1936-04-28

[Stage Direction]
On the order for motions:
Horn. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Railways and Canals):: Mr. Speaker, during the debate on the national harbours board bill I was

Beauharnois Power Corporation
asked by the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Caban) to lay on the table the opinion of the Department of Justice with reference to subsection 2 of section 3 of the bill. I now lay on the table a report signed by Mr. W. Stuart Edwards, Deputy Minister of Justice.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance): In reply to the question asked yesterday by the right hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett), I hope to be able to present the budget on Friday of this week.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) if his attention has been drawn to a circular letter signed by J. S. Norris, president of the Beauharnois corporation, and dated at Montreal, March 20, 1936, in which appears this statement:
The project became the subject of entirely unwarranted and purely political attacks in the federal parliament of Canada early in 1931.
In view of the verdict of parliament given at that time, what steps will the government take to see that parliament is protected from unwarranted statements and attacks of this description which will mislead the bondholders who are meeting to consider the matter?


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: Mr. Speaker, the House of Commons is master of its own house. I prefer to leave it to the House of Commons to say what shall be done.


Right Hon. R. B. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition):: I wonder if the hon. gentleman (Mr. Coldwell) would let me see that circular? If I understood him aright I think the matter is more serious than one which could be left merely to the House of Commons. This statement challenges this house in a very peculiar way. I quote from the letter as follows:
The project became the subject of entirely unwarranted and purely political attacks in the federal parliament of Canada early in 1931.
The effects of these political attacks upon the enterprise were extremely serious and far-reaching. They resulted:
In the cancellation of the approval previously obtained under the Navigable Waters Protection Act;
In the reestablishment by special act of the federal parliament of a basis of federal approval subject to new and undisclosed conditions;
In Beauharnois Light, Heat and Power Company being forced to convey to the crown over 9,000 arpents of land (representing a cash outlay of over $1,800,000) upon which works had already been constructed by the company costing upwards of $15,000,000. The company received no compensation whatever for these works other than an easement to use the property, so conveyed, for power purposes;
In the federal government being forced to assist in the temporary financing of the enterprise by guaranteeing, against ultimate loss, bank advances aggregating nearly $16,000,000 made to prevent the collapse of the enterprise;
And finally, in the reorganization of Beauharnois Power Corporation Limited and Beauharnois Light, Heat and Power Company, in June, 1933.
I have not had any previous conversation with the hon. gentleman who has brought this matter to the attention of the house, but on listening to him it struck me that this is a serious reflection upon the privileges of parliament. I think perhaps this house has been rather careless in the assertion of its privileges, though in one or two instances it has done so. As soon as the hon. gentleman began to speak I sent for Sir Austen Chamberlain's book, Down the Years, and I would direct the attention of the house to this one reminiscence as given, beginning at page 70, because Sir Austen Chamberlain refers to a matter of this kind with a good deal of care:
Parliament was dissolved only four months later and my first House of Commons has left only one abiding impression on my mind. It is of the greatness of Mr. Speaker Peel. The house has had many great Speakers, but I doubt whether in its long history it has ever had a greater than Arthur Wellesley Peel. Others have served it faithfully and many of them with great distinction, but Speaker Peel dominated it. In the opinion not only of one like myself who was still a young member when he retired, but of older men who had been present at his first election, he stood in a class by himself, over-topping his predecessors, never equalled even by the most successful and respected of his successors. He had a natural dignity and a formal but genuine courtesy which well became the occupant of the chair, and, besides, a dramatic gift which in great moments raised him far above his fellow members that the whole house trembled at his rebuke. At such times his stature seemed to grow before our eyes, his deep resonant voice dominated the tumult and he appeared as the living embodiment of centuries of parliamentary tradition.
One such moment occurred in the closing days of the parliament of 1892. A select committee of the house had been inquiring into
Beauharnois Power Corporation

the hours of work of railway servants, and among the witnesses who had given evidence before it was the stationmaster of some small station on the Cambrian railway. He had subsequently been called before three of the directors and the general manager of the company and dismissed, nominally for some irregularities in his accounts but really, as was obvious from the questions put to him by the directors, on account of the evidence which he had given before the select committee. The committee, of which Sir Michael Hicks Beach was chairman, took evidence as to what had passed and made a special report to the house on the case as a breach of privilege. Of the three directors involved one, Sir John Maclure, was an old and much-liked member of the house. A day was fixed for the discussion and an order was made by the house that the honourable member for Stratford should attend in his place and that his co-directors and the general manager should appear at the bar. They were asked if they had anything to say and Sir John Maclure offered an apology with which the others associated themselves. They were then ordered to withdraw while their case was considered, and Hicks Beach moved:	"That this house while recognizing
that they had expressed their unqualified regret for having unintentionally infringed any of its rules and privileges is of opinion that they have committed a breach of privilege . .. and that they be called in and admonished by Mr. Speaker."
This seemed a rather lame conclusion and there was a good deal of sympathy -with the proposal made by T. P. O'Connor to add that the house would not consider that they had purged their contempt till they had reinstated the discharged man. Efforts were made privately to get them to do this, or at least to compensate him, but they remained obdurate. Hicks Beach's resolution was supported by Mr. Gladstone, but his advice was rejected by the great majority of his followers whose zeal for the injured man was perhaps stimulated by the value of the railway vote at the general election which was known to be imminent. A long, wrangling discussion followed and it was not till midnight that a division was taken and Hicks Beach's resolution carried.
Then the directors were once more called in. Sir John Maclure evidently felt his position acutely^ but the other three appeared at the bar defiantly and almost jauntily. They had successfully resisted the desire of many members, not confined to one side of the house, that they should compensate the man, and now they were to have what schoolboys call a "pi-jaw" from the Speaker-that was all the House of Commons could do to them.
Mr. Speaker Peel spoke for less than ten minutes. "I would have you to know-each and all of you gentlemen-that though the privileges of this house are not be put into operation on any light or trivial occasion ... yet a privilege of this house is no unreal, shadowy or unsubstantial thing; it is what the house clings to and what it is determined to maintain." And then after expatiating on the enormity of their particular offence, he declared "The house in its judgment and, I should add, in its mercy has decided that I should admonish you," and he proceeded to administer the admonition.
The bald words of what he said, recorded in Hansard, convey no idea of the devastating
{Mr. Bennett.]
effect of that short allocution. The men who had come to the bar so defiantly a few minutes earlier wilted under his admonition; beads of perspiration stood out on their foreheads and, when he dismissed them, they crept away like whipped hounds, while the rest of us shook ourselves like dogs coming out of the water and thanked heaven we had not been in the position of poor Maclure.
I do say that the statement sent- broadcast to the shareholders of this enterprise over the signature of Mr. J. S. Norris, president, is a distinct breach of the privileges of this house; and thus to reflect upon the action that was taken not only by the committee but by the House of Commons itself, ultimately by unanimous action, is something that should not be tolerated or permitted. Moreover, one at least of the statements is not correct, I refer to the paragraph indicating that all they had received was an easement to use the property, so conveyed, for power purposes. That is entirely beside the question and is not in any sense an adequate expression of what was received in compensation for the title being vested in the crown, and I cannot but think that it is the duty of the government to take cognizance of this matter, for the maintenance of the traditions and the honour of the house is in the keeping primarily of the government of the day; and possibly a committee should be set up for the purpose of investigating the matter, so that if there is found to have been a violation of the privileges of this house appropriate action may be taken.
These things seem trifling and perhaps they are; they seem to be matters that should be treated as a joke, of little importance; and yet the maintenance of the privileges of this house is fundamental if we are to maintain the supremacy of parliament itself. Parliament cannot retain the respect and esteem of the people if it permits itself to be attacked in the way in which it has been and men feel that because they occupy the position of members of the House of Commons they must be subject to this sort of criticism and attack upon their actions. The parliament at Westminster, even in the most turbulent days, has been very careful to preserve untarnished its honour and undimin-ish'ed the assertion of its rights, to maintain the privileges of parliament as such.
I think the hon. gentleman is to be thanked for bringing the matter to the attention of the house. I had seen reference to it in the newspapers but I had not seen this document in its entirety, although I had heard what the general- contents of it were. I suggest it warrants careful consideration on the part

Beauharnois Power Corporation
of the government and in particular of the Prime Minister. It might be that, inasmuch as there is little time now to consider it, in view of the record-and I think I have given the whole of the statement, as will appear in Hansard-the right hon. gentleman should take time to look into the matter and determine what should be the appropriate action in the circumstances with a view to maintaining the ancient privileges of parliament and its position in the country itself.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I must confess I have
been at a loss to know just what we have been discussing. We are on the orders of the day, and the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett) 'having been for a long time in parliament and having for some years held the position of first minister, I did not think it proper to interrupt him or to call him to order. Certainly, however, I think he was decidedly out of order. If the subject under consideration is a question which affects the privileges of the house I suggest that in its consideration there ought at least to be an observance of the rules of the house on the part of all who are present.
First of all, speaking of the privileges and the rules of the house, may I say that it is customary, when an important question is going to be asked of the government on the orders of the day, for at least some intimation to be given in advance to the leader of the government or some member of it. The hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) asked the question which he did without having given previous intimation to me or, as far as I can gather, to any of my colleagues, with respect to the matter to which he was referring. He brought a document into the house, made some reference to it and asked me what the government was going to do about it. I am not the government-I differ in that respect perhaps from some others-and I like to have at least an opportunity of conferring with my colleagues before answering a question addressed to the government as such. I would have told the hon. member very frankly that such was my position if I had not thought that the answer which I gave was all-sufficient. To my amazement, I next find the leader of the opposition taking possession of the document, reading the whole of it for the purpose, as he says, of placing its contents on Hansard, giving his views with reference to the same, and then reading from some authority in alleged support of what he is saying. I have not, like the
leader of the opposition, come here armed with authorities purporting to support what I wish to say and of the point which I.am making. I think, however, there should be very little difficulty for any hon. member of the house to know where ample authorities may be found for what I have already expressed, namely that if the privileges of this house have been violated in any way it is open to any member of the house to bring the matter up and it is for the house itself to take such action as it may deem necessary and advisable. The House of Commons is the custodian of its own privileges; the government is not the custodian of the privileges of the House of Commons. Every hon. member has the same right as the Prime Minister in a matter of privilege, and no one knows it better than the leader of the opposition.
May I say one thing further with regard to the question which has been asked. Is it to be assumed that a citizen of this country is not to have the right to criticize the action of a government? AVhat is to become of freedom of expression in this country if every citizen is to be told that if he ventures to criticize anything which has been done by the parliament of Canada he is immediately to be brought to the bar of parliament to answer for it? That is not my view, at any rate, of the rights either of government or of citizenship.
I repeat that I had not seen the document to which reference has been made by the hon. member. It had not been brought to my attention. I knew nothing of its contents. He was careful, I suppose because it had some reference to Beauharnois, to seek to make a play with it, just as the leader of the opposition has sought to do.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That is unfair.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: But such things are easily understood by anybody. As far as the question asked is concerned I return to what I said at the beginning, that if any privilege of this house has been violated, hon. members may take the matter into their own hands and deal with it as they see fit. So far as the government is concerned it is going to sustain the right of free expression of opinion by the citizens of Canada.


Major James William Coldwell: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There are two
members opposite on their feet. I think, Mr. Speaker, that both are out of order.



Beauharnois Power Corporation


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Speaker, I am now rising to a question of privilege.


Mr. DUNNING:: The other man had the floor first.


Richard Bedford Bennett: You may as well make up your minds that I am not going to be, in any sense, intimidated. Hon. members suggest that there shall be freedom outside the House of Commons, and deny it within.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Another hon. member was on his feet before the leader of the opposition rose.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The right hon. gentleman is raising another question. The rules of this house provide that a question of privilege must be taken into consideration immediately when raised, and it has been done ever since I have been in the House of Commons.


Charles Avery Dunning: There was no question raised.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I was raising it as a
question of privilege from the start.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: The right hon. gentleman never so mentioned it.


Richard Bedford Bennett: This raises a question
of veracity. Why did I send for Sir Austen Chamberlain's Down the Years but to point out to the hon. gentleman that he had referred to privilege, and I was dealing with the question of 'the privileges of this parliament. I happened the other night to be reading that book, and I remember that it dealt with the question of privilege, so I sent to my room for the book when the hon. gentleman raised the question that he did raise; the book was brought down to me in the presence of the members of this house and was handed to me and I read from it for the reason that I was raising a question of the privileges of parliament. When the right hon. gentleman suggests I was out of order in raising the question if privilege-


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I say that my right hon. friend never mentioned to the house that he was raising a question of privilege at all. He undertook to carry on a discussion of a subject which the other speaker had begun.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I said it raised an issue
of the first importance with regard to the privileges of this house, and I was raising the question of privilege; that is all.


Major James William Coldwell: Rising to a point of
order, I wish to say that an inference may be taken from the remarks of the right hon.

Prime Minister that I have had some communication with the leader of the opposition regarding this matter. I just want to say that I have never discussed this matter or any other matter of that nature with the right hon. leader of the opposition or his colleagues.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: May I say
that I do not think my remarks are capable of that interpretation, but I am not surprised that my hon. friend supposed that some hon. members might well have thought so after listening to the leader of the opposition.

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



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
Projects already undertaken-Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act-
Experimental projects and large scale demonstrations therefrom, $214,000.
Water development projects, $234,000.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Before we begin the discussion of this item, Mr. Chairman, I should like just to say to you how pleased hon. members of this house are to see you again in the chair, restored, we trust, to your former health and strength.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I should like on behalf of those with whom I am associated to join with the right hon. Prime Minister in what he has just said.


Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) :: This item, which proposes to
provide $448,000 for expenditure upon projects already undertaken, covers expenditures that were provided for last year in connection with the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. These expenditures cover, under the first item, experimental projects and large scale demonstrations therefrom in the amount of $214,000. This amount has to do with experiments that are being carried on at experimental stations throughout the southern part of Saskatchewan, the southern part of Alberta and the southwestern part of Manitoba, and provision for the distribution of grass seeds and other methods of demonstrating the use of some of the products that have been developed through experimentation. It also has to do with the promotion of strip farming and everything of that nature tending toward the better use of lands in the area of the provinces where we have had drought during the last five or six years.


Mr. MacNICOL:: I should like to ask the minister for a little further explanation of

Supply-Agriculture*-Rehabilitation
his reference to the distribution of seeds. Does the government supply the seeds free? Are the seeds grown on government land or on the lands of experimental farms, or are they grown on private farms, taken over by the government, and then distributed?


James Garfield Gardiner: The experiments are carried on upon a number of demonstration farms that were selected last year.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Private farms?


James Garfield Gardiner: Private farms, yes, the lands of which are rented under the same terms as ordinary demonstration farms, and rentals are paid for the use of these lands for demonstration purposes. Some of the grass seed, of course, will be used on those lands. Then there are associations composed of farmers who form themselves into an organization with a president, secretary and executive, who meet together from time to time and discuss ways and means of making use of grasses for different purposes. The government has purchased seed which it supplies through those associations to individual farmers to be used on plots of their own land in order to demonstrate the use of grasses in reestablishing these areas.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is the seed supplied free?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, it is free.


Mr. STIRLING:: The second part of this item has to do with water development projects. I find it very difficult to get any conception of what that implies. There is a very large area that has suffered from drought and on which the distribution of water would be of inestimable benefit. There are large irrigation projects around Medicine Hat, for instance, but they involve very large structures and a tremendous amount of digging of ditches for distribution. I wonder if the minister would give a short explanation of what is being attempted under this item. Is this only demonstration work which will assist the individual farmer to carry on similar work on his own land, or does it affect whole districts which will benefit by the water dammed up?


James Garfield Gardiner: A number of different methods are being followed in order to assist in this way. If the hon. member will look further down the page I think the works to which he is referring come under item 308, but this vote covers largely what are known as small dams and dugouts. Some two or three thousand of these have been proposed by persons residing in that part of the country extending from Crystal City in Manitoba
over a triangular area running right up to the foothills in Alberta. A number of those proposals were examined into by engineers last season; I think some six or seven hundred have been accepted as projects that should be carried through, and some two or three hundred others are under consideration at the moment. The money may be spent in two ways. Dams are placed across ravines in different parts of the territory, where it is feasible to do so, in order to provide a water supply, usually for three or more farmers. Sometimes it is done for a larger section of the community and in some instances it may be done on ranges operated for ranching purposes perhaps by individuals, but the work is spread over that whole area, some of 'which is wheat growing country, some mixed farming country and some purely ranching country. The dugouts are constructed largely throughout the wheat growing area, where it is impossible to have dams because of the nature of the country, and where it has not been possible to get water by the digging of wells. Dugouts are used particularly in the heavy soil country, assistance is given to the extent of three cents per yard for the earth that is moved, in connection with small dams. This money is to be spent to promote that sort of thing.


Grote Stirling: Then does the snow water fill these dugouts, and is that water ditched out extensively?


James Garfield Gardiner: Under the plan that was set up last year engineers are sent out to advise the farmers whether they might obtain a water supply by digging a dugout. Of course that usually involves drainage from certain directions into the dugout. Sometimes there is the possibility of providing a run-off, but at- other times it is just like a slough, where the water collects and serves for the season.


Mr. CHURCH:: I should like to ask the minister on what principle this vote is brought before this committee. In the first place agriculture is under concurrent jurisdiction between the dominion and the provinces. In the other provinces of Canada this question of rehabilitation is very largely a provincial matter. Why do not the prairie provinces themselves come forward with a scheme such as has been proposed by the minister? On the other hand, if it is proposed to carry on this work this year, why was not this item included in the main estimates? In the second place, Mr. Chairman, why is there not equality of treatment as between the prairie provinces and the maritime provinces, as between the farmers of the west and the
2234	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Rehabilitation
farmers of central Canada? Who is going to pay for all this? The cost will have to come out of the pockets of the workers in the central provinces, who have provincial legislatures looking after the question of agriculture.
Since this government came into power I have seen most radical departures from the principles laid down by the British North America Act. There has been the five-year census for the prairies and other things of that kind, and now we have agriculture. I admit that the farmers of the prairies are suffering, but their situation is no worse than that of the farmers of Ontario. I could show the minister farms in Ontario just as badly off as the farms of the other provinces. Since I have been in this house we have had royal commissions appointed to ascertain the situation with regard to various provinces of confederation. We have had royal commissions on maritime rights, prairie rights and Pacific rights, and the time is coming when the farmers of Ontario and Quebec, and the industrial workers who cannot get a dollar with which to save their homes from foreclosure, who have to pay the cost of all this sort of thing, will demand an investigation or survey too. The time is coming when Ontario and Quebec will have to ascertain what is their place under confederation as expressed by the British North America Act. The two central provinces must pay the cost of all this sort of thing, since they contribute eighty per cent of the cash taxes that are raised, and they are not going to remain forever hewers of wood and drawers of water for the rest of confederation. The principle of confederation in which I believe is expressed by the old Cornish battle cry, each for all and all for each. This item has also reference to farm rehabilitation. The question of rehabilitation was referred to the other day in Bill No. 14 and again in Bill No. 19, and I thought that matter had been handed over to a commission. We are a long way behind the times in rehabilitation in Canada when we consider what has been done for the farmers in Denmark and the United States, but are we going to have this matter handled by the minister, and another branch of the work under Bill 19 handled by Mr. Purvis?


The CHAIRMAN:: I would ask the hon.
member to confine himself to the item under discussion.


Thomas Langton Church: I accept your ruling, Mr. Chairman, but with all due deference I would point out that I am speaking of item 307 about the word in this item, "rehabilitation,"
(Mr. Church.]
which also appeared in Bill No. 19 the other day, in reference not only to industrial workers but also to agriculture. If we are to have farm rehabilitation for one province let us have it for all provinces; let us have equality of treatment so that not only t'he prairie provinces but the other provinces as well will get votes of money in the supplementary estimates.
Then this item 307 goes on to refer to experimental projects and large scale demonstrations. Only the other day we handed out six or seven million dollars for large scale demonstrations and now under this item we are asked to vote a further sum of $448,000. I am going	to	ask	the ministerto extend these handouts to the province of Ontario too, since this question of agriculture comes under the concurrent jurisdiction of the provinces and the dominion. H there is to be rehabilitation by Mr. Hepburn's administration in Ontario, the prairie prov-inches should pay as Ontario does for rehabilitation as well, and the construction of power projects. Look	at	the	hydro	waterpower project in Ontario; it was built at the expense of the province, and the dominion government did not contribute a nickel towards the cost. I admit that these other provinces have rights too, but there are provinces whose rights are forgotten. I refer to the two central provinces. If the Ontario and Quebec members	would	assert	theirrights they would have a royal commission to find the place of the	two	central	provinces in confederation, besides that of merely paying the debts.


James Garfield Gardiner: All I would say in reply is that the caption which appears on the item, Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, pretty well indicates why the vote is here. That act was passed in 1935, the bill having been introduced by the then minister of agriculture. It provided for $750,000 last year, a million dollars this year and a million each year for the next three years following this; in other words it was a five year program. All that I have done as minister so far as this act and the amount of money provided by it is concerned is to cut it by a quarter of a million dollars. The provision made by the act is for a million dollars; I am providing only for the expenditure of $736,885.55 for these purposes in the first three votes under the heading of projects already undertaken, and under other projects in succeeding votes there is provided an amount of $559,556.69. These two amounts make a little more than one and a quarter million dollars. Two bills were passed last year, one providing a million dollars for

Supply-Agriculture-Rehabilitation
1936, and the other, I believe it was the Public Works Construction Act, which provided half a million for this and other purposes for the Department of Agriculture. Part of that half million dollars was spent last year; some of it still remains to be spent. I am asking the house to vote this year three quarters of a million under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, and to provide for the expenditure of the remainder under the Public Works Construction Act of last session in connection with agriculture in the drought area of western Canada. These expenditures are being made only in the section where we have had drought during the last five or six years. I make that explanation not for the purpose of shirking any responsibility in connection with the vote, but simply in order to draw the attention of the hon. member to the fact that the amount was provided for by legislation of last year, and we are simply carrying out the purpose of that act.


Mr. LEADER:: In support of this proposed expenditure I believe the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) is labouring under a misapprehension. This is not a general policy for all the prairie provinces; as the minister has stated it just takes care of that part which has suffered so much from drought. I am sure the hon. member for Broadview, had he gone through that district, as I have done, and seen the ravages of the last five or six years of dry weather, would be one of the first to come to their relief. The fact that the previous government, of which he was a supporter, undertook this relief first, goes to prove what I say.
In regard to the dugouts to which reference has been made, I live in a district where we have to have them, and I may say to the hon. member for Broadview, whom I regard as a very good friend, that we have not asked the governments, either provincial or dominion, to reimburse the farmers making these dug-outs; they pay for it themselves. We are able to do that, but the people in the dried out areas are not, and unless we want to abandon them altogether we ought to be and I believe we are glad to offer any help we can to assist them through this period of stress.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I think the hon. gentleman was in error in making the statement about the million dollars. Section 8 of the act provides that:
For the purposes of this act the sum of $750,000 shall be appropriated and paid ... during the fiscal year 1935-36 and for each fiscal year for a further period of four years a sum not exceeding one million dollars per annum as may be necessary to continue and extend the work undertaken under this act.
Do I understand that the first two items amounting to 8448,000 are voted to discharge obligations already created?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Then the 8750,000 of last year was spent in its entirety?


James Garfield Gardiner: No.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Because the question of
the 8448,000 being part of the 8750,000 or in addition to the $750,000 becomes important.


James Garfield Gardiner: The amount which is
being provided this year in the estimates, of the million dollars which the act provides we might have spent this year, is only $750,000; and that amount, together with a sum unexpended under the provision for 81,000,000 out of the Public Works Construction Act of last year, makes a total under these estimates of $1,296,442.24.


Sir GEORGE PERLEY:: How much was
spent last year out of the $750,000?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have not that information here at the moment. I could get it. It was about half of it.


Ernest Edward Perley: Could the
minister give some information in respect to the $214,000 for experimental projects and large scale demonstrations? Does that include the establishment of demonstration farms?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, it includes not
only the establishment of demonstration farms in the area but investigational work in connection with strip farming over considerable parts of the area. In southern Alberta, for example, strip farming has been carried on with considerable success for quite a number of years. There has been very little strip farming in the southwestern part of Saskatchewan, although there has been some. Under this expenditure there has been encouragement of strip farming in the southwestern part of Saskatchewan and the extension of it in Alberta and the use of it in part of Manitoba. The money spent in connection with it is for the sending out of men from the experimental farms to promote ithe spread of such projects; the actual work of distributing seed in connection with the sowing of grasses and everything of that kind comes out of this particular part of the vote.


Ernest Edward Perley: It is not intended to purchase these farms, is it? They will be under lease?


James Garfield Gardiner: No, there has been no purchasing of farms. The first project pre-
2236	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Rehabilitation
seated to the house or to the country, I am not sure which, had in view the taking over of a number of townships-I think the project was five townships, one in Manitoba, three in Saskatchewan and one in Alberta

and operating them as large demonstration farms. But in practice the minister of the day and the officials of the department did not find that to be feasible, and adopted the idea of encouraging the formation of agricultural associations that might take in two or three municipalities. These associations meet from time to time and discuss matters and encourage the use of these different methods on the farms within that area.


Mr. DONNELLY:: When one of -these
farms is taken over for strip farming demonstration purposes, what agreement is made with the man who owns the property? How much is paid to him, or on what terms does he work?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is on exactly the
terms that I presented to the house. I am sorry Doctor Archibald has not yet arrived, but he will be here soon and I can get detailed information from him in regard to these matters. The arrangement is the same as is made in connection with demonstration farms that are carried on from one end of Canada to the other; the rentals and everything are exactly the same.


Mr. MacINNIS:: I was going to ask the minister how much of the $750,000 had been spent, but that question has already been asked. Has the department prepared any report on the work that has been done under the vote of last year, which would indicate what progress has been made and what the results if any have been?
' Mr. GARDINER: May I point out that the point raised by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church), namely that under ordinary circumstances most of the work to be undertaken was considered to be provincial work, was fairly well recognized in western Canada. The provincial departments are usually provided with ways and means of carrying on in a limited way much of the work that was to be undertaken, particularly the provision of a water supply. But in the light of the experience they have had in the last five or six years, and the fact that very little in the way of revenue can be collected by muncipalities or by anybody else for the carrying on of the work, apparently it was thought wise to give some special assistance from the federal treasury, and the act to which I referred a few moments ago was passed. At Swift Current an organization
[Mr. Gardinpr.l
was established to take care of the expenditure of the money. That organization consisted partly of engineering equipment and men to conduct surveys in different sections of the southern part of the .three provinces, and to make records with regard to the possibility' of providing water supply and everything else essential to a development of this kind. Work and demonstrations in connection with the larger experiments mentioned were carried on by the experimental farms, part from Swift Current, part from Indian Head and part from Brandon. That work was done in the different experimental farms throughout the section. Some of the expenditure having to do with these particular activities was used in paying officials who had been previously engaged in the work of these experimental farms, and some of it was used in paying for the services of individuals connected with the engineering organization.
Since taking over the department I have discussed the matter with the provincial governments and we have arrived at the conclusion that probably we would get better results with less expenditure on overhead by working in close cooperation with the provincial government, so that we are associating the engineering organization with the three different departments. The arrangements are fully made in the province of Saskatchewan, where about sixty per cent of the area is found. In Alberta, where a greater part of the remaining. area is situated, arrangements are fairly well on their way to completion, and at this time arrangements are being considered in Manitoba, where the smaller part of the area is found.
The reason for the comparatively small expenditure last year is that the work was not begun until after the close of the last session, which was about the beginning of July. The engineering work in connection with all these projects had to be carried on after that. At the end of the season, other than getting records with regard to dugouts, the applications for which have gone into thousands, the number of small dams for which applications had been made and the number of larger projects which had been proposed, very little had been accomplished. As to these works to which we are now referring, only a few thousand dollars was paid out for actual works last year. All work which had been paid for in addition to that was preparatory to work which would be done this year and in the succeeding three years under the plan which had been laid down. The government considers it worth while to go on with these projects and to carry them

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through to completion, in so far as individuals and communities which made application last year may desire, and in so far as engineering staffs have reported that such works may be feasible and would give satisfactory service. So that on actual works very little was spent last year; the greater part of expenditures were made preparatory to doing work this year and in the succeeding three years. The same observations apply with regard to other works which we will be discussing later.
Mr. MaeINNIS: Is it the intention of the department to publish reports with regard to the work as it proceeds?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Section 9 of the act provides for an annual report being laid on the table of the house.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, that provision is made.


Mr. DOUGLAS:: With reference to the $448,000 to be spent in connection with the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, how will this money be apportioned?


James Garfield Gardiner: It will be apportioned according to the areas of the different provinces. Sixty per cent of the area is in Saskatchewan, and about 40 per cent in the other two provinces. Of that 40 per cent I think the division would be about 25 per cent and 15 per cent, or 30 per cent and 10 per cent, with the larger area in Alberta.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Mr. Chairman, I offer no apology for discussing this matter at some length. The communications I have received from the various parts of western Canada are numerous, especially those from the area in which they have had no moisture for a very considerable period of time.
It will be recalled that a year ago we passed a statute known as the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, made an appropriation of three-quarters of a million dollars for last year, and authorized parliament to appropriate an amount not exceeding one million dollars in the succeeding four years. That statute provided for the setting up of a committee, and I judge from what the minister has said that no such committee is now functioning. I am not quite sure whether that is correct. Is a committee now functioning?


James Garfield Gardiner: It has been functioning, yes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And it still is?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It will be remembered
that the committee was a most representative one. It had a chairman who was to be appointed by governor in council. I do not know whether the present chairman is the one who held office before October 23.


James Garfield Gardiner: No change has been
made in the committee, and the last meeting was held last fall.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I thank the minister for that information. It will be recalled that the committee consisted of a chairman, representatives of the grain growers of Manitoba Saskatchewan and Alberta, the live stock farmers in Saskatchewan, the range farmers in Alberta, the mortgage companies of Canada, the Canadian Bankers' Association, the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Canadian National Railways, two representatives from the Dominion Department of Agriculture, and one representative from each of the governments of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The minister is quite right in saying that the meeting together of these representatives involved a considerable expenditure in overhead. Nevertheless if I am correctly informed they did meet and made certain plans which, as the minister has pointed out, contemplated the work being continued along certain lines during the succeeding year. That is, it would be continued during the year which is now upon us, or during the present spring and the succeeding summer and fall.
Engineers went over the matter rather carefully, and from what the minister has said I take it that the $448,000 is really a revote of part of the $750,000 which is unexpended, with a little more added to it. I should like to ascertain what has been spent, and what the commitments were with respect to the schemes. Perhaps the minister has before him information which will enable us to understand what the plans were. Consideration was given to the construction of dams, covered in the next item, with respect to which I take it the minister will give us the necessary information. But if I am correctly informed those living in the drought areas have been in touch with the committee and with their provincial governments. I was not quite able to ascertain to what extent the minister contemplated taking the matter out of the hands of the committee and placing it in the hands of the provincial governments, because in item 310 there is provision for payment of a substantial sum of money to the provinces. Like others who have been writing I desire to ascertain whether or not the sums mentioned in items 307 and 308 will be expended under the direct

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supervision of the federal government, or are they too to be partly under the supervision of the provincial governments? I should like to know also whether the engineers engaged in this work prior to last year are to be continued in the work this year.


James Garfield Gardiner: Replying to the last
question, no new engineers have been put on. However, the engineering staff at the present time is not as large as it was last year. In connection with engineering work in general, the three men appointed on the committee, the committee having to do with water conservation, are the three engineers in charge of the work for the provincial governments. There is Mr. Charlesworth of Alberta, the provincial man in Saskatchewan and the provincial man in Manitoba. These men will still have an interest in the work, as they had previously on the committee, perhaps in an even more direct way. As I said a moment ago, we have approached the provincial governments to have them take a more lively and more direct interest in this work. Our reason for doing this is that many of these works are really provincial works. The only reason the provinces have not been carrying them on is the reason which is so prevalent throughout Canada to-day, the lack of funds. I assume that that is mainly why the dominion government came into the picture last year. The main reason for their undertaking to spend money in that area was the difficulty which had been faced during the last five or six years. We hope that at the end of the four year period, if it is necessary to continue the work for that long, these sections of western Canada will have overcome these difficulties and that the work will then be taken over and continued by the provincial governments. Believing that, we thought it wise at this period to encourage the taking over of the work. Therefore, we have asked that the same engineers, who were in charge last year from the office at Swift Current, be taken over by the different provincial departments. They will in turn be advised by the same three men who were on the committee appointed last year. Saskatchewan has consented to do this; I think Alberta has consented, although the matter may be still under consideration, and while there will be very little work carried on in Manitoba, I have their assurance that they will cooperate in that regard. As I said a few moments ago, our main reason is to cut down overhead expense and to encourage the taking on of this work by the provinces in such a way as to ensure its maintenance and continuation after the federal government drops out of the field.

If we were to proceed along the line that we followed last fall and up until about a month ago, I am afraid that we would build up a large staff in connection with the federal Department of Agriculture which we would either have to find places for elsewhere at the end of the three or four year period or ask the provinces to take them over in order to continue this work. If I were assured that these items could be placed in the ordinary estimates, as suggested by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church), and carried on in that way, it might be a different proposition. However, I do not feel inclined to ask the house to adopt this as the permanent policy to be followed by Canada in connection with the areas now under consideration. I think it wise to direct the activities toward the taking over of this work by the provinces at the end of our activities in connection therewith.
So far as the control of the committee is concerned, I may say that we look upon the committee as being one composed of men competent to deal with questions of this kind. They have held two or three meetings, one of which was held just before this house met. They have presented their views in connection with the whole general policy and with the matter of water supply and rehabilitation. These views are now before the experimental farms branch of the department under Doctor Archibald and we are not sure that anything is to be gained by calling these men together in the future at some expense. If we can get along without calling them together, we will. It must be remembered that many of them are in the service either of the provincial governments or of the federal government or the railways, and we do not anticipate any difficulty in getting this committee together if it is found necessary to do so in the future for further discussion of this whole matter. I may say that so far no action has been taken to discontinue the committee.


Ernest Edward Perley: This matter was discussed for some time last year before the bill was brought into the house by the predecessor of my hon. friend. I do not think he understands exactly why it was done in the way it was. The hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) has raised a question with regard to the provinces which is certainly worthy of careful consideration. As I remember it, this bill was brought in because the drought areas in the southern parts of the prairie provinces were considered as a national emergency. That is why this parliament voted money for that particular purpose. We voted money to tha different

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provinces to help them out of their difficulties during the five years the previous government was in office, but this arrangement was made in order that this work might be kept in the hands of the dominion government as a national emergency. If the matter had been considered from the point of view of the provincial authorities, there would have been no reason for parliament voting money for the prairie provinces any more than it would vote money for Ontario and Quebec, as suggested by the hon. member for Broadview. I think by the action he has taken the minister is departing from the intention of this act. I remember quite distinctly that this work was to be carried on under the dominion government as a national emergency. The money voted by parliament for this purpose was to be expended under federal authority, and I think the minister is departing from the intention of the act when he considers it advisable to hand it over to the provincial governments.


James Garfield Gardiner: I probably did not make myself clear on that point. I am reminded by the remarks which have just been made of the fact that I did not really answer the question asked by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett). The work is being carried on entirely under the supervision of the federal department. While the three men of whom I spoke have been asked to cooperate, the work is being supervised, before the expenditures are made and during the time the work is being done, by the Department of Agriculture at Ottawa.


Richard Bedford Bennett: There is a provision in [DOT]the act which reads:
The minister shall annually lay before parliament a report of all proceedings under this act for the preceding fiscal year.
I suppose the report for the year ended March 31 last has not yet been prepared. It is hardly to be expected that it would be prepared, but it may be ready before parliament prorogues.


James Garfield Gardiner: It would not be possible to have a report yet because the claims are not all in.


Mr. FINN:: Have the legislatures of the prairie provinces taken over the rivers and streams and vested them in the provinces, in contradistinction to the rights of riparian owners and the general rights of the public in connection therewith?


James Garfield Gardiner: That is a rather moot question. It has never been decided exactly what the relationship of the provinces to the streams is since the taking over of the natural resources. The whole matter with
regard to streams is under the same control in these provinces, or pretty much so, as elsewhere. Through that southern section of the three provinces, and more particularly in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, arrangements have to be entered into between this country and the United States with respect to the use made of streams for these purposes. That is all properly taken care of.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is not quite correct to say that the rivers and streams in western Canada are in the same position as in other provinces.


James Garfield Gardiner: Not exactly.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The Irrigation Act vested all waters in the crown in the right of the dominion, and whether they have been adequately transferred to the provinces has not yet been finally determined. In crown grants made by the crown in the right of the dominion there was a reservation to the crown of all waters, lakes, and areas covered by water, so that the property in the water is vested in the crown the same as precious minerals or metals, and the question of riparian owners is not one that arises at all.


Robert Emmett Finn: What I have to say with respect to the answer given me by the Minister of Agriculture applies to the answer made by the leader of the opposition. He speaks of the crown, but the crown has a relationship to both the provinces and the dominion. In Nova Scotia, by the act of 1908, the legislature took over all rivers and streams, and this is within its rights. That is the very question that has been raised to-day in connection with Beauharnois. The premier of Quebec is reported to have said that so far as streams are concerned they are all within the province, and the leader of the opposition gave this opinion in this house at the last session in answer to a question asked by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woods-worth). That hon. gentleman asked him whether or not Beauharnois should come under public ownership and the answer he gave was that the rivers and streams were in the province and therefore the only thing the government had to do with when he was prime minister was the issuing of licences for the export of power. The right hon. gentleman also volunteered the statement that while there could not be public ownership so far as rivers and streams were concerned, he regretted very much that Sir Herbert Holt, the president of the Royal Bank of Canada, was to-day in control of Beauharnois.


Ernest Edward Perley: How much of this $750,000 was spent last year?
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James Garfield Gardiner: I cannot say exactly because the claims are not yet all in and the payments have not all been made, but the amount is approximately half a million.


Richard Bedford Bennett: And this S448,000 will complete payment for the projects undertaken last year?


James Garfield Gardiner: This is continuous work; the projects are in 308, the next item.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
iVestern conservation works-
Southern Alberta storage dam, Wild Horse, Alberta, $6,953.63.
Middle Creek reservoir, Govenloek, Saskatchewan, $11,368.69.
Dam construction at Adams lake, Govenloek, Saskatchewan, $7,500.
Construction of dams in the municipality of Edwards, Manitoba, $6,000.
Waskana reclamation project, municipality of Lajord. Saskatchewan, $7,300.
Val Marie irrigation project, Val Marie, Saskatchewan, $121,187.28.
Eastend irrigation project, Eastend, Saskatchewan. $63,080.
Payment to the Canada Land and Irrigation Company, Vauxhall, Alberta, $65,000.
Richard Bedford Bennett: In view of the great interest in this matter in the western provinces it would expedite business if the minister would explain each one of these projects and indicate what has been done, whether or not there are contracts outstanding and what these sums represent. I am particularly interested in the Canada land irrigation project and the one at Val Marie.


James Garfield Gardiner: Very few of the projects started last year were completed. There were one or two in Manitoba, I believe, but I do not think there were any actually completed in Saskatchewan. Those in Saskatchewan are here on this list. The completed ones are largely in Manitoba, and there were very few of them.


Ernest Edward Perley: These amounts are for completion.


James Garfield Gardiner: They cover pretty well the actual cost in most cases. The southern Alberta storage dam, at Wild Horse, Alberta, is down in the southern part of the province in the ranching section and the purpose is to assist in supplying water for stock in that area. The Middle Creek reservoir at Goven-lock, Saskatchewan, is a similar construction, just across the Alberta boundary line in the Cypress hills. The Adams lake dam is a similar construction in the ranching area. The construction of dams in the municipality of Edwards, Manitoba, is across the boundary line of the province of Saskatchewan and is

intended to supply water to farmers in that vicinity. The Wascana reclamation project is southeast of the city of Regina, in the area where the waters divide as between those going north and those going south. There has been considerable difficulty there for quite a number of years in connection with drainage and the retaining of a water supply for farmers during a part of the year. The water supply presents difficulties at one time and drainage is a problem during another period. The work is in that connection. The Val Marie irrigation project goes down through the south of Swift Current near the United States boundary line; it is perhaps twelve miles or so from the boundary.


Richard Bedford Bennett: What rivter or stream does it affect?


James Garfield Gardiner: The Frenchman.


John Ritchie MacNicol: How many square miles would the Val Marie project cover?


James Garfield Gardiner: The object of this project is to provide by irrigation for the production of a dependable supply of feed for the large surrounding ranching district supporting	over 100,000	head	of	cattle alone.It is proposed to construct a dam across the Frenchman river and the reservoir would extend over some 1,200 acres of land and contain about 6,000 acre feet of water. This amount	of water would	be	sufficient	toirrigate 5,580 acres of land below the dam and possibly 600 acres which are partly flooded in the	spring. The	sum	of	$3,812.72	hasalready	been spent	on. this	project,	and
$83,730.78 committed in the form of contracts, with $37,456.50 estimated as the requirements, to complete construction. This is the detailed information that has been compiled as a result of reports that have been received.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Was it a new reclamation under this scheme?


James Garfield Gardiner: This is a new .project. The next one, Eastend is an old project being resurrected. The Eastend project is somewhat similar to Val Marie, the only difference being that the former was at one time built and operated by an individual. It is now being enlarged upon and rebuilt. The object of both these, and more particularly the Val Marie one, is to have the lands that are irrigated divided up into plots of about forty acres. These plots will be taken as hay meadows by farmers and ranchers living in the surrounding area. Some of them contemplate driving their stock to these feeding lots during the winter months, and others intend to haul the feed from these locations

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to wherever the stock is, depending upon the distance they are away. In this way it is hoped that some provision will be made for stock in an area to which, during the drought period, feed has had to be hauled.


Ernest Edward Perley: Could the minister give us a little more information with respect to the Wascana project, as to the amount of land that will be flooded and what arrangements are to be made with the owners of the lands that are affected?


James Garfield Gardiner: I will read the note I have. The main purpose of this work is to reclaim lands which are now subject to periodical flooding by the spring floods. Five channels are being constructed and these will allow the flooded lands to be dyked and drained so that early cultural operations will be feasible. The sum of S7.500 has already been expended and the dominion government are committed to a further payment to the municipality of $7,300 to aid in completing the work. The payment that is being voted this year is to go largely to the municipality.


Ernest Edward Perley: I understand
that the committee is considering a new project at Estevan. Could the minister give us some information with respect to that, the area to be covered, when the project is to be completed, and the estimated cost?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is in the survey stage at the moment, but the project that is being surveyed is not at Estevan. A request was made last year for a dam across the ravine that extends northwest from Estevan, being a part of the Souris valley; and after the engineers went over the proposed .project of last year they reported that they did not consider it feasible, largely because of the fact that the intention was to build a dam near the Canadian Pacific Railway bridge just west of Estevan and dam back the water for some twenty miles. The valley, as I know it, is about a mile to probably a mile and a half wide. The basin or floor of the valley is almost level. To build a dam at the bottom of it and flood it back for some miles would create a considerable area of water, but it is considered that, with the inflow that no doubt the valley would have, in all probability the evaporation over an area so large and flat as this would be so great that the project would not be a feasible one. So that the engineers have given consideration to an alternative project. It is one somewhat similar to the Eastend and Val Marie projects. They propose to put a dam at the end of a small lake somewhere between sixteen and twenty miles up the valley and raise
the waters in this small lake, which will not necessitate the taking in of any considerable amount of new land round about. Then they have it in mind to put two smaller dams further down the valley with a view of retaining water in each of them. From there on down the project will be to a considerable extent an irrigation project, to produce a hay supply, in the same way that a hay supply is to be produced by means of the Val Marie project.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Is that the Souris river?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not certain
whether it is the Souris river itself or a long run from it, but it is part of that valley.


Ernest Edward Perley: Has any
estimate been made of the cost of that project?
Mr.	GARDINER:	The	estimated cost,
as far as investigations have gone, is about $50,000. It is a little less than half of the cost of the Val Marie project.
Mr.	DONNELLY:	Has	the	government
under consideration any project either in the Pinto creek or Wood river or any district which is the centre of the dried out area in southern Saskatchewan?
Mr.	GARDINER:	In item	311, underproposed constructions, there is a proposal in connection with the Wood river at Coderre, which I think the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly)	will	know very
well. Then, further south, it has been suggested that something should be undertaken at Willows, which is just west of Assiniboia. That is under consideration; no reports on it have been received from engineers. There is another project that has been proposed, near Wood Mountain; that too is in the same stage. There has been an application for it, and it is under consideration.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Would the minister give some explanation with respect to the Canada Land and Irrigation Company, Vauxhall? This company has an enormous investment in an enterprise which was originally a private project, an exploitation by those who were then exploiting western Canada; and the situation is acute, because no money has been returned to the shareholders, who are Englishmen, who bought the securities many years ago, about 1911 or 1912. Perhaps the minister will give us some explanation as to how that now stands, in view of the fact that it was a private enterprise; the federal government provided money for it, and the

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province provided something. This item, I see, provides for an expenditure of $65,000; under wihat circumstances?


James Garfield Gardiner: I will just read the
note with regard to that. It covers what has taken place up to very recently. The Canada Land and Irrigation Company, at Vaux-hall, Alberta, is operating in receivership. It is a company devoted to irrigating in all some thirty thousand acres of land in Alberta, but will have to cease operations unless financial aid is forthcoming both for repairs and to wipe out some of their indebtedness. The main canal of the project supplies water to a large number of ranchers and farmers representing an area of 300,000 acres of non-irrigated land and approximately 250 farms in the Vauxhall district representing 40,000 acres. The irrigable lands are entirely dependent on the continued operation of this project for stock and irrigation water.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Is that the water that
comes from lake McGregor?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, it comes through
lake McGregor from a river farther north; it has about 110 miles of channel in order to bring it down there. Some of the $65,000 is required for replacement and maintenance of the existing system, and the balance, $20,000, for municipal taxes and repayments on a loan due for past repairs. If the company ceases operations it will leave the ranchers on 110 miles of canal and 250 irrigation farms without water. The works of this company represent an investment of approximately $15,000,000. The cost for the relief of some five hundred farmers thus affected, to say nothing of the cost of assisting to move them to other lands where irrigation water might be available, or to dry farming lands, would amount to very many times the $80,000 that is the estimated cost of this project.
That is the representation that has been made. The first request that was made last year on behalf of these people I think was for $150,000, including something like $30,000 to cover provincial taxes and charges and in the neighbourhood of $20,000 for municipal taxes. I understand that an order was prepared and brought in last year for the expenditure of the full amount, but that was reduced by the amount of the provincial taxes. Then another order in council was prepared which I think was under consideration at the time the government changed, which included the municipal taxes. When the present government gave consideration to the matter we did not consider it advisable to undertake 
payment of the municipal taxes. That amount was deleted, bringing the total to about $104,000. Then I had the manager of the company come to Ottawa and I went into the whole matter with him. I pointed out that there were some complaints from that area with regard to the overhead and the cost of managing the company, and that we noted that a considerable part of the money that was being requested was for the purpose of paying for that management. At first I insisted upon the whole cost of management being deleted, but after going into the matter more fully I came to the conclusion that there would be very little use in providing money to repair the work and thus assure the water supply of the farmers in the area that is being irrigated unless at the same time some provision was made for operating expenses, at least during a part of the season. So we estimated the cost of the works at somewhere in the neighbourhood of $60,000 and the cost of operation and repairs to local works at approximately $20,000, which would carry the works until the end of this season when we hope there will be a crop on which the farmers can realize. We have not provided for any operating expenses beyond that time. We have said to Mr. Hayes that we are providing the water largely because of the 360 farmers located along the waterway from the Bow river down to the actual works themselves and then, because of the necessity of the 250 farmers who are on the irrigated land being maintained somewhere, if not in the area where they now are, the government are prepared this year to put that amount of money into the project in order to maintain the water supply of these people not only for this year but for many years to come, provided sufficient money is obtained through the operation of these farms to pay the maintenance and management costs after the amount provided by the government has been expended. We are hopeful that this will be the result.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: What is the difference between those two items, water development projects and western conservation works?


James Garfield Gardiner: It would be hardly correct to say that all the money spent under item 308 will be under the Public Works Construction Act, but the greater part of it will be. I think the legislation is broad enough to make it possible to use some of the funds provided under the rehabilitation act for some of the work that is to be done under this second item.

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Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I notice that most of the expenditures under item 308 are to be made through the municipalities, with the exception of the payment to this irrigation company. How will the money be spent under item 307?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is hardly correct to
say that these sums are being expended through the municipalities. I think there is only the municipality of Edwards and the municipalitiy where the Wascana work is being undertaken.


Mr. HEAPS:: A few moments ago the
minister referred to the fact that the cost of providing water for these farms would be a charge against the farms. Has the minister any idea that- he could give the committee as to what would be the cost to those farmers who would be beneficiaries under this work?


James Garfield Gardiner: The only cost that will be a charge against the farms is the cost of maintenance. That is a matter which perhaps I should have explained in the beginning. It is really the difference between doing this work from here and the way it would have to be done if it were carried on provincially. The provincial governments have irrigation acts which provide that the whole cost, including the cost of construction as well as the cost of maintenance, shall be a charge against the lands that benefit. Payments are made over a term of years, during which the capital cost is paid off. Last year in its wisdom the government apparently decided that those areas would not be in a position to undertake works of this kind on that basis, and the government of Canada undertook to pay the initial cost of construction. But there has been no undertaking to pay, and no provision made for, the cost of maintenance after the work is done. That is one reason why we considered it essential that we should have a working plan with the provinces in connection with these works. During their recent sessions the provinces have amended their acts in order to make them conform to the intention of the government and to make it possible for us to carry out some of these works. That is true of the province of Saskatchewan at least, and to a certain extent I think it is the case in the other provinces. So under their various acts the provinces will then arrange for the cost of maintenance to be made a charge against the lands themselves.


Abraham Albert Heaps: What is included in the cost of maintenance?


James Garfield Gardiner: The maintenance of the ditches for irrigation purposes and the dam iteself. That is practically all.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I am thinking now of the
capital cost, and the interest thereon.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is being paid out
of this amount.


Abraham Albert Heaps: There will be no charge
against the farmers, then?


James Garfield Gardiner: No, it will be a charge against the capital debt of the Dominion of Canada.


James J. Donnelly: Under item 307 I take it small dams for individual farms, as well as community dams, will be constructed. Can the minister give us any idea of what sum was spent in this way last year and how many of these darns have been built throughout the west?


James Garfield Gardiner: I should like to pass
this item before going on to anything else. That comes under item 307, which we have already passed.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: That is the information I was asking for. Have these water development projects to do with small dams on individual farms and the western conservation works, No. 308, to do with large farms?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, as I explained at the beginning, that has to do with small dams and dugouts.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: On that basis how would the money be spent? Will it be spent by provincial or municipal authorities or by contract?


James Garfield Gardiner: That work will be largely done by the farmer himself, or the farmer and his neighbours. The only payment the government makes in connection with it is three cents a yard for the earth moved in the case of dams in addition to the engineers' costs that we incur in giving them advice as to how to go about it. This is to cover the engineering services and three cents a yard for work of that kind.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I have come in contact with some of that work, and the parts I have seen have been very fine and the farmers are much pleased. But what about these other dams, say at Estevan; would that work be done by the municipal authorities or by a contractor?


James Garfield Gardiner: As to the work at Estevan and Val Marie and Eastend,-that is if the Estevan work is ever undertaken; the Val Marie and Eastend work was let by contract to the lowest tenderer.
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Harry Leader: I am not clear in regard to the last item in item 308:
Payment to the Canada Land and Irrigation Company, Vauxhall, Alberta, $65,000.
Do I understand this is a payment to a private concern?


James Garfield Gardiner: Perhaps I should go a little more into detail in regard to what was mentioned by the leader of the opposition.


Harry Leader: If the minister will permit me a moment, it might save some time. My idea in bringing this up is that it seems a new departure. This work is undertaken by a private concern to furnish water for a great many farmers living outside that area. What assurance has the government that the private concern will not shut off this private supply of water at some future time?


James Garfield Gardiner: To go over the whole story regarding this land and irrigation company would be rather a long matter. The fact is that it is not a new departure to give them money; the government of Canada on a number of occasions previously has paid money to this company, and the provincial government as well. The fact is that a group of British investors spent a large sum of money, estimated at some 815,000,000, in developing that particular area. They have come to the point where I think they are about ready to abandon the project and leave it where it is. The governments of Alberta and of Canada find themselves in this position: somewhere in the neighbourhood of six hundred farmers and their families are located along this waterway who depend absolutely on that stream for water. From time to time difficulty has arisen because of the likelihood of the company withdrawing. Representations have been made on each occasion and action has been taken by the government of the day, not to the extent that has been asked for but in a considerable way. On this occasion they asked for S150,000 to begin with, and it has been worked down to $80,000. We are paying that, not because we consider there is anything due to the company but because the government would have to do something to take care of these people, and probably this is as cheap a way as it could be done for the moment. What we think with regard to paying the money over to the company is simply this, that we are really paying it to Mr. Hayes who has been placed in charge of the works.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The receiver, isn't he?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, as receiver, I think, with the consent of both provincial and federal governments, for a term of years. As

a result of that arrangement we are paying the money to him and depending upon Mr. Hayes, from the experience we have had with him, to see that the money is properly expended and that the people get proper service as a result of the expenditure.


Major James William Coldwell: I think I understand the point made 'by the thon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader). There is considerable difficulty in carrying these private companies along; it involves expenditure every year. I was wondering if the minister had knowledge of the settlement that was made in Alberta by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company with the farmers of what I believe is known as the eastern development district. In that instance an investment of something like $17,000,000 was involved. The farmers in the area were obligated to the extent of some $5,000,000; a capital amount of $4,000,000 was in arrears and with accumulated interest it amounted to about $5,000,000. The farmers themselves got together and made a proposition to the Canadian Pacific, and the net result I believe is that the farmers have been relieved of their debt to the extent of about four and a half million dollars by the cash payment of one dollar, and the company is relieved of the obligation and necessity of applying to the provincial government-in fact I believe one of the last acts passed on the statute book by the late government of Alberta was one validating this particular agreement. The point I make is that here we have a large group of farmers in Alberta and a very large company which undertook a great development work which has proven more or less abortive financially, and they found it worth while to make a settlement with the people who were in their debt. Here we have the suggestion of paying an amount this year and probably an amount another year. If something like this has to be liquidated it seems to me the sooner it is liquidated the better, for the farmers as well as the company and the government of Canada. I bring that to the attention of the minister with a view to seeing whether something could not be learned from -that particular agreement.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I am obliged to the minister for the explanation he has given with respect to this proposed expenditure. The real truth of the matter is that this company has made enormous expenditures and is insolvent. My recollection is that the receiver is in charge of the undertaking. The resident representative has had a very difficult time, and last year the government of Alberta

Supply-Agriculture

Rehabilitation
brought the matter to the attention of the federal government. The only concern we had in the matter is the concern that the minister has now expressed, concern for some six hundred people residing on irrigable and non-irrigable areas contiguous to this water. If the water is not maintained by someone the irrigable farms will become non-productive and the non-irrigable farmers will be deprived of the opportunity to provide water for their stock and for their farms. The water agreement under which they operated and the whole scheme of irrigation was a federal matter when it was launched. If the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell) wants to read an interesting page of Canadian history and will review the exploitation of that area, the flotation of securities made in England and the representations as to what was to result from the efforts made,, he will at least realize that all prejudiced people do not reside in one area, and that human nature in those days was not much different from what it is now. But during the war the federal government had to make a substantial contribution to that undertaking. Doctor Roche was minister at the time an appropriation was made, and it was found to be a very difficult matter. Every time the issue is the simple one, just as the minister pointed out: shall we save the people on these lands from complete disaster, or shall we make small expenditures to enable them to exist- because that is all it me'ans, unless they can get some crop. They must have water in order even to exist, and the only way they can get water is through lake McGregor and a long canal, t'he main part of which is I believe about one hundred miles long.


James Garfield Gardiner: One hundred and ten
mites.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Yes. Whatever sum is
necessary to save us from responsibility in connection with really providing for life for those on the area will be money that is well spent. The only reason I asked the question was to ascertain to what extent safeguards had been provided to ensure that the money would be used to accomplish the laudable purpose the minister has in mind, first, that of putting the ditches in such a state of repair as would enable the laying of water through laterals to the workable lands which are settled by some 250 irrigation settlers and, second, to make water available for stock. At times I am afraid in far off areas the water must be used by humans as well, but in such case it is first boiled. I am only asking that the minister
make it clear that the excellent purpose he desires to effect shall be made certain by such safeguards as may be necessary to ensure that there shall be no failure to accomplish the purpose he has in mind.
I certainly believe there is no doubt that this had to be done. One does it reluctantly, but I see no way by which we can escape it, having regard to the whole story connected with the undertaking. It is a long story, and at the inception of it our position is not entirely free from blame. Those who are familiar with it must know that. At least three of the gentlemen connected with the initial exploitation and promotion have passed to the great beyond, and in view of that fact I shall content myself with not discussing the matter beyond saying that I do commend the minister for taking the steps which we would have had to take had we been in office. In any event the only question which gave us worry was as to how we might so safeguard the expenditures as to ensure beyond reasonable doubt that those affected should secure the water they desired to obtain.


Robert Emmett Finn: The leader of the opposition
made reference to a flotation of securities, and I should like to know where particulars of it may be found. Could he give that information?


Richard Bedford Bennett: The prospectus appeared in the London Times, but I am not quite sure whether it was in 1911 or prior to that. I am told it was before 1911, but the information may be looked up in the library. Securities were placed upon the market by the Grenfell firm in London, and the local interested parties were largely from western Canada. The unfortunate investor has not received anything for what my hon. friend calls the wages of money, and the unfortunate settler is now in the position where he must appeal to the government or find himself inhabiting an area which would be perfectly useless from the standpoint of agricultural value. I shall try to find the citation.


Mr. STEWART:: One point has been
troubling me, and it is this: The minister has said that a number of these works are ordinarily within the sphere of provincial activity. The dominion government is now stepping into the area and constructing works. Is there any definite agreement with the provinces that once the works are constructed they will be taken over and maintained in future by the provinces? If not, I fear we
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shall find that the chickens will come home to roost. The contention will be that they are federal works and for all time must be maintained by the federal government. The other point is with reference to a possible liability for damages in connection with the diversion, the impounding or the retaining of water. What protection has the dominion against such liability?


James Garfield Gardiner: Both those matters are dealt with by provincial legislation. Perhaps I did not make myself clear when I spoke a few moments ago. Taking conditions in Saskatchewan, with which I am more familiar -1 administered the act at one time-may I say that under the irrigation act in Saskatchewan all safeguards are taken as a project proceeds.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The province followed the federal irrigation legislation.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; it followed the original federal irrigation measure. The present provisions provide for taking in and marking out areas to be affected by irrigation or drainage schemes. All people owning the lands are consulted, and either by way of petition or otherwise a vote is taken to indicate the willingness or unwillingness of the people to enter upon a scheme. The general practice is to try to secure unanimous support of any scheme, although it is not essential to obtain unanimity. A provincial minister may make a final decision to the effect that there has been support sufficient to warrant proceeding. Expropriation and everything of that kind can then be carried out. So far as responsibility is concerned, the whole organization in connection with these small irrigation schemes is carried on under provincial legislation, and the responsibility for maintenance is placed on the individuals who enter into the scheme under the provincial act.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: That may be so in connection with any project undertaken by the province, but is the minister sure it applies to anything undertaken by the dominion?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, when I was west two weeks ago I took special care to make sure of that. All the dominion does is this: We step into the picture to pay the original cost of the project, so that it does not become a levy against the lands. But all costs of maintenance remain. They are set up in the scheme and are charged against the lands so long as the irrigation exists. We are out of the picture after we have paid the cost of construction and our engineers turn it over to these organizations.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I have been marking on the map of Saskatchewan the places where the work is to be done, and I find that in the southwest corner, in Maple Creek constituency, there are four projects, all of which are needed. There is one near Moose Jaw and one near Regina. Unless the others mentioned by the minister are proceeded with it will mean that there will be a stretch of territory more than three hundred miles long and almost one hundred miles wide in which a condition of drought has existed and in which unless something is done to conserve the water, the possibility of raising sufficient crops to maintain a decent standard of living is remote. I should like to impress upon the minister the need of some work being done in districts such as that south of Radville, and in Bengough, Buffalo Gap and Willow Bunch.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: I should like to express commendation of the government which held office last year for entering upon this work and passing the legislation. Also I should like to express commendation of the present minister and the attention he has given the matter. This kind of work is very worth while. The people in the area are a fine industrious type and I am sure that we shall be repaid for any efforts made in rehabilitating these farm lands.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Experimental Farms
[Stage Direction]
Buildings and improvements-honey extraction house, central experimental farm, $495.95.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Is this item for the
province of Ontario?


James Garfield Gardiner: This is for a building
in the central experimental farm at Ottawa.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: This is a small item and one would think that it would appear in the regular estimates. Why should this small item be in these special supplementary estimates?


James Garfield Gardiner: It will be noticed that further along in the supplementaries is a program of work to be done mostly at the experimental farm. These are principally works provided in the proposals of last year. We are not carrying out all the proposals of last year; we are not carrying out the proposal for the erection of a very large building, but others are being constructed.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Did the whole building
cost only this amount?


Hugh Alexander Stewart: This is a new building.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is just a very small
honey extraction building costing $495.

Supply-Agriculture-Rehabilitation


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I am just commenting
on putting an item like this into a schedule of estimates said to be special supplementary estimates.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am told that the
building is incomplete. I was under the impression it was not yet started, but they tell me that it is under way.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: It could have been paid for out of the general vote.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Other projects-Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act-rehabilitation assistance to provinces, $170,000; miscellaneous and contingencies, $132,000.
Ernest Edward Perley: Will the minister give us a short explanation of this item?


James Garfield Gardiner: This item has to do
with the works already discussed, the projects already undertaken. The expenditures on the works previously discussed were much smaller than those to be undertaken under this item with the cooperation of the provinces. The first estimates that were brought down to me this year, having to do with these particular [DOT]expenditures, showed what I considered to be too large a proportion for overhead. The reason for this was that we were attempting to set up a new organization for all these projects, which, as I said a few moments ago, would probably have to be discontinued at the end of four years. We have tried to devise some means of having these works administered under the supervision of the department in a manner that would be less costly in so far as overhead is concerned. I do not make that statement by way of criticism because I think any minister or any government which might be here for the time being would consider the exceedingly high cost of administration and try to remove some of it. In this connection what we are doing is to ask the provincial governments, which already have staffs set up in the provinces or are in the midst of having this done, to assist us in the distribution of grasses for seeding purposes, in the establishment of agricultural associations, in moving settlers from what might be called light land into areas of better land in [DOT]order to avoid excessive relief costs in the future, and in having some of these lands seeded down in community pastures into Which a water supply will be put so that the people round about will be able to get their feed and water supply without having to go long distances in the dry seasons. We are asking the provincial governments to give us a greater degree of assistance in carrying out this work. The greater part of this money will
be spent on the work, only a comparatively small part being spent for assistance obtained from the provincial governments.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Under whose supervision will the money be spent?


James Garfield Gardiner: Under the supervision of the dominion government.


Mr. COLD WELL:: Will this include anything for soil surveys and so on? The minister stated that this vote would include something for the removal of people from light lands. During the last few years a number of people have settled on lands which are deficient in nitrates and phosphates and which in the future will present a problem to the western provinces. Is the federal government cooperating with the provincial governments in this connection? Does this appropriation contain anything for that purpose? Is there enough appropriated?


James Garfield Gardiner: Soil research work is being carried on at the experimental farm at Swift Current. Last year a building was erected there in which this work is carried on. This would be carried on under the second part of the item, miscellaneous and contingencies.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: This item would seem to be similar to item 307 and I was just wondering why the two have been separated. They both are under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act and it looks to me as though there might be something in the nature of overlapping or conflict.


James Garfield Gardiner: The first group covers projects undertaken last year and carried on more or less to completion. The other projects are those that we are going on with under the continuing policy.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I was wondering why they were not listed in the same manner as those undertaken last year and why they are being carried out through the provinces.


Mr. QUELCH:: Would the assistance to be furnished to settlers to move out of light land areas consist only in the payment of part of the freight rates or would it include financial assistance?


James Garfield Gardiner: This work is being carried on under provincial acts. Most of the provincial acts provide for taking people out of areas that have been found from experience to be too light to be properly inhabited by people carrying on farming operations. Througlh tax sales and otherwise, certain municipalities have come into possession of the greater part of such lands. There

2248	COMMONS
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might be one or two farmers who have been able to maintain themselves, perhaps in the centre of a particular area and the idea is to clear the area entirely of settlers and turn it into a community pasture into which a water supply would be put. Grass would be grown instead of grain. We believe that under the provincial legislation arrangements can be made to move these people from the lighter lands to better lands which may also be owned by the municipality and which are outside the particular area. We intend to ask the cooperation of the municipalities and the provinces in this work. There will be a certain expense in sending men to these areas to try to bring about this cooperation. In the case of mortgage companies holding mortgages on lands in such areas and perhaps owning lands outside the areas, we hope to bring about similar cooperation in order to get these people moved to other lands where they can start to make successful homes. This cooperation will be encouraged by the expenditure of this money and, in cooperation with the provinces and the municipalities, there will be an encouragement of the development of lands for community purposes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Western conservation works-
Development of a gas well at Red Deer river, Atlee, Alberta, $8,000.
Wood river stock watering dams, Coderre, Saskatchewan, $7,500.
Berry Creek water storage project, Berry Creek, Alberta, $25,000.
Sundry projects, $105,531 09.
Ernest Edward Perley: Could the minister give us a short explanation of these items, just as he did in connection with the others?


James Garfield Gardiner: The gas well at Red Deer river is an experimental project. I understand that in certain sections of Alberta comparatively shallow wells, as gas wells go, can be dug to supply sufficient gas to carry on pumping operations for the furnishing of sufficient water for the stock in the surrounding area. An endeavour is being made at Atlee, on Red Deer river, to sink a well some 800 feet where they are convinced, from experience along the stream, that they can obtain a large supply of gas which they will use for the purpose of providing a water supply for the surrounding country. It is an experimental project.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I was curious to know to what extent this assistance would be given in connection with gas wells. The minister knows better than I that once you get it started in a certain way every man will

want some assistance in the sinking of a gas well, and the selection of those to receive assistance would be very difficult. That is my point.


James Garfield Gardiner: That was my own reaction when I first ran across the project. It is one of the projects under consideration last year but not actually started. I raised the same objection that the leader of the opposition has now stated, but I was convinced by argument, particularly of the committee of which the right hon. gentleman has spoken.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Did they recommend it?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. I discussed it with them at the time and they were strongly of opinion that it was worth while spending the amount of money necessary for this one experiment. So far as I am concerned I intend to draw the line at this as an experiment. I do not think we should assist generally in the digging of gas wells for particular purposes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Not that it might not at one time have been highly desirable, the dominion then owning the whole of the natural resources, to assert the rights of tire crown and carry on development. That is another matter altogether. Is it a company or a private individual, or is the government doing the work itself?


James Garfield Gardiner: The government is doing it itself.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Sinking a well at an expenditure of $8,000?


James Garfield Gardiner: No, 800 feet, whatever the expenditure will be.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What about the second item, $7,500?


James Garfield Gardiner: That is a watering dam. I know the Coderre district fairly well and I have asked for a special investigation of this project before going on with the expenditure. The work had proceeded sufficiently far last year to warrant our asking for the money. Last year was probably an exceptional year. We had had four or five very dry years, and while it is possible that we may be able to get along during the greater part of the time without the expenditure of this money, I thought it wise to ask for the grant in view of the work already done.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What about the next item, the water storage project?


James Garfield Gardiner: Berry Creek is in the dry area outside the irrigated section. This

Supply-Agriculture-Farms
is another storage scheme to hold back water in order to assist the irrigation system and to supply water during midsummer. It would be of inestimable value to the live stock industry in the district and would eliminate the necessity of bringing in hundreds of thousands of tons of feed for relief purposes and moving thousands of head of cattle out of the district.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Where is Berry Creek?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is on the edge of some of the irrigation districts.


Victor Quelch: It is in Acadia, in my district. Is it intended to subdivide any of these lands into smaller areas for feed purposes?


James Garfield Gardiner: This is more a straight irrigation project, just on the edge to the north and east of the Brooks area. There is an existing irrigation system and this is to give a complete water supply over the season. I do not think this would lend itself to the same divisions as are anticipated in the other.


Grote Stirling: It is not a part of the
Canadian Pacific eastern district?


James Garfield Gardiner: No.


John Ritchie MacNicol: By whom are the plans
prepared and the surveys made?


James Garfield Gardiner: By engineers, under
the control of the department.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Of the federal government?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Ernest Edward Perley: There is an item, "sundry projects." I take it that these two items, 310 and 311, are put in to cover everything that the minister 'has in mind to do under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act during this season. Has he sufficient money to cover everything that he intends doing under that act during the current year?


James Garfield Gardiner: The projects that are
detailed here cover everything we contemplate doing under the act.


Ernest Edward Perley: Items 310 and
311 taken together cover everything the minister intends to do during the current year?


James Garfield Gardiner: All the items, from 307 to 311, except buildings at Ottawa.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Experimental Farms-Buildings and improvements-
Extension of botanical greenhouses for arboretum and botanical garden at central experimental farm, $4,528.60.
Replacement of director's residence, central experimental farm, $12,000.
Addition to fibre mill and plant, central experimental farm, $2,300.
Farm machinery building, including general work-room, laboratory space, etc., in connection with field husbandry central experimental farm. $60,697.
Erection of field laboratory, necessary repairs to existing buildings on property, erection of fencing, installation of telephones, repairs to road, and certain equipment at Kamloops, British Columbia, $7,000.
Ernest Edward Perley: The minister
might explain the item of $60,000 for farm machinery building, including general workroom and so on.


James Garfield Gardiner: This building is not
what is generally understood on a farm as merely an implement shed. It is intended not only to house the machinery but as a building in which to carry on experiments in connection with machinery and to facilitate work in regard to any changes that may be made, repairs and so on.


Ernest Edward Perley: Is it a new
building?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Ernest Edward Perley: Not yet started?


James Garfield Gardiner: No.


Thomas Langton Church: This is an item with
respect to the central experimental farm. I do not see the Minister of Finance in the chamber. I would ask him whether in his opinion this particular item might not stand over until next year, if we are to have any economy. The item includes an amount for replacement of the director's residence at the central experimental farm. The budget is not down yet and these items are all charged to income. The minister has his main estimates in which provision is made for the farm, and here he is asking us to pass an elaborate item for buildings and improvements, extension of botanical greenhouses, replacement of director's residence, farm machinery building and all the rest of it. Where is all this going to end in this economy year when the government is sure to have a huge deficit? When, aid for the industrial .provinces was under consideration the Minister of Finance wanted to know where the money was to come from. Money does not come like the dew from heaven. These items are chargeable to income, we are told, and in view of the deficit for which provision will have to foe made we are sure to have an increase in income tax. I hope not, as the two central provinces cannot stand such an increase.
Supply-Agriculture-Farms

I objected a moment or two ago to this grant to Saskatchewan. I object now on behalf of the province of Ontario to an appropriation for these experimental farm expenditures. The business man to-day is taxed to death, and if any more burdens are to be put upon him I do not know what will happen. The minister is only a new minister, and if he would say "no" to some of his officials the effect might be beneficial. There are many public buildings and residences more urgently needed; a residence and other improvements on this farm could well wait until next year. The committee is asked to provide 112,000 to replace a director's residence, while the supreme court is located in a storehouse or stable and not a cent is available for housing. Surely this item could be reduced or held over for twelve months to give the country a chance to balance its budget. It is just such comparatively small items as this S86.000 which will help with others to make up a deficit for the year. I do not know the views of other members from Ontario; but wait until they see the income tax boosted to take care of all these extravagant items.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Brandon winter fair and live stock association building-repairs and alterations, $25,000.
Ernest Edward Perley: This item, it seems to me, requires explanation. What is the necessity for this building?


James Garfield Gardiner: All across Canada we have carried out, by different governments of Canada, a policy under which fair boards have received assistance for the erection of their buildings. It has been a three-way program: the dominion government has paid one-third, the provincial government one-third, and the municipality the other third. The Brandon people have never had any assistance in connection with the erection of these buildings.


Ernest Edward Perley: They have never had any assistance before?


James Garfield Gardiner: 
[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
Other projects-to aid, in cooperation with provincial governments concerned, in reestablishment of needy fishermen, $300,000.
Mr. NEILL:: Would the minister give some explanation of this item?


Hon. J. E. MICHAUD (Minister of Fisheries):: 
Mr. YENIOT:: Under this item may I
ask the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Michaud), in the absence of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), to draw to the attention of the latter the remarks I am about to make. I wish to refer to the act passed in 1935 placing fishermen in the same category as farmers in respect to borrowing money, for the purpose of constructing new vessels and repairing old ones, and to some extent,, I think, obtaining fishing gear. Last year I drew the attention of the then government to the necessity of something being done along these lines. When the act came before the house in the last days of the session I was unavoidably absent. Had I been present I should have been able, I believe, to point out to the then government that the act in the form submitted to the house would not be effective in bringing about the result which was intended. The intentions were good, but the act could not be carried out. For instance, under it you cannot borrow money for, say the construction of new vessels except by giving a mortgage upon the real estate of the borrower. That does not help the general run of fishermen; ninety per cent of them cannot avail themselves of the act. Having a little real estate, and while they are engaged in fishing, their relatives at home being at some period of the year working on their farm properties, these fishermen feel that if they give a mortgage on their real estate, and their vessel is lost, the real estate would have to go and they would lose everything.
If the act were amended to provide for taking a bill of sale or a chattel mortgage upon the vessel, and the vessel itself, being new, were insured in a marine insurance company, in case of loss the government would receive the insurance and thus have money to loan back again to the fisherman who met with this disaster, and the money would go on being used from year to year in that way. My suggestion is that the act be amended so as to permit or oblige the fisherman to

Supply-Fisheries
give a chattel mortgage or bill of sale to the federal government on a vessel to be constructed under this act or under aid from the government. If it were found difficult to insure these vessels under marine insurance, the government would be in a position to require the companies to adopt some plan by which this insurance could be effected. Some difficulty arose two years ago in connection with insuring farm property. When a farmer borrowed money under the old act he had to insure the property up to at least the amount of the sum borrowed. Some of the insurance companies, the moment that he was in a position to borrow money from the government, con celled the insurance they had. I brought that matter two years ago to the attention of the finance department, and the then minister, Mr. Rhodes, undertook to make arrangements with the various insurance companies whereby, if that practice prevailed, it should cease. If the government can take means to see that the farmer is properly protected, the same thing can be done by way of aid to the fisherman, if it should be found difficult to obtain marine insurance. I would therefore request that the Minister of Fisheries draw the attention of the Minister of Finance to this matter and see whether some amendment cannot be adopted by which the act of 1935 will be made more workable.
The reason I stress that point is this: Outside one county in Nova Scotia, I represent the county in which there is the largest fishing fleet in the maritime provinces. To-day from 275 to 325 of a fleet leave our coasts on a Monday morning and return on the following Saturday night after spending the whole week fishing. Owing to the depressed condition of the codfish market during the last four or five years, particularly during the last two years and more especially since the imposition of sanctions against Italy completely shut off our market in that country for salt dried cod, the owners and crews of these vessels have not earned enough to keep the boats in repair. This year quite a number of these vessels will remain at the docks and will not be put to sea. It may be that during the last four or five years they have not been kept in repair and have become unseaworthy, while others need to be replaced by new vessels. Under this act that cannot be done, for the reasons I have already mentioned.
I believe the government should come to the assistance of these fishermen just as assistance has been given to farmers generally throughout the country. I heartily approve and support the giving of assistance to farmers; I think this will work out fairly
well, with a few slight changes, but if the government do not come to the aid of the fishermen then what is perhaps the most important industry in the maritime provinces will gradually disappear and many of our fishermen will have to give up their calling and look to the government for direct relief. It would pay the government to spend money in this way instead of giving direct relief to the fishermen,. They do not want relief; they want an opportunity to earn a living, as they have done in the past. They risk their lives on the deep sea in pursuit of their calling. Their industry, in common with other industries, has been hit by the depression, and they are not able to carry on as they have done in the past. This afternoon I listened with a great deal of interest to all that was said in support of the relief which is to be given in the stricken areas of the prairie provinces. I hold up both hands in support of what has been done in the past andi what is intended for the future. At the same time, however, we have misery and distress in the maritimes. What wheat is to our western farmers the fishing industry is to us in the maritimes, and we have a perfect right to expect from governments, both provincial and federal, that aid to which we are entitled in order to enable our people to carry on until this depression passes by. I am glad that by means of this vote a step has been taken in the direction of doing something for our fishermen. I consider the amount fairly small, but I approve the principle of doing something, through a vote of parliament, to come to the aid of our men.
Let me say to the Minister of Fisheries, however, that in whatever arrangements are made with the provincial government he and his department should not lose any of the supervision which should be retained over the-expenditure of the money. I contend that if we give money to the provincial governments in order to aid the fishermen the federal Department of Fisheries should have supervision over the expenditure of the money. I think some officials, either from Ottawa or from outside, should be appointed to see that all arrangements for the distribution and expenditure of this money in each of the maritime provinces, and in fact in any province where this money may be expended, are carried out properly. I hope the suggestions I have made to the minister concerning loans to fishermen for the construction and rehabilitation of vessels will be taken under serious consideration.


Thomas Langton Church: I have no objection to this particular amount of $300,000 which is to be

Supply-Fisheries
spent, in cooperation with the provinces, for the assistance of needy fishermen. Last session there was introduced by the late government a fisherman's protection bill which was a step in the direction of giving protection to these needy men so that they would not lose their homes, nets, boats and other property; it was an extension of the farm loan principle to the fisheries of this country. I contended then, as I contend now, however, that this protection should be extended to fishermen in all the provinces to the head of the lakes instead of just to those in the maritime provinces. I say that it should extend to the fishermen on the great lakes.
To-day we are giving protection to both farmers and fishermen, and quite rightly so. I agree with everything that has been said by the former Postmaster General (Mr. Veniot) as to the situation of these poor people, both in the maritime provinces and on the great lakes. They are suffering many hardships to-day, but since the government have given protection to farmers and fishermen I want to ask them this question: Are you or are you not going to extend this same principle of protection to the industrial workers of this country, who are losing their homes through foreclosure and who are being put out on the street? These are skilled mechanics, artisans, carpenters, bricklayers and that class of people, who make up fifty-three per cent of the workers of the dominion. Are you going to extend this principle of protection to all the people all the time and not some of the people some of the time? The Minister of Labour said he would study that question.


Frederick George Sanderson: I regret to have to inform the hon. member that he is not speaking to the item under discussion. He is entirely out of order and must confine his remarks to the item before the committee.


Thomas Langton Church: I accept your ruling, Mr. Chairman, but I could quote precedents from Redlioh, May and all the authorities to show that it is quite in order to make protection comparisons and contrasts in connection with a vote. But although I am quite in order I will not argue the point with you, Mr. Chairman, because I have found you a pretty fair chairman. I simply ask this government under this vote to do its duty towards all those in need, whether they be fishermen, farmers or industrial workers. Why make a football of the needy industrial workers while you give relief to fishermen and farmers? When will some vote appear in the supplementary estimates making a grant in behalf of the industrial workers? There is nothing
at all in the main estimates; not one dollar is voted for the needy industrial worker. I have no abjection to this vote. I hope it will pass, but I think we should have some statement of policy on behalf of the government as to whether or not they are going to extend this vote or to do anything for these industrial workers.


Frederick George Sanderson: I do not like to interrupt the hon. member, but he must discuss the item under consideration. At present he is entirely out of order, as I think he well knows, so I would ask him to confine himself to the subject under discussion.


Thomas Langton Church: With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, item 314 says "to aid." What does "to aid" mean?
To aid, in cooperation with provincial governments concerned, in reestablishment of needy fishermen.
That is a protectionist statement and vote. I know the rules. The discussion is relevant. You must believe in protection yourself, sometimes, Mr. Chairman. This is advanced piotection, something never done before by this parliament. These matters come under property and civil rights and are in the jurisdiction of the provinces. This relief is going beyond that; this goes much further than the relief measures; this is going to give these people something in addition. No doubt needy fishermen need some new equipment, boats and that kind of thing, as set out in the bill before parliament last session. I did not object to that measure, but I think the government should now come along with relief for the needy industrialists who have been knocking at the door of parliament. They are on relief; all they can get is a hand-out of a few loaves of bread. They are entitled to the very same protection as are other workers. I have expressed that opinion before and I am going to express it at every opportunity I get because I believe that fifty per cent of the workers of this country are entitled to some form of protection the same as are those engaged in fisheries and agriculture. We have protection for some and not for others; if you are going to protect some people who are needy let us have this protection for all the people of Canada all the time who are in need and losing their houses, their businesses and all that kind of thing.


Mr. HANSON:: 
Robert Emmett Finn: At an earlier stage of this session I complimented the Minister of Fisheries upon having come to the province of Nova Scotia to look into the needs and the distress of our people there in connection wdth the fishing industry. I also complimented the Minister of Railways and Marine upon his visit to us, and to him we look for future results. But to-day, when I look at the estimates brought down by the Minister of Fisheries I confess that I am absolutely disappointed. I thought of the fishing industry along the coast of Nova Scotia and
along the shores of the great province of New Brunswick, to which the former Postmaster General (Mr. Veniot) has referred, an industry which is so hazardous in contradistinction to the fishing industry on the Pacific ocean, for on the Pacific they have the lovely sunshine and the smooth waters as against the terrific gales, the heavy seas and the awful chances taken by our fishermen on the Atlantic. If bon. members of this committee will look through the newspapers during the last month they will find that some thirty-five fishermen along the coast of Nova Scotia lost their lives in trying to pursue their industry in order that they might have a bite to eat in their homes for their children and themselves.
To-day the fisherman sets his nets or his traps on that coast, and what becomes of them? He looks out from his doorway on a rock-ribbed coast, and finds that these things with which he has to earn his livelihood are absolutely gone. We have had here this afternoon the estimates in reference to our middle west, the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. To these votes I take no exception. When provision is made by the minister for agricultural development and the removal of people from one set of lands to another in order that they may make a livelihood, no objection is raised by us. But, Mr. Chairman, there is only one of two places on which the fisherman can plant his foot; he can plant it either on the granite rock or in the Atlantic ocean. I would ask the Minister of Fisheries if he is at liberty to say what agreement he has entered into with the government of the province of Nova Scotia from which I come. As to the other provinces, hon. gentlemen here can ask that question for themselves. I come from the county of Halifax which extends along the coast from Ecum Secum to Hubbard's cove, 200 miles, and the people along that shore depend absolutely for their living, the maintenance of their families and the education of their children-and I was going to say some amusement, but I am afraid they get little of that-upon the fisheries. Along that coast, and particularly on the westerly side of Halifax harbour to Shad bay and the various districts as far as Hubbard's cove, the children have had to remain in bed to keep warm because their parents had not money to buy coal-and there are only granite rocks; there are no trees to cut down to give them warmth-let alone shoes for their children to wear to school. I support the government of the present Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), and in that
Supply-Fisheries

government I support the Minister of Fisheries, but when I see the miniature estimate brought down to help the fisheries I am not pleased. Undoubtedly the vote in the estimates is to cover expenditures in all provinces where fishing is an industry. I speak my mind because I thought that after the visit of the Minister of Fisheries to the maritime provinces there would have been an opportunity to discuss with him, this great problem and the attitude of the government thereon. I should have thought the opportunity would be given before the estimate was placed before the committee.
Already I have pointed out, in a communication addressed to the government, that I believe this year a bonus should be given to fishermen, not only to those in Nova Scotia but to those in all provinces affected. Other provinces, however, except in a sympathetic way, do not come within my purview. I must repeat that the vote of $300,000 for needy fishermen in all the provinces where fisheries are established is a useless sum, and cannot be effective. I was going to use a word which, though perhaps not unparliamentary, would have been harsh, and I have no desire to use harsh language, even when replying to the leader of the opposition, for whom I have great respect.
Without any desire to embarrass the Minister of Fisheries but rather to help him I should like to know whether this is the final vote for needy fishermen throughout Canada. If the amount is divided it will be found that the needy fishermen in Nova Scotia cannot exist upon the amount which would go to them. I may be wrong, but it is my impression that in the Canadian west we have the wheat board and the wheat exchange. The price of wheat is fixed, and the government pays the difference between the market price and .the price which is fixed. On the other hand the fisherman must go his weary way upon the seas. He receives nothing from anybody, and he must sell for two cents per pound fish which is sold in stores for fifteen or sixteen cents per pound. Who receives the profit? The fishermen and the farmers are the backbone of Canada, and although the fish in the sea cannot be seen, as is the wheat grown on the western prairies, that is no reason why the fish should be forgotten. I can see no sound reason why a supplementary vote, one which would meet the requirements of fishermen, should not be brought down. The minister could stand behind it. These are days when general relief measures are necessary, but only the fishermen who go to sea, many of whom are going out for the last time, know the hardships of working night and day in cold fMr. Finn.]
weather, away from their families and their home districts.
These are the conditions which have caused me to speak forcefully this afternoon. I have no desire to embarrass the Minister of Fisheries, because this is the first year he has held office as minister of that department, but I believe it my duty to draw to his attention the needs and requirements of fishermen. Before the vote is passed I suggest some person or persons should be sent to find out the needs of the fishermen, how they live and what agreements have been entered into with the provincial governments. So far as my province is concerned I say that they should find out what agreement has been entered into with the government of the Hon. Angus L. Macdonald, Premier of Nova Scotia. Until that information is forthcoming I suggest that the minister should allow the item to stand to permit personal conferences with him, and he should be assured that before the item appears in the estimates careful study has been given to the whole matter, and that there is an understanding of conditions existing.
The hon. member for Gloucester spoke of legislation passed in 1935, and although I have tried to find out, I must say that I do not know to which particular act he refers. There is one which has reference to fisheries, another referring to relief and a third respecting people receiving titles, but I cannot see anything applying to fishermen.
At six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



COPYRIGHT ACT

[Stage Direction]
On the order:
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion of Mr. Esling for the second reading of Bill No. 7, an act to amend the Copyright Amendment Act, 1931.
Hon. FERNAND RINFRET (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, I notice the sponsor of this bill is in his place and perhaps he would consent to drop the bill due to the fact that a government bill covers all these points.


Mr. W. K. ESLING (Kootenay West):: I am quite willing.
Bill withdrawn.



FISHERIES ACT AMENDMENT

[Stage Direction]
Mr. THOMAS REID (New Westminster) moved the second reading of Bill No. 20, to amend the Fisheries Act, 1932.

Fisheries Act-Mr. Reid
Richard Bedford Bennett: Explain.


Mr. REID:: Mr. Speaker, at the outset, may I say that the bill which I am introducing to the house is practically the same bill as was introduced last year. As this is almost a new house as far as members are concerned, perhaps it might be well if I stated briefly the objects of this bill. I shall endeavour to be as brief as possible, realizing, however, that some explanation is necessary. The proposed bill deals particularly with the salmon industry as related to the Fraser river. The Fraser river flows into the gulf of Georgia and its fresh waters carry out quite a few miles into the gulf. From confederation to 1933 the gulf of Georgia, the estuary of the Fraser river, has been fished entirely by those using gill nets.
So that hon. members may have a better idea as to what the dispute is about, I should explain that two methods are used principally in fishing for salmon in British Columbia. One method is the gill net operated by a fisherman, sometimes assisted by a helper but mostly working alone from his boat. The gill net is some 1,200 feet long by thirty feet deep. I am using the measurement of feet to describe these nets although the term "fathom" is used in the Fisheries Act.. I lelieve the expression "feet" will be more easily understood by the members. From confederation to 1933 only gill netters were permitted to catch fish in this area.
The other method of fishing is by seine nets. The seine boats carry a crew of from seven to nine men who go out into the open waters or clear salt waters when a school of fish is sighted, and may I say that a school of salmon is very easily located by the numerous sea-gulls and other birds hovering round. When a school of fish is sighted these seine boats drop their nets which measure 1,200 feet by some seventy-three feet, as against the thirty foot depth of the gill nets. They circle the school of salmon and then pull the net tightly together at the bottom with cords when it comes up like a purse. That is why they are called purse seines. The catch of fish made at one set by these nets is almost unbelievable. They have been known to pick up as many as 10,000 salmon at one lift. In fishing for herring they have been known to bring up as many as twenty-six tons at one time. Hon. members will readily understand the havoc wrought in a school of salmon by this type of fishing.
For the information of hon. members, may I point out that the salmon head through the straits of Juan de Fuca coming up from the southern Pacific ocean. They head also into t.he rivers of the Pacific coast, but principally
into the Fraser river. As I pointed out, seine fishing has been permitted in other areas, but this area was exclusive to gill netters from confederation to 1933. In 1922 a commission, consisting of many hon. members of parliament, some of whom are still in the house, was appointed to go to British Columbia to investigate the whole industry. This commission reported that in all areas where gill net fishermen could operate, seine boats should be prohibited entirely. It was felt that if seine fishing were allowed in certain areas the fishing industry would be depleted, due to the scooping up in large numbers of all varieties of fish, including immature fish. The mesh of the seine net is only three and one-quarter inches and when it is pulled tight, everything encircled within it is brought up.


Richard Bedford Bennett: They put some back into the sea.
_ Mr. REID: No, sir. I shall deal with that in a little while. As interjected by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Bennett), it is claimed that some fish are put back into the sea. This is the claim of the canneiy men, the principal owners of the seine boats, and the seiners themselves. I -have letters stating that immature fish and fish out of season have been sold in various Pacific coast cities after having been caught in these seine nets.
In 1933, when the house was in session, an order in council was passed permitting seine boats to go into this special area. This was done even though there was a standing fisheries committee. These seine netters had been besieging every government for many years to allow them to enter this area to fish. Contrary to the statement of the deputy minister of fisheries and others, seine boats are ninety per cent owned and controlled by the canning interests. They are really mobile traps because they can fish one area and then move on into another, and this is what has been taking place. The very day this order in council was passed I received from the acting Minister of Fisheries a letter, a copy of which I have in my hand, stating that this matter would be considered. This statement was made in that letter even though he or some one had signed the order in council that very day allowing seine boats to enter this area.
Mr. Speaker, at this point may I say I am particularly pleased at the appointment of a Minister of Fisheries. In 1930 there was a minister of fisheries and at that time I expressed my thanks. I was sorry to see the then Minister of Fisheries transferred, but from then until the elections we have had only an acting Minister of Fisheries. As
Fisheries Act-Mr. Reid

the first acting Minister of Fisheries, (Mr. Duranleau), pointed out to me, there was no use in his interesting himself in the fishing industry as he was only the acting minister. He left everything to the officials of the department. I am glad that a Minister of Fisheries has been appointed now because the fishing industry is one of the important industries of Canada.
I should like to direct attention to the fact that the value of the production of this industry has been going down from year to year. I shall not weary the house with figures, but in 1929 the value of the production of this industry was S53,518,521, the value of the British Columbia production being $23,930,602. In 1934-35 the production dropped to a total value of $34,121,941, the production in British Columbia having dropped to $15,334,335.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Was the first year 1929?


Thomas Reid: Yes.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Why not take a year comparable with 1935?


Thomas Reid: What year does the right hon. gentleman suggest?


Richard Bedford Bennett: Either 1932 or 1931.


Thomas Reid: In 1930 the total value was $47,804,216; in 1933-34 it was $27,558,053. If one takes the figures for successive years, it will be found that the total valuation drops from year to year. The increase in 1933 is due to the fact that there was an extraordinary run of certain variety of fish in that year. If I had the time to go into the figures, I could show a drop in quantity and in value from year to year. Salmon fishing is the most important fishing industry in British Columbia. Out of a total of production last year amounting to $15,334,335, the value of the salmon industry was $12,351,641. It is practically the greatest industry we have in British Columbia.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Except lumbering and
mining.


Thomas Reid: I was speaking particularly
of this variety of fish as against others. In 1933 there was invested in vessels practically $25,000,000 and in canneries $16,000,000, or a total of $41,000,000, and in 1934-35 that total was over $43,000,000. In 1933 there were employed 65,391 persons and in 1934-35 that number had increased to 68,634. The total number of those employed in the industry including those on shore was last year 82,372. The number of those engaged in fishing had increased, for the reason no doubt that many who had prior to that time been unemployed 
went into the fishing business in an effort to obtain a livelihood. This, I believe, dhows the importance of the industry.
The dispute in question affects the livelihood of some 2,000 fishermen, and I have already painted out that this area had been fished exclusively by gill nets. With reference to orders in council, the 1922 commission recommended that adequate notice should be given before the passing of any orders in council, and in this connection I would direct the attention of the house to a matter which I consider serious. We seem to be drifting into this position: We pass the nucleus of a law and then allow the minister or his department to issue large booklets of regulations which practically change the whole act. I hold in my hand the latest orders in council passed this year and together they are almost as copious as the act itself. They were passed without any information having been previously given out, although the statement is made that the matter had been discussed with the industry. Here we have orders in council passed almost as bulky as the act itself, and this done practically without the sanction of parliament. I wish to call the -minister's attention to a particular clause, and I would ask the house whether it is not something unprecedented as far as orders in council are concerned. I am referring to the regulations having to do with the inspection of canned salmon.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: The documents to which the hon. gentleman is referring include regulations as well as orders in council.


Thomas Reid: Perhaps they do, but wait
until you hear this one.


Richard Bedford Bennett: The order in council is
passed to validate the regulations.
-Mr. REID:	The documents I have before
me include orders in council and regulations; I say that so that the minister and I shall be in agreement. Regulations have been passed in connection with canned salmon, for both export and import. In connection with canned salmon coming into Canada, -this is what section 32 (b) says:
All shipments of canned salmon imported for sale in Canada shall enter through a British Columbia port only.
Can the house imagine a provision that all potatoes entering Canada shall come in through Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia, or that all strawberries shall enter through Ontario? I do not know whether -the minister has seen this provision, but it seems to me-


Richard Bedford Bennett: Will the hon. gentleman be good enough to read that again.

Fisheries Act-Mr. Reid


Thomas Reid: 32(b). All shipments of canned salmon imported for sale in Canada shall enter through a British Columbia port only.


Richard Bedford Bennett: It is not worth the
paper it is written on.


Thomas Reid: As a layman, I say the same,
and I doubt whether it was called to the attention of the minister. But it shows what is happening to-day. Regulations are drawn up and if they are passed while the house is sitting no minister has time to look at them; naturally the minister takes the word of the deputy or of the departmental officials. And this is just a sample of what we have been getting. It is preposterous and I hope the minister will look carefully into it. I hold that it had been the policy of the Liberal government that no purse seine fishing should be allowed in the area conserved. The commission that sat in 1922 went into the matter thoroughly and submitted its findings, which were adopted by the house. I could put on the record statements to show that an assurance was practically given the fishermen by the present Prime Minister last year that something would be done to conform with the recommendations of the report of the commission that investigated the matter in 1922. I think I could say there was almost a promise that this would be done. The seines were first allowed in on the argument that the question was one of quality. It was said that as United States fishermen were fishing with seine boats and were also using traps, the fish, which the acting minister had been told were out in this area, deteriorated, when they crossed into Canadian waters. Well, I could read affidavit after affidavit from men who have fished there for twenty-five or thirty years, to the effect that in all their experience over the past thirty years there was a greater catch of salmon from the area by gill nets. As to the question of quality, the waters of the Fraser river flow out many miles, and any one crossing either by boat or by aeroplane can see the line of demarcation where the salt water meets the fresh water of the Fraser river. The argument in regard to quality is an erroneous one. For instance, in 1934 the area was closed for two weeks and the supervisor informed the public and the fishermen that the fish at that time were not in a fit state to be canned; that they had so deteriorated. But then he allowed the area to be opened up again and fishing took place by both seine and gill nets and the fish caught were canned.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Did he intimate that the closing for twelve days was on account of quality?


Thomas Reid: If the closing of the area had anything to do with the question of quality he would not have allowed fishing two weeks after the fish had had time to deteriorate still more. I suggest to the minister that it is not always a question of locality; it is very often a question of time. I do not know whether the deputy minister has ever had the fish timed to see how long it takes them to come from the international boundary to the Fraser river. At any rate, the argument was that the seine boats should be allowed to catch the fish in this area, because, if the fish were allowed to come up they would be in such bad condition as to ruin the good name of our sockeye. And here I might point out the late run of sockeye is not exactly the same as the early, and the inspection act, in my opinion at any rate, was introduced primarily with the idea of allowing the seine boats to get into this area, because the canners argued that it was a question of quality and they wanted to take the fish early so as to get a first-class product; at least so they stated. When the canners in the United States can the same variety, the late run of sockeye, they market the fish not as sockeye salmon but as "reds," because the late run of sockeye has a red skin and the belly is white, being different from the early run of sockeye which made the name of Fraser river, British Columbia, famous. I say this in all seriousness to the minister: If notice is not taken of this the canners, by canning this late run of sockeye and labelling it and selling it in the markets of the world as No. 1 sockeye, will do more damage to the good name of sockeye than anything else I know of. I ask that he take particular note of this and investigate to see whether what I say is not correct, and also that the United States, in putting up the same fish, label it as "reds," not as sockeye.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Would section 98 apply?


Thomas Reid: I do not know, of course, but I think section 98 would apply to some of the arguments put up by certain of the canners. They catch immature fish and destroy it, and I can support my assertions with numerous letters. I also have before me the argument advanced by the United States. In a letter which I received last year from the department of fisheries, Seattle, Washington, it is stated, "We have ruled purse seines out of the latter district and off the
Fisheries Act-Mr. Reid

coast of Washington within our jurisdiction to prevent the catching of immature fish." I cite that to show that United States interests have at last recognized that the seines are destructive in that they catch immature fish as well as all other varieties. As I pointed out, the size of the mesh is only three and one-quarter inches to begin with, and when pulled tight it is not over one and a half inches and becomes virtually a trap. I wonder whether any members of the house have seen the fish being taken from the seines. At one period last year they had so many fish, caught by seines, lying on the wharves, that when the canneryman got to the bottom of the seine, the flesh of the fish on the bottom fell away from the bones; they were as bad as that. Some say that fish caught by seines are of better quality than those caught by gill nets, but they are not. I am sorry that I have not an opportunity to develop that angle of the matter further, much as I would like to.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Is the purse seine used on the American side?


Thomas Reid: Purse seines are used on the American side but not at the mouths of rivers. They have ruled them off the Columbia and other rivers. There is a conflict of opinion in the United States the same as we have in Canada, perhaps to a greater extent, in that there are state regulations and federal regulations which often come into conflict. But the state has ruled out seines from the mouths of rivers.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: From the mouth of the Fraser river?


Thomas Reid: They do not fish at the mouth of the Fraser river. The minister means the Canadian seines? The American seines are barred by the boundary line, but Canadian seiners, when they had the chance, have seined right up into the Fraser river. As I mentioned in committee last year, three or four of them were caught right up in the river in shallow water.
When I introduced this to the committee last year I lost by one vote; eight voted against me while seven voted for the bill, and the chairman of that fisheries committee told me that had the vote been eight to eight he would have given his casting vote in my favour. I accept that in good faith; he told , me that without my having to ask him about it. But I would point out that I lost out in the committee by only one vote. I stated when the matter came into the house, and I am going to state again, that the officials of the fisheries department gave misleading

information, and have done right along, in regard to the salmon fisheries. I know that it is considered quite a crime to mention any official in this house, because the official is not here, but I mentioned the matter in front of him, and I contend that when there is anything wrong it is the right of the member to rise in his place and complain, so long as he is not vindictive in doing so. When he finds that wrong information has been supplied to the minister it is the member's duty, as I see it, to say so in this house. I repeat that departmental officials have certainly given misleading information right along.
I have not time to go into all the arguments used by the deputy minister last year, but I say that about twenty-five per cent of the statements which were made were open to disputation and at least fifteen per cent of them were entirely wrong, could not be proved. He said that fifty per cent of the seines were owned by the canneries. He did not say that ninety per cent were owned and controlled; he said that fifty per cent were owned. The information given me in British Columbia is that at least ninety per cent of the seines are controlled and owned by the canneries. He stated that the United States got most of the fish. Well, they may do so in some years, but, as I showed at that time, not in all years. He said that there were no purse seines permitted for sockeye. It is true that there were no purse seines for sockeye, but the canneries wish to have them, and in their briefs last year to the minister and to the committee they advocated the opening up of the area for them to fish when and how they liked. He stated that the dealers were reserving their best label for Canadian goods. I pointed out the racket that was played off last year, and I think is being played off this year: That canned fish had been inspected and classified as second quality; that, as our regulations required, another lid was put on the fish, and that fish was sold to customers who flicked off the first lid after the shipment left the shores of this country and sold the fish in their own markets as No.
1.	Some firms had also the temerity to ask for a rebate for taking off those lids. Now they are compelled to put on a lid that is soldered in four points, and what do you think has happened? There are firms offering to take off the soldered lids at so much per case, without leaving any mark; they do it by heating, and the second lid drops off and leaves the can intact. That fish is going to Great Britain and entering into competition with what we believe is No. 1 fish. Then the deputy minister said that the United States could pay more because of their home market.

Fisheries Act-Mr. Reid
The United States pays far more to the fisherman for catching the fish then we do in British Columbia; yet they sell the product for one-half the price to the United States consumer. I produced in this house cans of fish bought here and also bought across the line at just half the price. When the canneries were paying the fishermen one cent for late-run sockeye the United States paid ten cents and took the fish across the line and canned them, and those fish, which were not acceptable to our canners, were canned across the line and, I suppose, will meet our fish in competition in world markets.
I say without fear of successful contradiction that the present fisheries set-up is opposed absolutely to the gill net fisherman. The slant it has on life is all for the canner and for the vested interests. I say that after at least six years' investigation. In the arguments presented before the committee not one good word was said by the deputy in favour of the gill net fishermen. Every word that was spoken was in favour of the canner and, as I say, of the vested interests. I realize that once the department takes a stand it has to adhere to it. It cannot very well back down. I am pleased that we have now a full-time minister. I ask him not to take too seriously all the statements made by his departmental officials until he has had time personally to go out to British Columbia and investigate for himself. When he does investigate, for heaven's sake let him leave some of his officials behind and go out with some of the fishermen, and he will get an entirely different picture, whereas if he goes out with his officials they will show him the things which they want to show him and which, of course, will bolster up the stand they have long adopted, against the gill net fisherman.
I have pointed out that the fisheries will be depleted by the seine going in. I have figures to show that the catch has decreased since they went in. White springs, red springs and other varieties have been dropping off since these mobile traps have gone in. If the mobile traps could catch the fish more cheaply or of better quality I would say that there might be something to it, but in these days when we are looking for work for men and when we are talking about machinery displacing men, why should we allow these mobile traps, controlled by the vested interests, to put two thousand fishermen out of business? It is no wonder that I feel very wrathy about this matter.
Now, Mr. Speaker, before I close, I have three, if not four very important matters to bring to the attention of hon. members, and
particularly to the attention of the minister. I would like to have had my resolution in connection with the sockeye salmon treaty come before the house so that I could have dealt with this question more fully. I cannot go into this extensively to-night because I have not the time, but I would ask the minister to examine the map in connection with that sockeye treaty and see if he thinks his officials were right in laying out the boundaries. It is well known that south of the line the Columbia river contains all kinds of fish, and also that United States fishermen have caught fish out in the open sea in and out of season. But if the minister looks at the map he will see what poor information his officials must have had to O.K. a plan of that kind. We signed the treaty in 1930; it has not been signed by the United States yet. If they do sign it I hope the minister will not have departmental officials act as commissioners; I hope he will look after the fishermen and put on that commission someone who really knows and understands the fishing industry and who is really representative of the fishermen.
In connection with the late sockeye I have pointed out what I claim is the difference between the late and the early run. These sockeye are permitted to be canned and put on the market in competition with the No. 1 sockeye, and if this continues it will certainly ruin the valuable market we have built up for No. 1 sockeye.
Now I come to another matter. Last year I placed on the order paper a question which the then Prime Minister (Mr. Bennett) stated was a matter of first rate international concern. I refer to something that has taken place in connection with the Columbia river, which at one time was a great salmon river. In that connection may I point out that away back in 1846 there was signed between Great Britain and the United States, a treaty, one clause of which reads as follows:
From the point at which the 49th parallel of north latitude shall be found to intersect the great northern branch of the Columbia river, the navigation of the said branch shall be free and open to the Hudson's Bay Company, and to all British subjects trading with the same, to the point where the said branch meets the main stream of the Columbia, and thence down the said main stream to the ocean, with free access into and through the said river or rivers; it being understood, that all the usual portages along the line thus described, shall in like manner be free and open.
In other words, Mr. Speaker, after 1846 the Columbia river, by treaty, was to be kept open for Canadian and British subjects, but during the past number of years the
Fisheries Act-Mr. Reid

United States have ignored that treaty entirely and have built large dams and other obstructions. One dam, I think, is some 370 feet in height, so that to-day there can be no portages. In addition this has affected the runs of fish in that river. I have in my hand the annual bulletin of the Department of Fisheries of the state of Washington, which says:
Practically all of the Columbia river watershed in eastern Washington has been drained of its fish life almost to the point of extermination because no support was given by the public to enforcing legislation already on the statute books.
We have the same situation on tJhis side of the line; we have complacently stood by while the United States have openly violated this treaty. That clause in that treaty was of untold value to Canada; I do not know that I could state the amount in money that it was worth to the people of this country. New that river is blocked. I appeal to the Minister of Fisheries and to the Prime Minister to take up this matter very seriously with the United States government. I do not know what can be done about it now, or what compensation we should demand, but I do know that if conditions had been reversed and we had done this, the United States would have made us pay heavily for blocking that river. A part of that treaty has been ignored, and no notice has been taken of it. As a quid pro quo I would suggest that we be given a small piece of land adjacent to Vancouver, a small neck of the woods called Point Roberts, which is United States territory at the present time. At times this has been more or less of a bootlegging centre, though in the summer time it is a great summer resort, and customs officials are maintained there. We who are acquainted with the district know exactly what is going on there. I say it would not be too much to ask that the United States transfer this small piece of territory to Canada in compensation for the violation of the treaty of 1846. No one can say just when that portage might have been of benefit to this country; no one can say when in future it might be desirable to use it, but now it is blocked, and I say it is too bad that no action has been taken by the Canadian government. As I said, I took up the matter last year and it was pointed out by the then Prime Minister that this was an international question.
In closing, Mr. Speaker, let me say that I am not asking for the total elimination of seines. I am asking that they be eliminated from the mouth of the Fraser river, where they were allowed to be placed in 1933 for

the first time. They 'have other areas available, and when those areas are closed they can move to other areas such as Nos. 18, 19 and 20. The gill nets cannot go there because it is clear salt water and those of us who know anything at all about the fishing industry know that gill nets do not do so well where the water is clear, because the fish can see the nets and so avoid them. It is strange that in the regulations there should be indicated a maximum length and depth for gill nets, though when it comes to the seiner he can use a net of any length or depth he desires.
There is one more matter to which I should like to direct the attention of the minister, and that is with regard to the policy of his department in regard to propagating sport fish. I know that we want tourists to come to this country; I know they like our streams, but we have spent many thousands of dollars in the propagation of sport fish which, on investigation, have been found to prey upon the small salmon fry. In other words we have been spending money to develop a salmon fishing industry and at the same time we have been spending money to cultivate the enemies of the salmon fishing industry. Dolly Varden and other trout, from the mouths of rivers where the salmon fry were found, have been opened up, and some of them have been found to have as many as sixty-five small salmon fry inside them. That is not bad for one meal, I would say. If you multiply that by the number of sport fish in our salmon streams you will see that this means a great loss to our fisheries, and I would ask the minister to take note of this situation. Sport fish may be all very well in many rivers, but I claim that in the salmon river the government should take note of what these sport fish are doing in the way of eating up the small salmon fry.
Then, Mr. Speaker, I understand that out of the money appropriated this year the minister is going to spend a certain amount in an attempt to encourage, by way of advertising, the consumption of fish. It appears to me that the greatest obstacle to the consumption of fish in this country, especially throughout the prairies and in the eastern provinces, is the price due to cost of transportation, et cetera. Remember that fishermen get about a cent and a half for a whole fish and then look what one must pay for fish in the stores. If the minister would approach the railway companies or have some regulation by which fish would be hauled across the country at cheaper rates so as to allow the public to get it cheaper he would

Fisheries Act-Mr. Michaud
do more to popularize fish than by simply having some woman stand in a store and show the housewife, who perhaps knows more about cooking than she does herself, how to fry fish. That to my mind will never popularize to any extent fish as a food. Advertising is all very well, but it seems to me that the most effective way to popularize fish would be to have railway rates and postal rates reduced so that there would be a ready market for cheaper fish both on the prairies and in the interior of British Columbia. It is scandalous that a fishermen can get only one and one-half cents for a fish weighing ten or fifteen pounds. I know that idea will not meet the views of the canners; no, they want everyone to eat canned fish. But we can ship our good canned salmon abroad, and I say again: If they want the people to eat the canned salmon they should at least sell it as cheap as the people across the line can purchase it. That they can well afford to do.
Now the seines will not be on this year; 1936 is the off year, but notice should be given now that they will not be allowed in 1937. The livelihood of two thousand fishermen is affected. Not only that, but the seines, just mobile traps, are the most destructive form of fishing, and if they are allowed to continue, their large catches, coupled with the fact that they take everything in the net, immature fish and all, will certainly deplete our great salmon fisheries. In support of that I can point to other areas off the British Columbia coast which have been depleted by the use of seines and have had to be closed down to allow the fish a chance to propagate again.
I say in all seriousness that the department is against the fishermen. I want the minister to investigate why in 1934 they allowed the seine boats in twelve hours before the gill net fishermen. Thirty-five mobile traps went into that school of fish; some of them ten thousand fish at a clip, and there were dumped on the cannery wharves so many fish that they could not be canned. And yet the department talk about quality.
I wonder if hon. members know the kind of letter sent out by the department. This is a paragraph from a letter that was sent to every canner; I leave it to hon. members if this is fair:
I have been further requested to obtain from each cannery manager a communication setting out his opinion as to whether the seine caught fish were superior for canning purposes as compared to fish caught by means of gill nets-
A very leading question.


An hon. MEMBER:: Who signed it?


Thomas Reid: Mr. McLeod, supervisor acting under the chief supervisor at Vancouver acting under the deputy minister at Ottawa. A leading question, meaning: Yes, we want you to say the seine caught fish are the best. How could they say otherwise when ninety per cent of these mobile traps are owned and controlled by the canners? Then they send out this letter to bolster up the order in council passed in 1933 which allowed these traps into that area.
I hope the minister will take these remarks seriously; this is a very serious matter; I introduced the bill last year and lost by one vote, so this year I am looking for results.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member must at least be congratulated upon having been able to tack on to his remarks about four different subjects which have no relation to the bill itself. However I have very little time at my disposal, so let me state briefly the position of the department and the government in relation to the matter. I shall proceed by way of elimination.
To take the last statement first, that in his opinion the Department of Fisheries is antagonistic to the fishermen; this statement is not warranted by .the facts and by the policy of the department for yearn past. I cannot and do not pretend to speak for my predecessors in office or to excuse whatever attitude or policy they may have adopted in reference to the matter of salmon fishing in British Columbia. However I may say in fairness to my predecessors, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing personally, that no sinister or ulterior motive actuated them in adopting the regulations of which my hon. friend complains. Since this bill was first introduced by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) I have made it my duty to look into the matter and to try to find out whether his attitude is justified.
As to his complaints relating to matters of international concern, such as the attitude this government or this country should take towards the United States of America regarding the Columbia river, and the line which was adopted by the contracting parties to the treaty of Washington, or the sockeye salmon treaty, which by the way I may say is in process of being revised or studied by both parties, these matters have no reference to the bill which is now under consideration, so for the present I shall eliminate any answer to these questions, which are intricate matters the reply to which might be far-reaching if I attempted at the present time to state the attitude of the government.

Fisheries Act-Mr. Michaud
My hon. friend also tried to confuse the. idea of quality or the policy of inspection with the regulations respecting seining at the mouth of the Fraser river. I find that the licensing of seiners in those waters came about as a consequence of the rules for inspection which were established in 1932 by the Department of Fisheries, and sanctioned by order in council of the government of the day. One matter which I want to explain, lest I should forget, is the complaint of my hon. friend about certain regulations of the department, especially one which he read, which has reference to the inspection of canned salmon when entering Canada. It is true that this regulation stands as it was read. But it is no new regulation, and it was adopted for a purpose. Practically all canned salmon that enters Canada comes through the Pacific coast, where in t'he United States practically all the salmon is canned. The regulation insists that salmon entering Canada from the United States should enter through entry ports in British Columbia, because it is only in that province that we have canned salmon inspection and inspectors. Inasmuch as most of the salmon enters Canada through the Pacific coast it is natural we should insist that it be inspected where we have inspectors.
As to the bill itself, it is in the nature of an injunction or prohibition. The hon. member seeks to have parliament prohibit the governor in council or the department exercising the function or prerogative which they have the duty to exercise under the existing law. The Fisheries Act provides that the governor in council on the recommendation of the minister may licence or sanction the mode of fishing, and these types of fishing have been accurately described by the hon. member.
Before 1933 the Department of Fisheries did not see fit to recommend to the government the approval of seine fishing in the waters lying at the mouth of the Fraser river in the gulf of Georgia, and in that year a regulation was adopted. Before stating the reasons which prompted the government to adopt the regulation I should like to take time to lay before the house certain facts and conditions which led the government of the day to determine upon the procedure of licensing that mode of fishing. It is true that prior to that year fishing with purse seines for salmon in those waters was not permitted. Hon. members coming from British Columbia know better than I do the conditions existing in the waters adjoining the province. For the information of hon. members who may not be familiar with the situation may I say that there are two kinds or two runs 
of sockeye salmon in the waters in question. Although t'he fact may be well known to all members, I should like to repeat that the Fraser river sockeye salmon is admitted by all the world to be the best obtainable for canning. When I make this statement I refer to the early run of fish. The early run is of grade A quality, and is found in those waters in the early season of the year and until about August 20 or 25. May I add that there is no regulation permitting the catch of that first-class fish by the use of seines. No purse seine fishing is permitted before the late run of fish appears in those waters, and through some freak of nature the late run fish appear only in odd years.
The first run of fish of the late variety is what is known as pink salmon. It is a good quality fish, but is not equal in quality to the genuine, early Fraser river sockeye. Then there is the late run sockeye which the hon. member claims is not a true sockeye. On that point I will not argue, as I am not familiar enough with conditions either to dispute the fact or to prove the contrary. However it is recognized by the trade as being an inferior grade of sockeye. It is permissible at certain times of the year to catch the late run of sockeye by seine fishing. Generally, from August 25 until the middle or latter part of September this kind of fishing is permitted due to the fact that since 1933 inspection has been in force in British Columbia. Before that time it could not be permitted, because the salmon was packed and when packed was put on the market as Fraser river sockeye. This procedure tended to depreciate the value, quality and good name of our good quality fish on the world market. However, after the rules for inspection were adopted in British Columbia, the government said to the canners:	It will be
up to you; wre have a means of deciding whether the fish you put on the market is good quality, second quality or an inferior grade, and if you choose to buy and can fish which will not grade properly it will be your misfortune, and you must suffer the consequences.
Purse seining was permitted because it was claimed-and the hon. membeT has not disputed the claim-that the fish caught in the cold waters immediately beyond the entrance to the mouth of the Fraser river, and just over the American border or boundary, is a good fish, of such quality that it can be put in cans, and when canned will appear as a good grade of fish to be placed on the market. That is the reason purse seining is allowed in those waters. The claim is made that gill net fishing cannot be done

Supply-Fisheries
as effectively as purse seining. Only a very small territory is in dispute, namely in the waters close to the imaginary line which forms the boundary between the United States and Canada, and the clear waters at the mouth of the Fraser river to which gill netters cannot resort.
We claim that if our fishermen can continue to catch late in August or early September fish of such quality or in such state that it can be packed satisfactorily, it would be in the interests of the fishermen to make the catch. By such permission they would be obtaining money which otherwise they would not receive. That is the reason why in 19'33 purse seining was permitted. Had the department thought this method of fishing would injuriously affect the trade in fish, I am sure my predecessors in office, no matter to which party they may have belonged, would not have allowed that mode of fishing. After all it would be bound to reflect upon all fishermen or other people engaged in the trade. The regulation is not made for the benefit of the eanners, directly, although it is true that they benefit by it. However, if they do benefit it is because the fishermen can catch the fish; the canner does not catch it.
The hon. member has tried to impute motives to officials of the department because they did not agree with him as to the ownership of seine boats. My reply is that departmental officials can only state facts. We know who own the seining boats by the number of people who are registered as owners. Perhaps the hon. member is in a better position than departmental officials to know who the controlling interests may be. I submit, however, that it is only a matter of surmise, and that it is not a certainty. Officials of the department may have found it impossible to establish exactly whether or not eanners have controlling interests in boats registered under the names of other persons. When departmental officials state that only fifty per cent of the boats engaged in seine net fishing are owned by the fishermen themselves, the statement is made because the registrations have so indicated.

The house in committee of supply, Mr. Johnston (Lake Centre) in the chair.



DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES

The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Johnston, Lake Centre):: When the committee rose at six o'clock we were discussing vote No. 314.
Other projects-to aid, in cooperation with provincial governments concerned, in reestablishment of needy fishermen, $300,000.


Robert Emmett Finn: Mr. Chairman, when the committee rose at six o'clock I was speaking on the item to which you have just referred. During the dinner recess I had hoped to have an opportunity of discussing one or two matters with the Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Michaud), to which I made reference this afternoon, but unfortunately I had an engagement of an impelling nature, although not absolutely necessary, which prevented my interviewing the minister. This item has to do with the reestablishment of needy fishermen and in order that hon. members may deal intelligently with this matter, I think they should know what arrangements have been entered into with the provincial governments in connection with the item. Another important piece of information which we should have is how much the provincial governments are contributing towards the fund for the needy fishermen referred to in this item. If the Minister of Fisheries is desirous of replying to these questions, I am prepared to take my seat so that the committee may have this information.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Go ahead.


Robert Emmett Finn: The Minister of Fisheries tells me to go ahead, but sometimes it is pretty hard to go ahead when you have no fuel with which to travel. In this case the fuel is the information. I have absolutely no desire to embarrass the minister, but this information is necessary in order to discuss intelligently this item from the standpoint of the needy fishermen. I do not even know what provinces are included in these arrangements; I do not know whether they cover the fisheries of the great lakes or whether they apply only to the Atlantic coast, the St. Lawrence river and the far-away Pacific coast. If I had this information, with what I have here in connection with my own province I could make a sort of race track estimate of what the needy fishermen of Nova Scotia might expect to receive. Therefore I ask the minister to give this committee some information as an index of his policy, and, I assume, that of the government. Until I receive that it is impossible for me intelligently and adequately to discuss matters which concern the needy fishermen in my constituency and in the province of Nova Scotia.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Mr. Chairman, in reply to the hon. member for Halifax (Mr. Finn) may I say that the agreements with the provinces concerned are not yet concluded although they are in process of negotiation. Naturally, the provinces concerned will be those over which the dominion government has jurisdiction in connection with fisheries



Supply-Fisneries
These will be Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, British Columbia and those sections of Quebec over which we still have some jurisdiction. The $300,000 has not been finally apportioned because the distribution will depend upon the schemes and proposals to be submitted by the respective provinces. As this is a measure of emergency, it is intended to ask the provinces to contribute a share towards taking care of these people. After all, these people are citizens of the provinces and the provinces should contribute. They will be asked to contribute at least fifty per cent of the cost of administering such schemes or proposals for relief as they may submit to this department. If the proposals submitted are considered to be for the reestablishment of needy fishermen, we will contribute fifty per cent of what the provinces may deem it advisable to expend for such purposes.


Robert Emmett Finn: As I understand the minister, he has no undertaking from any province that they are prepared to pay fifty per cent of the amount contributed by the federal government. Am I right?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: In some respects, yes. As yet there are no undertakings, but some of the provinces have signified their willingness to adopt certain schemes for the relief of needy fishermen, to which schemes .the government will contribute. I understand that four of the provinces have signified their intention of going ahead and that within the next few days they will submit projects or schemes which are now in the course of preparation. The premier of British Columbia has signified his desire to avail himself of the privilege of sharing in the amount, and so have the premiers of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. But the details of the proposal have not yet been submitted.


Alan Webster Neill: 
Mr. VENIOT:: On a policy of insurance.


Alan Webster Neill: Yes, insured; you cannot insure the land. As the member for Gloucester says, they could come and seize the land.
The adoption of such a proposal would do a great deal to aid the bona fide fisherman. We would not be pauperizing him; we would be doing something for people who are will-
Supply-Fisheries

ing and able to help themselves; and I think it would assist in doing away with this idea that we have to give hand-outs to people, an idea which is abhorrent to the average decent fisherman of British Columbia and, I have no doubt, of the Atlantic coast also.
There are methods, which I would term of a general nature, by which we could help the men engaged in the industry to help themselves. I have before me a resolution which was passed by the Kyuquot Trollers Cooperative Association, a very useful, aggressive and thrifty organization that has built itself up, even in bad times, to a measure of success. The resolution, which is addressed to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), states that the salmon trollers are all independent fishermen owning and operating their own boats, ninety per cent of which are propelled by gasoline engines, and fifty per cent of the fish is marketed in the United States, a duty of a cent and a half a pound being paid thereon. American fishermen trolling on the same ground three miles from the Canadian shore enter their fish free and pay only half as much for their gasoline. I think I 'have heard it calculated that gasoline costs amounts to forty per cent or more of the expenses of a man trolling, because the boat has to be run at a slow rate of speed, and the fisherman has to go out ten, twenty, or thirty miles, and back again at night. It is calculated that the cost of gas and dil amounts to nearly fifty per cent of his running cost, so that his costs are double those of his competitor. The fishermen are asking the Prime Minister if he cannot do something towards reducing the high price of gasoline. A reduction would help them substantially, and help them all. The other point they touched upon was the duty of a cent and a half which they had to pay for entry to the United States, which is the market for that great class of their fish which they call springs. We know that the government in the reciprocity treaty with the United States obtained a reduction from two cents to one and a half cents a pound, but I notice a cut was made in the eastern provinces on some fish from two cents to one cent, and we in the west are disappointed, wondering why the reduction of fifty per cent was not made for our benefit at the same time. If that could be done it would help our fishing materially, because the United States is our market for that class of fish.
After all, what is the greatest aid we can give to the fisherman? Is it not a bountiful supply of fish and a good market? Grant him those things, and he does not need a hand-out. Grant him a plentiful supply of
fMr. Neill.]
fish, and help to get a good market; he will do all the rest himself, and the government will not have to spend $300,000 on it, either.
There are a number of ways in which the fishermen can be helped. I am going to mention two or three. One is by the abolition of traps in the neighbourhood of southeastern Vancouver island. I hold in my hand a letter from the department stating, as plain as language can be, that these licences would not be issued next year, and yet in Hansard on March 9 an answer was given by the same department to the hon. member for Victoria City (Mr. Plunkett), in which reply the very opposite was stated. We have been keeping these traps on, and the only excuse for years and years was that on the American side they had traps. Two years ago t'he Americans took their traps off-it was a gesture, and a big one

and they invited us to do the same. We have not done it. We have said: There is yet one year to go, and perhaps they will change. Now another year has gone by; we have this division between the departmental deputy on one hand and the Hansard report on the other, and we do not know whether the traps will be taken off and not permitted again. That is one measure which would be of practical benefit, because all who are familiar with the subject know that the traps are the most disastrous way to take fish. They are, as the word indicates, practically a trap for everything that comes along; big and small fish of all kind go in there and are destroyed. In destructive capacity they are next to the seines, which are also a very destructive method of fishing, and much for the same reason, because they take in big and little fish as well.
Then we have the question of cutting down the hair seals. Here again I have a petition that was got up by a meeting of trollers on the Pacific coast last December. They made some comment upon the increasing number of hair seals. I took the matter up with the department, and I was advised on December 10 that the hair seal bounty was discontinued in June, 1933, owing to the need of strict economy in public expenditures. That was three years ago. Times now are a little better, and it is to be hoped that we can do a little something towards replacing that bounty. There is no more idiotic method of handling a bounty on any predatory animal or fish than doing it intermittently. If you take it off for two or three years the predatory animal or fish has time to recover. We tried that in British Columbia with cougars and wolves, and as a

Sup-ply-Fisheries
result there has been an enormous increase in the number of both those animals, because nobody is paid to hunt them. Indeed, instead of cutting down the bounty it should be increased, because it is more difficult to get them. I took the matter up with the department and the answer I got is this:
The department, however, is not in a position at the present time to say whether or not funds will be available for payment of the bounty next year.
That is entirely and thoroughly typical of .the correspondence I have with the department. "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." Do not do anything but write a nice polite letter. Why do they not write me, if they are not in a position to speak definitely:	We will try
to see if we cannot get the bounty; we will look into the matter; we will take it up with the minister. But no, the department is not in a position to say, nor have they yet been able to say, whether funds will be available for payment of the bounty next year.
Take the allied subject of sea-lions. I have before me a resolution passed by a meeting of fishermen. I will not read the preamble. They say that fifty per cent of the fishermen's catches are at times second grade owing to the fish being mutilated by sea-lions. Apparently they play with the fish. They will catch a salmon, toss it in the air and catch it as it comes down. While watching sea-lions playing among themselves I have seen them doing this. The resolution asks if something cannot be done towards cutting down the numbers of these sea-lions. It has been the custom for a number of years to send one of the official patrol boats to the rookeries and destroy the sea-lions once a year. The patrol boats make the trip up to the Virgin islands, I think they are called. These fishermen ask if that practice cannot be extended, as the good effect of the sea-lions being caught is confined to one locality. These fishermen asked if that practice, which at present only affects one place, could not be extended lower down on the Pacific coast, to a place called Solander island near Cape Cook. These islands have been seen swarming with these sea-lions, which have proved detrimental to fishing operations. I took up. that question also, and after a good deal of correspondence the answer I received was that there was only enough money available to carry on the work at the Virgin rocks. I know that this work is done by one of the fishery patrol boats, the crew of which are paid all year. At that season they are simply cruising up and down the coast, and it would make hardly half a dollar's worth of difference whether they were cruising up and down under
steam or whether they went to this particular island, landed a crew and killed a number of these sea-lions at their breeding grounds. But this is the answer I received:
Some time ago arrangements were made to have the situation fully canvassed in view of the increasing complaints as to the depredations of the sea-lions upon the catches and gear of fishermen.
As you are aware, the funds available to the department for measures to control sea-lions in recent years are confined to the expenditure involved in the annual expedition to the Virgin and Pearl rocks off the entrances to Rivers and Smith inlets by means of the Givenchy.
The Givenchy is going up and down the coast all the time on patrol work. How much would it cost to land on these other rocks, right on the route, and put in a day hunting these sea-lions? I would be willing to pay for the ammunition myself, if that was all
that, was standing in the way. But that was____
what was the word used last year?-the laissez faire attitude of the department. Putting it into English, it means "let be,"' and no two words could better describe the policy of the department: Let be; leave eyerything alone; whatever is, is best; wait and see.
Then I took up another matter, not as an agitator wanting to make trouble for the department, but as a result of meetings of fishermen or as a result of petitions received from fishermen who found their means of livelihood materially interfered with. In this case it was a board of trade that brought up the matter, complaining of the number of blackfish in certain districts. They said that when the blackfish went up the gulf of Georgia it was impossible to catch salmon for two or three days afterwards; the tourists were disappointed and the tourist resorts lost customers, while the commercial fishermen lost trade also. I took up that matter with the department, from which I received a longish letter putting all sorts of obstacles in the way. In this case there was not one lion; there was a whole menagerie of lions in the way of having anything done. The department said:
Even to secure the carcasses of a few for the purpose of having an examination of the stomach contents made by bioligical officers
would present some difficulty____ In the light
of all the circumstances-
This is the summing up; this is the action for which a group of fishermen were waiting:
In the light of all the circumstances, it is proposed to see what arrangements are feasible tor securing a few specimens, preferably from the Discovery Passage area in the vicinity of Campbell river, with a view to having the stomachs analyzed to definitely determine, if possible, the food they eat.
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That letter is dated December 30, but do not think progress has not been made. I received another letter dated February 26 in which I was told:
As previously advised, consideration is being given-
Do not be faint hearted!
-to arrangements for securing a few specimens of blackfish with a view to having their stomach contents analyzed to definitely determine, if possible, the food they eat.
They will get about half a dozen of these blackfish and look into their stomachs. If they happen to find seaweed they will say that the fish live on seaweed. I remember that on one occasion a man examined the stomach of a sea-lion on the Pacific coast. He found seaweed in the stomach and reported that the sea-lions lived on seaweed. Rubber tires are widely used on the fishing boats for fenders. If he had found a piece of rubber tire in the stomach of the sea-lion I suppose he would have reported that they lived on rubber. Supposing they took one of us at an odd moment and examined his stomach, what would be found? It would be that particular food we had last eaten. Supposing they get a blackfish and find no salmon in the stomach. That will not prove anything except that for a short time previously that blackfish had not been eating salmon. Maybe he was on a diet or something like that. But the best that I have been able to obtain, after all the correspondence which appears on this file, is that consideration is being given the matter. I am told not that something is going to be done, simply that consideration is being given to arrangements. Well, that will not help the fishermen much. Take some of your 8300,000 under this vote and use it to drive these blackfish out of the gulf of Georgia. This can be done; it was done before in connection with whales, and it will be of tremendous benefit to commercial fishermen and to those interested in the tourist business as well.
I made a reference to whales, and perhaps I might be allowed to explain what I meant. Some years ago it was thought that there was a large number of whales in what is called the gulf of Georgia, which is simply the water between Vancouver island and the mainland, and a group of men became interested. Without taking the trouble to investigate very deeply they built a whalery. Anyone passing from Vancouver island to the mainland would see a number of whales, and naturally they thought whales were present in large numbers. So they built the whalery and went to catch whales in the gulf of Georgia. They caught just nineteen whales,
tMr. Neill.]
and they have not caught another one since. It just happened that the whales were there to that extent, and when they were killed no more came in, at least not for many years. Possibly if the blackfish were destroyed or hunted down in the same way the same result would be achieved.
Then there is another point. I have been saying that the department should take care of the fish, should attempt to produce greater numbers of fish for the fishermen. Perhaps this is out of order, but it is pertinent to the situation. The government have decided practically to abandon the use of hatcheries, on which we have spent something like $4,000,000 in the last few years. They have decided that this is not the best way to propagate fish. What is the alternative? It is to adopt the natural way, to stimulate, encourage and protect natural propagation. Does that not sound sensible? We should see that the fish get up the rivers or the creeks at the right time, and then we should protect them. We can help also by clearing out log jams and such things which prevent the fish from going up at the right time to spawn. There are certain areas where, under certain conditions, the fish go up in large numbers at what is called high water. They go up and spawn on the banks of the rivers or creeks above the height of normal water. The result is that when the water subsides they are left high and dry; the frost comes along and enormous quantities of the spawn are destroyed. That could be prevented by netting those areas-they are principally government properties, rough bush-in such a way that the fish could not get beyond the ordinary water limit, compelling them to spawn within the area where they would be covered by water. Sometimes enormous damage is occasioned by a condition of that kind. So I say that if we are going to do away with the hatcheries we should do everything possible to stimulate natural propagation. Are we doing this? We are not. If you look at the estimates you will find that we are cutting down on it.
There is another method of protecting the fish, and that is by preventing poaching. That is perhaps the best way of all. Human nature is human nature the world over; if I were a fisherman and the guardian was away and I knew he was away, I am afraid I would be tempted to go inside the limit, where with great ease I could make a haul that might run to forty thousand fish. My Object in mentioning this is to plead for the expenditure of more rather than less money. The main estimates provide a cut of $183,000, but more money should be spent. Take it

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out of this $300,000 if you will and protect the mouths of the creeks and rivers, where a limit is set. In some cases it is one-half mile; in other cases it is more, and there is a fisheries patrol man or guardian who is supposed to see that no fishing is done within those limits. Whether a man is called a fisheries patrol officer or a fisheries guardian depends on whether or not he has a boat. It is his business to be there and to see that no man poaches, gets inside that limit. If you do not head them off of course they will go in and take the fish. A man can go in and in three days take forty thousand fish, and then if he is caught, of which there is not much chance, because the guardians are not there owing to these economies, he will be fined $25, which as he has taken $200 worth of fish he cam well afford. Have your guardians there and keep them there. If a maun goes out killing deer out of season he may catch one deer, but with these huge seines at the mouth of a good sized creek or bigger stream, by making a couple of casts he will take ninety per cent of the whole school. And that means not the school for that year alone but the school that has been built up by perhaps five to ten years of guardianship. The guardian has been there year after year to see that the fish are not molested within this half mile area, because the fish hang around, ready to go up when the high water comes, and that is when the seiner comes along. The guardian has protected that water for five or ten years, and then from motives of economy, because it is easier to take guardians off the pay-roll than to reduce some of the overhead in the Vancouver office, the water is left open; the fishermen being human like the rest of us go in and make a kill, and it will take another five or ten years to build up the run again. A man going in with a gill net or troll will take only a few fish; it is like poaching a deer, but with these powerful seines and improved machinery that they have now, that can take 100 tons at a lick, the seiners can go in and clean up that run.
These are matters for which we might well use some of this money, if we cannot take it out of the ordinary fund. Let me quote a letter I received the other day. I will not give the name of the writer, and I will suppress the names he gives, or he might be a marked man:
The greatest menace to the fishing industry from the fisherman's (troller's) point of view is the seemingly open and unchecked way the seine boats operate inside the boundaries. During the past twelve years all those streams
from	 to	 have been cleaned out
by seines. I think I am well within the mark
when I say that for every thousand fish that went up these streams ten or twelve years ago to spawn there are only ten at present.
From the seine boats' point of view it is good business to go inside the limits and take a chance. If he catches from $50 to $200 worth of fish the chances are he will get away, but he knows that if caught and taken to	 he will only be fined $25.
I took this up with....
He names two prominent fishery officials in British Columbia:
... only to be told that they could do nothing about it.
Last year there were some 3,300 trollers' licences issued, and if the spawning beds are not protected there will not be any fish for them to catch in another ten years.
As things are now, if the seine boats were forced to stay outside the limits from one-tliird to one-half of them would have to give up as they could not make it pay.
I remember hearing a seine boat- operator saying once: If it were not for poaching we could not make a living.
Now I have under my hand a note of the proceedings of the British Columbia legislature of March 27. Apparently they have a standing committee on fisheries and they passed the following resolution:
That in the interests of the propagation of salmon we recommend that the provincial department of fisheries-
Which consists of two people.
-ask the Department of Fisheries at Ottawa to have various small streams on spawning grounds cleared of fallen timber which now impedes the passage of salmon to same for the purpose of natural spawning.
So these men, gathered from all over British Columbia, are endorsing, without any solicitation on my behalf, the stand I am now taking. 1 suggest that this $300,000, or whatever portion of it may be allotted to us- and it should be a big half because we produce, I think, fifty-one per cent of the fish produced in Canada, so I suppose we shall be having $150,000 allotted to British Columbia- could be used and I hope it will be used, not in a senseless handing out of little dabs here and there, practically relief or worse, or even giving the fishermen presents of things they might appreciate, but in these practical methods which will build up a fishing industry so that they will have fish to catch and a market in which to sell it.
The next item on which I should like to say a few words when it comes up is No. 315, in connection with expanding the sale of fishery products. I shall have something to say on that. I may be putting myself in the position of attacking the department, but I am not attacking the minister, because he has not been in his present position long
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enough to be responsible. I have this much confidence in him, that I would rather trust him than the British Columbia people to run the department, because he has the machinery, the experts to inform him what is needed. I hope he will keep the control in his own hands.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: I do not want to let the remarks of my hon. friend pass without giving some explanation and correcting possibly a false impression which he might have given to the committee and which might go out to the public. In the first place the department is not unmindful of its duty to administer and regulate the fisheries. That is a duty which has been imposed upon the department by the British North America Act and which has been confirmed by several decisions of the privy council. That duty the department, as far back as I have been able to trace its activities, has fairly well discharged, providing, as my hon. friend has suggested, the means of conserving the fisheries and thereby assuring to the fishermen an abundant source of supply. The department has also done its duty in trying to find markets for the products of those who avail themselves of the privilege of fishing in waters under the control of the dominion government.
As to the criticisms he made of the activities of the fisheries department, I regard most of them as being constructive, and shall certainly give them my best attention and consideration.
I must give some explanation that is due to my hon. friend regarding a letter, and the statement afterwards made in reply to an hon. member of this house, which my hon. friend claimed were contradictory. They are in some degree. Last fall the department had practically come to the conclusion that we should meet the request of the United States and stop trap fishing in certain waters off Vancouver island, near Victoria, I believe. It was a gentleman's agreement, arranged at the instance of the fishermen on both sides of the border. I believe the state of Washington, as a result of a plebiscite had already passed a regulation prohibiting trap fishing, and they were demanding that we prohibit it on our side. But later it was brought to my attention through our officials that there was a movement in the state of Washington to repeal that regulation, and the possibility that at the end of this year it would be repealed in response to public sentiment. There was such a protest from the hon. member for Victoria City (Mr. Plunkett) as well as the fishermen of that district that I thought that I would satisfy myself as to the conditions 
and circumstances before coming to any final conclusion and before making a binding rule which could not be readily repealed. That is the reason for the apparent contradiction. If I had been given a chance to meet these people and to hear their grievances, and then afterwards had found out that in the state in question the law was about to be repealed, I would have felt there would have been no use to penalize any people by enforcing a regulation for the short time pending that at which our neighbours in the United States reverted to another mode of fishing.


Alan Webster Neill: The very fact that traps are not prohibited on this side is the strongest argument to enable those who want traps restored on the Washington side to put this over.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: There are many features to the proposition, and the intention of the department is to protect the best interests of Canadian fishermen in that part of the country. That is my reason for delaying the date at which the decision will become final.
The policy of killing hair seals was dispensed with a few years ago because it was costly, and it was felt that the benefit derived from the expenditure was not sufficient. Then whaling was not a government venture, but was that of a private enterprise. The government ihad nothing to do with the venture, so far as I am informed.
Unfortunately this year we have to dispense with some of the sockeye hatcheries. The biological board, which is the scientific branch of the department, carried on investigations from 1925 on to find out Whether this undertaking was really worth the money we were spending, and the report which I have before me recommends that such hatcheries are not profitable, and that natural propagation is just as profitable and advantageous to the industry as is artificial propagation. We had to dispense with that expenditure; our expenditures had to be cut down in some way.
There are many angles to the subject of sport fishing. By the terms under which British Columbia entered confederation obligation was imposed upon the dominion with respect to fisheries, an obligation to some extent different from that in connection with the other provinces. I understand that for years past British Columbia has insisted upon the discharge of that obligation by the federal department. We have encouraged the hatching of sport fish, or trout, for dissemination in the waters. I am informed that these fish do not come into conflict with the salmon,

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and that they are not distributed in salmon rivers.. Special streams are selected for fly angling or sport fishing, and the trout are distributed there.


Alan Webster Neill: The minister is quite wrong. I did not make any complaint about sport fishing. I was saying that certain bodies which make a practice of angling for salmon, as a sport, object to the presence of these blaekfish. We want them curtailed, in order to increase the number of fish sought by tourists.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Steelheads.


Alan Webster Neill: Tyhees and cohoes.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: However, this has been done with a view to discharging the obligation which it is claimed the dominion owes to the province of British Columbia.
There is another angle to my hon. friend's argument with which I cannot agree. I claim it is fallacious reasoning and argument.
My hon. friend began his dissertation with the proposition that the government is under the obligation of administering the fisheries, and that therefore it must discharge that obligation towards the fishermen. I submit that that contention is far-reaching. If we accept that as a proposition, then the Department of Fisheries has a right to look after all those who avail themselves of the privilege of fishing, and if we did that we would be going a long distance indeed. I contend that our jurisdiction over individuals comes into play only when they choose to exercise their right of availing themselves of the privilege of fishing. We have a right to regulate them in the use of a river.
It must not be forgotten that this special appropriation is not voted for the purpose of coming to the rescue or relief of fishermen, as such. It is to aid the provincial governments concerned in the reestablishment of needy fishermen, or fishermen who can no longer exercise their right to fish. I submit that the dominion government, as a federal government, has no obligation towards individuals in the provinces who are not exercising their right to fish. They become citizens, and the fact of their being fishermen is only incidental to their citizenship. They are subjects or wards, and the obligation to care for them when they are in need rests with the provinces or municipalities. This vote is an emergency one, or one to help the provinces to discharge their obligation towards individuals who no longer find it profitable to exercise their right to use the fisheries. That is why we have to cooperate with the provinces. We cannot dictate to provincial
authorities as to what modes they shall adopt in the reestablishment measures they may take. It is up to the provinces to discharge their duty towards their people. It is felt, however, that in this time of crisis and as a matter of emergency and grace we should help the provinces to discharge the financial obligations which they claim they cannot discharge by themselves.
The problem is complex, and does not present itself in the same form in all parts of the province. For example, in the county of Gloucester last year there were over five hundred boat fishermen and over two hundred vessels fishermen, or those who take out licences. These are deep sea fishermen. Through the results of the depression the markets for certain types of fish have been lost with the result that while for generations these men have been fishing they can no longer exercise that occupation. They have to be transferred to some other calling in order to earn their living and maintain their dependents.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Did the hon. member refer to Charlotte?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: No, I referred to Gloucester county, but my observations apply to part of Charlotte. Some people at the mouth of the Miramichi find it profitable to do lobster fishing. This occupies only part of their time, and those engaged in lobster fishing work in the lumber camps in the winter time, to make up the amount necessary to support themselves and their dependents. The fishermen in Gloucester county and in Westmorland county could not be treated alike. The problem in the western part of Nova Scotia is different from the problem in the eastern part. These are matters of local concern. These people must be readjusted 'n life in order to be given some gainful occupation. I claim that this problem rests upon the provinces or the municipalities, but they claim they are not financially able to discharge this obligation. This is the reason why an appropriation of $300,000 is being made under the Department of Fisheries. It could have been placed just as well under the jurisdiction of any other department. I submit that we cannot assume jurisdiction over those individuals who give only part of their time to fishing.
There is another class of men who are alltime fishermen. That is the class entitled to relief under this vote. We submit that these people cannot be taken away from the industry; that some means must be adopted of keeping them in the industry and enabling them to make a profit therein. I accept the
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suggestion made in the latter part of the hon. member's remarks as constructive criticism. By implementing what he has suggested we shall go a long way towards helping the permanent fishermen who must remain in the industry, who cannot be readjusted or reestablished in other means of livelihood.
It was suggested that we should keep control, but I think it would be impossible for the Department of Fisheries at Ottawa to look after all these people. They are spread all the way from British Columbia to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. As I said a few moments ago, even the people in different parts of the same province require different treatment. As is well known, during the past five years the provinces have set up machinery to take care of these people in some way or another. We contend that this is a matter of provincial or municipal concern and we are ready to vote this amount of money to assist the provinces to take care of these people.


Robert Emmett Finn: Mr. Chairman, it seems to
me that we have gone- far afield to-night in discussing this particular vote when reference is made to whales on the Pacific coast. We are dealing with a vote of $300,000 for the needy fishermen in Canada. This vote is. to apply to the fishermen in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, on the St Lawrence river and in British Columbia. This afternoon I was unable to obtain certain information. The Minister of Fisheries (Mr. Michaud) tells the committee to-night that this $300,000 is not for fishermen at all; that it is for those who cannot fish any more, who cannot go out in their boats to set their nets. I was under the impression that this vote was for the fishermen who could not make a living because of low prices, who found it impossible to keep their gear because of a hard winter. I thought this vote was to assist them in the way of extra relief, but the minister says that this money is to be used for those fishermen who cannot fish any longer. These people should be looked after under the pension schemes in the various provinces, towards which schemes the parliament of Canada votes seventy-five per cent of the cost.
Under section 91 of the British North America Act the sea-coast and inland fisheries are under the control of the federal government. Someone said this afternoon that this would be administered under the Relief Act of 1935, but that cannot be as the last section of that act states that it shall expire on March 31, 1936. It has expired already. Surely hon. members who represent fishing constituencies have a right to certain information in order that they may intelligently express their

opinions on this vote. They should be told how it is to be administered and whether the money is to be handed over to the provinces. I contend that the administration of this $300,000 could be undertaken by the dominion department much better than it could be by the provinces. Ia my province we have an inspector of fisheries, Mr. Sutherland, who is fair and honourable. This gentleman does not belong to the same political party to which I belong, but he has proven to be a competent inspector and he knows more about these matters than anyone in the provincial government of Nova Scotia from the Premier, the Hon. Angus L. Macdonald, down to the Minister of Health, the Hon. F. R. Davis.
I conceive it to be my duty to try to find out where this money is to go, to try to see that no one is helped who should not be helped. I want to find out whether it is to go to those who cannot go out to fish or to those who cannot make a profit from fishing. The item reads:
To aid, in cooperation with provincial governments concerned, in reestablishment of needy fishermen.
Reestablishment means to go back into the industry; it does not refer to fishermen who are too old to fish. I contend that when this vote is distributed it should not be distributed to those who have retired, who are in the sere and yellow of life and who can fish no more. The minister may smile, but I want to say that the very wording of this vote shows that it is to aid in the reestablishment of fishermen who are unable to fish to-day because they have lost their gear. In many cases they have lost their boats and some have lost even their lives.
This afternoon I referred to losses suffered by the fishermen. I have under my hand now certain newspaper reports which I had not then, and I think it is only right to read them:
Fishermen's Nets Swept Out To Sea
Lunenburg county lad. of family of 13, loses life
Storms and gales which have been lashing Nova Scotia bringing the loss of six lives, have claimed still another. Robert Cleversey, 18, son of Mr. and Mrs. Moore Cleversey, Con-querall Bank, one of a family of 13. set out in a leaking dory Tuesday morning. He has not been seen since.
Added to the cost of lives was the mounting toll of property damage. Lobster fishermen of River John yesterday saw their traps, 1,500, swept into the seas and lost as the highest tides in twenty years whipped up by a raging gale robbed them to the extent of more than $2,500.
Fishing gear followed the traps into the water as the tide washed over the tops of the wharves in the tiny Pictou county village on

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the shores of Northumberland strait. Crib work around the steel bridge and along the bank of the river which runs through the village was smashed and carried along by the pent up flood tides. The water flowed over the main highway for a half-mile.
That is one statement. This is another- they are both in the present month of April. This dispatch is from the Magdalen islands:
Six Are Taken By Sea
Drown in sight of safety in Magdalene harbour; one of group saved
Grindstone, Magdalen islands, April 17.- Six Magdalen island fishermen were swept to their death to-day in mountainous seas at the mouth of Grand Entry harbour, just as they were in sight of safety after a herculean effort to reach shore following a treacheous eight-mile journey from Old Harry head.
Five little children, five wives, and six families were in deep sorrow to-night as the news came that six were drowned. A seventh, found clinging to the boat and in a semiconscious condition was saved.
I say this to the Minister of Fisheries in all sincerity: A man leaves his home in an open boat, plying his trade, namely, fishing; he cannot get his traps insured; he cannot get his life insured, and for the fish which he does catch he receives only a couple of cents a pound, whereas the retailer in the store sells that same fish at fifteen or sixteen cents a pound. Has the Department of Fisheries no obligation, no duty, to such fishermen? Is there no recourse left to those engaged in that great industry? In the little province of Nova Scotia the following numbers are engaged in industry: In coal there are 12,000, and nothing is being asked for them; in steel there are 3.000; in lumbering, 800; and in fishing, 16,000 people. I ask to-night in all seriousness: Is the government not going to deal with this question on the recommendation of the Minister of Fisheries and the experts in his department? Is it going to allow these men to starve in their homes, their children compelled to stay in bed to keep warm, having no boots to wear to go to school? That is the condition in the western part of Halifax county from Sambro down to Hubbard and from Thrum Cap down to Ecum Secum a distance of 115 miles east and forty-five miles west. The minister laughs. Does he laugh at death? I ask that question and I mean it. The whole of Canada, the whole of America, practically the whole world stood aghast because three gentlemen who were seeking gold at Moose river in Halifax county in my own constituency were caught in a mine, and everything was done that could possibly be done to save them. I am not complaining; I am glad that it was done, and prior to to-night some $32,000 has been raised to give to the miners concerned who to-morrow can go back
to work. But there is nothing for the children of those who have lost their lives in plying their trade, not in seeking gold but only in seeking a living.
We have reached a stage in Canada where we must recognize facts. We must forget some things while other things we must remember. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) this afternoon put through estimates amounting to $1,250,000, to take people off land that was not profitable and to transplant them somewhere else, to give them seed and to provide for them. The Minister of Fisheries may laugh again, but is that all he will have to say to the fishermen of New Brunswick, the province he has the honour to represent, and to the people of Nova Scotia? I have represented a constituency for twenty years, and I have held the confidence of the people because I have never betrayed my trust but have always tried to be true to the people and to my party and to be fair to my political opponents.
Let me say this further to the Minister of Fisheries. I appreciate the fact that it is only a short time ago since he took over the department, and he has displayed skill and a desire, by hard work and keen intelligence, to become acquainted with every subdepartment over which he presides. But I say that when we have certain votes put through this committee it is only fair that we should express our opinion, and I hope the minister will not regard what I am saying as criticism; I am saying it only because I wish to see a deserving class of people helped.
I may tell the minister that 90,000,000 pounds of fish are caught along the coast of Nova Scotia annually. Of that, forty million pounds is caught by trawlers, fifty million pounds by the shore fishermen; but seventy-six million pounds of that ninety million pounds are sold, not by the fishermen but by the large wholesaler who receives the difference, or a large percentage of it, between two cents a pound for fresh fish and the fourteen, fifteen and sixteen cents that the retailer pays for it. As I think I said in the committee this afternoon-and if I did not I intended to say it, and if I said it I will say it over again-in the west, in Winnipeg, you have your grain board-and I have no objections to that-you have your grain exchange which deal in futures, which are the same as a brokerage establishment in Wall street or St. James street, and if they do not pay for what they buy there are clauses in the criminal code to deal with the situation. Whether they pay at the time they purchase or buy on margin is not for me to say. But the grain board of which, under the govern-
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Grote Stirling: To come down to earth for a moment. When I first read this wording, "To aid, in cooperation with provincial governments concerned, in reestablishment of needy fishermen," two practical questions occurred to me. How will the needy fishermen be selected, and how will they be assisted? But particularly, how will they be selected?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: By provincial governments.


Grote Stirling: And how assisted?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: To the extent of whatever assistance the provincial governments will decide to give them. And when they make that decision, we contribute fifty per cent.


Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: There are many needy fishermen in Ontario. Ontario catches a great deal of fish. I was wondering whether it was proposed that some of this money should be allocated to Ontario to help needy fishermen in this province.


Joseph Enoil Michaud: I am afraid not on this vote. We realize that there are fishermen in need in Ontario as well as in other inland provinces, but we have no jurisdiction over the fisheries of those provinces, and no information as to the need of those who occasionally avail themselves of the privilege of fishing. We feel that this is a matter of provincial concern. We simply try to help

Sup pi y-Fish eries
those who have been reported to the federal Department of Fisheries as being in need of assistance.
Mr MaeINNIS:	This is not a very large
sum of money, and we know there are many needy fishermen in all the provinces in which there are fisheries. As far as I am concerned I would have no objection to the expenditure of this and perhaps a much greater amount, provided of course that I knew the way in which it was to be expended. Unfortunately, however, the minister is not able to give us anything definite to-night as to who will receive this money, what is to determine the question of need, how the money is going to be paid out and what provisions are to be made for its productive or helpful expenditure. We have nothing definite in the matter at all; in fact I think the only definite point that came out during the discussion this evening was that the hon. member for Comox-Alberni and the hon. member for Halifax now do not believe in one of the slogans so prominently displayed during the election. I refer to that slogan which so many of us saw on the billboards: Vote King and Get Action.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.
Mr. MaeINNIS:	We are hardly getting
action in connection with this item. I notice that quite a number of my friends agree with me. They will agree still more as time goes on.
I should like to make a constructive suggestion to the minister with regard to the expenditure of this money. I believe that no matter what governments may be in office both here and in the provinces during the years to come they will find themselves more and more driven into the position of having to give a helping hand to those engaged in the industrial life of the country. For that reason I believe that before moneys are voted some constructive plan over a period of years should be worked out. I do not believe that you can work out a plan by dealing with individuals. I am going to suggest to the minister that he might assist needy fishermen by helping them cooperate in the fishing industry. I have a good deal of information on the considerable progress that has been made in the province of Nova Scotia in organizing the fishermen into cooperative organizations. Before the minister pays out this money I would suggest that he get into touch with these organizations and try to secure some advice from them as to how this money should be expended. I say that it is going to be only a waste of money
if this sum is to be given out in a dribble here and a dribble there, without any constructive program in mind. I am not criticizing the minister as regards the amount, but I should like to see him come forward with a plan. So I make this suggestion in the hope that it may help him in expending this money to the best advantage.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I only want to make
this observation, Mr. Chairman: In days gone by a great deal of complaint was made with regard to the neglect of fishermen who were in need of relief. There are fisheries in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario on the inland lakes, in Manitoba on lake Winnipeg and other inland waters. I am not sure about Saskatchewan, but certainly there are fisheries in Alberta and British Columbia. As this item now stands needy fishermen in every part of Canada are covered by it, and as it appears in this special estimate it constitutes a cheque for $300,000, not a blank cheque for an unnamed amount but a cheque for a named amount the distribution and division of which are left entirely to the caprice or the discretion, whichever word may be preferred, of the government of the day or those advising them.
I cannot but think that if you leave the administration to the provinces you will introduce an element of great difficulty. On the other hand I can readily understand the minister taking the view that he is not in a position to handle the entire administration of this amount. Nevertheless, as he answered the questions of my hon. friend from Yale I gathered1 that he said there was at present an arrangement by which the provinces contribute fifty per oent and the dominion fifty per cent in cases that come within the provisions of the item. Is my understanding correct?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: There is going to be an agreement whereby the money will be allocated to the provinces.


Richard Bedford Bennett: That creates a really difficult situation, as we have found by experience. I dare say the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) might give my hon. friend some information on that point, having regard to what the experience has been. When you select a given number of people in a community as being the persons entitled to relief and then provide that the province shall pay fifty per cent of the cost and the dominion the other fifty per cent, who is going to administer the matter? The provinces? To the extent of fifty per cent of the cost they have no interest in the matter beyond
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Joseph Enoil Michaud: That is the total in
Canada.


Richard Bedford Bennett: I thought he must be
wrong. He put it, I thought, at 82.000 in British Columbia, which struck me as being extraordinary. But if it is the whole of Canada the situation is different. There are 16,000 in Nova Scotia. I know more than half of 82,000 are in the maritime provinces, but I could not think there were as many as that in British Columbia. However, say we have, roughly 85,000. We have had evidence that on the Lunenburg coast in Nova Scotia, and on the north shore of New Brunswick, owing to inability to sell fish to Italy and in the West Indies during recent years, there has been a steady diminution of employment of deep sea fishermen, and it is those I understand that the minister has in mind to reestablish. If we are going to talk about reestablishment with federal money, that must be done under the control of this parliament, not under the control of someone else, because if we are going to pay the piper we should call the tune. If we mean reestablishment in that sense I think the minister himself must accept responsibility for carrying on that work. If it is merely a question of relief then I understand the attitude which he has taken with respect to the expenditure, but I can only point out that I think he will find that he will have to make more definite provisions than those he has yet suggested if he is going to avoid the pitfalls pointed out by the director of relief in dealing with that problem. I only hope that in his distribution of the largesse of which he has now been made the custodian he will use that measure of discretion which should characterize a minister seized with a sense of

Supply-Fisheries
his responsibility, notwithstanding what the hon. junior member for Halifax (Mr. Finn) has said.
It is highly edifying and interesting to hear the expressions of opinion made by a supporter of the administration regarding a new minister who has discharged his duties for only a few months. We can only wonder what the harvest will be for a longer period of time, as illustrated by the views taken by that independent member who sits to my right, but who always manages somehow to have the goodwill, shall I say, of the government at particular times when this is very useful. It appeared that the letters asked about were dated not December, 1934, as some had hoped they would be, but December, 1935, and February of the present year, which was somewhat of a shock to some of our friends who had expected that out of a sense of deep and abiding gratitude the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill), to say nothing of the junior member for Halifax, would join together and make this attack upon the minister. This is at least interesting to us all and affords an opportunity to understand that, after all, there is beginning to be a realization on the part of the government that the administration in the days of stress and difficulty was not just as easy as it seemed to be when they were sitting on this side of the house. Responsibility has brought home to them a realization that it is much easier to sit to the left of the Speaker and to criticize than, sitting to his right, to provide the sinews of war on the one hand and the administration on the other.


Robert Emmett Finn: I would like to correct a statement made by the right hon. leader of the opposition. He seems to be doing what I thought he would not do, that is grasping at a political straw. I made no criticism whatever of the hon. minister or of officials. I pointed out to the minister that I thought it was the duty of the department, himself and his officials, to look into this matter from every angle. I am not going to permit the leader of the opposition to put into my mouth his political words; I used my own, and Hansard will show them, and I would ask the right hon. gentleman to take that statement back.


Richard Bedford Bennett: Far be it from me to endeavour in my poor way to improve upon the elegant diction of the hon. gentleman. If I misconceived his observations as being criticism instead of commendation, then it may be that my understanding of the words "criticism" and "commendation" is not quite that of the hon. gentleman. If I have done
violence to his feelings or in any sense misunderstood him I can only say that it arises from the fact that I would have concluded that his observations constituted criticism and not commendation. Apparently I should have said that when I contemplate the commendation of the hon. junior member for Halifax of the activities of the Minister of Fisheries I am at a loss to understand what he would regard as criticism.


Mr. KINLEY:: From the observations of the minister I take it that it is his intention to contribute on a fifty-fifty basis with the provinces; that if a province would contribute fifty per cent he would give fifty per cent of this fund to that province where needy fishermen are concerned. May I ask the minister what he is going to do in case a province does not provide anything as its part of the contribution?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: It cannot share in the fund.


John James Kinley: Therefore so far as this vote is concerned a province that does not cooperate and contribute cannot share in this fund.
The next item of course is not up for discussion. Something will depend upon that. The minister said a moment ago that this fund was intended to help fishermen who fish only part of the year; that there are fishermen who fish all the year round who would not share in this fund. That is a serious statement as far as I am concerned, because my fishermen fish all the year round, but nevertheless they find it difficult to make a living. If the fishermen who fish all the year round cannot share in this fund it is a serious matter for the fishermen in my constituency. Has the minister any observations to make in that regard? Will they come under the next item?


Joseph Enoil Michaud: Indirectly they will, certainly.


John James Kinley: In his genial way the hon. member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) severely criticized the officials of the Department of Fisheries. Although I have been connected with public affairs for many years, this is my first adventure in the House of Commons and so far as my constituency is concerned the fisheries officers are the officers who came to me when I was elected. By and large I consider them good officials. They are alert and I believe they are faithful in trying to do their work. I believe the same is true of the officers at Ottawa. I believe I can pick out a drone when I see one, and
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I must say that while I have been round these offices quite a bit it is my belief that the officers of the department are trying to do their best. We must remember, however, that the Department of Fisheries is one dealing with prohibitions and regulations. How can we expect a department dealing with such matters to be popular with members of the House of Commons or with the people of Canada? The only money the Department of Fisheries ever had under its control was to be used for purposes of prohibiting something. There was nothing to sustain or develop fisheries. The Department of Fisheries is the Cinderella of the government, and it has been the Cinderella for many years. I think it is unfair to criticize unduly the officers of the department, and the only criticism I would make is that they should have been more aggressive with the treasury board, and should have seen to it that more money was voted for the development of fisheries in Canada.
In my province two kinds of fisheries are affected. My difficulty is not the same as that of the hon. members from British Columbia, because we have both fresh and salt fishing. The fresh fishing industry depends to a great degree upon the home market, while salt fishing depends upon the foreign market. In connection with our fresh fishing we are practically free of competition with the exception of that offered by Newfoundland at some periods of the year. We at least have the Canadian market for our fresh fish, and may I add at this point that the amount of fresh fish marketed in Canada has increased in the last five years.
According to the report of the price spreads commission 1929 was a big year in the fish industry, whereas 1932 and 1933 were small years. Since that time the fresh fish industry has been growing in Nova Scotia and in the maritime provinces generally. Notwithstand-i' g that fact, however, the fishermen cannot make a living. From the price spreads commission report we find that our fishermen earn from S75 to $300 per year. When I come to this House of Commons and hear hon. members talk about sustaining people on relief at $40 per month I have to smile, because our fishermen would live in comfort on $600 a year.
Why is it that our fishermen are not earning enough to keep body and soul together? The report of the price spreads commission tells the story. The reason is that the fisherman has lost his bargaining power. He must take what is offered him for his fish, and he is not able to have any say in what price the fMr. KinleyJ
product of his toil shall bring. Why is that so? One reason-and the minister knows it- is the steam trawler. We know that the steam trawler makes the corporation a primary producer. The trawler operator is put into the position where he can dictate prices to the fishermen of Canada. With his steam trawler he says in effect to the fishermen: "You will take what I want to give. If not, I have a steam trawler coming in to-morrow which will supply my requirements." To-night I am not going to discuss at length questions in connection with the steam trawler, but at some future time I shall do so.
If hon. members from other parts of Canada think we are against progress, then let them be at once undeceived, because the steam trawler people by their own figures admit that it costs them from one and a half cents to one and three-quarter cents to land a pound of fish. I have in my hand invoices from the National Fish Company at Halifax indicating that they paid one cent a pound on the average to a Nova Scotia fishing vessel for a trip before Christmas of this year. These men are working seventy hours at a stretch, are earning less than $8 a week and have families to support.
Parliament has spoken on the steam trawler question. The Maclean commission spoke on it and recommended against it. You may say, "Kinley, you are parochial in your viewpoint." That has been thrown in my face on many occasions. I say that my people are living in Canada, too, and it is not a criticism to say that something is done for them. If it is in favour of my people, then that should commend it especially when it is for the general good.
Doctor Cyrus Macmillan was not parochial. He was a member of the Duncan commission and was afterwards a member of the Maclean commission. Doctor Cyrus Macmillan in dramatic language and in no uncertain terms said that conditions were such that steam trawlers must be abolished, if fishermen were going to live. Then, in Nova Scotia there was set-up the Jones commission, presided over by Professor Jones of England. Connected with the commission were Mr. Alexander Johnston, the late deputy Minister of Marine and Fisheries, and Doctor Innis of Toronto university. Were these men parochial? Alexander Johnston and Doctor Innis said that the steam trawler must be abolished if the fishermen of Canada are to be sustained or preserved.
Then we come to the price spreads commission of last year. Hon. members of this chamber served on the commission, and in their considered report what do they say?

Questions
They say that the fisherman has lost his bargaining power, and in order that he may get along the steam trawler must be gradually abolished in this country.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned!, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, April 29, 1936