Minister of Railways will take a deeper interest in the
P. E. I. Car Ferry

matter. In the meantime I would ask if he has any further information beyond what has appeared in this morning's papers?


Hon. R. J. MANION (Minister of Railways and Canals):: The hon. gentleman sent a request over to my office for information, and I have a good deal of information here which I will send across to him. It is not of particular interest to the rest of the house. I may say in a sentence-


Hon. P. J. VENIOT (Gloucester):: I wish the minister would give the information to the house so that it will appear in Hansard because my people are deeply interested in it. In Gloucester county we are almost cut off from communication with northern New Brunswick.


Robert James Manion: I was going to say that the railway informs me that they have complete control of the matter and are taking every procedure needed. I thought it would be sufficient if I said that and sent the letter across to my hon. friend from Bonaventure and anybody else who wants to see it.



WINDSOR BROADCASTING STATION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. W. D. EULER (North Waterloo):: I would ask the Minister of Marine (Mr. Duranleau) if there is any truth in the newspaper report that the radio broadcasting station at Windsor is being taken over by the radio commission for a period of five years?


Hon. ALFRED DURANLEAU (Minister of Marine):: I will look into the matter and give my hon. friend the information.



PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND CAR FERRY

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. H. MYERS (Queens):: I wish to
direct the attention of the Minister of Railways to an editorial that appeared in the Charlottetown Guardian of April 16 in which it is stated that the government of Prince Edward Island had taken up with the railway trustee board the matter of rates charged for automobiles on the car ferry and that they had been referred to Mr. Allison Fraser, being informed that he was the man who had authority in this regard. The editorial states that Mr. Fraser has refused to put into force this year the rates that were in force last year during the tourist season. May I say to the Minister of Railways that we as a province absolutely refuse to accept Mr. Fraser's dictum in this matter, and I trust that the Minister of Railways will look into

the subject with a view to seeing that our province receives at least the same rates as were in force last year.


Robert James Manion: The statement is correct in so far
as it indicates that the government of Prince Edward Island had seen the officials of the railway, but I may inform the hon. gentleman that they also interviewed myself some months ago. A deputation from Prince Edward Island saw me and I have had the matter up for some time with the railway management; but inasmuch as the car ferry is in a sense operated separately from the railways, it was a matter in which the government had a right to have a fairly strong opinion in regard to rates. My own opinion, passed on to the management-and I believe they are accepting it-was that the wisest course would be to observe exactly the same rates as were in force last year in connection with the tourist traffic. If they do, I fancy that will be satisfactory, though I may add that there are some people in the province who protest that there should be even lower rates than last year. The best that can be hoped for, however, is that during the tourist season there will be charged the same rates as were in effect last year.



MARKETING ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, Aprjl 19, 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, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Mackenzie King.
Mr. E. J. YOUNG (Weyburn):: In rising
to speak to the amendment proposed by the leader of the opposition to this bill, may I at the outset extend my congratulations to the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) and to the group he leads upon the outstanding success they have had in winning over the Prime Minister and the government to the wholehearted adoption of their policy. For if this bill is carried into effect it will involve in the agricultural industry, in the mining industry, in the fishing industry and in many of our manufacturing industries a complete system of planned and regulated economy from the primary producer right through to the consumer. The hon. member for Winnipeg

Marketing Act-Mr. Young
North Centre recognized the situation yesterday when he said that this would probably result in a realignment of political parties in Canada.
We of the Liberal party have always contended that the C.C.F. party and the Conservative party are much closer together in their political philosophy than either one of them is to the Liberal party-


Mr. BELL (Hamilton):: Even that would be to their credit.


Edward James Young: -and I think the developments of the present session will show that there is much truth in that contention. The government received considerable support for its relief bill from gentlemen in the corner, and now gentlemen in the corner are getting full support for their policy from the government.


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver):: Quid pro quo.


Edward James Young: In this connection, might I refer to a statement made by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre.


Mr. WOODSWORTH:: I would point out to the hon. gentleman that some of us in this corner voted against the relief bill.


Edward James Young: I said considerable support. The statement to which I wish to refer is found on page 2337 of Hansard of yesterday. The hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre said:
I am willing to accept the explanation of the leader of the opposition that there was no implication, but in making that explanation the leader of the opposition says that we are seeking to wipe out parliamentary institutions . . . and it is not true.
I am glad to hear the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre make that denial, but I attended the convention of the C.C.F. in Regina last summer, and for three days I sat in the gallery listening to the debates that took place there. Many startling statements were made but I took down what I considered to be the most startling, which was made by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Maclnnis). They were discussing whether or not they should proceed by constitutional means to take over the government of the country and the hon. gentleman argued that they should proceed by constitutional means because, he said, if they were not strong enough to get into power by means of the ballot they were not strong enough to get in by any other means; but, he added, "When we get the power of the state in our hands we will use that power to keep it in our hands." Let us examine that statement. What is the
power of the state? It is the power to make laws and to enforce them, and the proposal made here is that they should first get into power and then make laws that will render it impossible for anyone to turn them out of power again. If that is not depriving parliament of its rights, I do not know what is.
This legislation is based on the assumption that a small group of men, chosen in part by the government and in part in other ways, are more capable of managing the individual businesses of farmers, of lumbermen, of fishermen and of manufacturers in this country than are the men who own the businesses. Under our present system, if I mismanage my business I suffer for it, and that is the incentive to me to keep right up on my toes and attend to business. But under this legislation it is assumed that a group of men who have no direct financial interest in the business will be in a better position to manage it and to put it on a profitable basis than I can myself.
I have little sympathy with those who say that they agree with the principle of the bill but are opposed to the details. To me the whole principle is abhorrent. The very idea of a marketing board sitting here in Ottawa and telling the farmers of the country how many acres of wheat they shall sow, how many acres of oats, how many acres of barley and of flax, how many head of cattle they shall be allowed to raise, how many hogs they shall fatten, how many chickens they shall feed, that board having the power to put them in gaol if they dare to sell any of these in violation of its ruling-why, the whole idea is abhorrent to anyone of Liberal thought. The hon. member for Yale (Mr. Stirling) the other day, speaking to the bill, made this statement: "The principle behind the bill is that the producer should have in his own hand the power to control the marketing of his own products." That is not the principle of the bill; that is the very antithesis of its principle. The principle of the bill is that the power should be taken out of the hands of the producer to control his own product. I was surprised, I was shocked the other day, when the hon. member for Timiskaming (Mr. Bradette) was speaking, at an interruption made by the Prime Minister. The hon. member was speaking against the curtailment of the rights of the people and the Prime Minister made the statement that "All legislation restricts liberty; that that is what parliament is for." That is not what parliament is for. Parliament was set up in the first place and has been maintained through the ages to protect and maintain the rights and liberties of the people against those who would encroach upon them.
Marketing Act-Mr. Young


Richard Bedford Bennett: And protection has
always meant restriction. If the hon. member would read a little history he would know that.


Edward James Young: If every law that is passed
restricts liberty to some extent, that is no reason that we should pass a law restricting all liberty. If every law that is passed means a restriction of liberty, we should be all the more careful what laws we do pass and this one should certainly never be passed.
Last night, discussing what he called the necessity for the bill, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) referred to quotas set up by different countries of the world restricting the imports of various commodities allowed into those countries. He instanced that as one of the reasons which made this bill necessary. There is nothing in this legislation to overcome that difficulty. I realize fully the difficulty of carrying on international trade in the present temper of the world, but in this bill there is nothing to solve that problem. In some quarters a very mistaken idea exists as to the meaning of the granting of a quota. Many people think that when the government of one country grants a quota to another, it means that the country granting the quota undertakes to buy that quantity of goods from the other. That is not the situation. If, for instance, Great Britain gives us a quota of a million barrels of apples a year, that does not mean that she will buy a million barrels from us; it means that the British government says to us: We will permit you to ship a million barrels into our country but you must take your chance of being able to sell them when they get here; you must find your own market after the apples arrive. I ask this question: Will the boards that will be set up under this bill to take care of the marketing of our apples, be any more successful in finding those markets than would be the scores and scores of individuals who are now trying to sell and whose financial interests are at stake if they do not find a market for their goods? If this legislation comes into effect, we shall probably have three local boards in Canada handling apples: one in Nova Scotia, one in Ontario and one in British Columbia.


Mr. DUPUIS:: And one in Ottawa.


Edward James Young: Yes, a central board in
Ottawa, but it will not do the marketing; it will do only the meddling, so to speak; it will have authority to restrict the powers of those local boards, but it will be the duty of the local boards to find markets for our apples. Will those three local boards be

more successful than the individuals who own the apples and whose financial interests are at stake if they fail to find a market for them? Supposing one board is a little more enterprising than the others and does find a market in some part of the world for a certain quantity of apples: would it be able to supply that market? Not without permission of the central marketing board. What would the central marketing board say to them? It would say: You have done well to find that market but you must share it with the other two boards. So the poor board that has found this market discovers that in order to sell one barrel of apples it has to find a market for three barrels. What incentive would there be then to find any market for their goods? In any case, why should they care? Their salaries and expenses will go on regardless of whether the apples are sold. If the apples are even dumped in the ocean, that will make no difference to the board because their pay will go on just the same. In that event they would be apt simply to settle back into a state of dull routine and let the marketing take care of itself.
The other day I heard a story-and I believe the Minister of Trade and Commerce heard it also-of a board set up in a certain part of the country to handle the raw product of its customers. It was not dependent upon service for its clientele; it had that bound to it by a contract. What happened? There were in the market three principal buyers for the commodity and the board did what? The first week they sold all their receipts to buyer number one; the second week they sold all their receipts to buyer number two; the third week they sold all their receipts to buyer number three; the fourth week they sold all their receipts to buyer number one; the fifth week they sold all their receipts to buyer number two; the sixth week they sold all their receipts to buyer number three; the next week they sold all their receipts to buyer number one, and so on, and they continued that process from one year's end to the other. What had they done? They had ceased to function as a selling agency; they had simply sat back and allowed the business to run itself. Yet that board was under more direct control of the producers than will be the boards that will be set up under this bill.
There is a further danger that those boards might decide to withhold from the market the products they have to sell. People getting into that position, handling large quantities of goods not at their own risk, might think the price ought to go up, but the judgment of the world is that it will not go up, so the world offers a certain price for the commodity.

Marketing Act-Mr. Young
They match their judgment against the judgment of the world and having nothing at stake, they hold back those commodities from the market. There must be a great deal of fun in playing the market in that way. Some people in Canada have had many millions of dollars worth of that kind of fun in recent years and the taxpayers are going to pay for it, but I do not think we want any more experiences of that kind.
The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir) the other night, speaking on the bill, outlined the cause of failure of some of the cooperative associations. He said that one reason was that they were apt to choose as their salesmen, their managers, men who had no direct financial interest in the affairs of the cooperative. That difficulty is not removed by this bill as we shall see when we come to discuss it item by item. Those boards that will have control of the marketing are not directly responsible to the producers. Let us look at the bill itself. Subclause (1) of clause 3 reads:
The governor in council may establish a board' to be known as the dominion marketing board-
This board is not to be appointed by the producers. The dominion marketing board will be appointed by the governor in council. Subclause (2) 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 and shall receive such remuneration as the governor in council shall determine.
Not elected by the producers; not under their control; not in direct touch with them and not necessarily in sympathy with them. Subclause (4) reads:
The governor in council may authorize certain members of the board to exercise the functions of the board in respect of any product or class of products.
What does that mean? It means that the government will not make the mistake it made in the case of the tariff board. In that case it appointed three men and the chairman happened to be a man who would not jump every time the string was pulled. If any man happens to get on this board who dares to think for himself and who does not agree with the minister, the governor in council may authorize the other members of the board to do all the work and that man will have nothing to do. Subclause (9) of clause 3 reads:
The governor in council may from time to time authorize payment to the board, out of the consolidated revenue fund, of such sums of money as may be necessary for the purposes of this act.
This board is to have power to use the taxpayers' money to carry on its activities.
The powers of the board are given in clause 4, and among them are the following:
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.
I wonder whether the government has given consideration to all that is involved in that clause. I know there are in the house some ministers who believe certain classes, that is the lower grades, of cattle should not be marketed. If one of those gentlemen happened to be the man in charge, he would prohibit the marketing of low grade cattle. In that event, consider the position of the farmer in the dried-out district whose crops have failed, whose cattle are thin and who is in no position to fit them for the market. What can he do? The only thing that man can do is to throw his cattle on the market and get what he can for them. But under this legislation it would be impossible, for the board would say: No, we will not allow you to market your lean cattle because it would interfere with the price other men can get for their fat cattle. Then there is the power to prohibit marketing. I wonder if anyone has considered the political possibilities of that clause. Suppose, for instance, the board forbids the export of lumber. An election is about to take place. Some unscrupulous politician comes into a lumber district and says: Boys, if you vote right they are going to open the gates and let us sell lumber again. Is that likely to make any difference to the election? I wonder if the government has given consideration to such a possibility.
Then subsection (c). The board shall have powerto compensate any person for loss sustained by exporting, storing or withholding from the market any product pursuant to any determination or order of the board;
The significance of that clause is that it would guarantee the top price to every one; for those who get the lower price will say to the board: You ordered us to sell in a certain place; someone else who sold in another place got a higher price; now you must compensate us, give us the difference between what we got and what they got. You can pay it out of the treasury. Suppose the price of apples in Canada were $5 a barrel, and suppose it were only $4 a barrel abroad. The board could order the Canadian apple shippers to export large quantities of apples and dump them on the world market at as

Marketing Act-Mr. Young
low as $3 a barrel in order to get rid of them. In so doing they could create an artificial shortage in Canada and force the price up to say $6 a barrel. Then those who had sold abroad at $3 would be able to come back to this board and demand compensation, demand the same remuneration for their apples as received by those who sold at home at $6. So the consumers of this country would be in this position: in the first place they would pay $6 for their own apples, and then would have to pay $2 or $3 a barrel for the apples eaten by the people in other countries.
Then the next clause:
(d)	to compensate any person in respect of any shipment made pursuant to any determination or order of the board to a country whose currency is depreciated, in relation to Canadian currency, for loss due to such depreciation;
That is to say, this board undertakes to guarantee, to back the notes of other countries. In private business it is not considered good business to baek any one else's notes. But here we have a board that can lightly assume the responsibility of backing the notes of foreign countries. That would not be very easy to carry out. If a country with which we are dealing has its currency depreciated 50 per cent in relation to ours that depreciation will be in greater or lesser degree reflected in the number of that country's dollars which will buy our products; those who ship goods to that country will get more of those dollars for them. They will come to the government with these dollars and say: We have got so many of these dollars, but they are not worth par in our dollars; please make an adjustment by giving us good Canadian dollars in exchange for these depreciated dollars of another country.
Then look at the next clause:
(e)	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 to say, this board will have power to dip into the public treasury and either give or lend money. What for? For the establishment of saw mills, flour mills, bakeries, canning factories, tobacco factories, breweries, distilleries, and to put in charge of them men who perhaps do not know anything about running them. But that will not matter, for they have the public treasury to fall back on, and if they do not know how to do the work they will be furnished with research men to carry on research work so that they can tell them how to conduct their business. I see the Minister of Finance (Mr. Rhodes) in his seat; I will be sorry for him

when this bill takes effect, for there will be very little money in the treasury to balance the budget when these boys get through.
Then in (f) we find the board shall have power:
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;
Every person, farmer, lumberman, fisherman, manufacturer, must go to the board every year and get his licence, and that licence will dictate what he shall do and how he shall do it. How easy it would be to withhold the licence of one that you wanted to get out of the way. Withhold the licence of a farmer, his farm would become worthless and someone's friend could buy it at a small price.
Then look at the next clause:
(g) to require full information relating to the production and marketing of the natural product from all persons engaged therein and to require periodic returns to be made by such persons, and inspect the books and premises of such persons;
The idea of appointing men to go out in the farming country and insist on every farmer making returns! Of what? Of everything he had produced and what he sold it for or did with it. The farmer's wife must account for every dozen of eggs that she sold. And all these reports would be sent to Ottawa. Imagine the number of civil servants required to tabulate all this and check it up!
Then the board is to have power:
(j) to cooperate with any marketing board or agency established under the law of any province to regulate the marketing of any natural product of such province and to act conjointly with any such provincial board or agency;
What is that for? In order that the federal and provincial boards can combine their powers and activities to defeat the purposes of the British North America Act. The provisions of the constitution were enacted to protect the rights and property of the citizens. Now those who desire to get control of other people's business and manage it for them sometimes find those provisions awkward, they are in the way. So they devise this scheme to defeat the purposes of the constitution.
Then look at section 5, marketing schemes -a great word:
(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

Marketing Act-Mr. Young
to approve a scheme for the regulation of the marketing of such natural product by a local board under the supervision of the board.
You notice, sir, that it is "the production and marketing or the production or marketing." Under that clause the members of the Winnipeg Grain Exchange could hatch a scheme, present it to the government, and if they had a sympathetic minister they could have that scheme put into effect without the farmers knowing anything about it, and give themselves a monopoly of the grain trade of this country.
(2)	The petition shall be filed with the minister and if he considers that the persons engaged in the production or marketing of the natural product are sufficiently represented by the petitioners, the scheme shall be referred to the board with a request for a report on the expediency thereof.
What number would be a representative number? It just depends on the minister. In our country a township is a block of land six miles square. The minister might take the view that one farmer from each township would be a fairly representative number of the farmers of the west. Is that an extreme case? I know one more extreme. Only three years ago my right hon. friend the Prime Minister went to Regina and met three or four farmers from Saskatchewan who told him a certain thing. He considered that they were representative of the farmers of Saskatchewan, and acted accordingly. " A representative number " is a very wide and elastic term. Perhaps three or four men in the whole province might be considered a representative number. Then the people most concerned, the farmers whose business is going to be taken out of their hands, the lumbermen whose business is going to be controlled by this organization, the fishermen, will know nothing until an announcement appears in the Gazette that this thing is done. And the farmers never see the Gazette.
Let us see how these local boards are to be set up. The first step is that a number of men engaged in a certain industry get together and hatch a scheme, for marketing a certain product. These schemers choose from among themselves a chairman, and they elect a board. Then they draw up a petition which they present to the minister outlining their scheme. They also select a head office, and they say who their chief executive officers are to be. They even make the appointments. They submit all this to the minister and the minister submits it to the board in Ottawa. What does this board in Ottawa know about it? It is quite out of touch with the producers on the farm, the fishermen on the sea, the lumbermen in the forest, but this board shall decide whether or not the scheme
is acceptable. If they decide that it is, the announcement is made in the Gazette, and the producers, the people most concerned, know nothing about it until they are all in, and the schemers are in control. Well, can they get out of the scheme? Yes, there is a way out. How can they get out? They must circulate a petition, but the petition they must circulate to get out is not the same petition they use to get in. Any petition to get in only requires what the minister called a representative number, which may mean three or four people in a province or one person in a township, but in order to get out they must have this sort of petition:
(2)	A representative number of the persons operating under a scheme approved under section 5 of this act may petition the minister to revoke the scheme.
(3)	The petition shall disclose to what extent the persons operating under the scheme are represented by those signing the petition and the minister shall decide whether all those so engaged are sufficiently represented-
The number on the petition to get out is much more comprehensive than the number on the petition to get in. It must represent all those engaged in the industry, and the minister has the right to refuse that petition if he sees fit to do so. Then let us look at section 9, which is the worst of all:
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 productand so on. The minister may impose a scheme without consulting the people at all. From what I have seen here I have an idea that there are some ministers who hold the opinion that certain classes of people should not be allowed to do business at all and who would, if they had it in their power, shut them out. The minister who is put in charge of this legislation might happen to be one of those so disposed; he might say that certain classes of people are not to be allowed to do business in any particular line, and might hatch a scheme to put them out of business, and that scheme would become law.
Then when we turn to section 12 we find that power is given to over-ride the Customs Act, to restrict imports coming into this country, as though they were not sufficiently restricted already. Not only that, but power is given also to prohibit the export from Canada of any commodity so regulated. What Canada needs most to-day is markets, and every ounce of energy we have available should be devoted to the finding of markets.

Marketing Act-Mr. Young
Yet if any man goes out and finds a market for his product without consulting this board, after having found that market this board can forbid Kim to supply it. What inducement is there for anyone to find markets in order to help dispose of the products of this country? We are asked to surrender all these things to this board, and what do we get in return; what do they offer us in exchange? They offer us the privilege of having our private business taken out of our hands and put into the hands of a bureaucracy that has no financial interest at stake, that probably knows nothing about running the business and that is not in any way hurt if the business fails, but we will have to pay the bills if they make a mess of things.
The other day at the Rome conference France made an offer; they said, "We are willing to buy wheat from you if you are willing to buy something from us." Would not the government be much better advised to find markets like that and say to France, "All right, we are ready to deal with you," instead of trying to regulate the production and marketing of goods in Canada? With this bureaucracy set up and no one else allowed to do business all hope of progress and improvement in this country in marketing and fashioning our goods must die, for there will be no interest on the part of the bureaucracy in making any improvement. They will be secure in their seats; they will not be in the least concerned as to whether or not our products are marketed to the best advantage.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, I should like to quote a few words from the essay on liberty by John Stuart Mill. I wish hon. gentlemen opposite and in the corner would study that work carefully.


Mr. HEAPS:: When was it written?
Mr. YrOUNG: It was written long ago; so was the bible.
The only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty, since by it there are as many possible independent centres of improvement as there are individuals. . . . But where everything is done through a bureaucracy, nothing to which the bureaucracy is opposed can be done at all.
And again:
A state that dwarfs its men in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands, even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might run more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.
Just in closing I should like to make one more reference. Yesterday the live stock pro-

ducers of western Canada appeared before the price spreads committee. They are opposed to this or any other marketing bill, and for the benefit of the Minister of Agriculture I should like to read what they have to say:
It would seem then that if our departments of agriculture would function as we wish them to, there would be no need for superimposing further expense on the country for a board . . . departments of agriculture appear to be set up to serve governmental policies which may be a vastly different thing from serving the farmers. If departmental officials can function freely with the one objective in view, viz. that of aiding the industry it does not appear necessary to establish any additional board.


Mr. F. W. TURNBULL (Regina):: Mr. Speaker, I am not one of those who are very much enamoured of the idea of what may be known as government interference in business. There has been a great deal of it in this country; there may be a great deal more, but at the present moment we are faced not with a theory but with a condition, and sometimes when we are faced with conditions we must give up cherished theories. While, as I say, as a rule I am not in favour of government interference in business, there come times in the history of the world, such as the present, when governments must,-not interfere in business,-but use the powers of government for the purpose of assisting and promoting business.
Yesterday we heard something about restricted markets and restricted production. With the exception of the first two or three speeches during this debate we have heard nothing from hon. gentlemen opposite but an attempt to becloud the real purpose of this bill. There is not a single word in the bill from beginning to end with regard to the restriction of production. The only principle contained in this bill is authority to take measures for the purpose not of restricting markets but of making it possible to market the goods which the farmers and other people in this country are producing.
We have heard a great deal about liberty. Liberty is one of those wonderful things that have come down to us through the ages, but we cannot meet present conditions by the doctrinaire philosophy of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King). What the people in this country are up against at the moment is the fact that they have not liberty to handle their products in such a way as to get the best results, and the primary producer in this country wants liberty-not according to John Stuart Mill-but liberty to live and make a decent living out of his production. I should think hon. gentlemen

Marketing Act-Mr. Turnbull
opposite would hang their heads in shame when anyone talks about restricted markets. When they came into power in 1922 our markets were not so very badly restricted; we were selling $200,000,000 worth of farm products annually to the United States, but while the opposition stood by and said they were afraid to pass legislation for the benefit of Canada lest they might provoke the United States, one by one our markets slipped away from us.
Must we place on Hansard again, for perhaps the fiftieth time, the fact that the markets for our wheat were lost during the regime of hon. gentlemen opposite? In 1925 Mussolini started the "battle of the grain," as he called it, and that was five years before this government came into power. That was followed by the imposition of tariffs by Germany, France and Italy, which were among our principal markets for wheat. Are not these gentlemen honest enough to go out and tell the public that the markets of our Canadian farmers were lost during their regime, not because of anything their party did and not because of anything our party did but because foreign countries desired to preserve their own markets for their own people and their own purposes. If their party was responsible at all it was responsible for that attitude which said, "We are not prepared to raise our general tariff, and we are not prepared to increase our British preference lest it might be misunderstood across the border." And then they come back and try to talk to us about restricting markets. There have been no steps taken by this government, since it came into office, which in any way restricted markets. There have been no steps taken by this government since it came into office which have not been for the purpose.of obtaining markets for our natural products. The imperial conference treaties -and hon. members opposite are still throwing slurs at them-have provided markets for many of our natural products, markets which this country would have been very sorry not to have had, and markets which this country would not have had if hon. gentlemen opposite had had their way.


Mr. REID:: Not for very long.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Oh, you have got to that now, have you?


Thomas Reid: Lord De La Warr said it in the House of Lords the other day.


Franklin White Turnbull: We are now confronted with a condition, not a theory. This country now must decide which direction it will travel. We can have socialism.


An hon. MEMBER:: We are getting it.


Franklin White Turnbull: We can have control of capital.


Vincent Dupuis: You have it already.


Franklin White Turnbull: Nobody knows better than the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young), who has been sitting on the price spreads committee for the last month, the effect of private capital and its operation on the marketing of goods in this country. We can have socialism; we can have controlled capitalism and we can have a policy of laissez-faire, -the middle of the road, as the hon. member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Mackenzie) would say. The Liberal policy is the middle of the road. You see it illustrated in the question asked last night by the leader of the opposition when someone said, "If we are going to have orderly marketing we have to have some machinery." He said, "What have we been doing about it all along." That is the attitude of the Liberal party, that what they have been doing all along must be indefinitely continued,-nothing new, nothing to take the place of anything else, but just to let it drift. That is what they did during nine years of office, and that is just exactly what brought this country to the pass it was in in 1930.
The unemployment condition in the country has not been created since we took office. It began years before that, under the dominion of the right hon. gentleman who said, "What have we been doing all along; just let it drift." We have heard something about parliamentary control being endangered in these times, and we have heard that this government wishes to take the control of matters out of the hands, of parliament. Hon. gentlemen should know something about what happens when control is not in the hands of parliament. One of the first actions of this government after it took office was to provide that our water rights, our navigation rights on the St. Lawrence system could no longer be given away by orders in council, but could be given away only by an act of parliament. Who was looking after the rights of parliament in those days, and who is now talking about looking after the rights of parliament?
I listened with great interest to the two hour speech delivered last night by the right hon. leader of the opposition. In the first place I heard him say that the principle of the bill was satisfactory. He did not say it in those terms; that would be too much to expect. Nevertheless he said it. He said

Marketing Act-Mr. Turnbull ~
that the purposes set out in the bill were desirable, and that regulated trade was necessary. Having admitted that he has admitted it all. The rest is merely detail.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Quite so.


Franklin White Turnbull: The rest of the bill deals with the manner in which the regulations are to be applied. At the beginning of his speech I repeat that the right hon. gentleman admitted the principle of the bill is correct. Then he proceeded to spend two hours piling up bogey troubles such as the hon. member for Weyburn has been piling up for the past thirty minutes. I used to think that the hon. member for Weyburn was a man of innocent mind. But I do not know of anybody who in thirty minutes could have conceived more means of being wicked in business, in the ways described by the hon. member, unless it would be his right hon. leader.
I heard the leader of the opposition make a criticism of this bill. He piled up some arguments, and then proceeded to knock them down. I heard mention of the Magna Charta, and that sort of thing. But let me say, Mr. Speaker, that when this parliament under the leadership of the right hon. leader of the opposition passed the Canadian wheat board bill in 1922, he did just exactly what he said in every sentence of his speech delivered last night was wrong, and should not have been done. There is not a single thing in this marketing bill, which the right hon. gentleman criticized last night, which is not contained in even worse form in the Canadian wheat board bill which hon. gentlemen opposite sat in their seats and voted for in 1922. Why is what they did in 1922 considered to be right and1 proper, and the same thing done at the present time considered to be wrong? What principle of Liberalism is it which says that what was done in 1922 by a Liberal government is all right, but that when a Conservative government does the same thing in 1934 it is all wrong? The only principle of Liberalism of which I know which admits that view was the principle defined by the hon. member for Labelle (Mr. Bourassa) when he said:	" It is a principle
of Liberalism to have no principles." The principle of to-day is discarded to-morrow, and the principle of to-morrow is discarded next day. It is the principle of expediency. The party is operated like a weather vane. It tries to keep its ear to the ground, and stir the passions of the mob. When they succeed they come here and cheer. That is the true principle of Liberalism. Talk about giving authority to unnamed boards that you do not know anything about-that is exactly

what the Canadian wheat board bill did. Not only did it give authority to unnamed boards, but it gave authority to the governor in council to fix the salaries of the unnamed boards, and to fix them without consulting parliament. What happened to the Magna Charta of those days? What happened to the great petition presented to William and Mary in those days ?


Richard Bedford Bennett: And Green's history?
Mr. TURNBUiLLL: They would turn over in their graves if they knew what hon. gentlemen opposite did in 1922 to the liberties of parliament. It is true that in 1922 the money that the government decided they were going to give to these gentlemen was not going to come out of the pockets of the general taxpayer. That is right. It was going to come out of the pockets of the farmers the hon. member for Weyburn has been talking about, and out of their pockets only. These gentlemen were not only regulating markets, but were put in charge of the markets. Having in their possession the money of the farmers they were authorized to dig into the farmers' money and to take out whatever the governor in council said they could take. But, of course, the liberties of parliament were not at stake at all-oh no.
The right hon. leader of the opposition criticized at great length that section of the bill wherein he said the board had power to create offences. I do not know whether he took any great objection to investigations. I may state, however, that the wheat board was authorized to make investigations, and to go up and down the country making examinations. It is suggested that because a board may do some investigating and find out whether or not in its opinion a price spread is excessive, they thereupon create an offence. They do no such thing. It is the act which creates the offence. It is the act which states that anybody who charges more than he should or maintains a spread greater than ought to be maintained is guilty of an offence and liable to indictment and fine. He has to be haled before the courts of this country. He has to stand his trial, the same as any other person would have to. And when he comes to trial the finding by the board can not be used as evidence. He has to be tried anew, and his case has to be proved, irrespective of the board. All the investigation accomplishes is to discover whether there is sufficient evidence upon which a man may be placed on trial. When he goes to trial it is then for the judge or jury, as the case may be, to say whether or not he shall be convicted. There is no

Marketing Act-Mr. Turnbull
creation of an offence at all. The right hon. gentleman seems to think that this board is going to have powers to make regulations, and that these regulations, are going to have the force of law. There is nothing new about that. The wheat board act provides that a board shall be set up with powers to make regulations. Read section 14 of that act and you will see what it provides, and when you talk about trying to get around the British North America Act by concurrent legislation with the provinces you will certainly find it there, and the hon. member for Weyburn voted for it, even though it was getting around the British North America Act and upsetting the constitution and disrupting confederation by concurrent legislation with the provinces. Section 10 of the Canadian Wheat Board Act provides-


Edward James Young: What date was that?


Franklin White Turnbull: It was assented to on June 28, 1922.


Edward James Young: Was I here then?


Richard Bedford Bennett: No, you were only on the way.


Mr. MOTHERWELL:: He must have voted by long distance.


Franklin White Turnbull: Did my hon. friend
oppose the bill?


Edward James Young: I was not in the house then.


Franklin White Turnbull: Did he oppose it outside the house?


Edward James Young: Yes I did.


Franklin White Turnbull: My hon. friend says that he opposed this bill but he continues to support the party that put it through. He voted for that party provincially and federally, and I have no doubt that he also supported them from the platform. So his opposition was evidently lip opposition, but when it came to putting the ballot in the box he was right with the party. Let me quote again section ten of the wheat board act:
The board shall have capacity to receive, have, enjoy and exercise such further powers or rights as may be conferred upon it by the legislature of any province-
Not by this government, but by the legislation of any province:
-with relation to any matter connected with the purchase, acquisition, sale or marketing of wheat and within the legislative authority of the province.
Let us see some of the powers that were conferred upon this board by the province.
I have before me the Canadian wheat board bill passed in the province of Saskatchewan and assented to on July 27, 1922. It says:
The board-
74726-151	.	revised
This unnamed board, without its salaries fixed in the statute, not elected by parliament, but appointed with the approval of the governor in council:
*-may, with the approval of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, make such regulations as it deems necessary for the purpose of fully and effectively carrying out the objects and provisions of this act; and' subject to such approval may create offences and provide penalties in respect of violations of any provision of this act or of any order or regulation made by the board under its authority.


Edward James Young: That was provincial legislation?


Franklin White Turnbull: Yes, passed by a Liberal government in Saskatchewan, and this board that was going to be set up in Ottawa had power conferred upon it by the provincial government to make regulations, to create offences and to provide penalties for breaches of the regulations, and the then government just before the bill was passed had given the board, that they were going to appoint, capacity to receive, have, enjoy and exercise the powers and rights conferred upon it by the provincial government. That was the power conferred upon the board by the provincial government-the power to create offences, the power to enjoy and exercise the right to create offences. That was all conferred upon the board by the provincial government, and the board were authorized by the leader of the opposition and his friends on the other side of the house to create offences, pass regulations, fix penalties and legislate-a board with greater powers than the representatives of the people have.
The leader of the opposition fulminated for twenty minutes yesterday because we were going to set up a board with powers to legislate, and we the representatives of the people before we could legislate had to get the franchise of the electors, and be elected to this house. But here was this autocratic and bureaucratic government going to empower a board that had never been elected by the people to make regulations and pass laws for the people of this country. Was it not terrible? Yet he had authorized in 1922 a board not only to pass regulations approved of by the governor in council but to enjoy and exercise such further powers as might be conferred upon it by the legislature of any province, powers conferred by a government outside of this government altogether, and this board had the power to create offences and fix the penalties for them, and there was not a whimper from any hon. gentleman opposite at that time about the constitution or about the Bill of Rights or Magna Charta or any of these other great disturbing things that



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Marketing Act-Mr. Turnbull
are going to upset all true and tried government in this country at the present time. I suppose that William and Mary never even heard of it.
The leader of the opposition referred yesterday to this unnamed board, appointed by governor in council, not by parliament, which was going to put into effect a scheme of operations not submitted to parliament, and with salaries fixed by governor in council, with allowances provided by the governor in council, and with all the powers which are being conferred upon them. Talk about a board for regulating trade; they were going to take the trade, according to the leader of the opposition. He talked about the poor fellow who could not sell his eggs and could not sell or export his butter and other articles. Why, Mr. Speaker, under this other act which I have cited if a single farmer in the province of Saskatchewan took a bushel of wheat and sold it to his neighbour for seed without the consent of the board he was liable to the penalty provided in the regulations that parliament had never approved of.
Edward James Young: Now tell us about the bill that Anderson put through.


Franklin White Turnbull: I am not talking about the bill Anderson put through. I will talk about the bill Pattullo put through, if you like.
This board that hon. gentlemen opposite were going to set up had power to go through this country and appoint agencies, companies and organization all over Canada, and nobody thought that the constitution was being overturned or that the liberty of the subject was in danger. Not only was that board unnamed but the government went up and down the country for six months trying to fill the positions on the board, and they could not get anybody to adopt the baby that had been left on the doorstep.
Some question was raised yesterday as to the marketing of wheat under the bill now before us. There is not a single thing in the four corners of the marketing bill that is not on the statute books of this country now so far as the marketing of wheat is concerned. The wheat board bill has never been repealed-[DOT]


Mr. TOTZKE:: Then why the bill?


Franklin White Turnbull: -for purely political purposes.


Vincent Dupuis: We know it.


Franklin White Turnbull: Did my hon. friend mean the marketing bill? Because as my hon. friend knows, the Canada Wheat Board Act

covered wheat and grain, but it did not cover my hon. friend's cattle nor his butter and eggs. We do not wish to take power to take a man's wheat from him and force him to deliver it or to sell it to us, and then transfer it again, but we want a certain amount of power to regulate the travel of the farmers' products to market. There is not going to be any question of interfering with the individual marketing of grain or butter or eggs.


Mr. GARLAND (Bow River):: Does my hon. friend suggest that this bill is but an extension of the wheat marketing act?


Franklin White Turnbull: I should hope not. I think my hon. friend was very much in favour of the wheat act.


Vincent Dupuis: The hon. gentleman seemed to be making a comparison. [DOT]


Franklin White Turnbull: The argument I am making is not at all that this legislation is the same as the Canada Wheat Board Act. If my hon. friend had been listening carefully he would know that the leader of the opposition yesterday,-and my hon. friend from Weyburn also did it to-day-read into this bill a great many things that were not in it and condemned those things. I have been pointing out that the very things that are not in this bill, and which the leader of the opposition condemned, were the very things he had enacted in 1922.
The object of this bill is entirely different from that of the wheat board act of 1922. There is no intention in this bill to take over the products of the producers of this country. The leader of the opposition went very far afield when he suggested that boots and shoes came within the purview of this bill, as well as furniture and a lot of other things. It simply indicated that he had not read the bill very carefully, if at all. If he had read it with any degree of care he would not have made those statements which he repeated over and over again, not simply once or twice, but three or four times, and which had absolutely no foundation so far as this bill is concerned.
This bill deals with the natural products which are mentioned and with other articles of food and drink that are made from those natural products, and unless my hon. friend turns to eating his boots, as he may have to do before he gets out of Prince Albert, this bill will not apply to him at all. The whole purpose of the bill is confined to those things which the leader of the opposition himself said were desirable. The sole and whole purpose of the bill is to provide for the orderly

23SL
Marketing Act-Mr. Turnbull
travel of goods to market with as little interference as possible with the actions of individuals in getting those goods to market. My hon. friends on the other side of the house, of both parties, have over and over again declared that to-day our problem is not one of production but of distribution-[DOT] that we were producing more goods than we could distribute. Now, this bill is an attempt to solve in some degree the problem of distribution ; it is an effort to assist in that direction. There is not a single thing in the bill about production being restricted.


Vincent Dupuis: Did you read it?


Franklin White Turnbull: I did read it, and there is in it nothing that says that the government or the board may restrict production.


Edward James Young: They will licence producers and through that may restrict anything.


Franklin White Turnbull: Hon. gentlemen have
wandered far afield in their endeavour to find points to criticize. The most strained interpretations conceivable have been put upon the bill. Do not hon. gentlemen think that we should be serving our constituents better if, instead of trying to deal with the bill in the manner in which my hon. friends opposite have discussed it, they took the view that at least it is a step in the right direction? Let us approach the consideration of the bill from this point of view, that it is going to be put into force, and the machinery operated, by decent, sensible people who will endeavour to serve the interests of those whom they will be trying to serve. Let us take that view rather than proceed on the assumption that all the scoundrels and scalawags that can be got together will be put on the board for the sole purpose of hampering the administration of the legislation and making the whole thing impossible. Let us take a different view of the bill from that. Why not assume its success as a possibility if not a probability, and that it will be of assistance to those whom it is intended to help? I am one of those who would be in favour of the greatest freedom in the marketing of products, and I should say that every man ought to market his own products as best he can, if only we were moving into unrestricted markets. But the fact is that we are not moving into unrestricted markets; we are moving into markets where it is not possible for everyone to market his products.


Edward James Young: How will this bill open
markets or remove restrictions?


Franklin White Turnbull: No one suggests that
the bill is going to open markets or remove restrictions. That is one of the things which 74726-151 i
the hon. gentleman assumes that the bill is going to do and then he criticizes it because he says it is not going to do that. This bill was intended to enable the producer to get his products to market as best he may under the conditions that are prevailing in the restricted markets of the world, and to pro- ' vide that you do not throw five or ten million barrels of one product upon a market that can absorb only half a million. The intention is that goods shall be directed to those markets where they can be best absorbed. Take my hon. friend's illustration about the lean cattle. The farmers of Saskatchewan had lean cattle and, he said, the board would prohibit the selling of them. 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. They would not allow lean cattle to go to the stockyards and depress the price of the whole product. Rather, they would direct that they be sent to the men who have feed, to the grazing field, where they could be properly fattened for the purpose of being marketed under proper conditions. Surely that is entirely different from looking at the bill with antagonism and hostility, regardless of what our constituents want. Should we not try to see in what way the proposed legislation can assist the producer, instead of straining every effort to suggest difficulties, with all the devilish ingenuity which my hon. friend from Weybum seems to possess.
There is in connection with this bill another point that seems to me to be of value. We are faced with the desire of agriculturists in France, in Italy, in Germany and in Great Britain, to have as large a part of their own markets as they can get, and there would be a feeling of hostility towards us if we tried to flood their markets and put them out of business. And that is only reasonable on their part. When the producers of Great Britain or of France are dealing with the individual traders and farmers in Canada, there is no possibility of getting together with a view to promoting mutual interests, but if we have a board in control of principal products in Canada, a regulating board, then that board can meet similar organizations in other countries and discuss matters of common concern in an endeavour to smooth out difficulties by cooperation, rather than by competition. My hon. friends opposite seem to be tired of the word cooperation nowadays, because they are not using it to the extent that they used to.
I am not one of those who believe in governmental interference with business; I am of the opinion that the less governments are in
23S2

Marketing Act-Mr. Turnbull
business the better it is for both business and government as a rule. But there are occasions when cherished theories do not square with the facts-Facts are stubborn chiels that wilna ding-and sometimes we must make our theories accommodate themselves to the facts. We are not dealing with normal markets or marketing conditions, and theories that are of general application often do not apply under exceptional . circumstances. For this reason, because I believe that the bill if properly applied, as I believe it will be applied, will assist in the orderly marketing of our goods, in the placing of our goods upon the best market, in the regulation of grades of goods that shall go to those markets, in providing that goods in an improper state shall not be marketed, and in doing various other things that will assist our producers-it is because I believe that the bill will accomplish these things that I support it, and in supporting it I think we are doing something for our constituents and for the country at large and particularly for those people who are engaged in the production of primary commodities. It is agreed, I think, that the producers of primary products are those most in need of assistance in this country at the present time. It is the feature of this depression, it is the feature of all depressions, that the prices of primary products fall further than do the prices of manufactured goods, perhaps because the producers of primary products are not so well organized as the other fellow. When you are returning from a depression to normal conditions, then the faster you can raise the prices of primary products in relation to manufactured products the sooner you will reach normalcy. And if this bill in any way, by regulating the flow of goods to the market-not restricting the amount that will go there

will help to obtain better prices for primary products, thereby restoring the producers of such commodities to a normal state, restoring their purchasing power, which has been sadly depleted, then I say that such a bill deserves our friendly criticism and the wholehearted support of the house and not the sort of sniping and backfiring that have come from the other side of the house in the last two days.


Mr. W. H. MOORE (Ontario):: I have
followed with very considerable interest the speech of the hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull). I should like to reply to some of the statements he has made, but unfortunately I am going to confine myself entirely to the principle of the bill. I listened very attentively to what the leader of the opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) said yesterday afternoon and evening and I did not

gather from his statements that he approved of the principle of the bill. If it was a fair inference from what he said that he approved of it, then I respectfully disagree with the leader of the opposition. I want to make it very plain at the outset, so that there shall be no misunderstanding, that I am opposed to the principle of the bill.
I listened also with interest to the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens); I am always interested in what he has to say in the house and I was a little shocked, I must confess, at his opening statement. Addressing the leader of the opposition, he used these words:
Did he recognize at all that there had been a complete dislocation of world trade?
The Minister of Trade and Commerce is in charge of the bureau of statistics and for the work I have to do I lean very much upon that bureau. I regard accuracy of statement as the first essential of the bureau of statistics and I expect that from the minister in charge. I have before me a statement as to the actual condition of world trade as published by the League of Nations. There has been dislocation; there has been shrinkage. I am quoting now from volume three for the present year. It will be found that there has been a shrinkage in prices on the present rates of exchange of something around 50 per cent. That is not a complete dislocation of trade. It will be found that there has been a shrinkage of some 25 per cent in volume, in quantum. In other words, let me make that statement very plain. On the present rates of exchange trade at the end of the period quoted was, in dollars, some 50 per cent of what it was at the commencement of the crisis in 1929 and some 75 per cent in quantum of what it was in 1929. That is not a complete dislocation of trade.
I want to-day, if I can, to fit this bill into the world condition of trade, into the system of trade. We have heard in this house much of nomenclature. Sometimes we say that a thing is socialistic and it depends upon who says it whether we condemn or approve it. I want to know just what this measure is and shall confine myself first of all to making an inquiry. In the first place the Minister of Trade and Commerce yesterday evening was, it seems t >
me, just a little bit unfair in suggesting that we on this side of the house were not greatly concerned over present conditions. I have been following them with great anxiety. I realize that the government and the economic and political institutions of this country were subjected to severe strain and I feared that they would crack under it.

Marketing Act-Mr. Moore (Ontario)
I may be wrong, but I see in this bill evidence that my fears are well grounded. I regard the bill as one of the most important, one of the most revolutionary measures that has ever been introduced into this house. Some reference has been made to its history and it may be that I can throw a little light upon that. I understood the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Weir), to say that the bill had been copied from the Agricultural Marketing Act of Great Britain. In this house we are justifiably proud of copying British precedents, especially when they come from the United Kingdom.


Mr. WEIR (Melfort):: I am afraid the
hon. member is making a slight misrepresentation of what I intended to convey.


William Henry Moore: I shall be glad to be corrected.


Robert Weir: I said it did in part include some of the principles of the British marketing act.


William Henry Moore: I accept the correction. I would like to go a little bit further and refer to something that seems to me at any rate to cover more clearly the principles laid down in the bill. This is a statement taken from an Economic Survey of Australia, volume 158, published in November, 1931, and given by the lecturer on marketing, university of Melbourne, Australia. In this statement hon. members will notice where the word "scheme" is derived. The lecturer says:
In the inauguration of its agricultural organization scheme in 1922, the Queensland government provided what is perhaps the most remarkable instance of extreme legislative support of centralized marketing.
That bill was amended in 1929 and this is what the lecturer has to say of its character:
Under this act, the government may at any time notify its intention to provide for the controlled marketing of any commodity, but provision is made for a poll of producers of the commodity to be taken on the question, if such is demanded, in which case 60 per cent of the votes cast must be in favour of control. ... If the vote is favourable, or if no vote is demanded, a board authorized by the act to make all arrangements for the marketing of the whole of the product, is elected' by the producers of the commodity concerned, together with one representative of the government. The scheme is not one of government control, but one of "compulsory cooperation."
If that is not the father of the act, it is the grandfather. It seems to me that the two principles are the same. I can well recall some hon. members raising their eyebrows askance at that time and stating that
that was socialism; that the action of the Queensland government was socialistic. Well, if it was then, it still is; there is no doubt about that.
I want to go just a step further. There has been some protest in the house about reference to what King John did at Runnymede and the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young) was criticized for quoting John Stuart Mill. I am going to bring the house up to date and make a quotation from Doctor Robert Liefmann, on Cartels Concerns and Trusts, printed in 1932. I presume hon. members will recognize that Doctor Liefmann is regarded as a world authority on the subject. He is professor at Freiburg university. He says at page 222:
The tendency towards compulsory organization of industry springs in part from socialistic ideals, since the socialists welcome anything which has the appearance of planned economy, and are quite willing to make use of capitalistic forms of organization to this end, as the syndicates and trusts of soviet Russia show. The expressions "socialism" and "socialization" have thus become extended to cover all sorts of organizations regulated by the state, in which, however, there is no question of the abolition of private property.
Now I take it that this government was not elected as a socialist government. That was not the platform on which they appealed to the country. We have had well recognized socialist views in Canada, presented by two parties. I shall be glad to be corrected if I am wrong in saying that the C.C.F. and the communist party have differed flatly on this ground: the C.C.F. have said, We want a mandate from the people to introduce socialism; the communist party are prepared to introduce it with or without a mandate. Now, Mr. Speaker, I am going to say in all fairness this government should have a mandate from the people before they effect such a violent change in the economic life of this country. Not a mandate such as has been suggested by the Natural Products Marketing Act; the vote of say 60 per cent of the producers, that would not satisfy me at all. I have not the slightest doubt that if you wens to put the question to the potato producers, "Will you have competition or not"? You would get about the same response as if you put it to the politicians , in respect to the next election. Probably the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Young) and myself, are the only two in the house who would vote for competition at the next election. And I am not so sure of myself.
The leader of the opposition last night did not visualize this bill quite as I would. He



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[Stage Direction]
Marketing Act-Mr. Moore (Ontario)
had an idea of a body of men sitting here while parliament was not in session. Now the bill-and I have no desire to go into its clauses in detail-you will find, establishes a corporate body. That is the usual phrase. I have visualized a corporative state. I have visualized an occupational parliament. They exist in other countries. It seems to me that you have here the charter of such a body sitting in Ottawa, with the civil service, with power of taxation, as has been pointed out, with certain powers over the tariff. I have visualized that this parliament will abdicate the most important economic function that it has to perform, namely holding the scales evenly between buyers and sellers. It turns over the scales to the massed strength of the producers to be used against the scattered weakness of the consumers. I have read very carefully the bill in its different clauses and I find clause after clause which says, Pay, pay, pay. The power is given to tax the producers themselves. But if the taxation ended there it would clearly be of no benefit to the producers, so I take it that the principle is, Pay and pass. That is a well recognized principle in relation to all marketing boards. In the marketing board of the United Kingdom, as the Minister of Finance (Mr. Rhodes) well knows the subject is now a matter of discussion. Take the wheat import board of the United Kingdom, the board that deals with the wheat produced locally. The Minister of Agriculture knows that there is what is called a processing tax. The miller collects it, he pays to the wheat growers of the United Kingdom a deficiency payment, the difference between the price actually received and the price that is fixed by the government. Now here is the criticism that applies at that point. What is the amount, what taxation does the consumer actually pay in connection with that act? The matter came before the British house the other day. Mr. Elliot was asked:	What was the
expense of the marketing board? He said, I do not know. Then he was asked if the request were put on the record would he be able to tell within a reasonable time? His answer was, No; the member ought to realize that the government has no direct connection with the board. Now those things have led to dissatisfaction. The marketing board in the United Kingdom is not wholly popular. It is a conscription of the housewife; how could it be otherwise than unpopular? This act will have less popularity in Great Britain. The people of Great Britain are going through a struggle, and we admire their heroism. They are ready to sacrifice for their own farmers and producers, but I

doubt if they are equally ready to sacrifice for ours. You cannot conscript the housewife in England much more. There are two million housewives in England on public relief. Even now there is a committee of the medical association examining the conditions of malnutrition in Great Britain, and the object of this bill clearly is to raise prices, and also clearly to raise them mainly at the expense of the British consumer. Mr. Speaker, this bill in my opinion-and I recognize the danger of prophecy-may have a very disastrous effect upon our imperial preference. I am going to give the government, and particularly the Prime Minister, credit for doing something that I did not believe could be done; that is induce the British government to put a tax on food. I must say that I still doubt the wisdom of it, but the Prime Minister and the government of the day secured the imposition of that tax.
William Richard Motherwell: They are going to pay for it later.


William Henry Moore: It is not altogether popular in England. This bill will make it less popular. The Minister of Finance will remember that during the Ottawa conference there were nine economists who considered the effect of a food tax in Great Britain. Their conclusions were published in a book called Tariff, the Case Examined, at page 140. I should like to read just a paragraph, and as I recall it this particular paragraph was written by Sir William Beveridge, who says:
Dominion farmers cannot, by any kind of preference in the English market, get more for their wheat than they can get without any preference at all, except on two suppositions: first, that they cease competing among themselves and form an export monopoly; second, that they use their monopoly power to sell more dearly to Britain than to foreign countries.
Then he goes on to say:
The second supposition is startling. If it ivere realized, it would mean that the dominions were using the preference in order to carry out a scheme of monopoly dumping from behind the British tariff at the expense of the British consumer. It would mean that the British people were being taxed in the worst possible *way to provide funds for subsidizing, not any of their own industries or interests, but either the dominion farmers or the trade competition of Britain or both.
Then Sir William goes on to say:
It is hard to believe that Mr. Bennett, before making his proposals in October. 1930. can have thought out their economic implications.
I find it very hard to believe that the Prime Minister and the government have thought

Marketing Act-Mr. Moore (Ontario)
out the implications of this act, because it seems to me-and if I am wrong I should be glad to be corrected-that it carries out the very fears that were expressed by those nine distinguished economists. It is bound to create resentment; .all foreign monopolies create resentment. Wherever you are subjected to the importation of goods upon a basis that does not subject itself to economic provision there is not only resentment but you render trade in your own country impossible.
I must say that I sympathized with this government when they shut out certain imports from Russia on that very ground.
I must say that I sympathized when it was proposed to raise the tariff against the United States on certain goods that were subjected to monopoly production, and I expect the people of England or any other country will have the same objection that we felt at that time. Australia realized the position. It will be recalled that at one time there was a compulsory marketing board for wheat in that country. In 1920 that board was dissolved, except in Queensland, for the very reason that I have offered, that it would lead to reprisals in the countries of importation.
I know the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Agriculture are familiar with the compulsory marketing board in Australia in regard to wool, known as "Bawra" the British-Australian Wool Recovery Act. That board was dissolved in 1924. Many efforts have been made to revive it; Sir John Higgins and others have pleaded with the wool growers, but the wool growers have said, "No, we must sell our wool in open competition," and it is sold in the open market. And I would have the minister recall that while wool has been and still is subject to some restrictions it is less restricted than any other basic commodity and has been the first to recover its price.
Denmark is in much the same position. I have not the latest information but I know that within the last two years they have had a free, open market in regard to butter, with the exception of the use of the words "Lur brand," as the Minister of Agriculture will recall. Ninety per cent of the butter made in Denmark is exported. They sell their bacon in open competition, and eighty-five per cent of their bacon is cooperatively produced. Some of it is cooperatively marketed, but the Danes said, as the hon. member for Weyburn echoed, "What we want is a market, and we want that market to be as free as possible. We want to encourage the middleman to go out and sell our goods."
Last night the leader of the opposition referred to the economics of scarcity. Well, all the information that we are being given today as to the reasons for this bill is old information. The Minister of Trade and Commerce pictured to us what would happen if we exceeded our quotas. I should be glad to have, from the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of Trade and Commerce, examples of where we have actually exceeded our quotas, not vain fears but actual instances which would indicate a real need for this legislation. Otherwise I must look over the world, and I must say that schemes of this sort have failed. The Chadboume plan in regard to the compulsory marketing of sugar failed: it did not turn out to be the economics of scarcity. The plan was put into effect; in 1929 the visible world supply washover four million tons while in 1933 it was six million tons, and remember that the parties to the agreement kept their agreement, but there was a shrinkage in consumption. That is the invariable effect of the economics of scarcity 'and of marketing monopolies. In regard to coffee even the figures have been destroyed; twenty-seven million bags of coffee were destroyed. In connection with copper there was a marketing monopoly the world over, and there was a revolution in Chili. There was a revolution in Brazil in regard to the marketing monopoly of coffee, there was a revolution in Cuba in regard to the marketing monopoly of sugar, and we know that to-day Russia is another example.
I should like to speak for a moment or two about another feature of the bill, namely that having to do with spreads. May I say to the minister that I began life as a market reporter on Front street in Toronto. I knew those men who bought and sold the products affected by this bill. As I look back I realize that very few of the men I knew in those days are rich to-day; as a matter of fact I know of none. The proposal is to fix spreads. Well, a commission merchant may make one hundred per cent profit on a transaction and hon. members may say that is a very large spread. He may make one hundred and fifty per cent or two hundred per cent,-put it as large as you like. But the next day he is liable to lose as much on another transaction. How are you going to regulate his spreads? Is this the only legislation we are to have affecting spreads? Does the government for one moment think that it can stop with this legislation? I suggest that there are more inequitable spreads in wages. Is the government going to attempt to iron out those wage spreads? There are more inequitable spreads in wealth; is the government
2386	COMMONS
Marketing Act-Mr. Moore (Ontario)
going to adjust that? Once you roll a heavy burden half way down a hill it is very hard to hold it.
I believe I can see that the government have been following the advice of Sir Arthur Salter in a lecture delivered recently to Cambridge university. Sir Arthur Salter referred to legislation of the sort as a kind of bastard socialism pressed upon harassed governments by sectional organizations. Mind you, Sir Arthur was in favour of it, but on conditions. May I at this point read briefly from page 20 of his book The Framework of an Ordered Society:
X believe that we can both plan and preserve freedom on three conditions: That parliaments will delegate some of their functions to the executive, without abdicating their ultimate responsibility; that the executive will fit itself for its tasks by welcoming the assistance of those who direct the actual economic activities of the country; and that these in turn will assume the task of collectively controlling and planning their own activities, in association with government and through an appropriate organization.
It seems to me that is precisely what this government proposes doing. And here is Sir Arthur Salter's stipulation-and no inference is required, because he makes it very plain- that to carry it out you must have a world ordered economy. He puts it in this way:
The whole of these sectional planning and guiding authorities would be linked together by the formation of wider councils, drawing their membership by selection from the smaller councils, and culminating nationally in national economic councils, and internationally in a world economic council; these councils being suitably related to the governments, so that the whole system would' be an adjunct to-or rather an integral part of-the machine of government.
That is the edifice. There are two lions' dens, one in Moscow and one in Geneva. Canada would be unwise to go into either of them. We have a heritage here; we have a vast country, and we are proud of it. Every hon. member in the house is proud of it. Do you think for one moment that a world ordered society does not mean ordering from a world centre? And if you can order production you can order migrations, and we thereby surrender our autonomy. It may be that it is necessary, but I should like to have further information.
May I in conclusion quote another statement by Doctor Liefmann. Coming from a German, under present conditions the statement is of double interest. I can see reasons as outlined by the Minister of Trade and Commerce as to why this bill should be

passed. The hon. member for Regina asked us to think of these reasons and to give the bill sympathetic consideration. I want to point out-and I presume that is the purpose of an opposition-the difficulties and inescapable consequences, so that hon. members may weigh them. Doctor Liefmann says:
The resulting mixture of economics and polities, which keeps on attributing new tasks to the state, is a good deal to blame for the lack of patriotism so generally deplored in Germany and for generally admitted stagnation or even degradation of our political life; it has also had disastrous effects on our foreign policy. The state as the great defender of justice and welfare ought to stand above the economic system and work for social equilibrium within this system. If it is too much drawn into the war of interests, and has economic interests of its own all over the place, it loses its authority and becomes less and less capable of effecting the impartial regulation of economic life.
May I give that statement a home touch. I should like to quote something stated yesterday by the Minister of Trade and Commerce which gave me a picture of the difficulties that this government will face, once this bill has 'become law. I believe the minister did not mean what I have taken from his statement, but referring to apples he said:
For instance our friends in Nova Scotia, who are only five or six days distant from the British market can pour their apples in while British Columbia and Ontario might be handicapped in that regard. Or British Columbia might have say 10,000 cases going through by way of the Panama canal in cold storage; the market is in danger of being flooded, and someone from eastern Canada pours his apples in and destroys it. No one I am sure desires that.
Well, may I tell the Minister of Trade and Commerce if I were a Nova Scotia apple grower I would desire it. I would like to take advantage of my geographical situation, and I believe the apple growers of Nova Scotia, generally, will take the same position. In connection with this bill we are going to meet that situation over and over again because, remember, you have assigned all but the mineral kingdom to the new occupation of parliament, and you have done it because others have done it. If I were on the shores of the upper Niagara river and I saw a man plunging in, I would not follow him. There is scarcity and poverty on the shores of the upper Niagara but they are not to be escaped by plunging into the river. I would stay on land. If the situation is so serious that it means the destruction of capitalism in this country, and remember that our economic life is within a political frame, then I should

Marketing Act-Mr. Vallance
be one of the first to support this government in an effort to ward off what I at any rate believe would be the destruction not only of the social life but of the economic and political life that we have led and have been proud to lead in this country.


Mr. JOHN VALLANCE (South Battle-ford) :: Mr. Speaker, I propose this afternoon to deal with the marketing bill before us from the standpoint of a wheat producer of western Canada. The hon. member for Regina (Mr. Turnbull) gave to the house this afternoon an account of the different methods which have been adopted by the farmers of this country in past years for the marketing of their products, and he emphasized particularly the wheat board. Perhaps I cannot do better than give a summary of just what the farmers of western Canada have attempted to do in past years in the effort to solve this great problem of marketing the wheat crop of western Canada.
Their first concerted effort was to organize the United Grain Growers' Grain Company. That was the first, shall I say, cooperative effort on the part of the farmers to market at least a portion of the wheat crop of the three prairie provinces. Then came the Cooperative Elevator Company of the province of Saskatchewan. In the province of Alberta we had a similar organization. Then in 1919 came the wheat board. I know that my hon. friend from Regina was not dealing with the wheat board of 1919.



ROYAL ASSENT

[Stage Direction]
A message was delivered by Major A. R. Thompson, Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, as follows:
Mr. Speaker, His Honour, the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General desires the immediate attendance of this honourable house in the chamber of the honourable the Senate.
Accordingly, the house went up to the Senate.
And having returned,
Mr. SPEAKER informed the house that the deputy of His Excellency the Governor General had been pleased to give in His Majesty's name the royal assent to the following bills:
An Act for the relief of Gertrude Ethel Mosgrove Roast.
An Act for the relief of Clara Dingman
Freeman.
An Act for the relief of Marguerite Pearl Hopper.
An Act for the relief of Sadye Harris Rosenberg.
An Act for the relief of Eva Brabant Paradis.
An Act for the relief of Williamina Muir Briggs.
An Act respecting Prudential Trust Company Limited.
An Act to ratify and confirm an agreement respecting the joint use by His Majesty and the Commissioners of the Transcontinental Railway of certain tracks and premises of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company at Quebec.
An Act respecting Relief Measures.
An Act to amend the Criminal Code. (Race meetings.)
An Act to amend' the Precious Metals Marking Act, 1928.
An Act to amend the Dairy Industry Act.
An Act to amend the Destructive Insect and Pest Act.

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed consideration of the motion of Mr. Weir (Melfort) for the second reading of Bill No. 5, 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, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Mackenzie King.
John Vallance: I was attempting
just before we proceeded to the Senate to enumerate various steps which the farmers of western Canada had taken in marketing the entire crop grown in the three western provinces, and I had reached the point where we had come down to the wheat board of 1919. I think there is a misunderstanding, not only in the minds of many members of this house but throughout the country, the impression being that when this bill comes into operation, if it does, it will have the same effect as the wheat board of 1919 had. I propose to deal with the differences but I might at this time make this statement. The wheat board of 1919 received all the wheat, when the farmer chose to deliver the wheat, and at all times they fixed the price for the wheat. The board of 1922 was similarly constituted. So that when you take the legislation that was put through on both occasions to make it possible for those boards to function and compare that legislation with the legislation we are now considering, in my opinion you cannot make a just comparison.
I am one of those who believe that some assistance in some way is necessary to allow the wheat grower to carry on. I read a very interesting article published in the Farm and Ranch Review, which probably confirmed this opinion of mine more than anything else that has been drawn to my attention. This article appeared in the Farm and Ranch Review of December, 1933, and it indicates all the countries in which the government is in some way either subsidizing production or affording tariff protection. Apart from one


Mr. STEVENS:: The quotation the hon. gentleman has just read was, I presume, a letter published in the Glasgow Herald?


John Vallance: Yes.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Did it give the name? If the name was published there should be no objection-


John Vallance: No, I have no objection. It was a letter that appeared in the Glasgow Herald, and was sent to me by the Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Society. The letter is not signed, but it was sent to me from that society.


Henry Herbert Stevens: A most reputable organization; I am not questioning that.


John Vallance: I suppose it came to me because of the association I had with that organization in my boyhood.
In another communication that I have received from Glasgow, from the Scottish Millers' Association, eight points are brought out:
(1)	That the policy of Mr. Bennett and Mr. McFarland on Canadian wheat is wrong. They are holding the wheat at an artificial price compared with other world wheat.

(2)	That it may cost them very dear and reduce the consumption of Manitoban wheat permanently.
(3)	That it is not in accordance with the arrangements made at the Ottawa conference.
(4)	That it may alter the methods of baking so as to use less Manitoban flour.
(5)	That it is unfair to the importing trade to have a premium put on Canadian milled flour after their fighting a battle with the British government to get this flour in free.
(6)	That bakers cannot be compelled to buy flour regardless of its price, or a wheat regardless of its price compared with other competitive wheats.
(7)	That the Argentine is one of the many sources of danger because they are selling a very good wheat (64 lbs.) at 6/- per quarter less.
(8)	That the Canadian position with the Canadian farmers will be worse than ever.
The other night when the Minister of Trade and Commerce was putting through some of his estimates I drew to his attention the fact that these countries had been increasing their exports into the British market while ours were declining. He indicated at that time that as far as the Argentine was concerned the exchange was probably responsible. In regard to Australia he said the reason was the same. As to Russia, well of course there is nothing permanent there; Russia might at any time dump wheat in order to establish credits in any market. Then I pointed out to him that it was the "sound money" policy of this government that was responsible for our wheat not being sold to the same extent as in 1932, and coupled with that is the fact that the price of Canadian wheat was out of line with world prices. The letters I have had from the old country show that there was a time when they depended entirely on the western United States for their hard spring wheat, and if Canada continues to pursue the policies she has now adopted they probably will have to resort again to wheat from that country. The Minister of Trade and Commerce knows that the British market is the only potential market we have, in spite of the six cent preference. Now we propose to bring new legislation; we propose to bring in a bill to encourage the marketing of the wheat of Canada.
I have not time to deal with all the clauses to which I should like to refer, but before attempting to analyze the bill from the standpoint of the wheat grower I should like to say something about the wheat agreement, because it has to do with this very problem of marketing Canada's wheat. We entered into an agreement under which Canada was allotted a certain quota in the world market; this quota was to be passed down to the provinces, from .the provinces to the municipali-

Marketing Act-Mr. Vallance
ties and from the municipalities to the individual growers. I suppose the powers granted in connection with the wheat agreement will be passed on to the board to be set up in connection with the marketing of our wheat, because section 4 of the bill says:
The board shall, subject to the provisions of this act, have power-
(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.
The average wheat grower in western Canada usually has his obligations fall due on November 1, and it is his ambition to sell his wheat before that date in order to meet those obligations. Even under the wheat agreement, without the application of this bill, it might not be possible for the producer to do so. I should like to recite a hypothetical case. We will assume that in normal times a farmer produces ten thousand bushels of wheat; under the agreement, whether it be the ten year volume and three year average or the three year average and three year volume, he will be given a specific amount of wheat to deliver. Under the ten year volume he will deliver seventeen bushels to the acre; under the three year volume he will deliver thirteen bushels to the acre. We will suppose that a farmer grows, as I have grown, thirty to forty-eight bushels to the acre; he is allowed to deliver seventeen bushels. I think the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) knows, as well as it is known by those of us who understand the wheat industry from a practical standpoint, that if under the wheat agreement or under this bill I am permitted to deliver only a certain portion of my production, either seventeen or thirteen bushels to the acre as the case may be, and am compelled to hold back the remainder of my wheat, it will be impossible for me to finance my operation. How can the farmer finance the taking off of his wheat or the operation of his farm? If I am allowed to deliver only seventeen bushels to the acre it is financially impossible for me to pay the cost of producing anything from seventeen to forty-eight bushels. I am therefore not permitted to meet my obligations. The law says I am permitted to deliver only a certain volume of wheat, but it also says that I must pay my labour, my taxes, the grocer, the baker and all the other bills incidental to the operation of a farm. If this agreement into which Canada has entered is in the interests of the country as a whole, as I hope it is, then I say the wheat producers of western
Canada should not be asked to carry this load, because under present conditions western agriculture cannot stand it. I am one of those who favour the setting up of a marketing organization that will take delivery of all the wheat and then Canada can do what she chooses with it. We should not ask the grower to bear this burden; I do not think it is fair.
Coming now to the bill before the house, I find myself up against the same thing. The argument that has been advanced in connection with the wheat agreement, and that will be advanced in connection with this bill, is that the best place to store wheat is back on the farm. You cannot negotiate wheat when it is on the farm, Mr. Speaker; no farmer can go to the bank, in spite of section 88 of the Bank Act, and establish a line of credit on wheat lying in the granary. So how are we to carry on? I still say that if Canada wishes to control and regulate wheat she should take the responsibility of financing the whole operation, objectionable as that might be. Then subsection (c) of section 4 states:
to compensate any person for loss sustained by exporting, storing or withholding from the market any product pursuant to any determination or order of the board.
If the government suggest to me that I deliver only a certain portion of my wheat will they, because I have to store the remainder, pay me for the storage of that wheat? I doubt it. There are many sections of this bill with which time will not permit me to deal, but to which I have very strenuous objection. We come to subsection
(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-
What I object to most strenuously in this bill is the domination of a group, a board set up by order in council, with the producer never consulted and never considered. I believe in cooperation; I should be inclined to support a resolution which would provide, in connection with the growers of wheat or those concerned in the production of the other primary products of Canada, that when seventy-five per cent of the total had voiced their intention of so doing, the other twenty-five per cent should be compelled to cooperate so that the producers themselves would manage the sale of the product. One of the most regrettable features of the activities of the farmers in attempting to market their products has been the fact that they have depended upon men who, in many instances,

Marketing Act-Mr. Vallance
were not experienced in the marketing of those products, and as a result the farmers suffered. Under this legislation a board is to be appointed by the governor in council.
I would expect, at least, that the chairman of the board would be brought from the grain exchange in Winnipeg, because he would have a knowledge of the marketing of wheat. If my suggestion were adopted, however, and the farmers were allowed to band themselves together and choose their own board I think it would be much more efficient because of the interest they have in the marketing of their products.
Under this legislation we are to have three types of boards, beginning with the central board sitting here in Ottawa and including the provincial boards and the local boards. There is so much machinery involved in this proposal that it is enough to ruin it. I am absolutely opposed to this type of legislation. During the twenty-eight years I have lived in western Canada I have been pledged to the support of cooperative marketing, but in this act I see no vestige of cooperation.
Then we come to subsection 6 of section 4:
The board may require the local board to furnish full information from time to time relating to the production and marketing of the regulated product, and shall advise the local board in all matters relating to the exercise of its powers.
This subsection gives the power of regulating production. The board would have power to say to me how much wheat I may grow or how much I may market. First as an individual and a grower, and secondly as a representative of a rural constituency, I refuse to support any such legislation as this.
Then we come to the marketing schemes, and we find the following:
A representative number of persons engaged in the production and marketing or the production or marketing of a natural product

Not the producers. It may be a marketing organization. This subsection departs entirely from the rights of the producers.
[DOT]-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.
(2)	The petition shall be filed with the minister and if he considers that the persons engaged' in the production or marketing of the natural product are sufficiently represented by the petitioners, the scheme shall be referred to the board with a request for a report on the expediency thereof.
(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, and the governor in council may thereupon approve the said scheme and fix the date when the same shall be effective.

I wish to deal with only one other clause before six o'clock, and with that in mind I turn to paragraph (b) of subsection 4 of section 5:
(4)	Before any scheme is approved the governor in council shall be satisfied.
(b) That some part of the product produced may be exported.
I shall not go into details in connection with all these paragraphs, but would simply draw to the attention of hon. members the fact that from paragraph (b) to (i) the producers have no say whatever as to the personnel of the managements of local boards.
There has been a great deal of discussion as to the legality of certain pieces of legislation, and whether or not they are at variance with the British North America Act. I have before me an article from the Winnipeg Free Press headed Under the Dome, and dealing with section 121 of the British North America Act. That section is as follows:
All articles of the growth, produce or manufacture of any one of the provinces shall, from and after the union, be admitted free into each of the other provinces.
The point I should like to place before the government is this: Under the bill I am not permitted to sell wheat to anyone other than the marketing board. Yet the interpretation of the person who wrote this newspaper article, and it is my own as well, is that section 121 extends to the provinces the right to engage in interprovincial trade. Has this government to-day the power to tell me that I cannot deliver any of my wheat or the products of my farm to John Doe who may live in any of the other eight provinces? Under the bill now before me the government state that without their permission I cannot do that. First, I have to be a licensed grower; I have to have a licence even to grow it. Then I must be licensed to sell it, and can sell only to the board.


Edward James Young: Or go to gaol.


John Vallance: Or suffer a penalty, yes. To me, Mr. Speaker, the penalties under this legislation are altogether out of proportion to the offences. I should expect that some member of the government would clear up the point I have raised in connection with section 121 of the British North America Act. As a resident of Saskatchewan I contend i have the right under that section to deliver any or all of my wheat to any individual who may live in one of the remaining eight provinces.
I am very sorry that I cannot support the measure, although I am in favour of a cooperative marketing bill which would permit the producers of any primary product to

Railway Act-Mr. Manion
attempt by joint effort to market their own products in their own manner. If this bill is so amended I shall give it every support, but in its present state I cannot. I have sent many copies of the bill out to the farming districts, and I believe when it is understood by those whom supposedly it is framed to help it will meet with the same opposition as that which it is meeting at the hands of the official opposition.


Henry Herbert Stevens: May I ask the hon. member a question?


John Vallance: Yes.


Henry Herbert Stevens: What is there to-day in
any law to prevent any group of producers from getting together for the purpose of marketing their own products?


John Vallance: No one knows better
than the minister that at one time an attempt was made to have one hundred per cent control in the three provinces. I am told by an hon. member sitting near me that at one time British Columbia attempted what the minister has suggested, and they were told that their action was ultra vires, and that there would have to be amendments to the British North America Act.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Of course that is not
what the hon. member said a minute ago.


John Vallance: What did I say?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I am not quibbling with
the hon. member; I was merely curious to know what he meant. The hon. member said that-


John Vallance: I would rather have
the minister ask me if I said it.


Henry Herbert Stevens: -he was in favour of groups of producers having the liberty to get together under a cooperative system for the purpose of marketing their goods. What is there to-day to prevent -them from doing that?


John Vallance: The trouble is that we cannot compel others to come in. I suggested that when seventy-five per cent of the growers interested in any one commodity desired that it should be made compulsory for the other twenty-five per cent to come in, it should be so. That is the point I made.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



RAILWAY ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Tuesday, April 17, consideration of the motion of Mr. Reid for the second reading of Bill No. 21, to amend the Railway Act (rates on grain), and the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Barber.
Robert James Manion: Mr. Speaker, the other
evening my hon. friend from New Westminster (Mr. Reid) discussed very moderately but at some length the bill which is now before us, but as there was a good deal of discussion at that time I unfortunately did not have the opportunity of speaking for a few minutes to offer my views, and consequently the debate has gone over until this evening.
During the previous discussion one of the members on this side of the house moved an amendment in effect that the bill be referred to the board of railway commissioners, which after all is exactly where the matter should go to my mind because it deals entirely with freight rates, and if there is a more complicated question than freight rates that can be discussed anywhere I should like to know what it is. I presume we will all admit that the tariff, for instance, is a very complicated question, but to my mind it is child's play compared with the question of freight rates. I do not consider, sir, that this house or the government of this country or any government or any House of Commons previous to this one has been or is the proper body before which to bring such a question as this, with all due deference to my hon. friend's argument to the contrary.
The government of Canada in 1904 established the board of railway commissioners whose duty it is to deal with freight rates, and since that time, with one or two extraordinary exceptions, it has always been considered that the freight rate structure is a question too technical to be dealt with by this house. My hon. friend from New Westminster will not quite agree with that, but let me illustrate what I mean by that statement.
Let us imagine that this bill should become law. It would in effect make the freight rates westward exactly the same as the freight rates eastward on the basis of the Crowsnest pass rates and on the basis of the shorter haul from Calgary rather than the longer haul from Edmonton. That perhaps may not be very clear to those who have not looked into the question, but my hon. friend from
Railway Act-Mr. Manion

New Westminster and my hon. friend from Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber) and others who have studied the matter will understand the statement. Now if you pass this bill and fix these rates at the present time, it does not matter what the details of the rates are; the fact remains that you are fixing freight rates in this house and any member of the house on either side and belonging to any party would then be justified in coming before the house and demanding that we also fix the freight rate on some particular commodity from his constituency moving to some other section of the country.
That is not a far-fetched illustration, because while my hon. friend from New Westminster was speaking the other evening I jotted down different products on which I have been approached this year by various members to your left, Mr. Speaker, and also to your right, in respect of which special freight rates were asked because of the distressful times in various sections of the country. I have had some hon. members from northern Ontario, for example, and some from southern Ontario take up the question of the rates on pulpwood, claiming that the freight rates are unfair to the pulpwood industry because of the low prices of all lines and the lesser demand for pulpwood and paper in the United States, and so on. My hon. friend from Gloucester (Mr. Veniot) nods his head in assent. He understands that question because he comes from a section where pulpwood and lumbering generally is a very important industry. On a number of occasions the members from this side of the house and from the other side have requested that the Canadian National Railways-they have even suggested that I intercede with the Canadian Pacific Railway-should endeavour to set special rates for their section of the country on pulpwood and lumber products in general. I have also had many requests from various parts of the country demanding special rates on agricultural products because of the very low prices that prevail at the present time and because of the difficult position in which the farmer finds himself to-day in trying to make ends meet. I have always answered that it was a matter over which I have no control, and I say frankly that I have passed these letters on to the particular railway concerned, the Canadian Pacific or the Canadian National, because I have no power to compel them to control or fix these rates. The only body aside from the railways themselves which has power to deal with the freight rate structure in this country is the board of railway commissioners, and I have pointed that out to

anyone who has approached me on questions such as this.
I mention that because it will illustrate to my hon. friend from New Westminster the Chinese puzzle which parliament would have to deal with if we attempted to enter into such a complicated question as freight rates, and to show the house how complicated the question is I am going to quote a paragraph from the general freight rates investigation made by the board of railway commissioners.


Mr. NEILL:: What date?


Robert James Manion: Unfortunately I have not the date, but I think it was in the year 1927. It is the report of the general freight rates investigation-


Thomas Reid: It was in 1927.


Robert James Manion: 
Mr. LUCAS:: What is the special rate granted on feed grain last year?


Robert James Manion: I regret that I cannot give my hon. friend that information offhand. Personally I had a good deal to do with having that rate put into effect. There was held in my office a meeting of representatives of the different provinces who were here for the interprovincial conference a year and a half ago and I had representatives of the railways present. I hope I may be pardoned for boasting a little in saying that I had to take a club to the railways to get them to consent to it, because I had been arguing for it for a considerable time. Finally, after discussing

Railway Act-Mr. Manion

the matter with the representatives of the provinces, both railways conceded the rate. Speaking from memory, I think it is nearly midway between the domestic and the export rate-an hon. gentleman near me says it is 30 cents, and I think that is right. That rate they conceded after a good deal of argument and it is still in effect. They may wish to eliminate it later, but so far as I am concerned I do not think they should. I do not know that much freight has moved in consequence of that lower rate, but at any rate it was put into force.
Another point I wish to make is this. The rates on Canadian grain are the lowest rates in the world. That is the claim made by both railways and, I think, quite justifiably. They contend that the rates on grain in Canada are lower, by and large, than the rates on grain in the United States or in any other country over similar distances.
May I add, in regard to the amendment of my hon. friend from Fraser Valley, that I am entirely in accord with what it proposes, inasmuch as the board of railway commissioners is the proper body, appointed in 1904, to deal with this question. That board has rendered excellent service ever since that time, and I submit that this house would be most unwise if it undertook to become involved in this question. I suggest that the proper course is to support the amendment which has been proposed by the hon. member for Fraser Valley, on the principle that the board of railway commissioners is the logical body to which a question of this sort should be referred.


Thomas Reid: I wish to make just a few observations in reply to some of the statements made in this debate, particularly by the Minister of Rail-wa.ys (Mr. Manion). First, may I say that I am indeed pleased with the spirit in which so far the debate has been carried on, and in this regard I refer especially to the speech delivered by the Minister of Railways this evening. The hon. gentleman has quoted from the report of the board of railway commissioners in the general freight rates investigation, and if there is one reason more than another why I cannot accept the amendment it is the very paragraph which he read. If you will note the last sentence-and these are the views of the board in 1927-you will see from this statement that after all data has been placed before them, average mileage operated, the gross ton miles, net ton mileage, freight train mileage, etc., all of which are to some degree interrelated, not one of them

by itself leads to any absolute, certain and definite conclusion. AH this information has been laid before the board of railway commissioners many times but no results have accrued from the appeals made, some of them I am sorry to say very expensive.
I cannot agree with the Minister of Railways when he says that the settling of this question would be the settling of commodity rates. I would not attempt to bring into this house the general freight rates question; it is too complicated, as I am perfectly well aware. But parliament in 1925 changed the commodity rates of the Crowsnest within the territory from Calgary to Fort William and substituted therefor the Crowsnest Pass rates on grain and grain products within the whole area between these two points, settling definitely the status of grain and grain products. That is exactly what we are asking for.
As I have stated, our appeal before the board of railway commissioners has not met with any degree of success; it has been turned down time and again and it is in view of that I have endeavoured, since I have entered parliament, to place the matter before it. In 1925 they did not set commodity rates; they set a rate only on grain and grain products going easterly from Calgary or Edmonton to Fort William, and we in British Columbia are asking for equal treatment. We are not asking parliament to set commodity rates. Commodity rates do not enter into the question at all, because, if parliament were to adopt the bill now before the house, the only thing affected would be grain and grain products. The matter of commodity rates and the general freight rates structure is not touched upon and I will agree with some hon. members that when we come to that, those complicated questions should be discussed before the board of railway commissioners.
I am sorry I cannot accept the amendment moved by the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Barber), because past experience has shown us that we can hope for very little before the railway board. As I have pointed out, the various commissioners who have sat in judgment have put it on record that the hands 'of British Columbia are tied, so to speak. They did not say so in so many words, but they said that the Crowsnest rate from Calgary to Fort William had no bearing on any appeal made by British Columbia as regards grain and grain products going west. The other evening I quoted the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Stevens) who took the attitude at that time that if parliament in its wisdom or otherwise had seen- fit to

Railway Act-Mr. Reid
change the act and give to the east those old rates, we should also receive the same rates westward. On that occasion of course, he declared that he would rather see the whole matter go before the board of railway commissioners. But inasmuch as the bill fixing those grain rates did go through parliament in 1925, my appeal now-and it has been practically the same since I have entered parliament-is that parliament should put into the act what was left out in 1925.
When the hon. member for Fraser Valley spoke, I am sorry he interjected that little remark about the anxiety I had and the delay in introducing the bill since I came here this year. It is said that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones, and it is equally true that those who have done little themselves should not attempt to criticize the efforts of others. It was due to that remark of the hon. member that I took the pains to search the records, and I find that in 1926 he was silent in regard to railway rates. In 1927 he was silent; in 1928 he spoke a matter of 103 words on the budget, and in 1930 he had a small paragraph. I would not have mentioned this, but I think it was very unfair on his part to cast it up to me that I had delayed this year because I had not seen fit to introduce the bill a little earlier in the session. That has no bearing on the matter, and I endeavoured in the course of my speech to keep away from recriminations.


Mr. BARBER:: I should like to correct the hon. gentleman. I was not silent. I went to the proper tribunal, the board of railway commissioners, on several occasions, where I thought I could get more action than I could in the House of Commons.


Thomas Reid: The hon. member may say that he went before the board, but we have been going there for years because the appeal of British Columbia goes back, so far as I know, to at least 1921, and that province has been appealing before the board every year without results from then to 1930.


Henry Herbert Stevens: The matter started long before that. I started it myself in 1912, so it is quite historic.
Mr. REIiD: Yes, but except in 1925 no strong attitude was taken in the house in connection with it.


Alan Webster Neill: I took it up repeatedly.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Oh, yes, there was. Before the hon. member for Comox-Albemi (Mr. Neill) entered parliament, the matter was before the house.
74726-152 J


Alan Webster Neill: And after.
Mr. REll): Now that the minister has entered into the argument, I wonder whether he would suggest to the government that they adopt the proposal he made in 1925. When the bill was before the house then, he said: "Abrogate the whole agreement". Would he now advise his government to abrogate the Crowsnest agreement as he suggested when he was arguing in 1925?


Franklin White Turnbull: It was abrogated long ago by the government the hon. member supports.


Thomas Reid: That is another angle. It was not abrogated in the true sense of the word; ia was changed in 1925. It may have been abrogated by a decision of the board, but it was reinstated and the present legislation was put through the house in 1925. In that year the Minister of Trade and Commerce said that he was in favour of abrogating the whole thing. That is what he said then. Seeing that he has entered into the discussion, would he now advise the government to abrogate the Crowsnest agreement and leave the whole matter of grain and grain products to the board of railway commissioners?


Henry Herbert Stevens: May I interrupt my hon. friend? He seems to think he is making a statement that will embarrass me.


Thomas Reid: Oh, no.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It does not in the slightest. The first speech I made in the House of Commons in 1911, I made on this question, and I advocated the same principle as that enunciated by my colleague to-night, that the question of railway rate fixing ought to be in the hands of the railway board.


Thomas Reid: I think I am making a fair statement when I say that the minister gave it as his opinion in 1925 that seeing the Crowsnest pass agreement was being changed in that year and subsection 6 put into it, the hands of British Columbia were tied so far as going (before the railway board was concerned. That is the stand the minister has taken. He stated it three times in his speech and I agree with that. If he was correct then, would he take the same stand now?
This move for equalization of rates is a fight on the part of British Columbia and we have tried to bring it where redress should be given-to the foot of the throne. It is not a freight rates investigation or of settling the whole question of freight rates on goods passing between the prairies and British Columbia. We are asking for just what parliament gave to the eastern provinces in
Railway Act-Mr. Reid

1925; it is an appeal for equality and equality only. As I was pointing out, the Minister of Trade and Commerce and I are in agreement regarding the fact that it is useless to go before the board of railway commissioners since the act was passed in 1925, although it was a Liberal administration that had it passed, I am agreeing with him in his opinion that it tied the hands of British Columbia and subsequent events have proved that to be the case. I think that is pretty clear.
There are in British Columbia and, I suppose, in Alberta and also Saskatchewan, large quantities of low grade grain, and as our foreign markets are getting less we are wondering to-day where we shall find markets for that grain. There is in British Columbia a market and there would be a greater one if that grain could be moved there at a reasonable cost, but when those who would purchase the farmers' low priced grain, or grain that is frozen, or feed grain, had to pay forty-one and a half cents per one hundred pounds in freight-I realize there is an agreement in effect for the year-when they had to pay the full domestic rate there was not a great deal of that grain moved. Production of poultry and eggs in British Columbia has gone down and down, and the situation is bad enough just now with the many hundreds of poultry plants not doing anything. One thing affecting them which helped to put them out of business was the fact that grain was costing far too much. Not that the farmer was getting to much for his grain; the freight rate was eating up too much of the total cost. British Columbia in 1928 was producing 27,000,000 dozen eggs, but for 1932, the latest report I have,, the figure had dropped to 15,000,000 dozen. Not only that, but the consumption of eggs in Canada had also dropped. I quote these figures to show that there is a ready market in British Columbia for the low grade grains of the prairies and mill feed for dairymen, if only we could receive the same treatment as the eastern provinces have had and enjoyed for many years.
Might I refer to one remark of the Minister of Railways? He mentioned the mileage from Calgary to Fort William, and said that when grain reached Fort William it was practically in the centre of Canada; it had not reached the seaboard. While he was speaking I noted that from Calgary or Edmonton to Montreal, which is the port at the head of navigation, the distance is 2,239 miles, and grain is carried all that way for 53 cents per hundred pounds, while we in British Columbia were being charged 41icents for a distance of only 642 miles.


Robert James Manion: But the rate eastward that my hon. friend is giving is the export rate. There is a domestic rate that is considerably higher.


Thomas Reid: I am glad the minister drew
that to my attention, because the domestic rate as far as Montreal is concerned is some three cents per hundred pounds. It is only a paper rate; there is practically no domestic grain movement to Montreal.


Robert James Manion: Most of it is carried by
boat down the lakes, making a water competitive rate. Scarcely any grain is carried by rail to Montreal for export except a little in winter. Nearly all of it is carried in summer and by water.


Thomas Reid: That may be true, but the
fact remains that a rate exists between those points; 2,239 miles for 53 cents as against 41J cents for 642 miles.


Robert James Manion: But as my hon. friend
said, it is only a paper rate; it is not used.


Thomas Reid: If you take the rate to Fort William, 26 cents, it is much cheaper than for grain going west; and to Fort William there is no domestic rate.


Robert James Manion: There is practically no
domestic consumption at Fort William; there is only a comparatively small population. It is all for export, really.


Thomas Reid: Well I am not going to detain the house any longer, I am sorry to say I cannot accept the amendment, because past experience has shown us in British Columbia that we can expect very little from the board of railway commissioners. As is well known, we have appealed time and time again to that board and every kind and manner of objection has been raised as to why the same rates that apply east on grain and grain products cannot be given to British Columbia.
Amendment (Mr. Barber) agreed to on division.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. LaVergne in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OP THE INTERIOR

[Stage Direction]
International Boundary Commission-
Expenses connected with the maintenance in a state of effective demarkation of the international boundary, $27,000.
William Thomas Lucas: Will the minister give some explanation as to the progress being made in this work?

Supply-Interim


Mr. MURPHY:: The work that is carried on by the international boundary commission in Canada is in accordance with the treaties entered into with the United States on February 4, 1925. The work consists of maintenance, which means reclearing of the boundary vistas through timbered areas traversed by the line, the keeping in repair of boundary monuments and reference monuments that mark the course of the line, erecting range marks to range the boundary over wide areas of water in the interests of the fishing industry, or to facilitate the enforcement of customs and immigration laws, and erecting new monuments where necessary to mark the boundary crossings of new highways, locating, establishing and marking the boundary on international bridges and in international tunnels; and performing all other related duties, such as furnishing to the several departments and bureaus of the two governments information relative to the international boundary.


William Thomas Lucas: What has been the total cost to Canada up to the present time? And has the minister any idea when this work might be completed?


Charles Murphy: The total expenditure up to December 13, 1933, on the field work of maintenance of the irteiyational boundary by the Canadian section under the treaty of February 14, 1925, is $67,428.09.
In regard to the second part of my hon. friend's question I would say that I expect this work will go on from year to year as long as there is a boundary line between the two countries-in other words, it will never be finished.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Government of the Yukon Territory-
Salaries and expenses connected with the administration of the territory, including surveys, $42,000.
Grant to Yukon council for local purposes, the construction and maintenance of roads and such other expenditures as the commissioner is authorized to expend by and with the advice and consent of the council or any committee thereof; and its accounts with respect to such expenditure shall be subject to examination and audit by the auditor general as provided by section 22, chapter 215, revised statutes, 1927, $60,000-Total, $102,000.
Albert Frederick Totzke: What is the nature of the surveys they carry on in the Northwest Territories at the present time?


Charles Murphy: Has my hon. friend reference to a survey in the Northwest Territories, or any survey in the Yukon?


Albert Frederick Totzke: In the first portion of this item it says: "Administration of the territory, including surveys."


Charles Murphy: There is in the estimates an item of $1,080 which pays the salary of a surveyor in the Yukon, who does the necessary survey work in regard to mining claims and so on.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Dominion Lands, Parks, etc.-
Dominion lands, seed grain, mining lands and ordnance, admiralty and public lands, salaries and' expenses, etc., $83,800.
Advancement of forest conservation; national inventory of forest resources; investigation of forest conditions and rates of growth, and development of scientific management methods; forest protection studies, technical and economic investigations of forest industries; the operation of field research stations, demonstration forests, and forest products laboratories; cooperative undertakings in forestry and forest products, etc., $241,300.
Grant to Canadian Forestry Association, $1,620.
Investigations of water and power resources and of international waterway problems, the dominion hydrometric survey and' for the administration of the Dominion Water Power and Irrigation Acts, etc., $157,565.
Amount required to meet expenses of Lake of the Woods control board, $7,000.
To provide for the expenses connected with the national parks of Canada, historic sites, care of indigents in the parks, the appointment of stipendiary magistrates in the parks and the payment of their remuneration; also, to promote tourist travel in Canada, $1,041,399.
Administration of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, $31,900.
Cost of litigation and legal expenses, $4,000.
Amount to provide for expenses in connection with determination of location and boundaries of ordnance and' admiralty lands in the province of British Columbia, $3,000.
To provide amounts required for expropriation of areas for right of way on the Savona [DOT]-Port Moody section of the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, also on the Pembina and Stonewall branches of the same road, $1,000.
Amount required to cover the payment of retiring leave to officials other than those on civil government, $7,500.
Salaries of revenue staff, $15,822-Total $1,595,906.
Albert Frederick Totzke: I should like to ask the
minister for some information in connection with the Migratory Birds Convention Act. Some years ago an agreement was entered into with the United States authorities in connection with the sand-hill crane, which formerly existed in large numbers in western Canada and did considerable damage to the grain crops. The information given the settlers in Saskatchewan was to the effect that while these birds were protected in
Supply-Interior

Canada, when they got back to the United States they were slaughtered by thousands. I have no way of knowing whether or not that report was true, but that was common talk in western Canada. I should like to know if the minister has any information in that regard.


Charles Murphy: I have no specific information on this particular phase of the matter, but I may say to my hon. friend that I have met some of the members of the United States biological survey, and they are as keenly interested as we are in this country in protecting the migratory birds. Under the act we are required, as they are, to protect birds which fall within the provisions of the act, and I know that two years ago the federal government of the United States put into effect regulations which drastically curtailed not only the length of the season but also the number of birds that could be killed in the different parts of the country. I do not think I have any information in regard to the sand-hill crane, but it is certain that this is one of the classes of birds protected under the treaty. I can only make the general statement that to the best of my knowledge the United States are endeavouring to the best of their ability to carry out the provisions of the treaty.


Albert Frederick Totzke: When does the treaty expire, or for what length of time does the treaty remain in force?


Charles Murphy: I am informed, Mr. Chairman, that the treaty is for the period of one year and continues from year to year unless one year's notice is given by either party.


Albert Frederick Totzke: Does the minister say the treaty was for one year originally? I understood it was for a period of ten years.


Charles Murphy: The hon. member is correct; in the first instance it was ten years in regard to certain species of birds.


Albert Frederick Totzke: And then the treaty is renewed from year to year. If the treaty is to be renewed in the near future I suggest that the minister try to get some information as to whether the report is true that the birds are being slaughtered wholesale in certain sections of the United States while we in western Canada protect them. At times these birds come into the fields by hundreds and thousands, and it does not take them long to clean up a quarter section of grain. I have walked through a field where you could not find a kernel of grain left, just because of these birds.


Charles Murphy: Is my hon. friend speaking of the sand-hill crane?


Albert Frederick Totzke: Yes.


Peter John Veniot: Is the existing treaty still between Great Britain and the United States or is it between Canada and the United States?


Charles Murphy: The treaty was made in the first instance between the government of Great Britain and the United States.


Peter John Veniot: Then following the ten year period the treaty will be taken up by Canada, I suppose?


Charles Murphy: Yes.


Peter John Veniot: Does the minister know
when the treaty expired? While he is looking up that information may I direct his attention to the fact that one reason for this treaty was to extend protection to mariners. That may seem odd, but still it was one of the reasons because of which this treaty was entered into. It is a well known fact to mariners that the gull often indicates a coming storm or a change in the weather, and for that reason the gull was included under the Migratory Birds Convention Act. The same statement applies to the wild goose, the brant, and so on. If we are protecting a bird under the present treaty because it goes from one country to the other, and it becomes a destructive bird in Canada, I should think if the government would take cognizance of what has been said by my hon. friend from Humboldt and lay the matter before the United States government it could be easily arranged to exclude that destructive bird from the classification of migratory birds. Of course, in making a treaty between Great Britain and the United States they considered the seafaring end of it almost entirely and did not think of this kind of bird as destructive on land. The gull, the brant, the wild goose and the duck are not very destructive, and if the United States could be convinced that the bird referred to is not a sea going bird but is a destructive bird on land, I do not think there would be any trouble. It is not like the similar bird we have in the maritime provinces, which is a sea going bird; this is a land bird, but it comes under the treaty. I think if the matter were properly placed before the government of the United States this bird could be excluded from the operation of this act.

Supply-Interior


Charles Murphy: I wish to amend an answer I gave to the hon. member for Humboldt a few moments ago in connection with the duration of the treaty. The clause dealing with that matter reads as follows:
It-
That is, the treaty-
-shall remain in force for fifteen years, and in the event of neither of the high contracting parties having given notification twelve months before the expiration of said period of fifteen years, of its intention of terminating its operation, the convention shall continue to remain in force for one year and so on from year to year.


Albert Frederick Totzke: The fifteen year period has
expired before this.


Charles Murphy: Yes; the treaty was entered into on August 16, 1916, and is now being
continued from year to year.


Mr. CANTLEY:: On a former occasion
when the estimates of the minister were before the committee I expressed my views in regard to this matter. I agree fully with the statements of the hon. member for Humboldt. I believe the hon. member for Gloucester makes only one mistake when he refers to the land birds and sea going birds, because I understood him to say that in his opinion a large number of the birds which went north from the Northumberland strait and the other waters bordering the province of Nova Scotia and his native province, New Brunswick, returned the same way.


Mr. YENIOT:: No, I did not say that.


Thomas Cantley: I must have been mistaken. The point I wish to make is this: Of, say, 1,000,000 birds which go north over the Atlantic coast or Northumberland strait not ten per cent come back that way. They come back through the prairies when the grain is ripe. They later go down through the United States, and finally reach Mexico. Not ten per cent of them come back the way they went up. They make a circular route, with the result that for years the Americans have enjoyed the advantage of this treaty; there is no doubt about that. Because of the fact that in recent seasons tens of thousands of those birds have been slaughtered, the eastern sportsmen of the United States are now taking steps in every way possible to prevent the people in the central and western parts of the United States from slaughtering the birds. They realize, as we do, that their people are getting ninety per cent of the advantage from the protection of these birds, and that in the
past they have contributed nothing whatevel towards their protection. It is high time that the treaty between the United States and Canada was revised.


Peter John Veniot: Hear, hear.


Thomas Cantley: It should have been
revised years ago. I hope the minister will realize the importance of the matter and see to it that we get a fair deal with our friends to the south which, up to the present date, we have not had.


Charles Murphy: Replying generally to the observations of the hon. member, may I say that the greatest known breeding ground for game birds, notably the wild duck, is in the southern portion of the Canadian prairie provinces. That fact has been established through observations extending over a period of years. While hon. members will realize that no definite or dogmatic statement can be made concerning the routes followed by birds in migration, nevertheless from the system of banding which has been adopted by certain governmental bodies and private individuals, and from a careful study of the banding practice, the flight of the birds can be ascertained with a reasonable degree of accuracy. If any hon. member will take the trouble to consult the charts which have been developed by the officers in charge of that work in the dominion parks branch he will observe that the birds which breed in western Canada follow many lines of travel when going to the south. Some of them go to the Atlantic coast; some go by way of Ontario; a number go directly down the Mississippi from the prairie provinces, and a few of them find their way to the states on the Pacific coast. The statement made by the hon. member (Mr. Cantley) to the effect that most of the birds going north from the Atlantic coast find their way back by way of the prairies is not in accordance with the studies which have been made by departmental officials.


Thomas Cantley: It is in accordance with the facts, which is of more importance.


Charles Murphy: Of course there might be differences of opinion as to what the facts are However, I wish now to deal with the other phase of the question, namely that the treaty does not work fairly so far as the people of Canada are concerned. In other words the suggestion is that the inhabitants of the United States obtain greater benefit than we do from its operations. Let me present the other side of the picture. We will suppose that there was no treaty with our friends to
Supply-Interior

the south in connection with these migratory birds. The United States have a population of about 120,000,000 people, consequently there will be many more sportsmen or hunters in that country than there would be in the Dominion of Canada. From the study I have been able to give to the question, and from my personal knowledge extending over a period of about twenty years, in which I in common with other Canadians have enjoyed the sport of hunting wild fowl, I consider that the regulations which have been brought into being under the terms of the treaty are greatly to our advantage. If there were no treaty or no regulations these birds which to a great extent breed in Canada might be slaughtered indiscriminately by our friends to the south, and with the exception of a general protest we would have nothing to say in the matter. Again, from my personal contact with members of the biological board in the United States, from letters which I have received from members of different game conservation organizations in the United States, and from contact which officials of the department have with those same organizations, I would say that those who are truly interested in the conservation and preservation of the different species of game birds do not all live in the Dominion of Canada. The fact is, I believe, that all true conservationists living on either side of the border are doing their utmost to see that these birds are conserved for both countries.


Mr. HANSON (Skeena):: I notice that there is a vote of $241,300 for the advancement of forest conservation. Could the minister tell the committee where the laboratories and various research stations are located?'


Charles Murphy: One laboratory which
carries on general laboratory work is located in the city of Ottawa; one dealing principally with the pulp and paper industry, is located in the city of Montreal, and one carrying on laboratory studies pertaining to the woods and lumber products of British Columbia is situated in the city of Vancouver.


Peter John Veniot: I was going to suggest that we would do well to finish one item before jumping to another.


Charles Murphy: I agree with the hon. member for Gloucester. When I answered the hon. member for Skeena I was under the impression that we had completed the discussion we had conducted previously. If such is not the case I agree that we should dispose of one item at a time. I would point out to the hon. member, however, that the various

subheadings are all listed under one item, namely item 182. I thought that the discussion on the migratory birds had concluded.


Peter John Veniot: Not quite.


Mr. BOWMAN:: Did I understand the minister to say that certain of these regulations were of particular benefit to Canada? I agree entirely, Mr. Chairman, with what has been said as to the feeling in Canada, particularly western Canada, as to migratory game birds and as to the treaty existing between Canada and the United States. In Manitoba, particularly in the northern part of the province, we have a great breeding ground for millions of ducks. In the last four or five years, dining the dry years which took such a toll of game, the waterfowl which formerly used to breed in the southern part of Saskatchewan have gone to the northern part of the province and to northern Manitoba.
Here is the situation so far as we are concerned. Our hunting season opens in the fall, from September 15 or 20, as a general rule, varying as the local authorities deem advisable, and it extends to about the middle of October, sometimes towards the end of the month, depending how early the freezeup comes. In the part of the province from which I come the canvasback is the main bird that is shot by the hunter.


Peter John Veniot: We have them down home too.


James Langstaff Bowman: Yes. The canvasback
leaves for the south between the sixth and tenth of October, sometimes a little later, but the main flight takes place about that time. The consequence is that we have a hunting season extending from the fifteenth or twentieth of September to the sixth or tenth of October, about three weeks, so far as our main game bird in that part of the province is concerned. As soon as the bird starts south and gets across the line it runs into a hunting season which is two or three or four or five times as long as ours as it proceeds south, while in Manitoba we have a hunting season of only two or three weeks. The same applies to the northern part of Saskatchewan, as my hon. friend from Humboldt will agree. The season in the United States for this same bird is two or three or perhaps four months.
The mallard leaves later in the year after the freeze-up, and that gives us a little longer season. It does seem to me that if there are any advantages at all in this treaty they are not in favour of Canada. In our part of the province we are breeding these birds by the

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million, and they go south to be shot during a hunting season which is two or three or four or five times as long as the season which we enjoy in Canada. The feeling among the hunters in the west is pretty strong that the treaty should be revised a little more in our favour than it operates at the present time.
The same applies to geese. There is very little, practically no shooting of geese in Manitoba. One is very fortunate indeed if he happens to bag a goose during the season, not perhaps in the northern part of Saskatchewan but in the northern part of Manitoba, where there are very few migratory geese, but in the eastern part of Manitoba close to Winnipeg there is a flight of millions north and south annually.
I make these few remarks, Mr. Chairman, because I have no hesitation in saying to the minister that there is a very strong feeling prevalent in the west that this treaty is not as favourable to Canada as it might be, and if there is to be a revision in the near future it is hoped that some of these matters will be borne in mind.


Albert Frederick Totzke: When I started the discussion on this matter it was not with the idea of saying anything in connection with the sportsmen of the United States killing migratory game birds. A sportsman is a sportsman, as a rule, and not a slaughterer. My objection was rather in connection with the rumour which has been current with us in the last few years that it is not the real sportsman in the United States that slaughters these birds but people who are transgressing the common rules of sportsmanship as we understand it in this country. I was told a couple of years ago by a friend of mine who had come back from the southern states that a large flock of sand-hill cranes had dropped into a small slough or lake down there. They had been dropping in there every year always about the same time, and the men around the lake were on the lookout. On this occasion arrangements had been made beforehand to flood the lake at night with light, and when the birds arrived machine guns and shotguns were posted all around the lake and the birds were slaughtered literally by thousands. That is the sort of thing that should be investigated when the treaty is revised.
While I am on my feet I would ask the minister a question which probably may not come under this vote, although it is closely connected with the question of migratory game birds. It is with regard to the grant we have usually made to the Jack Miner bird sanctuary at Kingsville, Ontario. Is there a grant in the estimates for that purpose this year?


Charles Murphy: Mr. Chairman, the statement I know is frequently made that under the Migratory Birds treaty the United States has far more advantages than Canada. The hon. member for Dauphin stated that the length of the season in the United States was, in some instances, from three to four to five times as long as it is in Canada, but as a matter of fact the total length of the season in the United States in 1932 was three and a half months. When a conference was held between the officials of the United States and Canadian governments the officers of the United States wholeheartedly entered into the spirit of conservation and as a result the season in the United States was limited in that year to one month. I would further point out that after the treaty was entered into, no market hunting was allowed in the United States; no sale of slaughtered birds was allowed, and no spring shooting, practices which had prevailed before the passing of the treaty. There is scarcely any doubt in the mind of anyone who has studied this question that were this treaty not in effect there would be no open season and no hunting and no wild migratory game birds in either Canada or the United States.
The hon. member for Humboldt raised the question of the destruction of crops by certain birds. I would point out that under the terms of the treaty, permits are issued to shoot under certain conditions, thus preventing the damage referred to.
The item which my hon. friend asked about, namely the Jack Miner sanctuary, comes under miscellaneous, item 230, page 55.


Mr. STANLEY:: A few weeks ago I spoke of the decrease that was taking place from year to year in the number of waterfowl in Canada. In spite of the treaty and of game regulations the fact is that during recent years the game have been decreasing to the extent of ten per cent per annum. I am advised by men who are closely in touch with the whole situation that probably the greatest single factor in the destruction of these waterfowl is the diminution in suitable water areas and breeding grounds. That is due probably not only to dry seasons but to the increasing cultivation, settlement and ploughing up of ground in the prairies-I am referring to that part of the country more particularly. As settlement extends, the breeding grounds diminish. The fact is that the breeding grounds are not all in Canada-and again I am speaking still of western Canada-but are international; so that when we come to consider the advisability of taking steps to preserve the wildfowl we must consider what can be done to preserve their breeding waters.
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This will have to be on an international basis, and in my opinion the governments of the countries alone cannot do it; it must be done in cooperation with citizens and organizations who are particularly interested in this type of work .
I might also impress this thought upon hon. members, that the breeding grounds cannot maintain themselves; they can be maintained only by proper management, and unless there is an international arrangement between the governments, working in cooperation with voluntary sports organizations, taking over complete management of these breeding grounds, then only one result can be expected and that is the gradual but sure disappearance of our waterfowl.
In a booklet I have here which discusses the management of such breeding grounds, proper management is summarized under the following seven heads, which I think I might well read:
1.	Maintenance of water levels, as directed by engineers.
2.	Providing food and cover by earing for existing growths, introducing new varieties, preventing fires, eliminating grazing.
3.	Preventing trespassing.
4.	Controlling natural enemies where necessary.
5.	Practising sanitation to cheek disease and epidemics.
6.	Observing waterfowl and reporting concerning conditions, food, cover, etc.
7.	Attempting artificial aids in propagation where feasible.
Right here I think perhaps I should refer to the death of thousands upon thousands of waterfowl in western Canada during the past season. In the district not very far from the city in which I live there are breeding grounds where waterfowl died literally by thousands. An investigation is now being made by some officials of the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture to determine what may have been the particular source of the disease. I cannot give any information on that point, but I do wish to emphasize the fact that care must be taken of these breeding grounds, and it must be done with intelligence and systematically. Moreover, it must be controlled by authorities with power to deal with the situation on an international basis.


Clarence Joseph Veniot: No doubt the minister or
some of his officials have received reports of the lack of feeding grounds, in the last two or three years, along the Atlantic coast in the maritimes. It is a known fact that a disease of some kind has attacked the eel grass beds and other feeding grounds in the salt water with the result that thousands of wild geese and brant have died for want of food. I think

I am safe in saying that in several parts of the maritimes, in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick certainly-I am not so sure about Prince Edward Island-private individuals as well as associations interested in bird life have contributed from their own private means to feed these birds, clear of the feeding grounds, inducing them to come almost into civilization in their backyards to be fed rather than to starve, because they cannot live on the feeding grounds, especially in the straits of Northumberland, in the bay of Fundy and in the bay of Chaleur. Has any investigation been made or any report received in this regard? If not, I would now appeal to the minister to have an investigation made and to see that some artificial means are adopted to care for these birds which frequent the salt water shores, so that our bird life may be protected.


Charles Murphy: I am not unacquainted
with the problem which the hon. member for Gloucester has mentioned, because it has been brought to my attention in the last two years.


Peter John Veniot: Especially in the last two
years.


Charles Murphy: Owing to the lack of eel grass, which is the only food of the Canada goose and brant in those areas, vast numbers of these birds have perished along the shores of the Atlantic. I am informed by officials of the department that during these two years investigations have been carried on with a view to determining the cause of the destruction of eel grass, the natural food of water fowl, and it is believed to be due to a species of bacteria; but so far no definite authentic information is available with regard to this particular disease.
The hon. member says that certain private individuals and organizations have contributed from their own means to provide food for some of these birds. That I believe is true, but I would point out that while this may be done with wild geese it is not possible with brant, because it would be impossible to feed them on the land. It has been brought to my attention also by people in other parts of Canada, notably residents of Calgary, that they have maintained some birds in a sanctuary within the confines of that city by providing food for them.


Peter John Veniot: The brant is a bird that feeds especially on fish; the wild goose feeds on eel grass.


Charles Murphy: The hon. gentleman agrees with me. I was saying that requests had been made to the department- from various organ-

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izations in Canada that they be assisted in the purchase of food for migratory birds. But may I say that so far neither the department nor myself has decided that we can adopt that principle. It would be a very .serious step to take and one which I am not at the present time prepared to recommend. But I wish to point out to the hon. member for East Calgary that we are, along with himself and others who are interested in this question, fully aware of the situation in those breeding areas in western Canada where the majority of wildfowl, especially the duck, are brought into being. We have recently made arrangements for the appointment of Mr. J. Dewey Soper, one of the outstanding naturalists in the dominion, as a migratory bird warden whose duty will be in the three western provinces and who will be in a position to give informed opinion to the department as to the steps which should, in his view, be taken for the conservation of those birds.
Mr. MacNI'COL: Is any work being carried on by the department along the line of that being done on the recommendation of the president's committee at Washington for wild life restoration? I might say that that committee recommended something along the lines mentioned by the hon. member for East Calgary. It recommended that the United States spend $25,000,000 on this type of work. Amongst other recommendations were:
Construction of dams and dykes.
Fencing and ditching.
Excavation and blasting.
Food planting and land clearing, etc.
The purchase of 5,000,000 acres of submarginal land suitable for development and management as upland game areas.
I notice that while the subject was under debate at Washington someone there was kind enough to refer to the great work being done by Jack Miner of Kingsville, Ontario. I was going to ask the minister-and he can tell me when he replies-whether any part of this item of $31,900 is used in assisting or supporting the work being done by the Miner Foundation at Kingsville, Ontario.


Clarence Joseph Veniot: There is an item of $2,250.


Mr. MacNICOL:: I know there is a vote under another heading, but it is so small and the work being done by Jack Miner is so great it is costing the Miner Foundation many thousands of dollars a year to carry on the work. Its work is really wonderful, in fact, so great that when the recommendations of the president were before congress, this item appeared in reference to what was said:
President Roosevelt's program for restoration of the wild life of the United States "will coordinate 'well with conservation life in Canada toward which Jack Miner's project has been a fine contribution."
I have visited that place on different occasions and many other members have been there. The work being carried on by the Miner Foundation is really something of which Canada may well be proud. On various occasions there have been as many as 2,000 cars there in a day and thousands and thousands of tourists visit it. On looking at this vote for bird wardens, I was wondering whether an amount was granted for the work carried on at Kingsville. Has anything been done along the lines of the recommendations at Washington in the way of setting apart submarginal land in different parts of Canada for the restoration of wild life? It might be well worth while for the department to look into the matter. I should be glad to hear from the minister whether anything is being done along that line, if so, where, and if any support is being given under this item to the work carried on under the Miner Foundation.


Charles Murphy: The amount voted is devoted principally to the payment of salaries of the administrative officers, the bird wardens in different parts of Canada and the sanctuary caretakers. During the past few years we have established many sanctuaries in Canada through the cooperation of private individuals and the various provincial governments and I am happy to say that in increasing numbers we are receiving requests from different parts of the dominion to establish sanctuaries. The department realizes that this is one of the best methods of conserving wild life in which we are all so much interested.
To give a specific reply to the hon. member who has just spoken, I may say that no portion of this vote is devoted to the purposes mentioned by him along the lines of those being carried on in the United States, with the exception of $750 which is given to Jack Miner in addition to the grant of $2,500 less ten per cent.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Does the Miner Foundation get $750 in addition to the $2,250 which appears under another item?


Charles Murphy: It is paid to Mr. Miner himself as a migratory birds official.


Mr. TAYLOR:: The discussion on this vote had been carried on very much on the Migratory Birds Convention Act. I would like to
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get from the minister some information respecting an ordnance survey in Norfolk county known as the Turkey Point ordnance. How much land is included in that area? How many lots have been surveyed and leased? How many have been surveyed just recently and have any of those been leased? I would also like some information as to the cost of clearing away the underbrush on those that have been surveyed. I understand this was done as unemployment work in a provincial camp. I should like to know from the minister whether it was done under the ordnance vote or the relief grant to the province.


Charles Murphy: I have of course no objection to answering my hon. friend's question, but in deference to the opinion of the committee that we would deal with all these particular items one at a time, I shall defer my answer to him until the discussion on migratory birds is finished. If that is through, I am quite willing to answer my hon. friend's question.


Thomas Cantley: The discussion is not quite finished yet. I listened with a great deal of interest to what the hon. member for Dauphin said and with the great majority of what he said I am in close accord.
With regard to the remarks made by the hon. member for Calgary East about the drying out of the nesting places of geese, ducks and brant, there is no question about that. On the other hand, there is no doubt that the geese, ducks and brant are now going further north to breed than they formerly did. The duck will travel a hundred miles an hour; a thousand miles means only half a day for him. They are simply going further north and finding new places to breed. I do not think any great anxiety need be felt in regard to that phase of the situation.
The minister referred to steps being taken to feed the wild geese. I have appealed to him to contribute something to that, but he is stony-hearted; you cannot get a dollar from him for that purpose, and we have had to depend on private beneficence to save the wild geese in the eastern part of Canada. He suggested that wild geese feed on the land. They do not; we put the grain on the water and the goose takes out of the water, where he takes his natural food. He also referred to the cause of the destruction of eel grass.
I am not at all certain of the cause, but I suggest that due to the earthquake of 1929 a very considerable area of the bottom of the Atlantic off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland was thrown up, so much so that out of eleven transatlantic cables all but one were put out

of action, and it was found that the upheaval of the bottom had extended over more than three hundred miles. Nine cables were destroyed to the extent of about two hundred miles each. The supposition is that that change in the ocean bottom diverted, temporarily at least, the currents coming from the south and brought some kind of bacteria that attacked the eel grass. Whether that was so or not, the fact is that the disappearance of the eel grass synchronized with that earthquake. I am happy to say, from observation made in Pictou county, last fall, that the eel grass is coming back slowly. It will probably be five years before it gets back to where it was prior to 1930, but it is hoped that that will occur.
The minister referred to precautions taken in the United States for the preservation of wildfowl, and I think he said that in some of the states wildfowl were not allowed to be sold. I came up from Cuba by way of Miami a few winters ago, and when we entered the bay there were millions of wildfowl- ducks, brant, geese. And sportsmen-or hunters, not sportsmen-were shooting them with swivel guns and punt guns and disposing of them in all the hotels in the south and also down in Cuba. That is going on still. We are not getting a fair deal as compared with the United States; there is no possible doubt of that. The minister may of course say what he pleases, but I know differently.


Clarence Joseph Veniot: The protection is not the same at all.


Thomas Cantley: Not the same. No such effort is being made there as is being made in this country. The minister made the suggestion that I favoured the total abrogation of the treaty. I do not. I want a new and a fair treaty to serve Canada. Look at the situation in Pictou county, where we are not now allowed any spring shooting. But that is the shooting we want, the shooting we used to have; and it did not result in the destruction of any considerable number of geese. I want to tell the minister that the wild goose is pretty well able to take care of himself, particularly in the spring. It is the kind of hard healthy sport that our people enjoyed for generations, and now we are entirely deprived of it, most unfairly. The fall shooting is of no use to us because millions of geese that we send north never come back to us-we present them to the United States. What I want the minister to do is not to abrogate the treaty, but to make a new treaty that is fair to Canada.

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Mr. STITT (Nelson):: I have listened with a great deal of interest to the debate on the Migratory Birds Convention Act. I do not think it necessary to remind the house that I have in my constituency possibly the largest breeding ground for wildfowl in North America. We count our ducks and geese not in tens of thousands but in hundreds of thousands. I have been a migratory birds officer in that district more than ten years, and still have that honour-without pay. As a matter of fact it costs me a lot of money, because I spend a lot of money shooting hawks and crows every year, trying to protect the birds.
In regard to spring shooting, my own humble opinion is-and I speak as a practical man I think-that if this Migratory Birds Convention Act did not accomplish anything else it certainly stopped spring shooting and thereby resulted in great increase in the number of birds in our district. There is one point I would like to bring up, however, and that is that in my district, where the ducks are very numerous, I have noticed by study year after year that the crows kill about a hundred ducks for every one killed by sportsmen or guns. In the big breeding ground north of lake Winnipeg, in the willows along the river the crows hang out in thousands, and in going around the sloughs and the breeding grounds, which I visit nearly every fall, I was struck by the number of nests that had been robbed and the eggshells by the thousands scattered about. They take not only the eggs but the young birds until they are able to fly. I understand that in certain parts of the province a bounty is paid on crows, but of course that does not extend into the unorganized territory. I want to make a suggestion to the minister for what it is worth. Not all the birds breed in this great breeding area, because many millions go away up in the arctic, especially the geese. We have two or three Indian reserves there, and I wondered if the minister could see his way to provide some slight bonus to the Indians for killing crows. It would furnish useful employment for them in the summer when they have nothing else to do, and it certainly would increase the number of ducks more than any other measure that I know of. What the gunners kill in that country does not amount to anything, because the ducks and geese are there in millions, but if you could eliminate the crow menace it would do a great deal for the ducks especially. The goose can pretty well take care of himself; he is a fighter. But with ducks, the moment a crow swoops down they just beat it off the nest and swim away over the water
with a wing sticking out as though it were broken to try to divert attention. I hope the minister will give this matter some consideration, and I trust that something will come of it. It is the best suggestion I can make, and I have made a very careful study of the whole situation.


James Langstaff Bowman: Did I understand the
minister to say that in 1932 the open game season in the United States for waterfowl was one month?


Charles Murphy: Yes.


James Langstaff Bowman: For the whole of the
United States?


Charles Murphy: Yes.


James Langstaff Bowman: From the north to the
south?


Charles Murphy: The dates may have varied, but in any one zone the open season was for a period of one month.


James Langstaff Bowman: Well, that is the point.
Starting in the northern part of the states perhaps the open season begins on the first of October, say in North Dakota; then go down to the next state and perhaps it starts the first of November, or the fifteenth, and you keep on going south until you get to Louisiana and you have what I said, three or four or five or six times the open season that we have in Canada.


Thomas Cantley: Down in Florida.


James Langstaff Bowman: Yes, all the way down.
And as the hon. member for East Calgary (Mr. Stanley) says, many, many times the number to do the shooting. Our season in western Canada, according to the game law, is from the fifteenth of September to the first of December. It appears to be two and a half months, but as a matter of fact we have only three weeks shooting for the main bird which inhabits that part of the country. You have a little later shooting for the mallard, but the average date of freeze-up in Manitoba is November 7. As I say, it is quite clear that the advantage is all with the sportsman in the south.
The hon. member for Pictou mentioned a condition which he observed some short time ago. Two or three months ago I received a circular from some sporting organization in the United States drawing attention to a practice which is followed there of having private preserves where barley is scattered on the water. The ducks are brought there and fed for perhaps a week or ten days prior to the opening of the season, and when the season
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opens it becomes nothing but a slaughter. We do not know just how much of this is true, but some of it must be true. We do know that the season is much longer in the United States and we do know that the great breeding grounds for these birds are in the northern part of Canada and up into the Arctic circle. I am simply trying to direct the attention of the minister to these facts so that when this treaty does come up for renewal we may be able to get more favourable treatment than we have had in the past.


Peter John Veniot: For the sake of information I should like to ask the minister how the Migratory Birds Convention Act is administered in New Brunswick, whether it is under the mounted police or under the officials of the department, as it was before the mounted police were established in New Brunswick.


Charles Murphy: The police work is carried on by the mounted police.


Mr. McINTQSH:: The minister mentioned the establishment of bird sanctuaries. Would he explain the steps necessary in the establishment of these sanctuaries, the cost, the distribution of the sanctuaries and the progress that has been made in western Canada?


Charles Murphy: If the lands are privately owned the department would act upon the application of the owner. If they were crown lands the department would act upon the application of the province. In practically every application for the establishment of a sanctuary we refer the matter to the province concerned and invariably, at least since I have been minister, they have agreed. With regard to the cost of establishing a sanctuary, there is no cost entailed except that a caretaker is sometimes appointed to see that the rights of the sanctuary are preserved. I cannot give my hon. friend any figures as to the progress that has been made or as to the number of sanctuaries that have been brought into being, but they do amount to a very considerable number. As a matter of fact I think I am correct in saying there are sanctuaries in practically all the provinces, with the possible exception of Prince Edward Island.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: Has the minister any
statement to make with regard to the establishment of any of these sanctuaries in the northern part of Saskatchewan since the resources were taken over by the province in August of 1930?


Charles Murphy: All the sanctuaries that
were established prior to the transfer of the resources were transferred with the other lands, and I understand that the province undertook to maintain those already established.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: The minister has nothing definite with regard to new sanctuaries that have been established?


Charles Murphy: I would be able to get
the list and give it to my hon. friend; I do not have it with me to-night.


Cameron Ross McIntosh: I wish the minister
would let me have that list, because I have in mind one or two very important locations suitable for sanctuaries, and I doubt whether any action has been taken. Prior to 1930 I did some work in connection with the establishment of a bird sanctuary about sixty miles north of North Battleford on Birch lake, and I do not think anything has been done since that time. The location is splendid, and something should have been done about it. before this.


William Horace Taylor: If the discussion with regard to birds is finished I should like to secure some information with regard to the ordnance reserve at Turkey Point in Norfolk county.


Charles Murphy: During the past winter certain work was carried on at Turkey Point, which is ordnance land; the government of Ontario requested permission, shall I say, from the dominion government to carry on certain relief work in that area, and the necessary permission having been granted a number of men were given work there. We sent a surveyor to lay out the streets and lanes on which the work was to be done, and I am told that a good deal of work was carried out under that scheme. These lots have been made available for building sites, and I believe some applications have been made for these lots as a result of the work done under the relief scheme.


William Horace Taylor: I should like to ask the minister what has been the usual practice with regard to leasing lots in this survey.


Charles Murphy: The rental value of
ordnance and other lands controlled by the department has been based on six per cent of the valuation of the property; that is our usual custom.


William Horace Taylor: And what has been the usual rent for lots in this survey?

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Charles Murphy: I am sorry I cannot give my hon. friend that information.


William Horace Taylor: I should like to ask the minister if rental has been based on the frontage of the lots in this subdivision.


Charles Murphy: I do not think I can improve upon the answer I gave a moment ago. An officer of the department makes an inspection of the various properties and gives his valuation. We establish the rent on the basis of six per cent of that valuation.


William Horace Taylor: I have information from the department that on a fifty foot lot the rental is $10 per acre, plus 20 cents for each additional foot frontage. I should like to ask the minister if it has been the practice to give equal treatment to all lessees of these lots or whether there has been any discrimination in the rentals. I am speaking particularly of the lots facing what is known as Ordnance avenue.


Charles Murphy: I am afraid I cannot give the detailed information requested by the hon. member; I can only give the general practice followed by the department. To the best of my knowledge no discrimination is practised in the rental of ordnance or other properties administered by the department. I can but repeat what I said a moment ago, namely that these lands are all valued by an officer of the department, and on that valuation rental is based at the rate of six per cent.


William Horace Taylor: I thank the minister for that information, and should like to congratulate the department upon opening this new subdivision. Almost every lot has been taken along the lake front, and I am satisfied that the subdivision will be occupied very soon by people summering in that locality. I would ask the minister to consider very seriously that all be given the same privilege, and that preference be given to those who have had their applications in for some time.
Mr. MURPHY': I shall be very happy to make due note of the hon. member's representations.


Olof Hanson: A little while ago I asked for information about the advancement of forest conservation. The minister was kind enough to tell me that laboratories were established at Ottawa, Montreal and Vancouver. Are those all the laboratories we have in Canada?


Charles Murphy: Those are the only laboratories which carry on forestry investigational laboratory work. There are many other
laboratories which carry on different operations, some in the Department of Agriculture and others in the Department of Mines. Then, of course, there is the national research council located here in Ottawa which carries on investigations into practically every phase of industrial activity, with the exception of the special work done by the laboratories I have mentioned.


Olof Hanson: Do research stations come under the same heading?


Charles Murphy: When we refer to research stations we have in mind research work carried on in the field in various areas. For instance, there is one at the Petawawa military reserve, one at Valcartier in Quebec and another one in New Brunswick in which investigatory work in the field is carried on in connection with the woods indigenous to that section of Canada. There is one in the Duck mountain area of Manitoba in which experimental work is carried on for the woods indigenous to the three prairie provinces, and we are endeavouring to establish one in British Columbia. That has not been brought into being, although we have officers who carry on these works on both privately and provincially owned lands.


Olof Hanson: How many men are connected with the research work in British Columbia, and how many are field men? I presume they are cooperating with the provincial forestry department?


Charles Murphy: Yes, they are. The personnel in the forestry laboratory in British Columbia consists of twelve officials, namely,
R.	M. Brown, R. S. Perry, E. Parr, Miss M. M. Harris, J. H. Jenkins, H. W. Eades, F. W. Guernsey, J. B. Alexander, J. T. Lee, D.
S.	Wright, W. W. Davidson, R. J. Eades. In addition toi these people we have a mechanical staff. In that staff are H. Chapman and A. White.


Olof Hanson: What steps have to be taken to have a research station established? Does the application have to go to the provincial forestry department or to the federal department?


Charles Murphy: If a research station is to be established under our administration the application should be sent to Ottawa. As I said a moment ago, in cooperation with the province of British Columbia we are endeavouring to establish one of these research stations, but to date we have not secured a suitable area.
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Mr. LUCHKOVICH:: I notice an item of $1,041,399 for parks. How much of this money is allocated to such parks as Jasper and Banff in Alberta, and how much is allocated to the smaller parks in that province? Personally I am of the opinion that less and less people are finding themselves able to visit the large parks I have named, but they are in a position to visit the smaller parks in their immediate neighbourhoods. Further, I should like to know what projects, if any, have been authorized in those smaller parks.


Charles Murphy: The allocations by parks for the year 1934-35 are as follows:
Banff park	$246,500
Buffalo park	 57,053
Elk Island park	 19,000
Fort Anne park	 2,962
Georgian Bay island parks..	..	5,261
Glacier park	 7,470
Jasper park	 156,200
Kootenay park	 61,800
Mount Revelstoke park	 10,000
Nemiskam park	 1,841
Point l'elee park	 8,150
Prince Albert park	 48,500
Riding Mountain park	 62,500
St. Lawrence island parks	 3,125
Wawaskesy park	 280
Waterton lakes park	 57.700
Yoho park	 68,000


Michael Luchkovich: What projects has
the department at the present time in connection with those smaller parks? Let us take Elk island park, for instance.


Charles Murphy: Elk Island park is not considered a recreational park. In the first instance it was established as an animal park, and while in these later years an increasing number of people are using it as a recreational area the parks department have not carried on recreational development to the extent that that work has been carried on in parks such as Banff, Jasper, Waterton Lakes, Prince Albert and Riding Mountain, although various facilities have been provided for people who use the park as a recreational area. There are facilities for boating and swimming, picnic grounds and things of that nature. But speaking generally we have not carried on recreational developments within the boundaries of that park.


Michael Luchkovich: I understand that
some of the smaller parks are having a little trouble with their beaches and their water. The trouble, I understand, is that the water is infested with beetles and other insects. Does the government do anything to clear these lakes of insects?


Charles Murphy: Can the hon. gentleman
name any particular park so that I can give him a specific answer?


Michael Luchkovich: The water at Elk
island beach is not fit for bathing, I understand, although a doctor in the community has told me that it is just as fit as in any of the larger parks in Alberta. I was wondering what the situation was and whether the government did anything to clear these waters of insects.


Charles Murphy: No complaints have been
made to the department in regard to that particular park, and no efforts consequently have been made in that direction. I can state, however, that the bathing facilities in Elk island park are used to a very great extent. In fact, bathing is one of the principal forms of enjoyment at that park. To the best of my knowledge no complaints have reached the department.


Thomas Reid: Has the minister particulars
regarding the seed extracting plant at the port of New Westminster? I am interested in knowing the amount of seed that it extracted, the countries to which the seed is sent, the revenue derived, and the amount of seed used in British Columbia and Canada.


Charles Murphy: The total seed collected
at the end of 1932 amounted to 44,817 pounds, of which the British Forestry Commission received 26,374 pounds; New Zealand 17,183; Australia 677; Irish Free State 52 and northern Ireland 61 pounds. A very small surplus above the requirements of the empire authorities was disposed of to dealers in Canada, Spain, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, and other countries, but these latter amounts have only been about one per cent of the total. With regard to the cost of the operations, it is all done on a prepayment basis. The various governments concerned furnish Canada in advance with the amount of money required and we expend it in the extraction of the seed.


Thomas Reid: It would seem then that the
whole product goes to other countries and that very little is used in Canada, so that we are really running the seed extracting plant for the countries of the empire. The total given by the minister was 44,817 pounds extracted for 1932. Has the minister the revenue and expenditure at the plant, showing what it has cost the country?


Charles Murphy: As I stated it is done on a prepayment basis which covers the total expenditure. It is not costing Canada anything in dollars and cents.

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Thomas Reid: I see an item of S3,000 to
provide for expenses in connection with the determination of the location and boundaries of ordnance and admiralty lands in British Columbia. Where are these lands located?


Charles Murphy: Section 8 of the agreement of the 20th February, 1930, between the dominion and the province of British Columbia on the transfer of the railway belt and Peace River block, provides for the appointment of two persons, one by the governor general in council and one by the lieutenant governor in council, to determine the location and boundaries of the several parcels of ordnance and admiralty lands within and without the railway belt. This vote is to provide for the necessary expenses of the dominion in connection with the survey of these lands.


Thomas Reid: Who were the two persons appointed?


Charles Murphy: The appointments have not been made.


Thomas Reid: Would the minister give details of the item of $1,000 for the Port Moody section of the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, also on the Pembina and Stonewall branches of the same road?


Charles Murphy: In connection with those portions of the Canadian Pacific railway which were constructed by the dominion government and turned over to the railway company, it is provided in the contract between the dominion and the company that, where necessary, the dominion government will acquire the right of way. Before this department had advice as to what lands were affected by the right of way, patents for some of the areas were issued which contained no reservation of the lands required for the railway. The unsettled cases are not numerous and the areas are small, but in addition to purchasing the land, funds must be provided for legal work connected with the transfer of title. The Department of Justice has advised that it is the duty of the dominion government to procure title for the railway in all these cases.


Michael Luchkovich: Are the relief camps situated in the national parks in Jasper and Banff only, or are they also in the smaller parks?


Charles Murphy: Relief camps have been established in Elk island park, at Jasper, Banff, the Big Bend highway, Waterton lakes, Prince Albert, and Riding Mountain park.


Charles Murphy: The number of men in the relief camps as of April 14, 1934, was 2,054, but at the peak of the season it was in the neighbourhood of 3,800.


Abraham Albert Heaps: How are these men employed?


Charles Murphy: They are employed on a sustenance basis; they are given their food and shelter and a sufficient amount of clothing to enable them to live in comfort and carry on their work. They are also given an allowance of twenty cents per day for the purpose of providing themselves with toilet articles such as toothbrushes, towels and soap, also tobacco.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Would it not be a good idea to have the committee of this house which is investigating low wages have referred to them the wages paid to these men in the camps?


Charles Murphy: These men are not paid wages; they are carried purely on a sustenance basis. They are given their food and the necessary clothing and fuel and shelter, and, as I have already explained, receive twenty cents a day, which is not given as a wage at all, but is given so that they can provide themselves with articles which otherwise would be given out on an issuance basis. May I repeat that wages are not paid to these men, nor has it ever been considered that they were employed on a wage basis.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Are they not performing some service for the government?


Charles Murphy: If the hon. member means, are they required to perform work in return for their sustenance, the answer is yes.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Are not the men in these camps working eight hours a day?


Charles Murphy: On days when it is suitable for the men to work they work eight hours a day.


Abraham Albert Heaps: And on days when the
weather is bad do they receive the twenty cents a day?


Charles Murphy: If the men do not work
owing to inclement weather they receive the usual sustenance and twenty cents a day.


Mr. GERSHAW:: I know that the minister is anxious to preserve the beauty of the national parks and not have them destroyed for commercial purposes. I understand, however, that some of the glass plants import silica sand and material of that kind from long distances, and this particular sand is found in the parks. What is the policy of the government in this regard? Could any arrangement be made to have that material taken from the parks, or would that be contrary to policy?


Abraham Albert Heaps: How many of the unemployed are employed at these relief camps?
74726-153	revised edition
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Charles Murphy: The policy of the government is determined by the National Parks Act, which expressly prohibits the carrying on of any commercial enterprise within the boundaries of any national park, and permission to remove sand or to carry on any industrial activity in any of the parks could not be granted unless the act itself were changed.


Albert Frederick Totzke: I notice in the item with
reference to national parks a decrease of $71,000. How was this saving effected? What work is projected in the Prince Albert national park for the coming summer, and to what extent have the works which were undertaken when the park was established been completed up to the present time?


Charles Murphy: The reduction is explained by the fact that we are spending less money in practically every one of our parks than we were last year. I do not think it would serve any useful purpose for me to weary the committee reading all the various items, but the savings have been effected by economies in expenditure under the different items.


Albert Frederick Totzke: Is that a reduction in the projects themselves?


Charles Murphy: In some instances there
are fewer employees and in others there is not as much work being done. In regard to the Prince Albert park, in which the hon. member is particularly interested, under the heading of development the following items appear: On streets and sidewalks, $500; roads and bridges, $5,500; camp grounds, gateways and information bureaus, $2,952.15; stables, $2,522; garages, $1,620; warehouses, $655.20; sports facilities, $2,600.


Albert Frederick Totzke: Is there any detailed information with regard to sports facilities?


Charles Murphy: Under the heading of
sports facilities the details are: Completion of the playground, $500; completion of two tennis courts, $100; completion of nine hole golf course, $2,000.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Interior-
Salaries, $510,732; contingencies, $20,000.
Peter John Veniot: The government having
declared their policy on the cut in salaries, will this item stand as it is now or will provision be made in a bill?


Mr. RHODES:: The bill is already before the house.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

To provide for expenses connected with the administration of Indian affairs, including salaries, supplies, relief, medical attendance, hospitalization, dwellings, agricultural activities, surveys, roads, bridges, irrigation, dyking, education, etc., and a grant of $100,000 approved by parliament in session of 1926-27, $3,939,500.
Mr. SMOKE.: I do not often take up the time of the house discussing matters that come before it, but I have on two or three occasions in the past dealt in a very casual way with the situation that exists on the Six Nations reserve in Ontario. In order to introduce the subject I may have to go into what, so far as this continent at any rate is concerned, is ancient history. The antiquarian is an anomaly in Canada; people are not interested. At the risk of being considered a bore I desire to recall some of our earlier history. Some of it may be tradition, but not all. There are some records which are indisputable.
I am not as young as I used to be, I remember well an incident which occurred during the Fenian raid in 1866. There are probably few in the house who can recall that raid; with the exception of our dear old friend the senior member for Halifax (Mr. Black), whose absence from this chamber during the session we all regret, and our beloved friend the hon. member for Mount Royal (Mr. White), I doubt whether there is another hon. member whose memory will serve to recall any of the incidents of the raid. My memory of it, while fragmentary, is distinct so far as it goes. I .remember my father and mother returning from town one day in their democrat wagon and telling us on their arrival home that the Fenians were over. I could take hon. members to within twenty feet of the very spot where I stood at the time. In saying that my youthfulness has gone, I am reminded of a saying which few in the house will remember but which I think was attributed to the late Sir John A Macdonald by either the Toronto Globe or our old friend the late J. W. Bengough. When Sir John made the remark that his youthfulness was gone, I believe that paper put it that his "usefulness" was gone. That may be so in my case.
I like, however, to reflect on those early days. My early reading of British and Canadian history brings back to my mind the pride which we felt in our treatment of the Indians as compared with that which they received in the United States. But let us reflect and see whether that pride can be justified and whether we have done all we could or should have done in justice to the Indians. I hope the Minister of the Interior,

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who is Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, will take up with the Prime Minister and the other members of the council the matter to which I am going to refer. I trust, if he does not, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Public Works, who are both at present in their seats, will prod him along and see that he does it, because it is a very serious matter so far as our Canadian Indians are concerned.
Before 1492, when Columbus discovered America, the Indians were in sole possession of the continent. Whether the actual fact of possession meant ownership or not, Europe had no claim to ownership by what it was pleased to call the right of discovery, since the Indians were in possession, The European, however, claimed and used force to secure their claim, and, on the threat of force, not at all times by any means confined to threats, the Indians were induced to relinquish parts of America, their ancestral possessions, to Europe. In my office at home I have a photostatic copy of what purports to be a copy of an old deed, dated 1702 or thereabouts, some time during the first decade of the century, in the reign of Queen Anne. I am sorry I have not the document here to read, but I should be glad to furnish a copy of it to anyone who is sufficiently interested. It purports to be a deed from the Six Nations, or Iroquois, to Queen Anne, of a tract of land about 400 miles wide, and 600 or 800 miles long, which included, as far as I could make out the deed, the whole of the Niagara peninsula in Ontario and, in fact, all of old Ontario south of Georgian bay and most of what is now the state of Michigan. I do not recall what consideration is mentioned in the deed, but my recollection, so far as it goes, is that it was a pure gift to Queen Anne at that time because of the protection which she had given to the Six Nations Indians. This document appears to be the first link in the chain of title to that portion of our country.
During the revolutionary war in the United States, the Six Nations were allies of the British crown and fought side by side with the British armies against the armies of Washington, and, after the treaty of peace the Indians, like the Loyalists of British descent in New York state, lost their lands which were confiscated by the United States government. As compensation for such loss and in gratitude to the Indians for their great assistance in the revolutionary war, Governor Haldimand, acting on behalf of the British government, granted to the Six Nations a tract of land six miles wide on either side of the Grand river from its mouth to its source. This stretch of land twelve miles wide extended from lake 74726-1531
Erie nearly up to Georgian bay in what is now the county of Grey. The Indians accordingly migrated from New York state to that portion of Canada. I have no record of the numbers of Indians who took part in this migration. Their descendants number now, however, probably 5,000 souls and are confined to the township of Tuscarora in the county of Brant and the township of Oneida in the county of Haldimand. It might be asked: why are they confined to this small extent of territory? The answer is not difficult to give. The house should be reminded that the Six Nations Indians were the most civilized, according to our way of using that term, of all the bands of Indians on the American continent with, perhaps, the exception of Mexico, and they had taken to agriculture to some extent. Upon migrating to Canada this band of Indians took up agriculture to a much greater extent than they had done before. They had, while in New York state, been engaged very considerably in agriculture but had derived their living to a considerable extent through the chase and fishing. When they came to Canada they engaged in agriculture to a greater extent than before, and as the years went by were becoming less dependent on the practice of the chase and fishing.
This development among the Six Nations meant that they could not effectively and usefully occupy in agricultural pursuits all of the land in Canada granted to them by what is called the Haldimand treaty and they therefore negotiated from time to time sales of extensive tracts of their newly acquired territory. As patents, however, had never been given for the twelve mile stretch of land, the only way by which purchasers could be sure of the freehold of such land was by the Indians surrendering those tracts to the crown and requesting the crown to give patents to the purchasers. This was done. The purchase money was paid, not to the Indians but to the government then carrying on in Canada, and in the early days a very large sum of money was paid to the government as consideration for the respective blocks of land sold from time to time by the Indians, amounting in the aggregate, I have been told, to something in the neighbourhood of $1,000,000. Those moneys, which were paid to the government because the Indians were looked upon as wards of the government and not able to look after their own financial affairs, were to be invested and the interest received therefrom paid to the Indians to be applied to their maintenance from time to time.
Unfortunately, however, there were in those days, as there are to-day, promoters, and one
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[Stage Direction]
of the cleverest-and I am not saying that in a disparaging way-was a Mr. William Hamilton Merritt who conceived the idea of building a canal around the falls of Niagara-it developed later into what is known as the Welland canal-connecting the waters of lakes Erie and Ontario so that boats could pass to and fro. Mr. Merritt got a charter to build this canal. As a feeder for the canal, instead of taking the water directly from lake Erie, Mr. Merritt conceived the idea of tapping the waters of the Grand river some miles above its mouth so as to get sufficient waterfall to feed the canal, and he got a charter in the name of the Grand River Navigation Company. The building of the works of that company involved the acquisition of Indian rights from a point on the Grand river extending easterly to the eastern limit of their lands as given to them by the Haldimand treaty, and certain of the lands were taken, but without any compensation being paid therefor. Not satisfied with taking their lands without compensation, and money being very hard to get in those days, the happy idea struck Mr. Merritt of getting hold of some of the Indian moneys lying on deposit with the government as a result of the sales to which I have referred. The Hon. John Dunn was then receiver general of Canada, and it is said he was, if not president, one of the large shareholders in both the Welland canal and the Grand River Navigation Company. Therefore it became very convenient for Mr. Merritt to have a friend at court. Consequently a large sum of money was paid out of the funds of the Indians to the Grand River Navigation Company, and in lieu thereof the Indians were given stock in that company, a company which was never a financial success and out of which not one dollar was ever paid back to the shareholders. When I say this is a breach of trust I am sure my statement will not be disputed by any member of the committee, and I am sure it will not be by the finance minister, who is a good lawyer. I have not been able to look up the records to see when the kind of investments now required of trustees were defined by statute. It has been suggested that no such statute existed at the time these moneys were so applied. Whether that is so I know not, but even if not, the very fact that a subsequent legislature enacted laws restricting the character of investments that may be made of trust funds goes to show that what may have been considered proper investments a hundred years ago were really not proper investments; and even if in strict law there is no responsiblity upon the gov-[ Mr. Smoke.]
ernment, the rules of equity should override such strict construction, more particularly when, as I have said, the Indians were wards of the government and recognized as not being competent to manage their own affairs.
In order that we may have on record the figures in actual dollars of the loss to the Six Nation Indians by reason of the payment of this money out of the Indian funds, I give the following statement. While it may not be strictly accurate it is at least approximately correct. The transactions occurred when the currency of Canada was pounds, shillings and pence, but I give the corresponding figures in dollars:
Cash paid on stock in Grand River Navigation Company out of funds of Indians, $160,000.
Value in 1932 of 368.7 acres of land granted to the company without consideration at $40 per acre, $14,748.	.
Value of other lands granted' company in 1832 without consideration, 182.1 acres at $10 per acre, $1,821.
Lands permanently flooded by works of Welland canal amounting in 1837 to 1,826.8 acres at $20 per acre, $36,536.
Interest on these various sums at 4 per cent per annum, not compounded, $833,252.20-Total, $1,046,357.20.
The Six Nations are sometimes said to be a difficult people. I may be accused of being one who is seeking to make them more discontented. Surely the present Minister of the Interior, who as such is Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, and who, as I know, has devoted a great deal of his time to a careful study of this feature of Indian history and has familiarized himself with it, will not accuse me of seeking to stir up dissatisfaction. I know too that the Prime Minister, whose wide reading may possibly not have extended to this special part of the history of the Six Nations, will give this matter some consideration and do what can be done now to remedy a very great wrong. If this shall be the last appeal I shall ever make in this house, let it be said at least to my credit that my last words were an effort to redress a grievous moral wrong done to the Indians who were too weak to protect themselves.
The answer has frequently been given to me and to the Six Nations Indians that they have been recompensed for this money taken from them by the public works that have been done on their reserve. The government have been very kind; they built a splendid hospital, they built a school, they built roads; but that was done for other Indians also, and the Six Nations band should not be charged with this as against the money that has been misappropriated. Appeal after appeal has been made to successive governments in this

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matter, but in vain. It is, however, never too late, and I trust this parliament will settle the question once and for all. Justice demands it, and until justice is done an injustice remains unremedied. A wrong is a wrong until righted. The longer it takes to right the wrong, the greater the wrong.
The plea has been made-I have heard it made-that the present government of Canada is not responsible for what was done by a government which existed before the days of what is called responsible government. I cannot agree with that plea. Whether the government that did the wrong was what is known as a responsible government or not, it was the actual government of the day, government de jure and de facto, and the present government cannot and will not hide itself behind any such plea. Or shall we say that the administration of real justice is a lost art? Previous governments have turned a deaf ear to the pleas of the Six Nations to correct this wrong. Let us return to the practice of our ancestors, now almost obsolete, of insisting on the righting of grievances before granting supply. I appeal to the government to go to the limit in undoing the wrong done to the Six Nations over one hundred years ago, and reestablish in the minds of our Indian wards the belief that justice is still the keystone of our national life.
Clarence Joseph Veniot: I would like the minister
to explain what constitutes an Indian reserve and entitles the inhabitants to elect a chief. The reason I ask is that there is a reservation in the county of Gloucester, known, I think as the Gloucester county reservation, or by some other local name. The one who is recognized as chief of that reservation has had me write to the department several times claiming that he is the lawfully elected chief, and word comes back that that reservation is not entitled to a chief. I would like to know what the regulations are.


Charles Murphy: I feel certain that I
express the sentiments of the committee in saying that the hon. member for Brant (Mr. Smoke) has done himself great credit in putting before the committee the facts regarding the Six Nations Indians and their funds which were utilized over one hundred years ago in promoting the fortunes of the Grand River Navigation Company. I am not in a position to-night to enter into any argument, even if I considered myself competent to do so, upon this question which has now been agitating the minds of the Indians for over one hundred years. It will be noted that these moneys were, shall we
say, taken from the Indians, or to put it in another way the funds of the Indians were used by a government which was not a federal government. These moneys were invested, if my memory serves me correctly, by trustees who had been appointed by consent of the Indians for the administration of the fund. They, very unwisely as it now turns out, invested the funds in the Grand River Navigation Company, with the result that on the failure of the company the moneys were completely lost. Since then the Indians from time to time, both by representations made by themselves and through briefs put forward by legal gentlemen, have endeavoured to obtain the return of the funds which were so invested by the trustees in years gone by. They first made their appeal to the imperial authorities, as it was considered that the representative of the crown in the dominion had under his own particular control the welfare of the Indians. The imperial authorities did not see fit to recognize the claim, and then the dominion government were asked to reimburse the Indians for the moneys lost. The question was submitted to the Department of Justice, and in an opinion handed down by the then deputy Minister of Justice, Mr. Newcombe, he gave it as his opinion that the dominion government was not liable for these funds.
The hon. member for Brant, who has just spoken, has appealed to this parliament and said that in equity, if not in law, since these Indians are considered wards of the country the dominion government should reimburse them for the funds which were lost through the bad judgment, shall we say, of the trustees and those administering the province of Upper Canada in those days. This is a question, Mr. Chairman, which has given me a very great deal of thought. I am charged with the administration of the Department of Indian Affairs; these Indians are considered by practically everyone in Canada to be wards of the government, and we are the trustees of their estate and their funds. I think any man who has occupied the position of Superintendent General of Indian Affairs must be seized with his responsibility under those conditions. It is true, as the hon. member for Brant has stated, that on receiving the opinion from Mr. Newcombe to which I have just referred the department endeavoured, by way of works carried on in the reserve of the Six Nations and by the construction of the Lady Willingdon hospital, to liquidate the debt, if I may call it that. The hon. member for Brant to-night claims, as the Six Nations themselves claim, that this did not constitute a quid pro quo, that we carried
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on similar works in other Indian reserves in Canada for the benefit of the Indians, and that they still want the return of their money. But may I say that the construction of this hospital and these other works were carried on for that express purpose. I would point out also that in some cases, and notably the Blackfoot reserve in southern Alberta, the reserve is practically self supporting. They carry on their own affairs and their expenses are paid from the funds of the band. In general I may say that this is the policy of the department; we endeavour to lead them in the direction of becoming self supporting.
I do not intend to extend my remarks in regard to this question at this time, Mr. Chairman, but I am very grateful to the hon. member for Brant for having placed the matter so clearly before the committee. I wish to assure him that so far as I am concerned, within the limits imposed upon me I shall endeavour to see that justice is done.


William Richard Motherwell: Does this vote
cover capital expenditure for buildings?


Charles Murphy: Yes, it covers all expenditures.


William Richard Motherwell: I was wondering
what were the chances this year of rebuilding the Indian school at Le Bret, which was burned some time ago. I believe there is some likelihood of a building program being initiated in the near future, and I do not know any better way to spend some of that money than in the construction of this school that is badly needed at that point. Le Bret is on the boundary between Melville and Qu'Appelle ridings, and my hon. friend knows the urgency of this matter. This was one of the early industrial schools; it was established away back in territorial days, and Le Bret is a very old and important settlement as well.
My hon. friend will not mind if I mention the none too good sanitary conditions that prevailed in the temporary quarters that were provided last year, though since that time substantial improvement has been made in the temporary quarters, for which I wish to express my appreciation. Even with these improved conditions, however, the minister knows quite well that the housing situation is not at all satisfactory. There is no doubt that this school will be rebuilt some time soon, and this coming summer would seem to be the appropriate time, if I might presume to make the suggestion. This is in a very public location; a railway runs right past the door, and this is one of the beauty spots of the Qu'Appelle valley. In addition to these

reasons we must consider the interests of the Indians, who are wards of the government and for whom the government as the guardian should provide proper quarters. It is true that the men were provided with excellent even palatial, quarters right at the outset after the fire in a seminary across the lake. The men always seem to be provided for first, among Indians as well as among white people. Everything was lovely so far as the men were concerned, but the girls were jammed like sardines into a frame building that was used formerly as a town hall.
I was a member of a government for many years and I know there is always the limitation of money. You cannot spend what you do not get, and these arei desperately trying times, but really I do not think those conditions, even with the improvement made last fall, should continue much longer, for the sake of the reputation of Canada. Since these Indians are the worthy wards of the country, as their host and guardian we should recognize the trust that has been imposed upon us and carry it out to the fullest extent possible consistent with the finances of the country. There does appear to be a little bit of improvement in our finances and outlook; I am willing to concede that and to express congratulations to all because of it. Times are a little better and they are going to improve even more I hope; the worst would seem to be- over. Undoubtedly the process of recovery will be slow, but these are interesting human beings placed in our care, and surely the government has a very strong obligation to take care of these wards and particularly the female members when the males are already so well looked after. The minister can only spend what he gets, I know, but I was wondering if a nice little nibble out of this large vote might be devoted to the worthy purpose to which I have referred.


Charles Murphy: A few moments ago the hon. member for Gloucester asked a question in regard to the system of electing chiefs on a certain reservation in the province of New Brunswick. I am unable to give a specific answer to his question at the present time, but I may say that chiefs are selected by two different systems. The first is the elective system, which is carried on under the principle of manhood franchise and which exists on some reserves in Canada, and the second is the old hereditary system which prevails on other reserves. I am unable to say whether on this reserve the hereditary or the elective system is in vogue, but I shall be glad to get the information and give it to the hon. member.

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The hon. member for Melville raised the question of the rebuilding of the Le Bret Indian school which was burned in the fall of 1932. At that time provision was made, as he has stated, for the temporary accommodation of the pupils. The Roman Catholic church have a seminary a short distance from the site of the previous building in which they were enabled to house the male pupils. Manifestly it was not possible, owing to lack of space and for other reasons, to house the girls in that building, and temporary quarters were found for them in the town hall. After a time it was brought to my attention that the accommodation provided for the girls was very unsatisfactory, from every point of view, and we were able to secure other quarters. As the hon. member has stated, much better arrangements were made. May I say to him that I agree the quarters are not such as we would wish them to be, but like everyone else we have to cut our coat according to our cloth, and the arrangements which were made were only temporary in order that the education of these Indian boys and girls would not be interrupted. In our endeavour to attain that object we secured the hearty cooperation of the church authorities.
I recognize the importance of this school. It is among the first schools in Canada, was looked upon as the premier school of the Roman Catholic church in Canada, and one to which various church dignitaries were taken when paying visits to portions of western Canada. I am sorry to have to state that no provision is made in the vote before the house for the erection of this school. May I say to him however that I am hopeful, and I have a basis for my hope, that this Indian school may be built during the season of 1934-35.


Alan Webster Neill: I should like to bring a small matter to the attention of the minister. On the west coast of Vancouver Island there is an agency called the West Coast Indian Agency. It comprises some hundreds of reserves which, with few exceptions, are exposed to the full sweep of the Pacific ocean. For that reason it is difficult to reach them by anything other than a substantial boat. The ordinary means of travel to them is by a steamer which runs every ten days up and down again. I am familiar with the situation, because I used to be Indian agent and have often spent five or six days on the steamer to do only a couple of hours or half day's work. That is not an economical arrangement.
During the last ten or twelve years the department has maintained a stout launch which
was very suitable for the work, and afforded means for the officials to travel. It has done excellent work and through it good service has been done. Last year the engine in the launch played out, and after being coaxed to the limit of its capacity it had to be laid up.
I believe the launch was laid up in Vancouver in the early fall of last year. I asked the minister's department whether or not they were going to instal a new engine, and I was told there were no funds available. That was all right for last year, but when the new vote came into force this year I anticipated an engine would be installed and the work continued. However I was again told that no money has been voted for that purpose, meaning that the launch must lay up in Vancouver to decay while the work for which it is needed and required is not being carried out to the best advantage. That is not good economy. The officials will have to travel by steamer or by hired launches, an expensive way of travelling because even on short runs the rates charged are high; on a run of five or six days the expense would be considerable, and there would be very little economy. I would suggest that as the financial position has improved somewhat in the course of a few months it might be possible to get sufficient money to engine the boat and put it into commission again.


Charles Murphy: The hon. member has
drawn to the attention of the committee that this year we are not using the government boat for this service. That is correct. Upon investigation we found that about 87,000 would be required to put the boat into operating order, and on the advice of assistant commissioner Perry we chartered a launch to carry on that service during the present season. Therefore the official will be able to carry on the necessary work as has been done in the past. May I state frankly that this step was taken as a measure of economy, and to keep our estimates for this year, in these days of stress and strain, at as low a point as possible. We believe however that ample service will be provided through the chartering of the launch.


Alan Webster Neill: May I ask when the launch was chartered?


Charles Murphy: It is utilized as required.


Alan Webster Neill: When was it chartered?


Charles Murphy: 
Alan Webster Neill: When was that arrangement consummated?


Charles Murphy: I have not the exact date, but I can get it for the hon. member.


Alan Webster Neill: The point I wish to make is this: The minister has said a launch has been chartered to do the work. I want to know when the arrangement was made, because less than three weeks ago I wrote his deputy and renewed my request to have the engine put into commission. At that time I was told rather curtly that there was no money available, and that the boat would be left out of commission for the whole year. If substitute arrangements have been made to hire a launch I think it would have been only courteous and becoming an official writing a member of parliament to have given me that information. I want to know when the charter was consummated. I am beginning to think it has not been consummated.


Charles Murphy: I am sorry I cannot give the exact date that the arrangement was entered into. However as I explained a minute ago, I am informed we do not utilize the services of this launch continuously; in other words, the owner of the launch may use it for other purposes. An arrangement has been entered into with him whereby we may secure the launch at such times as we need it. Or, if it is considered advisable, the official may travel by regular steamship line. However some time during the winter of 1933-34 this arrangement was entered into, and again I must express my regret that I have not the exact information to give the hon. member.


Alan Webster Neill: May I ask the name of the boat, or from whom it is chartered?


Charles Murphy: Mr. Chairman, I regret I have not the full information before me. Lest I give the hon. member and the committee wrong information I should not like to go into a detailed discussion on the item, but should prefer to get the full particulars and give them to the hon. member. He could submit questions either verbally or on the order paper. I shall give him the information which is in the possession of the department or, in other words, the full and complete information in regard to this particular matter.


Alan Webster Neill: It really amounts to this, that no charter has been made and the officials must travel either by ordinary steamer or by hiring a launch, which latter is an expensive procedure. .
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Monday, April 23, 1934