1938-05-17

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved:: That the name of Mr. Mulock be substituted for that of Mr. Chevrier on the select standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.
That the name of Mr. Chevrier be substituted for that of Mr. Mulock on the select standing committee on railways, canals and telegraph lines.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Peel):: I should like to make an inquiry of the Minister of Transport (Mr. Howe). Representations have been made to me by certain milling interests in my constituency that on June 6 next the export rate on winter wheat flour is being increased by the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National railways by approximately 6 cents per barrel. They further say that Australian flour is competing very strongly with our product in the West Indies at present and that in the interests of the wheat producing farmers and millers in Ontario no further handicap should be placed upon their efforts to compete successfully in outside markets. Will the minister kindly take
[Mr. Gardiner.l
up with the railways the question raised, with a view to having the export rates remain as they are?


Hon. C. D. HOWE (Minister of Transport) :: I have no knowledge of the proposed increase in rates, but I may say that it is not the function of the minister to take up with the railways matters of rates. I would suggest that whoever made representations to my hon. friend should themselves take up with the railways the matter of export rates.



TRANS-CANADA AIR LINES DELAY IN DELIVERY OF LOCKHEED TRANSPORT PLANES AND QUESTION OF SALES TO JAPAN

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. COLDWELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: I should like to direct a question to the government, and I am sorry that I was unable to give longer notice of it. Will the government make a statement regarding the alleged delay in the delivery of aeroplanes for the Winnipeg-Toronto-Montreal service on account of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation of Canada having accepted a contract for the delivery of thirty of their planes to the Japanese government, including several allegedly already commenced for delivery to our service; and will the government assure the house that no licence will be issued for the export of such planes to Japan?


Clarence Decatur Howe: In reply to my hon. friend's question may I say that Canada does not manufacture planes of the standard transport type. The order for the requirements of Trans-Canada Air Lines was therefore placed in the United States, with the company that manufactures practically all the requirements in that regard for this continent. Our deliveries have been delayed, as I presume all deliveries have been delayed in connection with planes of this type. I have no knowledge that exports to Japan have anything to do with it. However, if they have, it is a matter between the government of the United States and Japan.



DOMINION-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS REQUEST FOR TABLING OF LIST OF BRIEFS SUBMITTED TO ROWELL COMMISSION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata):	May I ask the right hon. Minister
of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) if his department keeps a memorandum of the various briefs submitted to the Rowell commission; and,﻿MAY 17, 1938
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if so, if it would be possible for him to table to-morrow a list of the briefs submitted to that commission each day since it commenced its work?
Right Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice):: Copies of a number of
briefs have been sent to the department, but I do not think anything could be tabled-if anything at all could be tabled by the Department of Justice-until the work of the commission is completed.


Mr. POULIOT:: I will write to the right
hon. gentleman in that regard.



ANTICOSTI ISLAND


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Mr. Speaker, according to
the Montreal Star, at the annual meeting of the Consolidated Paper Corporation the president, Mr. L. J. Belnap, referred to the prospective sale of Anticosti Island to parties in Holland who several months ago had secured an option. Several months ago a group of German technicians had made a careful survey of the island, and it is suspected that this is the group that secured the option. Be that as it may, is it in the general interest that the ownership or control of this island should pass into the control of a foreign company? It would seem that important strategic and diplomatic considerations are involved.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, may I say
to the hon. member that the government is aware of the importance of the island from the point of view to which he has made reference, and different departments of the government have been making inquiries concerning the situation. I believe the interests of the country are being fully safeguarded in the matter as it stands at the present time, and the situation will continue to be watched.

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



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
Fruit and vegetable products, including grant of $5,000 to the Canadian Horticultural Council, $555,000.
Mr. STEWART:: Mr. Chairman, when the house adjourned last night the item had been discussed at considerable length. One is struck
by the large proportion of the vote which is allotted to salaries, namely $414,000 odd.
The details of the vote indicate that there are 137 inspectors, and provision for their salaries is made in the item. While one does not desire in any way to curtail or limit reasonable and necessary expenditures for the promotion of agriculture, and while one realizes that distances are great and that there are other circumstances which must be considered, yet it would appear that this is a large number of inspectors for one branch. We hear a great deal in these days about the excessive costs of government, and we hear the charge that there is too much overlapping. In other branches of the Department of Agriculture as well there are many inspectors. Does not the minister think that the efforts of the inspectors in the different branches could be coordinated and some saving effected in this respect? Is it necessary to have this large number of inspectors in one branch? Could not their work be consolidated with that of other inspectors, or could not the inspectors in this branch take on the work of those in other branches?
Travelling expenses must be heavy, and it seems to me that to a certain extent these inspectors must be crossing and recrossing each others' trails. What provinces are undertaking the same kind of work? Is there any duplication or overlapping in the provincial and federal services? How many of the inspectors are assigned to each province, district, or whatever the division is termed? Answers to these questions are important in view of the undoubted and widespread contention that the cost of government is excessive, and that there is duplication and overlapping. I repeat that I do not wish in any way to limit the number of officials who take part in the promotion of the necessary work of the department or who are required to assist in the development of a great industry. But this is not a new subject in the house. Year after year we have heard statements about the very large number of inspectors and the amount of money expended in these services. There is a suggestion of duplication and overlapping, and there would seem to be a necessity for consolidation and economy.


Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) :: Mr. Chairman, the question raised by the hon. member for Leeds (Mr. Stewart) is a proper one. The total estimate for the branch is $555,000. The earnings of inspectors are approximately $125,000, leaving a net amount of about $430,000 voted to cover entire expenses over and above earnings.
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There are 42 inspectors in Prince Edward Island, 43 in New Brunswick, 88 in Nova Scotia, 92 in British Columbia and 77 in western Ontario. Those are the sections in which the greater part of the fruit and vegetables are produced. Not all the inspectors are on full time; a considerable number of them are seasonal employees who work only during the season when inspections are being made and the crop is harvested.
The question whether this work can be done more cheaply by preventing overlapping through the use of inspectors from other services is one that might stand some consideration. However, I am sure it will be realized that inspectors who are inspecting fruit would be expected to be familiar with the growing, packing and marketing of fruit. I believe it has been considered by those who have been in charge of the department in days gone by that it is better to have this service performed seasonally by people who are familiar with the industry than to use inspectors who might be employed throughout the year and used for one purpose at one time and for another purpose at another. Which would be the least costly I am not prepared to say at the moment, but I am inclined to think that the best service can be obtained by using men who are familiar with tihe particular work when they are required.
As far as staff is concerned, the figures do not indicate any great increase in staff for inspection purposes. There were 14 senior fruit and vegetable inspectors last year, and the figure for this year is the same. There were 20 supervising fruit and vegetable inspectors last year, and the figure for this year is 22, an increase of two. There were three fruit and vegetable inspectors, grade 2, last year, and the number is the same this year. There were 13 fruit and vegetable inspectors, grade 1, last year, and 13 this year. There were 82 fruit and vegetable inspectors, grade 1. seasonal, last year, with the same number this year.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: There is one part of the minister's answer that suggests further inquiry. What is the reason for the large number of inspectors in Prince Edward Island?


James Garfield Gardiner: Principally because of the large production of potatoes and turnips in that province. These products are shipped either to other parts of Canada or to other countries.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Are there any inspectors in Ontario?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are 77 in western Ontario alone.


Mr. LANDERYOU:: Are any new orchards being planted in the various fruit growing areas of Canada?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is no pronounced expansion in the planting of fruit trees at the present time, but the usual replacement planting is being carried on.


Mr. BARBER:: Would this vote cover inspectors at the experimental farms who deal with the diseases of vegetables and fruits?


James Garfield Gardiner: None of this inspection is done through the experimental farms.


Harry James Barber: But there is some carried od at the experimental farms?


James Garfield Gardiner: Only the certified seed potato inspection, and the work having to do with diseases.


Mr. CLARK (Essex):: I agree with the minister that this inspection service is very important to the fruit and vegetable industry. The other night the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) referred to the lack of statistics in connection with this industry. If hon. members had proper statistics before them they would appreciate the value of this production. I believe that this industry is worth $150,000,000 to the Dominion of Canada. A grant of $5,000 to the Canadian Horticultural Council is included in this vote. I believe at one time this grant was either $8,000 or $9,000. No other organization of producers covers the country so completely as this one. It is performing a great work, and I submit the minister should consider the granting of more assistance to this organization than is provided for in this item.


Gordon Graydon: May I just supplement the remarks made by the hon. member for Essex South (Mr. Clark) with respect to statistics in connection with the vegetable industry. I dealt with this matter the other night for a moment or two under another item, but I should like to ask the minister at this time if any move has been made recently to provide a complete picture of the entire vegetable industry. If so, could he give us the details?


James Garfield Gardiner: The gathering of statistics of this kind is done by the bureau of statistics under the Department of Trade and Commerce. We give them all the assistance we possibly can in that regard. I do not believe there is anything of an exceptional nature under way at the present time.
In reply to the hon. member for Essex South (Mr. Clark) I would point out that down to 1931-32 the grant to the horticultural association was $8,000. In 1932-33 the grant was reduced to $5,000, which, with the deduction of

Supply-Agriculture-Marketing
ten per cent in effect at that time, made the net grant 84,500. The deduction has been restored and the grant is now $5,000. There was first a ten per cent deduction, then a five per cent deduction and it is now $5,000 even. The matter of giving further assistance has been under consideration, but we did not think it possible to increase the grant this year.


John Charles Landeryou: There are certain fruit growing areas in Ontario which have difficulty in marketing their production on account of the lateness of their seasons. Is there any way in which the department assists in the marketing of these fruits that come along so late?


James Garfield Gardiner: Some assistance has been given in Ontario, particularly to those sections producing grapes and peaches. This assistance was in the form of advertising last fall when the fruit was coming on with a rush. The provincial authorities cooperated with us in that and I think it is generally recognized that good results were obtained. The fruit was got rid of in great volume and to better advantage than in previous years.


John Charles Landeryou: Are there any other areas in Canada that have this difficulty because of the season?


James Garfield Gardiner: Every section of Canada has its own peculiar disadvantage in connection with fruit growing. We are so far north that our fruit comes in a little later than the fruits in the United States.


John Charles Landeryou: I was not referring particularly to the United States; I was interested in the districts in Canada.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is where the
comparison is made. There is difficulty in Canada because we are so far north and our fruit comes on a little later. Sometimes there is difficulty in getting rid of a large crop, but we pay attention to all parts of Canada equally.


Mr. DAMUDE:: I concur in the remarks of the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) with respect to the inspection of fruit as applying to the Niagara district, which I have the honour to represent. I am pleased to note that the minister has under consideration increasing the grant to the horticultural council, which has done splendid work. The amount of 85,000 is very small to take care of a work which is national in its scope.


Mr. MacLEAN (Prince):: As the committee knows, there are two branches of the service, the fruit and vegetable inspectors, who take *care of the inspection of table stock potatoes 51952-187
and fruit shipments and vegetables, and the plant disease investigators, who take care of seed potato inspection. I understand that these two branches of the service are being amalgamated, or are to be administered under the one head, and I should like the minister to give the committee some information as to what the lay-out will be in the future and who will be the head of the branch. I understand that the table stock and fruit and vegetable inspectors have always received higher pay than the members of the other branch of the service. But to my way of thinking a plant disease investigator has to be a very much more competent man, and the head of the service in the different provinces has to be a university graduate who has had years of training for his position. It would seem to me, therefore, that the two branches of the service should be on a par so far as remuneration is concerned.


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand, Mr. Chairman, that there has been a reclassification of the positions concerned, but there is no bringing together of the two services. I understood the objection of my hon. friend was to an amalgamation of these services, but that is not being done. One group is provided for under this vote, and the other group under production.


John Charles Landeryou: I have received a number of complaints from fruit growers in the Nelson area of British Columbia against the tremendous cost of shipping their fruit into Alberta. Has the government considered subsidizing in any way the shipments of fruit from that area going into Alberta?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is a question, of course, whether the people of the Nelson district are any further away from certain sections of Alberta than those of the Okanagan and other fruit growing districts of the province. The government has not considered bonusing the shipment of fruit from that area.


John Charles Landeryou: One fruit grower told me that he had shipped fruit from Nelson to New Zealand or Australia and made a little money on it, but on another shipment to Calgary he lost money because the freight was more than the value of the fruit.


Mr. SPENCE:: That has always been the case.


Gordon Graydon: While we are discussing advertising, which the minister mentioned a few moments ago in connection with the fruits and vegetables of Ontario and other provinces, may I draw his attention to the reported vote by congress during the latter part of 1937 of

Supply-Agriculture-M arketing

$2,000,000 for the fruit and vegetable industry and other branches of agriculture in the United States, which I think may have its effects upon Canada so far as the marketing of their products in this country is concerned.
We have been experiencing, as the minister well knows, a great influx of citrus fruits from the United States during the last decade and longer. No matter what we may hear with respect to the matter, I have no doubt at all that these imported citrus fruits do displace some of our home grown fresh fruits. It is very difficult to understand any reasoning to the contrary. We permit the importation of oranges and other types of citrus fruits, and while our consuming population must have them, at the same time I think we should meet that competition by a well-organized advertising campaign in favour of our own fresh fruits and vegetables. I should like the government to give its earnest consideration to a new type of advertising for our fresh fruits and fresh vegetables. There is nothing better in the whole world, from the standpoint either of health or of delieiousness, than out own fresh fruit and vegetables, and they should have an early claim on any government expenditure and in the framing of government policy with respect to advertising. Growers' associations in many parts of the United States have for many years been conducting intensive advertising campaigns for the marketing of citrus fruits in Canada, and I think their efforts should be met without any further delay by a campaign on behalf of our own growers.
As the member for Essex South (Mr. Clark) said, one who has not made a detailed and comprehensive study of the fruit and vegetable industry in Canada is apt to consider it as somewhat of an orphan industry, but actually it is one of our great agricultural industries and is growing rapidly. I trust the minister will consider taking advantage of this opportunity to assist so far as may be possible by dominion grants in the promotion of a great scheme of advertising and marketing of our fresh fruits and fresh vegetables. I make that suggestion to the minister knowing his sympathetic interest, as expressed the other night, with the growers in different parts of Canada, and I should like to have a statement from him as to what he thinks might be done along these lines.


James Garfield Gardiner: I wonder if the hon. member would permit me to defer my statement until we get to item 12, which has to do with marketing.


John Charles Landeryou: I agree with what the hon. member for Peel has just said. I believe in an advertising campaign-
[Mr. GraydottJ


James Garfield Gardiner: Might I then suggest, if my hon. friend agrees with him, that we leave the discussion of that until we reach item 12, which has to do with marketing and advertising?


John Charles Landeryou: I do not necessarily
agree that advertising alone will solve the problem I have in mind, but rather subsidies by the government of the shipment of fruit from British Columbia.


James Garfield Gardiner: That has all to do
with marketing, Mr. Chairman, and I would ask the hon. member to discusss it on the other item.


Mr. TUSTIN:: In the second report on
marketing which we received the other day, there is a paragraph on page 10, paragraph 4, which reads as follows:
The seed of a particularly promising new variety of tomato has been purchased. It has been distributed among canners throughout Canada who have undertaken to have the crop produced and processed under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture.
I would ask the minister what companies have been asked to cooperate in this scheme, and in what parts of the country the demonstration is taking place.


James Garfield Gardiner: We purchased a small
amount of this seed for investigational purposes, which encouraged others to purchase larger amounts, and there has been a general distribution through the two activities. Much of the work is being carried on by the canners themselves.


George James Tustin: What companies have the
seed which has been purchased by the department, and in what part of the country have these experiments been carried on?


James Garfield Gardiner: The department has
the seed which has been purchased by the government, and is experimenting with it. The companies are purchasing seed and having it distributed among their customers.


George James Tustin: Is this experimentation
being done by the department at the experimental farms?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


George James Tustin: It says here that the canners are carrying on under supervision of the department.


James Garfield Gardiner: The canners are carrying it on jointly, with the seed they purchased, as the result of this experiment which has been arranged by the department.


George James Tustin: Could the minister give us
any idea in what part of the country this experiment has been carried on?



193S

[Stage Direction]
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James Garfield Gardiner: It is altogether in Ontario. As a matter of fact it is starting this year.


George James Tustin: I am particularly interested in this item. The minister said a few minutes ago that more canned vegetables and fruits were grown and processed in three provinces, two in the eastern part of the country and one in the west. In the constituency which I have the honour to represent there are more vegetables processed than in any other part of the country. Last year the territory from Napanee, Ontario, on the east, to Peterborough on the west, produced approximately fifty per cent of all the vegetables canned in Canada. Not only that, but approximately fifty per cent of all the exports to foreign countries took place from that territory. There is an abundance of tomatoes grown and processed in those two counties which I represent, and I was deeply interested when I read this item that seed had been purchased. I thought that the department may have looked up the county of Prince Edward, which produces more tomatoes than any other county in Canada and has an ideal soil for their production. If this experiment is to be continued there certainly should be a demonstration lot in that county in order that the canners in that part of the country may benefit by the production of this kind of tomato.


Mr. SENN:: I should like to second what the hon. member (Mr. Tustin) has been saying with regard to the new variety of tomato which is being introduced into Canada. The canners themselves, I believe, are alive to the situation. They have been making a study of what is required in the British market, and I believe that it is the small tomato which is most popular there; when it goes into the can it does not break up as our present-day product does. I have an idea that the canners themselves, rather than the Department of Agriculture, are largely responsible for what is being undertak-m. However, that is aside from what I wanted to mention to the minister at this time.
The packaging and grading of fruit and vegetables are a very important part of the work of this department. Not only should these products be properly packaged and graded but they should be consistent in quality. Too often we hear that different packs of fruit and vegetables from different orchards and localities, though both graded number one, are not alike in grade and in quality. In my opinion, contrary to what has been said by some hon. members this afternoon, not only have we not too many inspectors 51952-1875
but perhaps we have not enough. In regard to the grading of tomatoes, which I understand has been undertaken to a certain extent at the canning factories: when the price spreads commission was investigating certain matters, one of the complaints that were made was that the farmers were not always satisfied with the grade which was given them when they brought their tomatoes in wagon lots and truck loads to the canning factory. I think that arrangements have been made to have government graders at different times and in different places at these factories to see that the grade is properly given, but it would be a good thing if we could have at each of the canning factories where tomatoes are coming in in large lots, just during the canning season, government graders all the time to see that the farmers get the grade to which they are entitled, that they have not to accept the grade which comes from the canning factory owners themselves. Even if it is the fair grade some people may be inclined to think they are not getting a square deal. To make sure that they do, is, I think, in the interest not only of the farmer but also of the canner. I should like to know what the department is doing in this respect. I understand that action is being taken. How far has the work proceeded?


James Garfield Gardiner: In so far as the matter of grades is concerned, and some showing a little better classification under the grads than others, all that a government grade can do is set a minimum that each one must reach who gets into that grade; there is no way in which a government can or would desire to prevent someone from classifying above that grade. That is, some persons who are desirous perhaps of reaching a certain market may put a better grade of commodity into a certain pack, and call it No. 1, than another person may put into his, but still the lower pack may be above the minimum of the grade. Of course that depends a good deal on the market which the individual is trying to serve, or, perhaps, the way in which he thinks he can best benefit himself by making the pack.
In connection with the matter of full time inspection in certain plants, the government has been and is prepared to supply government inspectors to plants for full time service, provided the plants are prepared to pay the costs. A certain number of plants are willing to do that. They do not pay the inspectors; they remunerate the government for the cost. The inspector is a government official, paid by the government and not by a company. That has been done and can be done under the system now in operation. But the government has not found it possible-largely be-
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cause of some of the criticism we have heard, even in the house during these estimates, to the effect that we have too many inspectors on the road now,-to meet the wishes of both groups, those who think we should have enough for full time inspection in all factories, and those who think that we have too many of them going the rounds. We try to compromise by saying that where persons are prepared to meet the expense we are prepared to give the service for full time, otherwise they take the same service as anyone else gets.


Mark Cecil Senn: I am glad to know the department has gone as far as the minister says in furnishing inspectors when they are paid for by the canning factories themselves, but that does not answer the criticism of the farmer. The farmer is the man who thinks he is not being justly treated, and I believe that in justice to the farmer himself something should be done even to make it compulsory that canning factories in their operations, as a condition of getting their licences, should employ government inspectors full time. Not only are they thereby protecting the farmers' interests but they are safeguarding themselves from criticism. I do not believe anybody will criticize a government inspector who is there doing the best work that he can. Frankly speaking, I do not think we have too many inspectors engaged in the grading and inspection of our packaged products. If we are to continue to enter the foreign markets we must put up the best product we can, and that product must be uniform in grade and quality. In spite of what the minister has said about certain shippers who put up products which are above the grade, it seems to me that we should have, particularly for grade 1, the very highest possible quality if we are to compete successfully in the markets of the world, particularly in Great Britain. The minister would be well advised before another fall comes around to make provision that in all these large canning factories and institutions under licence, one of the conditions of getting the licence should be to have a government inspector to look after the grading of the farmers' products.


Gordon Graydon: There is a feeling among the growers-perhaps in some instances there is not a great deal of justification for it-that there is a lack of cooperation between the Department of Agriculture and the Department of National Revenue as regards the time at which the dumping duties are placed upon various imported fruits and vegetables, particularly vegetables. I think it is only right to bring the matter to the attention of the minister. I do not wish to be unduly critical 
because I can quite appreciate the difficulties that face both departments. It is my desire to be extremely fair in this connection. As someone has very aptly said, however, with respect to the importation of vegetables, time [DOT] is of the essence of the whole matter, and a few days' difference in the application of the dumping regulations may mean either success or failure to the Canadian grower. In the main, perhaps, not a great deal of criticism can be offered, but this year certain complaints did reach me as representative of one of the great vegetable-growing sections of central Ontario that the dumping duty on asparagus was perhaps a little late going on. I want to pass that complaint on to the minister, because from now on I think there should be a more careful survey of the production end of the industry and a note made of the exact time when the crop is ready for marketing here.
I repeat. I do not wish to be particularly critical of these two departments, but I want to voice the feeling that I have heard on many occasions and to point out to the minister how very essential it is that the dumping duties be applied at the right time and not seven or eight days too late, as some have suggested that, in certain instances in the past, they have been. I should like the minister to assure the committee that steps will be taken to see that no recurrence of this sort of criticism will be possible in the future.


William George Clark: Before the minister replies to the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon) I would ask him to look carefully over the applications made during the past three years and compare them with those of the previous five years. If he does so he will find that there has been wonderful cooperation between the two departments mentioned in order to achieve the results that we have seen in the past three years.


Gordon Graydon: I did not expect my remarks to bring the hon. member to his feet quite so quickly, though I know what a great interest he takes in the growers there. I hasten to assure the minister that I was not attempting to compare the work of different governments; in fact, I am not interested in any such comparison, no matter how good either of them may have been in their time. I am simply trying as a humble representative of a vegetable growing section to see that the minister takes proper steps to safeguard the interests of the growers in the future. What I am interested in is the future, not the past.

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James Garfield Gardiner: The question under discussion is really one for the Department of National Revenue. The dumping duties are put on through that department and the dates are finally determined by them. They simply seek information from our inspectors who are about the country and act upon it as they see fit. I may tell the hon. gentleman that there is the closest cooperation between the two departments.


Gordon Graydon: 
Mr. MULOCK:: My hon. friend from Peel (Mr. Graydon) does not entirely approve of the number of cars of vegetables bought in the Holland marsh district. There was a very large production of vegetables in that district, and I believe that the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) will substantiate that statement. The people there were having difficulty in getting rid of their vegetables at a price that would give them any profit after paying their costs of production. I entirely disagree with the hon. member for Peel on this point and I want to congratulate the Minister of Agriculture not only on the scheme he put into effect but on the way it was carried out and on the cooperation the growers in that district received from the officials of his department. I also congratulate the department upon having purchased direct from the growers instead of dealing through any middlemen, thus ensuring to the producer the full results of his labour. On behalf of the vegetable growers of Holland Landing I want to express our appreciation of the kindness and efficiency of the department in connection with this service.


James Houston Spence: The hon. member for York North (Mr. Mulock) said he was glad these vegetables were bought from the individual growers of Holland Landing. I am not opposing the purchase of these vegetables, because if they had not been purchased by the government the growers would have received nothing at all for their stuff; it was simply rotting away, and it was a godsend for Holland Landing and my good friend from York North that this did happen. But I notice that the Toronto papers gave credit
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to the hon. member and to the member of the local legislature for having influenced the minister in order to get him to come there and buy the stuff in Holland Landing. And I should like to ask the minister if he did pay the individual farmers for their stuff, or if he did not appoint an agent to buy the stuff for him. What is the use of making statements like that? No government would go around the country paying individual farmers for the stuff they put in the ears; it is always done through an agent.
I am not going to condemn this government for the wrong things they have done any more than I would condemn any other government, but in the past the governments have not put on the seasonal tariff soon enough or have taken it off too soon. The hon. member for Peel has said that previously the government removed the embargo or seasonal tariff on asparagus too soon or did not take it off soon enough; our own stuff was coming on the market and the influx of American vegetables was ruining the price. That has happened every year, no matter what government has been in power. You go to the Department of Agriculture and they say the Department of National Revenue puts on or takes off the tariff or embargo. You go to the Department of National Revenue and they say, "We do not do it; we do as we are told by the Department of Agriculture." Then you go back to the Department of Agriculture and they say, "We take our information from the horticultural council," and there is no responsibility anywhere. That is the whole trouble; there is no one who knows his job, either in this department, in the horticultural council or in the Department of National Revenue; there is no one to say when the seasonal tariff should be either put on or taken off. and they never listen to anyone who does know anything about it.
The hon. member for Leeds (Mr. Stewart) mentioned the fact that we had 137 fruit and vegetable inspectors. Then the Minister of Agriculture comes along and says there are 42 inspectors in Prince Edward Island, 88 in Nova Scotia, 43 in New Brunswick, 92 in British Columbia and 77 in Ontario. Can anyone tell me what justification there is for having 42 inspectors in Prince Edward Island?


James Garfield Gardiner: Just part time


James Houston Spence: They are just chasing each other around the island, that is all, doing nothing at all. I am just as fond of Prince Edward Island as anyone else, and the growers there are to be congratulated because they need practically no inspectors at all. Their packing and grading are so perfect that they have

made markets for themselves in all parts of the world, and as long as they continue to pack and grade in this way they will never lose those markets. I think 14 inspectors would be sufficient for the whole island. Then you have 43 inspectors in New Brunswick. What do they inspect? You have 88 inspectors in Nova Scotia. What is there but a few apples down in the Annapolis valley? I will say they need some inspectors to watch them, because as yet they have not learned to pack an honest package. They need a little education there in regard to packing. Some hon. members may differ with me, but I know what I am talking about. I have shipped their products to the old country, and the result was not as good as it might have been; it was not very satisfactory. Nova Scotia has 88 inspectors. Can anyone say that SS inspectors are justified there? What can they be doing?
In British Columbia there are 92 inspectors, and there fhey grow a great many commodities that are not produced in the other provinces. But they have learned a little more honesty in the last few years than was formerly the case. I can remember when it was difficult to get anything honest from British Columbia, but to-day their apples, tomatoes and many other products are coming in honestly packed, and reflecting credit upon the country. Today their apples are taking the place of apples from Oregon and Washington in the United States because of their honest packing, but they were forced to do it; they could not get a market until they did. You cannot make farmers honest; if they do not want to be honest the inspectors cannot force them to be, and no one can find a market except by shipping an honest package, it does not matter how many inspectors you have on the job. Then you have only 77 inspectors for Ontario, a province which I think grows more fruit and vegetables than any other province in Canada.


Mr. McIVOR:: They do not need to be
watched.


James Houston Spence: No; the packing situation in Ontario is not very good either. We have had a great deal of nonsense in Ontario, but I must say that the packing of the fruit growers in Ontario has improved wonderfully in recent years. They are putting up splendid, honest packages of peaches and other commodities in the Niagara district, which are satisfying the public, but they did not do that until they were forced to it.


William Pate Mulock: How about apples?

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James Houston Spence: They are not so well graded in Ontario as in British Columbia; they are more on a par with Nova Scotia. I could mention individuals who have large orchards in Ontario who are grading splendidly, but I am sorry to say that does not apply to the whole province. They do not believe in grading; for instance, you cannot get Ontario to grade potatoes at all. Some two or three years ago the county of Simcoe tried to force the potato growers to grade their potatoes and stamp them showing that they came from that county, but the attempt was not very successful. My hon. friend from Peel thinks his county is the best in the country; it is a very good county, and I know it very well. They grow a large quantity of good stuff, but they also grow some bad stuff. They have some honest packers and some who are not so good. The situation in regard to the grading of potatoes in Ontario is a crime. If in Ontario potatoes were graded as they are in Prince Edward Island, properly inspected and properly graded; if the best commercial grades were planted, as in Prince Edward Island, Irish cobblers and green mountains, they would keep Prince Edward Island potatoes out of Ontario entirely. In place of that last winter I saw Prince Edward Island potatoes selling for $1 and $1.10 a bag, while Ontario potatoes were selling for 50 cents. The bad condition has been drawn to the attention of the potato growers again and again, but they shovel everything into the bags-potatoes broken at the ends; potatoes broken by the implements used to dig them up; small ones and large ones, hollow ones and everything else. What we need is a little education along this line in Ontario, and I hope we will get it Then you start the marketing board, at great cost to the country. I hate to talk about that, because it was the biggest mess ever started in this country. How could a bunch of young fellows, without any experience whatever, knowing nothing about ports throughout the country, not knowing where to find a market for anything, come into the department and expect to market successfully our product as against men who have had twenty-five, thirty-five and forty years of experience? Yet the advice the minister gets is all from young, innocent kids around the department who know nothing about it. Then you bring a professor from the college at Kingston-no, I did not say the penitentiary -and make him deputy minister. He may be the most able man in the world; he must be very highly educated and all that, but still he lacks the experience he needs for the marketing of anything, no matter what it is. It is a pity the government interferes so
much in business. That is what is ruining the United States to-day. That is what is ruining this country, and what is making conditions so bad. We are interfering too much with business people. To-day there is no encouragement for a man with means at his disposal to put it into anything because he is afraid of the government stealing it from him. We could restore this country to a normal condition much faster if we kept our hands out of other people's business, and gave some encouragement to the man who has money to invest. He feels now that if he makes an investment we will steal it from him.
But I am getting away from the subject of fruit and vegetables. When I say there are too many inspectors of all kinds I could go on to a discussion of entomology, and refer to a bunch of fellows who are going around the country picking up bugs here and there off nursery stock received from foreign countries, and particularly from Holland. The shippers in Holland are as particular to-day as are the people in Canada-I believe they are even more particular. Their only market is their export market. They have to be very sure that the stuff is properly inspected, and it is carefully watched before it comes here. Yet we have an army of inspectors who go all over Canada making inspection. They will pick up an evergreen and stand for half an hour turning a leaf back and forth looking for a bug, but they would not find one in fifty years. I have been importing stuff from Holland for twenty years, including evergreens, fancy trees and shrubs of all kinds, and yet I have never had trouble with them. The insects are killed by fumigation. In Holland everything that is exported is fumigated. Even the moss which is packed around the roots is fumigated and sterilized. They cannot afford to lose their market, and if they did not pack properly they would lose it.
These inspectors are decent fellows, and one could not say an unkind word to any of them. They always have a kind answer for one. In that respect they are like the secretary of the civil service commission You can write to him a thousand times and you will get a thousand letters back, each letter increasing in length. First you will get half a page, next almost a whole page and then you will get three pages. They are the most complete business letters you ever saw, but if you ever got anything out of them in your life I never did. The Department of Agriculture is the same.
Then, there is other extravagance in the Department of Agriculture. The minister must know more about it than he professes
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to know. To my mind he is not stupid; in fact I think he is alert. If he were managing a job for himself he would make more examinations than he is making. He accepts all these increases in salary, increases amounting to $28,000. This country is no more prosperous to-day than it was ten years ago; people are no better off. How much money have you in your pocket to-day? What did you have ten years ago? Yet we have all these increases. Why should we have the increases? It is a pity the government do not economize and carry on their business in a businesslike fashion. I am not condemning any individual minister. But I will guarantee that if they were placed in a business of their own they would not manage it the way they manage the business of the country.
I have asked the minister if the department dealt with individual farmers when it bought stuff at Holland Landing, or did it appoint an agent who bought the stuff or looked it over.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think the hon. member for York North (Mr. Mulock) is going to answer. I shall answer afterwards.


James Houston Spence: I know something about it.


William Pate Mulock: I am sorry if I said anything during my remarks which hurt the hon. member for Parkdale-


James Houston Spence: It will not hurt me a bit.


William Pate Mulock: My understanding of the matter was that the government sent cheques directly to every person from whom they bought; but no doubt the minister will be able to make a statement on that point, and he will correct me if I am wrong.


James Houston Spence: WTho put the price on? Did you? Why did you not engage someone who knew something about values and who could put a fair price on the articles?


William Pate Mulock: I thought the hon. member was objecting to the government spending the money and using the dominion inspectors.


James Houston Spence: I am not criticizing the government for buying the stuff at Holland Landing, because it was a godsend that they did buy it. But you did not need to take so much credit for it-you and the hon. gentleman who represents York North in the local house. You took great care that the papers were full of it so that it would help you out. That kind of stuff is no good, politically.


James Garfield Gardiner: The people in the
Holland marsh area asked a price which they obtained, one which was a little lower than the prevailing price at the time. fMr. Spence.]


James Houston Spence: It could be no lower than the prevailing price, because the stuff was worth nothing.


James Garfield Gardiner: I quite agree that the stuff would have been worth practically nothing if the government had not taken that great surplus out of the Holland marsh and the district round about.


James Houston Spence: That is correct.


James Garfield Gardiner: The county of Peel, which is just adjacent, benefited by the fact that the great surplus was taken out. These people themselves suggested a price which appeared to be reasonable to the department, and the department paid it. The cheques went directly to the individuals as they loaded the cars. One man was placed in charge at the cars to take delivery of the vegetables, and to see that they were properly packed. He was provided by the growers themselves, and not by the government. Our inspectors were there to see that the vegetables were of a proper type when put into the cars.
Perhaps this may not be the proper item on which to discuss the matter which has been under debate, but as we have returned from time to time to a discussion of the shipments of fruits, vegetables and other products to the drought area, it might be well if I were to read the full statement with regard to these purchases of commodities, so that everyone may read it in Hansard. It is as follows:
Owing to suffering throughout a large part of Saskatchewan and a portion of eastern Alberta which became most acute in the year 1937, due to continued crop failures, and also owing to the fact that there were large surpluses of foodstuffs in the eastern provinces wrhich promised to glut the market and thus cause distress among the farmers by lack of an opportunity to sell their products or to sell only at ruinous prices, the dominion government decided to purchase certain food supplies and send to the farmers of the stricken areas of the west.
Supplies were purchased under governor general's warrant, P.C. 2422, chiefly in the maritime provinces, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia. By agreement between the federal government and the government of the province of Saskatchewan certain 177 rural municipalities and local improvement districts in the province of Saskatchewan were designated as the areas which had suffered most from the crop failures of the past eight years and hence were entitled to share in this special distribution of food supplies.
Similarly, by agreement betw'een the federal government and the government of the province of Alberta certain 50 rural municipalities and local improvement districts in Alberta were designated to share in this special distribution. The Dominion Department of Agriculture issued instructions as to the allotment of the supplies on the basis of five to a family. The instruc-

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tions were as follows: 30 pounds of cheese; 33 pounds of beans; 150 pounds of apples; 44 pounds of fish; 100 pounds of turnips and 150 pounds of other vegetables.
These instructions were followed as closely as possible. A total of 285 cars of apples, 142 cars of turnips, 242 cars of cabbage, carrots, parsnips and beets and 220 cars of assorted fish, cheese and beans (these latter 200 cars being reshipped ex Regina after being warehoused and repacked) were shipped to their various destinations by this office.
Population figures for the rural areas and for the incorporated towns and villages were secured through the provincial governments and later checked and verified by the local municipalities. The carloads were broken down to the nearest eighth part to fill the requirements for each municipality or district. The cars of apples and vegetables were spotted direct to their destination. The cars containing fish, cheese and beans were all spotted for Regina where the contents were warehoused, repacked into suitable size for distribution and then reshipped to their ultimate destination. This involved a great deal of warehouse space. At one time as many as sixty-six men were engaged in the task of preparing the fish, cheese and beans for distribution to 73,450 homes.
The weather was favourable, especially during the weeks that the apples and vegetables were being handled. Only two carloads, one a refrigerator car and one a box car, both containing carrots, were partially destroyed by frost. From each of these cars from one-quarter to three-eighths was saved for human consumption, the balance of the two cars being distributed for cattle feed.
Only two cases of demurrage at railway points were reported, both being for one day duration.
Only two complaints were received as to shortage in cars which could be chargeable to the shippers. Particulars of these cases were immediately reported to the Department of Agriculture, Ottawa. Two complaints were also received with regard to the quality of the commodity, one being with respect to two barrels of apples from Nova Scotia and the other that the dried fish was unfit for use. This latter complaint, upon investigation, was found due to the fact that the complainant did not know how to prepare the food for the table. From every municipality and district without exception have come reports of the excellent quality of the supplies furnished.
The recipes sent by the Dominion Department of Agriculture as to the best way of preparing fish, cheese and beans for the table were greatly appreciated and added much to the value of the foodstuffs provided by the government.
The responsibility of distributing the supplies throughout the towns, villages and rural municipalities was placed upon the shoulders of the secretary-treasurers, reeves and councillors and the overseers of the towns. They measured up to a very difficult task and discharged their duties in a fair and efficient manner. No one who had a right to be served was purposely overlooked. It is no small task to divide the contents of 879 carloads of food supplies among 367,250 people over wide and often thinly populated areas to the satisfaction of all. Very few complaints have come in and adjustments were made when found necessary. Special mention should be made of the work of the secretary-treasurers of the rural municipalities. Upon
them fell the work of directing the task of distribution. Immediately upon allotment of cars or parts of cars the municipal secretaries were reached by telephone. This was considered in the best interests of distribution since the prairie winter weather was close at hand, and also in order that information should be relayed throughout the districts concerned to insure the quickest possible delivery to the people. It was decided that mailing of instructions was too uncertain since this entire movement of freight was not going on regular schedule but by special trains which were being routed on all lines at all times. Telephoning also ensured that instructions as to forwarding parts of cars from one municipality to another were properly understood and any points regarding any of the work about which officials were in doubt could be fully explained.
The railroads gave the best of service. Special mention should be made of the fine cooperation given by Mr. W. J. Anderson, district freight agent of the Canadian Pacific Railway and by Mr. R. E. Johnston, district freight agent of the Canadian National Railways. They did everything in their power to assist in the smooth working of the plans for speedy distribution.
The supplies sent out by the federal government have been greatly appreciated by the people who received them. We have a large file of letters which have been sent to us from ratepayers' associations, congregations of churches, community clubs and individuals expressing their appreciation and sincere thanks. Frequently the high quality of the foodstuffs is referred to and also the fairness of distribution made by the municipal councils.
I have the costs of distribution down to the date of this report if they are of interest to hon. members.


Mr. ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):: The statement just read by the minister deals more with relief. He did not say anything more with reference to the purchase of vegetables in the Holland marsh district. Who was in charge in that, district?


James Garfield Gardiner: A man by the name of Ferguson was in charge of the loading for the growers.


An hon. MEMBER:: Howard Ferguson?


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not think it was Howard Ferguson.


William Earl Rowe: Who acted for the growers? Probably the hon. member for York North (Mr. Mulock) could tell me.


William Pate Mulock: I am sorry, but I did
not hear the hon. member's question.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Ferguson acted for the growers and Mr. Wheeler, who is here at the moment, and one of our inspectors, acted for the department.


William Earl Rowe: I understood the minister to say that the growers selected one of their own men to represent them.
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James Garfield Gardiner: I am not sure where Mr. Ferguson lives, but he represented the growers.


William Earl Rowe: I understood the minister to say that the purchases were made from individual farmers and not from the cooperative organization.


James Garfield Gardiner: The purchases were made direct from the individuals. Mr. Ferguson and our inspector tallied everything that was delivered into the cars and the individuals received departmental cheques.


William Earl Rowe: Mr. Ferguson is one of the growers?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Mr. PERLEY:: The minister has just read to us a very detailed statement, and I think it was proper that that statement should have been given at this time. I am not complaining about the manner in which the distribution took place, apart from the complaints I made yesterday in connection with the distribution having been general. I should like to ask the minister if the department made any effort, to secure any vegetables last year in the northern part of Saskatchewan. They had a bountiful harvest of vegetables in that part of the province and I understand that certain municipalities offered to collect several carloads for distribution in the southern part. I should like to know also if any effort was made to obtain fish from the northern part of the province. It is well known that the lakes in the north are teeming with fish and there was a part of the season when any fish caught could have been kept frozen. While I am on my feet I may as well ask another question I had in mind. The statement just read by the minister referred to certain demurrage having been paid in Regina. Perhaps this could have been avoided.
The minister also mentioned that Doctor Stapleford had been employed to superintend the distribution. I wonder if it would be possible for him to give the committee the correspondence that took place with Doctor Stapleford in connection with his employment. Earlier in the session we were told that this gentleman was receiving S500 a month and expenses to carry on this work. When the people of Saskatchewan found that out there was considerable criticism. I do not think the public generally knew that this gentleman was receiving that amount for doing this work. For many years Doctor Stapleford had received a salary from Regina college and the church to which he belonged. Later on he was employed by the university. I understand he was then retired on superannuation and had accepted a position as assistant prin-

cipal of a college in Ontario. I should like to know why it was thought necessary to employ Doctor Stapleford to do this work. I have no doubt that there were 500 people in Saskatchewan who would have done this work voluntarily, or at least for a dollar a day and expenses. The minister has stated that the distribution was made in 177 rural municipalities. The mayors of these municipalities gave of their services freely. The clergy in the towns also gave their services free, and in view of all the work that was done voluntarily I think it was an outrage that this man should have been employed to do the work at that salary. The members of the relief commission under the late government gave their services free. It was managed by Mr. Daniel and consisted of four or five business men, one or two from the city of Regina, one from Moose Jaw, and a farm woman, who also gave her services free except for her expenses while in Regina. The whole commission gave their services practically free except for the expenses they incurred for travelling and the like. Then consider that this work under this government was done by a man who was paid $500 a month! I would like to have the correspondence relating to his appointment, and a statement from the minister as to why it was necessary to employ this man, who was drawing a superannuation allowance, and as well I believe an annuity from the university of Saskatchewan.


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, I have here a list of the questions asked by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Perley) some time ago. They appeared to begin with in the form of a question on the order paper, which was later converted into an order for return, and that return was brought down for the hon. member and gives him all the information he has just asked for. I do not think I should be required to read it all to the committee.


George Halsey Perley: It does not give the correspondence, or the reason why no one else could have been employed at a lower remuneration.


James Garfield Gardiner: I shall answer my hon. friend's question with regard to the person appointed. So far as correspondence is concerned, I do not think there was any correspondence in engaging him. I interviewed him personally in Toronto; later he came to Ottawa where he had another interview. He discussed the matter with officials in the department before going west, and was given full instructions how to proceed. He also discussed with them the matter of purchases at this end.

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So far as Doctor Stapleford himself is concerned, many members both in the east and in the west know him personally, and I do not need to make any apologies for him. He is known to leading business men from one end of Canada to the other, and everyone who knows him will acknowledge him to be not only one of the foremost educationalists- one important eastern university has just engaged him for a very important financial task-'but also a man who for directing the business side of an institution is one of the best we have in Canada; and he has been recognized as such in all parts of Canada.
The only reason he was leaving Saskatchewan was that the church college, which had been operated in Regina for many years, and is one of the best educational institutions in the western provinces, was taken over by the university of Saskatchewan and is now being operated under the president of that university. The church did not desire to continue with it longer; when it was taken over by the university Doctor Stapleford found that his duties there were not in exact accordance with his desires, and he later was offered the position he now occupies with Victoria university in Toronto. He was a graduate of that institution and was taken back there to do work in connection with the financial side of their set-up.
' The churches had been doing a great deal of work on a voluntary basis in connection with the distribution of food sent from eastern Canada to western Canada. On a number of occasions I had had discussions with the head of the United church, the superintendent of missions of the United church, and representatives of other churches in regard to the matter. I discussed with them this particular distribution in its relation to their distribution before we undertook it. Throughout the discussions which took place between those who were interested in the distribution of their own products and myself as interested in the distribution to be made by the Department of Agriculture, we were in agreement that there was no better man in Canada to do the job and no man whose appointment would be more acceptable to the people generally than Doctor Stapleford.
It might be suggested that he should have done this work for a lower salary than was paid him, and there might be some justification for that view were it not for the fact that that was the lesser of the two jobs that he had to do. Doctor Stapleford was asked to take over these duties and see to the coordinating of the work of this organization with that of the voluntary organizations, and he was asked at the same time to make a
complete report to the government of Canada upon the giving of relief in western Canada dating back as far as governments have been giving relief. When the late government started their relief activities in 1930 or 1931 I venture to say they were in much the same position as that in which we found ourselves when we took over the government in 1935, that no authentic information on relief distribution was to be had anywhere. Unless you searched the files of municipal, provincial and federal departments of government from one end to the other in order to find out, there was no authentic information available upon which to base any action in connection with the handling of relief in these different areas. An expenditure of $8,700,000 was made in 1914-15 alone, and since Doctor Stapleford has been at the task of compiling in one volume all the information with regard to past distributions of relief I have found that in common with every other public speaker who has been delivering addresses in western Canada I have been making misstatements in regard to the distribution of relief. I looked up all the information I could find upon it in certain departments and I gave that information to the public, but when I had the complete information in my hands I found I have been giving some information that was not correct.
I think every member of this committee will agree, since apparently we are going to have these periods of drought in western Canada, that it is essential that we should have available an authentic report of what has taken place in the distribution of relief from away back in the eighties down to the present, so that the information may be available when one of these difficult periods recurs. Doctor Stapleford has performed that task. He has placed in the hands of the government a complete report in so far as it could be found in the records of departments and of governments either at Ottawa or in western Canada, of all the activities of municipal, provincial and federal governments and relief organizations, voluntary and otherwise, in regard to the handling of the problem particularly of giving direct relief to the people of western Canada.


Major James William Coldwell: May I ask if that report is available?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have read the report myself and it is being read by officials of the department. It is not available in printed form at the present time, and it has not yet been determined whether it will be printed.
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Major James William Coldwell: Could mimeographed copies be provided for the members of this house?


James Garfield Gardiner: Not at the moment. It has just been turned over to us in the last week or so.


Major James William Coldwell: Could that be done some time?


James Garfield Gardiner: I think eventually, yes, but I have yet to bring before the government what we shall finally do with the report. But it has been compiled. It gives maps of the different areas, and the different amounts expended by different governments. All this information has been compiled in one volume, which will be available to those who have to do this job in the future, whether five or ten years from now or at some other time. That was the task Doctor Stapleford was really paid for at the time he was engaged to do the work. He was not certain what his future activities were going to be, and it was expected he would take until June or July of this year to complete the work. Some time during the winter Victoria college was very anxious to have him take over the duties which they had offered him previously and they suggested that they desired him to take them over on, I believe, the first of April. He was anxious to wind up the work by that time, and we engaged an assistant for him, at about half the amount he was obtaining himself, to act with him during the last six weeks of his activities in order to wind up the work by the end of March. That report has been made, all of which is part of the work done by Doctor Stapleford.


George Halsey Perley: Would the minister answer the first two questions, with respect to the purchase of vegetables and fish?


James Garfield Gardiner: In so far as the purchase of vegetables in western Canada is concerned, I believe we purchased about thirty-nine cars, mostly in Manitoba, a few in Alberta, and I am not sure that a few were not purchased in Saskatchewan, but they were very few. The first reason why we bought so few in Saskatchewan is that there were not many vegetables in that province. We had almost the most complete crop failure in Saskatchewan last year that we ever had; and while we speak of the 170 municipalities referred to as the "hundred per cent drought area," it does not by any means cover the whole drought area of the province in that year. The drought area extended right up into the northern section, and though certain municipalities had a surplus of vegetables, it also happened that alongside of them were muni-

cipalities which had to get vegetables. We did not think it fair to go into the northern area where there might be a surplus in a comparatively small district, and compete with some municipality alongside it in purchasing vegetables required by those individuals. In other words the policy was to go into districts where there were surpluses which might be a drug on the market, and purchase them and distribute them in the drought areas.
As far as the fish are concerned, if the desire was only to take fish out of the lakes and freeze them, we probably would not have had to go up into the northern area. My hon. friend knows that the Qu'Appelle lakes, alongside my farm and his own, are full of fish.


George Halsey Perley: And lots of men there.


James Garfield Gardiner: There are, of course, men there who can and do fish, and who fished last year and sold fish as they had done previously. I venture to say that smoked fish-salted cod and that sort of thing-does not enter into competition veiy actively with fresh fish in areas where fresh fish is easily available, but it nevertheless forms the basis of a diet which is very healthful; and in better times, when these people who last year were eating dried cod and smoked herring for the first time in their lives are looking for some tasty food, they will probably go down to the mari-times to get it. That is one of the reasons we took the action we did.


George Halsey Perley: I cannot agree altogether
with what the minister has said, particularly his statement that there was no authentic information available to the government in respect of relief matters and distribution. The commission which was appointed by the previous government and operated until 1934 had before them everything in great detail with respect to population, the conditions of the population, the condition of the areas, and they had had four years' experience-one or two of them almost, although I admit not quite, as bad as the present.


An hon. MEMBER:: They made an awful mess of it.


George Halsey Perley: That information was available. During that period there was not a single charge against that commission of misappropriation of funds or maladministration in connection with the distribution of relief. When the minister says that Doctor Stapleford was about the only man available in Canada to do this work, I do not think hon. members will be disposed to agree. True enough, he had been principal of Regina college, and no doubt he made a very good

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job of that. His principal work was to get funds in order to keep the college going. He was an adept at that. I was one who was tapped occasionally for considerable amounts by way of subscription; no doubt the minister was too. When Doctor Staple-ford came around it was pretty hard to put him off. I admit he made a success of that kind of work, but I believe there were a great many people in Saskatchewan, men with business experience, who could have done this work at considerably less salary. I should like the minister to tell us just what superannuation he is drawing, also whether he received an annuity from the university or from the government of Saskatchewan when he was retired from the university. I think that the fact that he was drawing these amounts was sufficient, and that he should not have been considered when many other men in Saskatchewan needed the work and could have done it just as well.
Mention has been made of the work that he was carrying on by way of an inquiry. The minister states that his work is completed and the report is in the minister's hands. I think that report should be tabled. I have here a questionnaire that he sent out. It relates to the problems of rural relief; I might say that he distributed it to a great many people in Saskatchewan. All members of parliament, provincial and federal, got copies. The first question is:
To what extent has the economic distress of the past few years in the rural area of your constituency affected the morale (1) of individuals, (2) of the community as a whole?
Then it goes on:
To what extent is relief as at present administered breaking down the morale of the recipient of relief?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am sure that the hon. member does not want to misrepresent the facts. That was not a questionnaire which went to every person; that was the questionnaire which went to the members. Various questionnaires went to doctors, ministers, members of parliament, school-teachers and so on.


George Halsey Perley: I was coming to that. I mentioned that it went to both federal and provincial members. I think that when we compare the effect of the distribution of relief upon the morale of the citizens under the present system with what took place in the previous four years, the citizens of Saskatchewan can safely be left to judge the result. I believe that the morale of citizens who have been forced to accept relief under this set-up has been more seriously affected than was that of those who had to accept relief from 1930 to 1934.


Major James William Coldwell: I was going to ask the minister if the salt fish was cod fish. Maritime people have told me that some of the fish sent out to western Canada was not cod, and that that was the reason for some of the difficulties, that it was a lower grade fish which they call pollock. I do not think it was pollock such as we knew in the old land, because we did not salt it, but they call it pollock, and some people from the maritimes have told me that that was a cause of dissatisfaction, and that this fish is not cod.


James Garfield Gardiner: The list I read last evening answers, I think, the hon. member's question-that we purchased a certain amount of cod at 5j cents and a certain amount of pollock at 3 to 3| cents, and it is acknowledged that pollock.is not as good a fish as cod. In the process of distribution an attempt was made to give some of each to each family, but that could not be carried all the way through; it was not possible to give every family exactly the same type of fish. But where one person was given pollock and another cod, it would probably be found that the person who got the pollock had some canned herring and chicken haddock or something of that kind put in as well.


Major James William Coldwell: The only point is that so far as advertising the fish of the maritimes is concerned, I am afraid it was not very well advertised by the pollock.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think the fact that only two complaints came in is a good indication that whatever was sent was pretty well advertised.


Major James William Coldwell: Probably they did not write in, but I was in the west recently, and I heard some interesting stories and more interesting remarks about the salt fish.


George Halsey Perley: Would the minister answer my question with respect to superannuation?


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member for Qu'Appelle has asked me about the superannuation which was allowed to Doctor Staple-ford. All I can say is that I do not know anything about it.


George Halsey Perley: That does not answer the second question.


James Garfield Gardiner: It answers it as far as I am concerned. I do not think it is any of the business of the government whether Doctor Stapleford is getting a superannuation allowance from some other concern or not. We did not hire him because he was getting superannuation or was not getting it. We hired him because we thought he could do the job.
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Mr. DEACHMAN:: What progress has been made in developing a market in Canada for sweet cider? I understand that at present there are some shipments of sweet eider to England, and I wondered whether any progress had been made in developing a market at home. I have a pleasant recollection of cider, and I should like to see the market extended. Another question: Has there been any development in Canada in connection with a product called powdered apple? I tried to get some information in this connection, but I could not find anything. Perhaps the minister can tell me something about it.


James Garfield Gardiner: 
Gordon Graydon: In the latter part of 1937 or early in 1938 great sections of the growers of Ontario and other parts of Canada became alarmed over rumours which were then prevalent with regard to changes that were being made in the protection afforded the vegetable and fruit men in the proposed new agreements to be entered into between the United States

and Canada. The tariff board in 1933 made certain recommendations in answer to an application from the fruit and vegetable growers of Canada. The findings were, in part, that the applicants had made out a case in favour of preserving for the Canadian producer during his growing season a market in the section of the country which he is able to supply. Since the last changes in the agreement between the United States and Canada, which went into effect on January 1, 1936-I am only speaking from memory in this connection, but I think I am right-the increase in general imports from the United States was 33} per cent, whereas the increase in imported vegetables was something like 53 per cent.


The CHAIRMAN:: I must call the hon. member to order. The committee is not now discussing the tariff, and I would ask him to confine his remarks to the item under consideration.


Gordon Graydon: This item has to do with fruit and vegetables, and I thought I might be given a little latitude in order to bring out this point. The fruit and vegetable growers believe that they have already assumed more than their fair share of the burden imposed by the trade agreements, and when the new agreements are finally brought before the government for consideration I trust that the Minister of Agriculture will be very careful to protect the interests of the vegetable growers so that there will be no relaxation in the tariff and no easing up so far as the dumping duties are concerned.


Mr. McGREGOR:: There is some question as to procedure in connection with the dumping duties. Who puts on the dumping duties? This is a very important matter, because a good deal depends on the early market. The first goods put on the market always get a good price, and if the dumping duties are not put on at the right time the growers will not get the benefit of that price. The minister might tell us what the procedure is.


James Garfield Gardiner: The question is one that could be better discussed under the estimates of the Department of National Revenue. They have much more information than we have. They seek information wherever they can get it. They have their own men out getting information and we have our inspectors, who naturally make reports. The Department of National Revenue before making any decision consults the fruit and vegetable branch of the Department of Agriculture, but that is the department that takes action in pursuance of the information it receives from different sources.

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Robert Henry McGregor: Where does the horticultural society come in?


James Garfield Gardiner: Officially they do not " come in." They may be consulted like anyone else who is associated with the business. The departments will consult anyone. I have consulted individuals on occasion myself.


Robert Henry McGregor: lit has been said that this $5,000 paid to the horticultural society is handed over to their secretary and he makes reports as to when these duties should be put on. Is there any truth in that statement?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is no relation between this $5,000 and any reports that may come from the horticultural society. This arrangement has existed for many years; first it was $8,000, later $4,500 and then, because of the return of the ten per cent, it became $5,000. That goes to the horticultural society, which has a secretary. As I understand it, the same gentleman happens to be secretary for the wholesalers of fruit, and naturally they make representations through their secretary to the Department of National Revenue. They may on occasion even write letters to the Department of Agriculture. Like any other organization that is interested in these things they make representations to the different departments concerned, but the departments make their own decisions as to whether or not they will agree with the recommendations.


Robert Henry McGregor: In other words this
gentleman gets $5,000 from this government, indirectly, and probably another $5,000 from the other people; he plays both ends against the middle, makes whatever recommendations he wishes, and the government carries them out.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. gentleman is hardly correct in saying that the government makes a grant of $5,000 to the secretary.


Robert Henry McGregor: I did not say that.


James Garfield Gardiner: That is about what it amounts to.


Robert Henry McGregor: Let us put it this way: The government pays the horticultural society $5,000 and the society pays him $5,000. Is that plain enough?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have no knowledge of what the horticultural society pays him or what the wholesalers pay him. I only know that the same gentleman happens to be secretary of both organizations, because as such he communicates with us from time to time. I presume the organization is quite capable of engaging its own secretary and knowing whether or not he is giving service for the money.


Mark Cecil Senn: I should like to ask the minister a question about containers:	A short
time ago I was speaking about tomatoes and their grading. The report of the minister for 1937 states that progress is being made towards the standardization of containers for canned fruit and vegetables. That was a very live question when the price spreads commission was investigating certain matters. There appeared to be containers that looked very much alike but which contained entirely different amounts. Could the minister tell us just what progress has been made towards standardization of those containers. It is undoubtedly true that standardization could not be carried out fully in connection with export trade because of the difference in the demands of importing countries in regard to canned goods; containers of the same size would not be suitable for the markets of all countries. But I think it is very important that we should know something of what is being done towards the standardization of containers.


James Garfield Gardiner: There has been a great deal of activity in the direction of trying to obtain standard containers for the different types of packs, but that is a matter which concerns international trade to such an extent that we must give some thought to what they are doing elsewhere. There is a bill before the United States congress at present having to do with that matter, and the department here is keeping close check on it with the idea that when we finally do something in this regard it will conform fairly closely to what is being done elsewhere.


Mark Cecil Senn: I should like to ask one more question having to do with the inspection of apples. The Shaw report, so called, among other things has this to say with regard to our shipments of apples to the United Kingdom :
Complaints regarding the variation in the grading of Canadian apples were without doubt in many cases well founded.
And again:
Greater care should be taken to assure that the top layer of apples in a barrel is a fair sample of the whole contents.
Evidently that has not been so in the past. Then in his recommendations he states:
More rigid enforcement of the grading regulations would undoubtedly tend to remove these complaints.
I could mention some other features of the report. As I understand it, the grading and inspection of apples is done at the port, and they are graded only by sample; in fact I understand that only about one sample out
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of twenty is inspected. It seems to me that more careful inspection of our exports of apples should be maintained, and I would ask the minister just what is contemplated in that direction.


James Garfield Gardiner: Ordinarily, of course, the inspection consists of about one in twenty, or about five per cent; but as a matter of fact where there is any doubt about it at all the percentage might be much larger than that; perhaps the greater part might be inspected. That is the practice followed. There will be improvement in that connection as we go along, just as was indicated a few moments ago by the hon. member for Parkdale, who I think agreed in part at least with the gentlemen who wrote the report that there were some grounds for complaint in connection with the packs from certain parts of Canada. That complaint is being looked into, and instructions have been given our men to make more careful checks. It is part also of our activities overseas, as the result of the appointment of a man to represent the department there, to have these packs checked more closely on the other side in order to try to maintain our standard at as high a level as possible.


Mark Cecil Senn: This report also states that American and Canadian apples are sent to the old country at about the same season of the year; that Canadian apples are frequently looked upon by the trade as American, and are sometimes sold as such. Has the department any idea that Canadian apples or the packages containing them might be marked differently so that they could be recognized in the market over there as being Canadian apples, or could any method be devised by which this might be brought about?


James Garfield Gardiner: There has been no decision with regard to apples, as to whether or not we will apply the standard mark to them; but that is the whole basis of the standard mark, to have it put on the high standard products in order that they may be identified as Canadian.


Mark Cecil Senn: But that applies only to the container, and once a barrel of apples is opened up the person who buys them in the retail store does not see the container and is not in a position to know whether or not they are Canadian apples. I understand that most of the apples shipped in hampers are wrapped in tissue paper or cellophane or something of the kind; these wrappings at least might bear the word "Canada" so that our apples may be known as such.


James Garfield Gardiner: There is no difficulty about the apples that are wrapped with paper and shipped in boxes; those can be marked just as Sunkist oranges are marked. But with apples packed in barrels, as they are in Nova Scotia, there might be greater difficulty in having that mark appear. One can see from that what might be a standard mark in one place would be difficult to apply in the same way in another place.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Live stock and poultry, $537,339.
Mr. LEADER:: I notice an increase of approximately $55,000 in this item, which is indicative of the importance of this branch of agriculture. Live stock should be regarded as one of the main factors in successful agriculture. Anyone who has had the experience will substantiate that statement. The breeding, feeding and marketing of live stock is therefore very important.
It seems to me that our domestic market must be given some careful consideration. I have read in the Ottawa papers where dressed beef can be purchased for ten cents a pound. That beef is sold in the market in Ottawa. Then, we notice advertisements in the paper showing that better cuts of meat sell for thirty-five cents per pound. But when one goes to a restaurant he pays $1.50 per pound. In order to assure myself that I was not exaggerating I went to one of the leading butcher shops in Ottawa and asked how much beefsteak a restaurant would serve on an order. The reply was that ordinarily they would serve eight ounces and, in rare cases, ten ounces. When we consult a bill of fare we find we are charged seventy-five cents or eighty cents and sometimes a dollar for a beefsteak, but we are receiving only half a pound. It is for that reason I say that we are being charged at the rate of $1.50 per pound. This matter received consideration by the legislature of Manitoba in the present year when it appointed a special committee to investigate the matter. It might be in order to go farther and ask the dominion parliament to undertake an investigation along similar lines.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: What else, for which there is no stated charge, does the hon. member get with the beefsteak?


Harry Leader: You get a lot of frills which do not appease your appetite. I would be satisfied with the service I would get with a beefsteak costing fifty cents, because I think that should be the outside price for one.
When I rose to speak I had in mind chiefly the marketing of fresh beef in the old country.

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Some time ago I asked the Minister of Agriculture if any investigation had taken place in connection with the placing of fresh killed beef on the British market. I received the answer that in 1921 the Harris Abattoir, which is now connected with Canada Packers, made a trial shipment. I was told, further, that in 1923 the dominion government had made a trial shipment, and that in 1934 the university of Saskatchewan had made one. I have no knowledge as to the outcome of the shipments made by the university of Saskatchewan and the dominion government, but I have a distinct recollection of the matter being discussed in the house in 1922 and 1923 after the trial shipment was made by the Harris Abattoir. The shipment proved that our meat met with satisfaction in the old country market, and it sold on a par with British killed meat, and at a substantial premium over chilled and frozen meat from the Argentine. I wonder why this market has not been developed, and why our great packing institutions have not developed the placing of fresh killed beef on the British market. I do not know the reason, but sometimes I think the fact that the packing industry in Great Britain and on this continent are vitally interested financially in the meat business of the Argentine, and that might be the reason why they have not undertaken to develop the fresh meat trade with the old country. As the trade would be developed, it would displace exports from the Argentine. It seems to me that some government agency must undertake this work if we are going to make any advance.
When we read the report submitted by the committee which was sent overseas we find the project is altogether feasible, and that there is a distinct advantage in undertaking this work. At this point I should like to read to the committee an article written by Miss Cora Hind, agricultural editor of the Winnipeg Free Press. I read the article because Miss Hind is, I believe, one of the greatest authorities on the continent in agricultural matters. It will be remembered that about two years ago she made a tour of different countries in the world, following which tour she submitted a report of her travels, and made particular mention of the possibility of placing fresh killed beef on the British market. The article is headed "British Market is Open for Meat" and is in these words:
In regard to live stock and the products thereof, I am firmly convinced, after my three months in the Argentine, that Canada, and for that matter Australia and New Zealand, can never successfully and profitably compete with the Argentine in the matter of chilled meat
for the British market. In time, and at very considerable expense for sires, Canada could undoubtedly produce the quality but not at the price. Some of the Canadians who scoff at the idea of Canada putting fresh killed, grain finished beef on the London market may be surprised to know how men on the Argentine frigorificos are alive to that possibility and that more than once I was asked as to the likelihood of Canada doing it.
It might be well for Canada to get busy on this scheme before a generation in England has grown so used to the tender but really rather tasteless Argentinian chilled beef that it will refuse to pay higher prices for Canadian grain finished, fresh killed beef. Doors that may have stood open and inviting for a long time, when never used, have an uncanny habit of closing in the face of those who, long neglecting, suddenly decide to use them.
The question of fresh killed beef on the British market has long since passed the experimental stage, and I am glad indeed the minister has decided to undertake the work. Perhaps it will be done only on a limited scale at the present time. However, if he will develop the market I have no doubt in the world that we have the facilities and the farmers who desire and are able to furnish the finest beef grown in the world. I refer, of course, to grain-fed baby beef.
A few moments ago I said the packing institutions of Canada have had about seventeen years experience in connection with the project, but have not developed the trade. It seems to me the government should step in. My suggestion would be that it should lend assistance to some cooperative society which would place the meat on the British market. The government might build an abattoir, or lend to some other organization at a low rate of interest the money necessary for that purpose. At some point on the Atlantic coast there should be a year-round port from which Canadian beef could be shipped to the British market. Our beef could be placed on refrigerator ships and be delivered in the British butcher shops ready for cutting up. It would have to be hung for a period of ten or twelve days after killing. My belief is that under such arrangements it would arrive in the British market in the pink of condition.
I have mentioned a cooperative society because the other day, when speaking about Danish bacon, the minister said that this product was bred, fed and sold cooperatively. Every hon. member knows that the selling of Danish bacon in the old country market has been most successful. I believe it fetches a premium over any other bacon on that market.
I am deeply interested in the subject, having been engaged in the live stock industry

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all my life. It was a pity the Canadian government got rid of its merchant marine. The government owned marine service would have taken care of the shipments and would have seemed almost like a gift from Santa Claus. However, those ships have been scrapped, but they might have been used in conjunction with our Canadian National railways to carry our beef to market. Despite this handicap, we should go forward in the development of the fresh beef market. I have said more than I intended to say, but I am really interested in this work and I should like the minister to tell the committee what steps have been taken or what advance has been achieved in connection with supplying fresh killed beef to the British market.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member has just referred to the activities in connection with supplying fresh killed beef to the British market. He stated that he was familiar with the experiment carried on by the Harris Abattoir some years ago. I happen to be familiar with the experiment carried on by the university of Saskatchewan a comparatively few years ago. On that occasion the present director of marketing in the Department of Agriculture was in charge of the agricultural college at the university in Saskatoon. He was really responsible for the experiment that was carried on. That experiment consisted of choosing seventy-five steers. I believe those steers were first on the Matador ranch in Saskatchewan and then they were finished with grain. Twenty-five were killed in Saskatoon and shipped directly to the old country to be sold on the Smithfield market. Twenty-five were shipped to Montreal, killed in an abattoir there and the meat shipped in cold storage to the Smithfield market. The other twenty-five were shipped on foot to Birkenhead, where they were slaughtered and the meat sent to the Smithfield market.
There are certain difficulties to be overcome in undertaking an experiment of this kind. The Canadian railways have no refrigerator cars capable of carrying beef in sides, as it is desired in the old country. Therefore, the meat had to be hung in a way in which it should not be hung in shipping it from Saskatoon to Montreal. The refrigerator cars available in this country have been constructed for the purpose of carrying any commodity that requires cold storage, and it was found that the beef was not heated evenly at the top and bottom of the car. When the meat reached Montreal it had to be handled under the conditions I described the other day in connection with bacon. It had to be taken from the refrigerator cars and moved
FMr. Leader.]
across the wharf, sometimes in great heat, then put into the hold of the boat and taken across the Atlantic. It just happened that when this meat reached the other side the conditions on the Smithfield market were not right for the marketing of it at the end of the week, and it was thought advisable to hold the beef over until Monday, if I remember rightly. That necessitated opening up the hold to take out all the other commodities and then closing it up again and putting the Canadian beef back into storage for another two days. The result was that the beef which had been killed in Saskatoon had undergone about as trying a trip as beef could be expected to undergo. That which was shipped from Montreal encountered conditions a little less difficult. The beef shipped on foot and killed at Birkenhead demonstrated that this was the most efficient manner of placing this product upon that market under the conditions prevailing and with the facilities existing between Saskatoon and London.
My memory of what happened is that the Canadian beef slaughtered at Birkenhead sold at prices which compared very favourably with the best Scottish beef. The beef which was killed in Montreal sold at a little lower price, and that which was killed in Saskatoon sold at a still lower price. My memory is that the beef killed in Montreal sold to better advantage than Argentine chilled beef and demonstrated that beef shipped under those conditions, or under the slightly improved conditions possible to-day, can be sold to advantage as against Argentine beef.


Mark Cecil Senn: Was the beef that was
slaughtered in Montreal sold at a price sufficiently higher to pay the freight from the west, and was the beef slaughtered in England sold at a price sufficiently higher to pay the ocean freight, which I understand is $15?


James Garfield Gardiner: The beef shipped on foot and slaughtered in England returned the best price to the individual on this side. The beef slaughtered in Montreal brought the next best return to the individual on this side. The beef killed in Saskatoon brought the lowest return to the individual on this side. With the facilities available it would appear that it would be better to ship the beef on foot. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader) is advocating that a change should be made in the conditions; -but, as was indicated the other day, we are carrying on experiments in the hope of providing better facilities, either at Montreal or at some other point, for the transference of beef killed in Canada to ships. All I can say is that the

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Argentine trade in beef has been developed over a long term of years. The first thing they did was to provide for careful breeding, and that country has some of the best beef stock to be found anywhere in the world. Another point in t-heir favour is the fact that most of their stock is comparatively near to the seaboard. My understanding is that it is all slaughtered on the wharves and that there is no change in temperature from the time of cooling following killing to the placing on the ships. They have also developed ships which are used only for the carrying of beef, and in which the temperature is constant.
We could ship beef from this country to England to be sold as fresh killed beef. I understand that on the British market beef is considered as fresh killed if it has been slaughtered within ten days. My understanding is that it takes a month to deliver Argentine beef to the British market, and therefore it is shipped in chilled form. We can ship ours as fresh killed beef and sell it in competition with other fresh beef on the British market. However, to do this, facilities must be provided on our wharves and boats must be specially constructed to handle this fresh meat. We would have to use all the space provided in the boat for this purpose.


William Earl Rowe: Is any being shipped now?


James Garfield Gardiner: We are arranging to ship limited amounts.


William Earl Rowe: How much?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have not the exact amount. We have entered into an arrangement with the packers to carry out this experiment for us and to undertake shipments to the old country markets for a period of twelve months.


William Earl Rowe: Where will that beef be killed?


James Garfield Gardiner: Mostly in Toronto.


Mark Cecil Senn: In carrying out this experiment is consideration being given to the pluck and offal? These are important items in considering the return from an animal. There is a return from the heart and liver and things like that, and the other offal which may be used for fertilizer and other purposes.


James Garfield Gardiner: Every part of the animal will be accounted for. The liver and offal will not be shipped to the old country. It will be used on this side.


Mark Cecil Senn: It will be in the returns?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.
Mr. LEADER. My idea is that these cattle should be killed, not in Toronto, but at the Atlantic seaboard. We can raise all
kinds of first-class feeder cattle in western Canada, and are glad to sell them at the market price, and I am sure that the mari-timers would gladly buy them at the market price. If these feeder cattle were slaughtered at the seaboard, the maritimers could fatten them down there, and the fresh killed beef would arrive in the old country at the very lowest possible cost of production. But if they are killed in Toronto, you have to have refrigerator cars to ship them to the seaboard, and transportation costs are greater. We have fooled with this thing long enough. If you are going to make an honest-to-goodness attempt to put fresh killed beef on the British market, then take the best method you can find, something like that used in the Argentine, slaughter the cattle at the seaboard and place it on the market in the shortest possible time. If we adopt the best possible methods, we might be able to win our way with fresh killed beef into the British market.


John Charles Landeryou: Why was Toronto selected?


James Garfield Gardiner: The facilities at the seaboard are not as desired by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, and again Toronto is the one market where you have the greatest number from which to make your selection of high grade beef. That is the condition at present. All factors that enter into cost can be determined. The cost of shipping from Montreal or Toronto, the difference between the cost of shipping live cattle and the dead animal-all these differences will figure in the cost and can be determined.


John Charles Landeryou: It is in the nature of an experiment?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, and I do not think it would be advisable for the government or anyone else to enter into the enormous expense involved in building an abattoir at, say Saint John, and putting in the equipment necessary to handle the beef like they do in the Argentine, with a complete line of boats, or even only one boat, to carry on an experiment of this kind. All we can do is to say that we are carrying on the experiment under the most difficult conditions one can possibly prescribe, and if we can succeed under those conditions we could succeed much better if we had better facilities. These facilities might then be provided by private capital. That is the way in which it is done in the Argentine. It is not done by the government there, but three companies do the business
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largely, one 'being Swifts and another an English organization. They handle the beef direct from the Argentine to Great Britain.
As to what will develop out of the experiment, that will depend upon what has been accomplished when it has been completed and upon the attitude of private interests as to whether they want to go into a business of that kind.


Mr. THOMPSON:: Will there always be sufficient cargo space to take these carcases across? There has been great difficulty in getting boat space for the shipment of live cattle. The difficulty might be overcome if we had the assurance that there would always be sufficient refrigerator space in the vessels to take the fresh killed beef across.


James Garfield Gardiner: So far as this experiment is concerned, special arrangements are being made covering the whole twelve months, so there will be no difficulty in obtaining space, because the space will be booked and the beef will be put into cold storage weekly throughout the year.


William Earl Rowe: Seeing
that the government is paying for the experiment, would it not have been advisable to do as the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader) has suggested, have the cattle slaughtered at the seaboard and the fresh killed beef shipped from the nearest possible point to the British market? I realize that the experiment may not be profitable in its initial stage, but certainly it would be profitable for this dominion it we could establish a market in the old country for our fresh killed beef. Many people have recognized that for many years, and I am inclined to agree with the hon. member for Portage la Prairie that the shortest possible route to the British market is the one which should have been taken, and the cattle slaughtered at the seaboard. I realize the volume of the business that is done in the city of Toronto, but there would be advantages from a national standpoint to ship, if at all possible, directly from Halifax or Saint John, or even Montreal, although shipments from Montreal would take a day or two longer, and that port could not be used the whole year round. I think the government might well consider the advisability of adopting that suggestion, independently of the extra cost of supplying a smaller quantity. I notice by the minister's report which was given to the house the other day, or perhaps I should say the report of the committee-


James Garfield Gardiner: Call it mine.


William Earl Rowe: After
looking at the spectacular page ten I think it should certainly be called the minister's report. Paragraph 3 on page ten states:
Arrangements have been completed to have a definite quantity of fresh killed beef forwarded weekly to the London market.
Evidently the arrangements have been made and we are now committed to supplying the British market weekly with our fresh killed beef. Toronto is a long way inland, and subject to the handicaps, to which the minister alluded a few moments ago, of its being necessary to change from car to boat during hot weather conditions. All these are difficulties that have been recognized for some years, and I think they are still difficulties in making the test so far inland successful. I do not know whether the facilities at Halifax would be suitable, but I do think that even at some extra expense the department would have been well advised to ship high class beef animals on the hoof to Halifax or Saint John, no matter how few in number, to see if we could not establish for ourselves a market in Britain and meet the demand by a continuous and regular supply of high class beef. Even Montreal would have been much closer than Toronto, and would have avoided the change from car to boat.
I personally commend the effort which the department is making in this regard, and which I think is only in keeping with what might be done in many lines so far as the export of our meat is concerned, but I do think the government would be well justified in spending even more money to carry out the experiment from the closest possible port to secure the British market. It is in keeping with the suggestion I made here the other day with reference to giving assistance in the marketing of live stock products. Some have said that this is unsound; but I have observed in the old land, in the very market in which we are endeavouring to sell our farm products, they have their bacon development board, and indirectly or almost directly they are giving assistance, even what might be called subsidies, to make up the difference between the market price and the fixed price. I think there would be very little criticism throughout the dominion if the government spent a considerably larger sum to develop this trade, which I believe could be developed more efficiently if we chose the shortest possible route and shipped the beef from the nearest possible point to the British market.


John Charles Landeryou: I realize the difficulties on account of lack of facilities at the seaboard, but I should like the minister to

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explain the advantages in shipping the beef dressed over shipping cattle on the hoof as we do now.


James Garfield Gardiner: The great difficulty, of course, in maintaining our British market has been to maintain a continuous supply in that market. In shipping the beef on foot as we have been doing, there seems to be a tendency on the part of our people, whether it is the producer or those who are handling cattle, to direct shipments for a time, say to the Chicago market, because temporarily the price is a little better there; then, when there appears to be a little better price from the British market they direct our live cattle there, with the result that we find ourselves left, as we were for a few weeks last winter, in a position where it is difficult to find any market at all. We believe that if we could develop a continuous market in the old country, it would be to the advantage of our cattle people to do so. At the moment we are experimenting to convince ourselves one way or the other on the facts; we think at the moment that if we had facilities established along the route to have our cattle slaughtered on this side and shipped across in substantial amounts, and had the facilities to handle them, we could satisfy the old country market and keep it to better advantage than we are doing, and under those circumstances we hope we shall get a price which will warrant our producers in keeping our cattle in that market.
The matter of facilities is not the only problem which has to be dealt with. If it were merely a case of slaughtering cattle in connection with the experiment at Saint John, and knowing we could always do that to advantage, we might conduct the experiment entirely from Saint John. But if we are to continue to gather our cattle at the centres where we have gathered them in the past, Toronto will need to be given consideration, because the greatest volume of our best cattle comes to the Toronto market, and unless strong reasons could be supplied for an individual taking them to some point further east they would continue to go to Toronto, and under certain conditions might find their way back as far as the Buffalo or Chicago market when we might prefer to see them going to Britain. That is the reason for including Toronto for the time being in the experiment, whatever the result of it may be.
As far as the production of the cattle themselves is concerned, I stated to the house last year and, I think, in the preceding year, that we were hopeful of developing some plan of inducing the movement of many of our young cattle from areas in western Canada where we cannot maintain them. We can
breed the verj' best of cattle and bring them up to a year or eighteen months under conditions which keep them in the very best possible health and produce the very best kind of feeder, but in many seasons we have not the feed with which to finish the cattle. We have been attempting to develop a natural movement of cattle from the west towards the east, to be fed on grass and in stalls in the eastern part of Canada and moved in the end to what we consider one of our natural markets, namely the British market. At the moment we are trying to associate the construction of community pastures in western Canada with that policy. We are organizing those pastures in areas where some attention has already been given to the breeding of live stock, largely through the fact that they are in natural ranching areas, and we are hopeful of having a policy in connection with breeding, especially in relation to pastures which have an acreage of twenty to one hundred thousand acres, that will bring out of those pastures a common type of stock. It can be said then to any community in eastern Canada, " Well, if you want to obtain the very best type of shorthorn feeders-or whiteface feeders, or the type my hon. friend is interested in, Aberdeen-Angus feeders-there are certain of those areas where that is the .type which is 'bred, and by sending there you can get that type of cattle. Even without going for them, you can get so many carloads of that particular type of cattle shipped down to your area." We are hopeful, through the development of that policy over a term of years, that we can accomplish what they have accomplished in the Argentine because of their close proximity to the sea; we can get those cattle moved eastward and have them down here at a year old; probably they can go on the grass for a year, or they may be stall fed for a winter. If we can induce our friends in the townships of Quebec to feed more 'beef cattle; if we can persuade our friends in the Saint John valley to feed more beef cattle, and our friends in Nova Scotia to do the same, we can bring cattle down and perhaps in some of those areas they can produce the feed to finish them. If they can not produce feed they can ship it in to better advantage than we in the west, who have not the same facilities in respect of water transport. If our experiment proves successful and we can market fresh killed beef in Britain to advantage, facilities can be provided by cooperative organ1 zations, the government, or private organizations- whoever will take an interest in it-to place that beef on the market in competition with beef coming from the Argentine and elsewhere.
Supply-Agriculture-Marketing


Mr. POTTIER:: Could the minister tell us approximately the quantity he has in mind in his reference to definite quantities of fresh killed beef?


James Garfield Gardiner: Twenty-five carcases a week constitute the quantity under consideration at the moment.


Vincent-Joseph Pottier: And that arrangement is carried on through the government, not by private individuals?


James Garfield Gardiner: The arrangements would be carried on through an agreement entered into by the government with any of the private organizations that desire to undertake it. Up to date there are only two that have indicated the desire to do so-Canada Packers and Swifts. But the government only pays any losses that may be incurred. If the beef does sell .to advantage after being shipped, in all probability the government will not have to pay anything, but if there are any losses in connection with it the government will pay the losses.


Mr. KINLEY:: The minister was in Nova Scotia last year. I think he opened the maritime winter fair in Amherst. Has he anything to say regarding the opportunities of Nova Scotia for raising cattle for the British market? I know my county has fine beef cattle. They tell me that the exhibition at Bridgewater exhibits the finest show of beef cattle that one can see anywhere in eastern Canada. It seems to me Nova Scotia should be able to raise cattle for the British market. We have plenty of pastures, the very best, similar to those in Scotland. The abundance of dew and rain makes the pastures green and the grass grow quickly, and I cannot understand why we cannot in Nova Scotia, with our geographical position, raise cattle which will be acceptable on the British market.


James Garfield Gardiner: The natural conditions in Nova Scotia, of course, are favourable, but the fact remains that that province does not produce nearly as many cattle as it might, largely, I suppose, because that market has not been properly developed and the means of getting the cattle there have not been properly developed. But I would point out that, while the conditions in certain parts of Nova Scotia compare favourably with those in Scotland, the Scottish people do not attempt to raise all the cattle they feed. The main part of the industry of producing feeder cattle which we now carry on is in order to supply the Scottish feeder with feeders. When I was in Glasgow two years ago I was talking to a very large feeder who feeds cattle in the
IMr. Gardiner.]
vicinity of St. Andrews, Scotland. He said that he had seven farms; that he and his two sons were in the market buying Canadian cattle, and that up to the time I was speaking to him he had bought thirty. I asked him how many Canadian cattle he could take. This was in the month of August. He said, "Between now and November I can take six hundred, if I can get six hundred like the thirty I have just bought," and he said he had not any idea that he would get more than a fraction of that number in the period, by coming down to Glasgow and picking up what he could get.


William Earl Rowe: Would it be impossible to get twenty-five a week of the right quality in the maritime provinces?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not sure whether it would be possible to get twenty-five a week of the type they want. We want to keep a certain type on the market for one year and then be able to assure the British people that we can produce afteiwards a certain number of the same type. By that method it might be possible to induce some one to take an interest in that kind of trade.


John James Kinley: We have good beef cattle.


James Garfield Gardiner: The cattle I saw there were as good as one could find anywhere. I saw some later at the royal fair and they took prizes.


William Earl Rowe: Seeing that there are good cattle in the maritimes, a small shipment might have been tried from that section, which is close to ,the British market. The minister has suggested that those who ship the twenty-five head weekly will be reimbursed for any loss, and naturally, if they make a profit, that is their inducement to cooperate with the government. I take it that the government will have a careful inspection made, because it is only under government inspection that any type should be allowed to be exported by the private individual. What I mean is this: H the department is reimbursing the private shipper for any loss that may be sustained, its inspectors should select the carcases that are exported. I assume that will be the procedure.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. The department
will have a check on that all the way through. In Canada we have established over the years certain methods of marketing and I do not know whether we can change them, but for the time being our cattle are being exported in great numbers from certain points. Our main desire is to determine whether we can

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set up conditions under which we can constantly divert a certain number of these to the British market. Personally I think we should be sending about 200,000 to the British market, and we should maintain that number. If we could send that number to the British market and the same number to the United States, carefully selecting them from certain sections, it would assist materially in building up our trade. But a constant level must be maintained. As it is one year we ship 6,000, another year 60,000, and if we go ten years back we find that in one year we shipped 100.000 and sometimes 200,000. These variations are such that we cannot say we are maintaining any position in the British market. What we should assure ourselves of is that even with present marketing conditions, with the great bulk of the stock being accumulated at Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg, we can go ahead and compete in the British market. If we can do that, then we shall have conditions under which we can compete to better advantage.


William Earl Rowe: The principle involved in this experimental service in connection with beef cattle is of great importance, and it is one that could be put into effect to great advantage in connection with other lines of exports, particularly animal products. I do hope that the department will see that the quantities we ship are of sufficiently high quality. It would be in the interests of the great bacon industry of Canada if similar precautions were taken to maintain the quality of bacon shipped overseas. We have such an enormous market in Canada that those who are interested in the processing of live stock products here are bidding to the most important market, the one that takes ninety or ninety-five per cent of the product. Only a very small fraction is shipped overseas, and the price which is received for that surplus automatically fixes the price for the large quantity sold in Canada. Sometimes the large quantity sold here automatically in turn increases consumption in Canada, and as it increases consumption I am not sure that the individual processor does not make more money by selling high class products in Canada instead of looking for markets for a high class product overseas, which would automatically increase the price of the article to the farmer here. I suggest that not even bacon or other live stock products should be exported unless precautions are taken to see that a proper standard of inspection is maintained.
I commend the department for the experiment in connection with the shipment of twenty-five weekly, and I suggest that the
most careful system of inspection and supervision be carried out, independently of the ability of those who are processing. The integrity of those with whom the department is negotiating need not be questioned; but it is most important and fundamental it order to attain the end aimed at, namely a market for fresh beef overseas, that a system of careful inspection should be carried out. The same principle might very well be followed in connection with bacon and dairy products, and, indeed, practically all live stock products. As I say, the very small percentage that is exported automatically fixes the price for the whole dominion, and it is therefore of the utmost importance that this small percentage should be of high quality. It is only four or five per cent in the case of bacon, and in all animal products it is not ten per cent. It is extremely important that this surplus should be of a high quality which will bring a price that will reflect favourably on the price paid in Canada, which in many places is lower than cost of production.
At six o'clock the Speaker resumed the chair and the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



CRIMINAL CODE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, March 18, consideration of the motion of Mr. Woods-worth for the second reading of Bill No. 4, to amend the criminal code.
Hon. NORMAN McL. ROGERS (Minister of Labour): When this bill was before the house some time ago, Mr. Speaker, I indicated, as indeed the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) had stated previously, that the right of workers to form or join trade unions has the full support of this government. There is no difference whatever in that regard between us and the sponsor of this bill. There is in this measure, however, a very definite attempt to secure protection of the right to organize by an amendment to the criminal code, and it is the opinion of the law officers of the Department of Justice that such legislation would be colourable and that the proper means of giving due effect to freedom of association lie within the jurisdiction of the provincial legislatures. In those circumstances, therefore, obviously the government cannot accept
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[Stage Direction]
legislation which, in .the opinion of the law officers of the crown, would be inoperative and invalid.
In this connection I wish to point out that on various occasions the dominion government has affirmed the right of workers to organize in trade unions; but it has always done so in the form of a declaration and has never proceeded by way of a legislative enactment. It may be interesting to members of the house to recall that the first formal declaration of this kind was made in the closing months of the great war. In July of 1918 an order in council was passed which was designed to bring about industrial peace in those difficult years. It was set out in that order in council that it would be in the interests of industrial peace that employers should give full recognition to the right of workers to organize. I should like to quote from the order in council a number of clauses which are pertinent to this discussion:
1.	That there should be no strike or lockout during the war.
2.	That all employees have the right to organize in trade unions, and this right shall not be denied or interfered with in any manner whatsoever, and through their chosen representatives should be permitted and encouraged to negotiate with employers concerning working conditions, rates of pay, or other grievances.
3.	That employers shall have the right to organize in associations of groups, and this right shall not be denied or interfered with by workers in any manner wrhatsoever.
4.	That employers should not discharge or refuse to employ workers merely by reason of membership in trade unions or for legitimate trade union activities outside working hours.
5.	That workers in the exercise of their right to organize shall use neither coercion nor intimidation of any kind to influence any person to join their organizations or employers to bargain or deal therewith.
James Shaver Woodsworth: Under what government was that?


Mr. ROGERS:: That was in 1918, so it would foe the union government of that day. The order in council is dated July 11, 1918.


Mr. STEVENS:: Was that order in council passed under authority of the War Measures Act?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I know that at the close of the war a number of the provisions of the order in council were rescinded, and that may well have been because the War Measures Act no longer applied; but the provisions to which I have referred were not rescinded, and still remain as a declaration.


Henry Herbert Stevens: But the point is that if it were passed by virtue of the authority of the War Measures Act it would have the
flV*r. Rogers.]
effect of law; otherwise it would be merely a pious declaration. If it were under the War Measures Act, of course it would last only until the War Measures Act was repealed some time later.


Norman McLeod Rogers: Yes. Well, I can say that in the preamble it does not appear that the order in council was passed under the provisions of the War Measures Act.


Mr. LAWSON:: Does it not specify the act under the authority of which it was passed?


Norman McLeod Rogers: No. Perhaps I should quote the preamble:
The committee of the privy council have had before them a report dated 9th July, 1918, from the Minister of Labour, representing that industrial unrest during the past few months has become more general than formerly, thus causing serious interruption in some lines of war work, and indications are that it will become more widespread still unless successful efforts be made to check it. This unrest has many causes, among which are the shortage of labour, rapid advance in the cost of many of the necessaries of life, employers denying their workmen the right to organize or to meet them in joint conference to discuss requests for improved conditions or to negotiate adjustments of differences; and in others from too hasty action on the part of working men in ignoring the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act and in adopting drastic measures before exhausting every reasonable effort to reach a satisfactory settlement. Wages alleged to be inadequate, together with length of the work day said to be too long, are among other frequent causes of such unrest.
Then1 it goes on to say:
The minister, therefore, recommends that the governor in council declare the following principles and policies and urge their adoption upon both employers and workmen for the period of the war.
So I think it is quite clear from the form of the preamble thiat the order in council was designed rather to be a declaration on the part of the government, and was not intended to have legal effect under the War Measures Act. But as I mentioned a moment ago, at the close of the war-


Mr. MacINNIS:: What would be the effect of these orders in council? Would they have any legal standing?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Oh, no. This was really
an appeal, with the authority of an order in council, to employers and workmen to observe these principles as laid down for the promotion of industrial peace, and my point is that when the government has dealt with this question in the past it has proceeded by way of declaration and not by way of legislative enactment.

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At the close of the war these principles remained in effect as a declaration of the position of the dominion government towards recognition of the right of workers to organize in trade unions, but I have no doubt that on the part of a great many people of this country they were soon forgotten. I suppose it is natural that questions regarding the right to organize and collective bargaining become more acute in a period of increasing prosperity. It is a matter of common knowledge that strikes are more frequent in such periods than during periods of depression. It so happened that shortly after this government came into office a number of strikes did occur, on account of charges that employers had been discriminating against some of their employees who belonged to trade unions. This government received a number of delegations from labour organizations in Canada, all emphasizing the importance of a more general recognition on the part of employers of the right of workers to organize in unions of their choice. When that matter was brought to the attention of this government and particularly to the attention of the Minister of Labour, who has a special interest and responsibility in these matters, the particular question of jurisdiction was referred to the law officers of the Department of Justice. That was in December, 1936. We were advised by the law officers of the Department of Justice that freedom of association was a civil right; that it lay within provincial jurisdiction, and that it was within the power of provincial legislatures to provide the means for a more adequate recognition of the right of workers to organize in trade unions.
In that connection I think I might very well remind the house that the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, which had been particularly zealous in pressing this question upon the government, received legal advice, and on the basis of that legal advice had a bill drafted which was sent to all the provincial legislatures. I might quote from a circular letter from the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, addressed to the members of provincial legislative assemblies, and dated February 15, 1937. In that letter there is this paragraph:
Having secured legal advice we are informed that under the division of legislative powers between the dominion and the provinces the subject matter of this bill falls within the exclusive legislative competence of the provinces.
With that circular letter went this draft bill which was intended to secure, through provincial legislation, more adequate safeguards for workers who desire to form or to join trade unions.


James Shaver Woodsworth: Would the minister not say that was because of the attitude of the Department of Justice in saying the matter was provincial and not federal?


Norman McLeod Rogers: Well, Mr. Speaker, I have already stated to the house that on this question being referred to the Department of Justice, the Department of Labour was advised that the jurisdiction lay properly with the provinces. That view was communicated to the officials of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada.
At the same time there is clearly a suggestion here that the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada themselves secured legal advice, and were advised accordingly that they should seek to Have their draft bill enacted by provincial legislatures rather than by the dominion parliament. I am sure the hon. member would not for one moment suggest that the law officers of the Department of Justice would not give a proper opinion in this case. They were asked for their opinion upon the case as submitted, knowing full well that the proposal had been made by the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada
The opinion as given was communicated to the Trades and Labour Congress. They, I believe, took additional legal advice. Pursuant to that advice they later made representations to the provincial legislatures. I would add further that as a result of their representations to the provincial legislatures statutes have been passed in five provinces which, in effect, do provide additional safeguards for the rights of workers to organize in trade unions. In much of that legislation

and I shall not deal with it in detail because it was referred to previously by the Minister of Justice-there are special safeguards against employers who discriminate against their workmen because of membership or activity in trade unions.
I should like also to point out to the house that this government has at the same time done what it could properly do by declaration and persuasion to bring about, on the part of employers, a more general recognition of the right to organize. On January 1, 1937, as Minister of Labour I issued a statement which had behind it the full approval and endorsement of the government, a statement which referred specifically to the importance, in the interests of industrial peace, of a clear recognition on the part of employers of the right of their workers to organize in trade unions. Perhaps hon. members would permit me to quote briefly from that message:
In connection with recent strikes in Canada there have been frequent complaints that certain employers have denied to their employees
Criminal Code-Trade Unions

the right of association and have summarily discharged men and women who have been active in the organization of labour unions. It is necessary to state in the clearest terms that the right of association is a civil right, long established by law and usage. It was affirmed with special reference to Canada by an order in council of July 11, 1918 (P.C. 1743). It was proclaimed explicitly in the treaty of Versailles at the close of the world war. To deny the right of workmen to combine in any lawful organization they desire for the promotion of their common welfare is an open invitation to extremists to preach the futility of collective bargaining as an alternative to direct action. The right of association for legitimate purposes should be respected in the national interest and labour should not be denied the means of organizing for collective bargaining. The right of employers to organize for all lawful purposes is not questioned in any quarter. Employers are not entitled in the same breath to protest against governmental regulation of industry and to deny to labour its right to resort to legitimate measures of self-help through voluntary association.
I quote that simply to indicate to the hon. member, if indeed, it is necessary, that there has been no hesitation on the part of this government to do what it properly could to secure a more general acknowledgment of the right of workers to organize in trade unions. During the past two years I have had occasion to repeat that declaration on numerous occasions. May I say further that there have been a number of cases where employers are alleged to have discharged their employees because of their connection with trade union activities. The hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Maclnnis) referred specifically to a number of these cases when he spoke upon the bill. Whenever such cases have been brought to the attention of the Department of Labour we have done what we could by way of persuasion, and with the full influence of the government behind that persuasion to induce employers to reinstate workmen who have been discharged for such causes. I shall not say to the house that we have been uniformly successful in securing the reinstatement of workers discharged under these circumstances. At the same time I have been agreeably surprised at the attitude of a number of employers who apparently did not realize the fact that in discharging their workmen for such causes they were entrenching upon the freedom of association and were violating a civil right which, after all, is one of those civil rights which make up our heritage of freedom.
I can equally assure the house that this government-and I am not suggesting other governments have not also been active in this respect-will not cease to use its efforts in that direction.


Henry Herbert Stevens: What recourse has an individual who is discharged and is not taken back?


Norman McLeod Rogers: The truth of the matter is that prior to the passage of the legislation in the last two years by provincial legislatures, to which I referred a moment ago, there was no recourse. The situation was then very unsatisfactory. I fully agree with the hon. member in that regard. The most that could be done before that legislation was passed was to point out to employers that they had violated a civil right, and that they should take immediate steps to make amends for what they had done. As I have stated, in a very considerable number of cases reinstatements were brought about in that way. Of course, there is always the question as to how one can best encourage and bring about a more general acceptance of freedom of association, and a more general realization of the advantages of collective bargaining.
In supporting the bill the hon. member referred to legislation in other countries and, as I recall it, referred in particular to the Wagner Act passed by the United States congress. It is possible, where jurisdiction has been established, to deal with this matter in a manner which will compel employers to deal with trade unions, and through processes of collective bargaining. In the United States that legislation is of quite recent origin. It has been declared valid by the supreme court, because of the very wide powers conceded to congress through its control of interstate commerce.
In another country, a country from which Canada has inherited the greater part of her tradition, the question has not been dealt with upon the basis of coercion. In Great Britain there is no legislation of the nature of the bill now before the house. Among the employers of Great Britain there has developed over a period of years recognition of the value of collective bargaining. The right to organize, or what we term freedom of association, has been supported by an educated public opinion. I certainly hope that in this country there will be an increasing measure of support for the processes of collective bargaining. To my mind, if you can establish trust and good faith between employers and employees in the conduct of their industrial relations, you have established what is by far the best basis for industrial peace. In other words, it is desirable that these practices should develop, where possible, upon a voluntary basis. That has been the way in which the practice of collective bargaining has developed in Great Britain. I believe there is reason to hope that we are moving more and more in that direction in Canada.

Criminal Code-Trade Unions
I have no fault whatever to find with my hon. friend for submitting this bill to the house. As a matter of fact, I think he is to be commended for emphasizing the importance of this question. However, I know he will not misunderstand me when I say that in the light of the advice given by the law officers of the Department of Justice it would be in the nature of deception upon those whom my hon. friend is anxious to assist if this government gave its support to legislation which, it is considered, would be invalid and inoperative. I cannot emphasize too strongly the support which I feel should be given to this right to organize. I want to express once more my own conviction that within the last few years there has been a marked improvement on the part of employers in their attitude toward this important question and in their relations with their employees.


Daniel (Dan) McIvor: Has this government gone
as far as the British North America Act will permit in giving the toiler the right to organize in the union of his choice?


Norman McLeod Rogers: I believe the answer to
that question would be that the right to organize is a civil right. On several occasions the dominion government has gone as far as it could go, under the advice of its law officers in affirming that right and in giving its full support' to the freedom of workers to organize in unions.


Mr. A. A. HEAPS (Winnipeg North):: Mr. Speaker, I was pleased to observe, from what the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) said, that the government has a good deal of sympathy for the proposal now before the house. However, I think the house ought to take a more definite attitude toward this question and not bring in the British North America Act as a sort of excuse for doing nothing. I use the words "sort of excuse," because I feel quite sure that if I were to go to lawyers in this chamber, even to those sitting on the Liberal side, I could get opinions to the effect that this bill is entirely intra vires of the British North America Act. I can remember in 1935 when we had the opinion of the law officers of the crown that certain measures then introduced were within the confines of the British North America Act. However, when they came before the highest court in the empire it was found that the law officers of the crown were not quite correct. The same thing might happen in this particular case.
I have seen lawyers in the courts and other places arguing cases. One lawyer would have in front of him a stack of precedents about two feet high in favour of his side of the case,
while the other .would have just as high a stack of precedents in the opposite direction. It is the easiest thing in the world for a lawyer to dig up precedents to show why something is either right or wrong.


James Earl Lawson: You have no idea now hard it is.


James Shaver Woodsworth: They charge $100 a day to do it.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I think it is one of tne easiest things in the world to dig up precedents. I shall go so far as to say that it may be a little difficult for some lawyers to dig them up.


Norman McLeod Rogers: The Trades and Labour Congress of Canada were most active in promoting legislation of this kind, even before this bill was introduced. Does my hon. friend not think they would have satisfied themselves on the legal question before they submitted the draft bill to the provincial legislatures?


Abraham Albert Heaps: I can deal right away with the question asked by the hon. minister. The Trades and Labour Congress of Canada suggested in a circular submitted to the various provincial councils which were affiliated with them, that this matter came within provincial jurisdiction, but I understand that before that circular was sent out they consulted with members of the government. It was probably on the say-so of members of the government that they took the attitude they did. However, I have before me the statement they submitted to the Rowell commission in January, 1938, and from this it would appear that they have had a change of heart on this important question. This is what they submitted to the commission:
Where social and labour matters are concerned, the effect of the series of judgments of the privy council on the British North America Act has been to declare for provincial jurisdiction with rare exceptions because such subjects were held to be matters of civil rights and hence provincial. Without presuming to question the soundness in law of the decisions, it can be pointed out that the entire course of those judgments might just as well have taken an opposite direction in so far as the opinions of the judicial committee are concerned. We base this statement on two important principles laid down by the privy council itself in dealing with our constitution. The first of these principles was given in a decision of 1896 (the Distillers and Brewers' case) when their lordships stated that they did not doubt "that some matters, in their origin local and provincial, might attain such dimensions as to affect the body politic of the dominion and to justify the Canadian parliament in passing laws for their regulation or abolition in the interests of the dominion." Obviously this means that a matter of civil
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rights or of a local or private nature in its origin should cease to be reserved exclusively to the provinces when it becomes of such prominence to attain national significance.
I am not a lawyer, but I venture to assert that this particular judgment can be interpreted to mean that the bill introduced by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) comes entirely within the category to which reference is made.


Norman McLeod Rogers: That judgment would be before the law officers of the Department of Justice when they gave their opinion on this question.


Abraham Albert Heaps: The minister referred to the submission of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada, and I was giving this as part of their submission to the Rowell commission, after the circular referred to had been sent out. This indicates clearly that they felt that matters of this kind, which would pertain to the bill now before the house, would come within the scope of that interpretation and, therefore, within the jurisdiction of the federal parliament.
Again this year, in 1938, the year the Trades and Labour Congress submitted the same request to the dominion government. Let me read it:
We realize that jurisdiction in these matters rests with the provinces at present, rather than with parliament, and in the past year we have approached the several legislatures seeking protective legislation, with success in some cases. We firmly believe, however, that the dominion parliament also should recognize the rights of the workers to freedom of association and collective bargaining in as far as its jurisdiction extends, by providing suitable penalties for proven cases of interference with those rights.
That is the last word which the Trades and Labour Congress submitted to the cabinet in the early part of this year. Then, in January of this year, as previously mentioned, it submitted to the Rowell commission the following, which is also to be found on page five of its submission:
The second principle, contained in the decision on the radio case (1932), may be taken either as an extension of the first, or as parallel to it. Lord Dunedin, in giving judgment, had established that the point at issue was given by the act neither to the dominion nor to the provinces. As a residual power, and as a matter essentially national, jurisdiction was declared to rest with the federal authority.
I declare that the matter dealt with in the bill now before us is of such dimensions that it has become federal in its scope and nature and if the federal parliament enacted the legislation I believe it would be difficult to have it declared ultra vires and beyond the powers of parliament under the British North America Act.


Mr. MARTIN:: If the hon. member will permit a question, does he know of any responsible legal opinion which would be contrary to what the Minister of Labour has expressed to be the view of the Department of Justice? I ask that question in all sincerity.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Really the question would
have to be decided by the courts. I have not gone to any lawyers to obtain an opinion on the bill; but personally, from my own reading and having studied the matter as well as a layman can, I believe it is clearly within the jurisdiction of parliament to enact legislation of this kind.
I would say, further, that in the attitude which parliament has adopted in years gone by in regard to the jurisdiction of parliament and of the provinces we have been stirring up for ourselves a pile of trouble until we have reached an impasse, and now we do not know where we stand and where jurisdiction lies, whether with the federal parliament or with the provincial legislatures, with respect to various matters.
But matters pertaining to trades unionism and the right of workers to organize, and any penalties in relation thereto, are, in my opinion, purely federal, because, after all, trade and industry are matters of federal concern. You can not have one right in one province and another right in another province; and on the further ground of the desirability and the necessity of having uniformity in such matters I think a bill of this kind would be entirely within the scope of the federal parliament.
It has been claimed by the Minister of Labour that there are certain employers of labour who have denied to their employees the right to organize; that the employees who have organized have been penalized for attempting to become part of what one might call a legitimate trade union in Canada. If no penalty is provided for such employers of labour, then the right to organize becomes a mockery. In fact, the workers have not this right. Within recent times, within the last six months or so, we have had this right demanded by workers all across this dominion. The hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Madnnis) cited the case of Burns and Company at Vancouver, and a few weeks ago I referred to the employees of the Canadian Press who were being denied at that time the right to collective bargaining and the right, in many respects, to be recognized as a union. Illustrations galore could be given of men being intimidated and of ordinary

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men and women being denied this right. The employee is not in the same fortunate or favourable position as the employer of labour.
The Minister of Labour referred to conditions in Great Britain. I think he knows more about the history of the trades union movement and more about the struggle of the masses in Great Britain than I ever knew. But there is a history attached to the growth of the trades union movement and the labour movement in Great Britain, and when the minister says it grew gradually by a process of mutual understanding between employers and employees, I do not think he was putting the case quite correctly. We in this country are years behind Great Britain in these matters. I am not now referring to the Trades Union Act of 1906 because, even if that were not in existence in Great Britain, we are still a long way behind that country in the scope of our trades union activities. One of the reasons why to-day there is in Great Britain more of this mutual understanding between employer ad employee is because the trades unions have grown in strength over a period of years until they have become so strong that they have not only earned the respect of employers of labour but also inspired them with fear.
There is a different situation in Great Britain from that which prevails in Canada at the present time. Here in the past few years we have been turning back the hands of the clock. Look at the recent legislation passed in the province of Quebec. Surely the hand of progress has been going backward during the past few years. One has to go back almost a century and a quarter to find a parallel. To show how the British trades union movement has developed, I might cite the famous Times case which was decided in 1812, under the Combination Act of 1799. Men who had tried to organize were found guilty and were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from nine months to two years. This is what the judge said to the prisoners in the dock on that occasion, in 1812:
Prisoners, you have been convicted of a most wicked conspiracy to injure the interests of those very employers who gave you bread; with intent to impede and injure them in their business and indeed as far as in you lay to effect their ruin.
The frequency of such crimes among men of your class of life and their mischievous and dangerous behaviour to ruin the fortunes of those employers, which a principle of gratitude and self interest should induce you to support, demands of the law that a severe example should be made of those persons who shall be convicted of such daring and flagitious combinations in defiance of public justice and in
defiance of public order. No symptom of contrition on your part has appeared, no abatement of the combination in which you are accomplices has yet resulted from the example of your convictions.
That is going back about 125 years, or a little more, and if we look at the history of the trades union movement we find its inception dates back to about that particular period. When they found that industrial activity was not sufficient to give them what they wanted in those days they turned to political action, and from political action they turned to industrial action. So, gradually, over a period of years there has grown in Great Britain the industrial and the political movements which to-day have become such a powerful factor for progress in the old country. It might be of interest to note the demands of the Chartist movement, which barely 100 years ago first became prominent in what one might call British democracy. What were its famous demands? One was equal electoral areas; the second, universal suffrage; the third, payment of members; the fourth, no property qualification; the fifth, vote by ballot; the sixth annual parliaments. To-day these demands look picayune because of the progress we have made over the years. If I may advance over a period of time and come down to the time when the Independent Labour party of Great Britain was born, they formulated a program which to-day looks so conservative and limited that one is inclined to express surprise at the timidity of those who formulated it less than half a century ago. There are many to-day who can still remember the formation of the British Independent Labour party. I myself have a very faint recollection of it.


Ernest Lapointe: But these reforms were achieved by the Liberal party.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Quite so; but when the Liberal party ceased to function as such, the Labour party took over where the Liberal party left off. I hope that the Liberal party in this country, even that section of the Liberal party which sits in this house, will take to itself at this juncture of our history those old and historic traditions which were so manifest in the Liberal party in the old country.


Ernest Lapointe: That did not prevent labour from turning against it.


Abraham Albert Heaps: The right hon. gentleman knows very well that if any good legislation is introduced by the Liberal party, it will have our whole-hearted support. I refer to
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such historic Liberal principles as Liberals in the old country fought for-freedom of speech, freedom of thought-


An hon. MEMBER:: Freedom to do wrong.


Abraham Albert Heaps: -and other principles which have characterized British Liberalism. When the Liberal party in this country gives to those principles the same expression here as Liberals gave over there, it will have our whole-hearted support. When the Liberals of Quebec will rise in their places in this house and condemn the padlock law, which is a violation of all Liberal principles, they also will have our whole-hearted support.


James Shaver Woodsworth: I do not hear loud cheers.


Abraham Albert Heaps: As regards the Independent Labour party of Great Britain, what were their immediate demands in the platform of 1893? They asked for the abolition of child labour under fourteen years of age; a legal eight hour maximum working day; state provision for the aged, sick and disabled workers and for widows and orphans; abolition of indirect taxation and taxation to extinction of all unearned incomes, and work for the unemployed-every proposal for the purpose of extending political rights and democratizing the system of government. I point this out to my hon. friend the Minister of Labour when he speaks of the Labour movement in Great Britain, where he claims programs have been carried out by voluntary effort. My hon. friend knows how these efforts expressed themselves in the repeal of the Taff Vale judgment and the passing of the Trades Union Act of 1906. These things occurred because of the growing strength of the organized labour movement in Great Britain. And when, in 1918, the government of the day in Canada passed an order in council which stated that the workers had the right to organize, and contained other beneficial provisions, it was done at a time when labour was in the ascendency in this country and when the need for labour and for peace in industry was most urgent. It was in the latter part of the war, and consequently the provision was put into the order in council; but it was given no real effect; no real effect has been given to other and later expressions of opinion by the government, and I know the only way in which this can be done is by some form of legislative sanction.


An hon. MEMBER:: But you must have the power.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Yes; it is a question of power, but it is also a question of opinion. The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) and our law department say that the government have not the right to enact legislation of this kind.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Will the hon. gentleman permit an interruption? I suppose one of the strongest intellectual foundations of my hon. friend's own political party, Professor Frank Scott of McGill university, has written and said over the air that this is clearly a "civil right," and under our constitution a matter with which this parliament cannot deal.


Abraham Albert Heaps: Does my hon. friend mean that Professor Scott has said that this bill is not within the power of this parliament to enact?


Paul Joseph James Martin: No. What Professor Scott said, in a series over the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation facilities in which I took part, is that freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and all these other aspects of liberty are, in so far as giving effect to them is concerned, matters that come under the heading of "civil rights," and under our constitution can be enforced only by the legislatures of the provinces.


Abraham Albert Heaps: I would sooner have the opinion of the same gentleman on this bill which is now before the house instead of upon a purely abstract question. I venture to assert that if Professor Frank Scott would go over this bill, he would be just as likely as not to say that it is within the power of this parliament to enact, because I know of bills which he has gone over carefully and which he has claimed are perfectly sound in law, but when they came within the minute inspection of law officers of the crown they expressed a completely different opinion from that of Professor Scott. So it is quite likely that if he had this bill before him, he would declare in an opposite direction to that expressed by my hon. friend on this occasion.
However, I have no desire to continue this discussion any further. I wish to express my strong approval of the principle contained in this measure. If we have legislation on the statute books of this country, it should be enforceable by law. If workers engaged in industry who want to organize are intimidated; if they are penalized because they attempt to exercise that right which we believe is theirs, and so find that in reality they do not possess it, there should be a dominion law which will give to the workers all across the land the unquestionable right to organize in unions of

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their own choice so that they may be able to bargain collectively with their respective employers.


Mr. W. A. WALSH (Mount Royal):: It is not my intention to intrude myself into this debate, but there have come to the fore one or two questions upon which I thought it my duty to make an observation or two.
The Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) in a remark attempted to convey the idea that progressive reforms in England were instituted by the Liberal party and its adherents. I would invite the minister in his spare moments to review his British history and see whether he cannot satisfy himself that most of the reforms which were introduced into England from 1832 to the present time were brought forward by Conservatives and embodied in Conservative legislation. I do not need to particularize; but it will be recalled, for instance, that the two reforms of the electoral law were instituted by British Conservative governments, and the same is true of child labour legislation. I make that remark merely by way of correction. If we come to our own country we shall find that Conservatives have been in no way behind Liberals in introducing reform measures. The right hon. gentleman might recall to mind, among others, enactments of very recent date which prove that the Conservatives made at least a real effort to put on the statute books and give effect to legislation beneficial to the workers and intended to improve social conditions in this country.
The Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) has quoted opinions from the legal authorities who are at present in the service of the government. I shall repeat publicly to the minister the suggestion I have already made to him privately, that there should be attached to the Department of Labour a competent lawyer who is well and truly versed in matters pertaining to labour and labour legislation. It is all very well to go to the Department of Justice for a legal opinion; but if there were attached to the Department of Labour a lawyer who had given a lifetime of study to legislation of this kind, whose whole time had been devoted to such matters, we would get a legal opinion that would probably vary from that given by the ordinary lawyer at present employed in the Department of Justice. I agree with the hon. member who has just concluded his remarks, that if lawyers on the Liberal side were consulted in reference to this legislation, opinions would be received disagreeing entirely with that expressed by the Minister of Labour, which he had obtained from the
lawyers in the Department of Justice. Lawyers do differ in their opinions from time to time; a great deal depends upon their attitude to the subjects under discussion and upon their background and training. I am sure that there are lawyers in this house who would disagree with the opinion expressed by the Minister of Labour.
I do not intend to debate the merits of this bill, but I agree with its purport. I think legislation of this kind is within the powers of this parliament.


Paul Joseph James Martin: I am for this bill if we have the power to pass it, and I should very much like to be told, since the hon. member has said we have that power, precisely on what basis he makes that statement. Exactly what is the basis for the statement that he has just made, that this parliament has the power to pass this legislation?


William Allen Walsh: I am not a lawyer-


Paul Joseph James Martin: But the hon. gentleman has made the statement.


William Allen Walsh: -and I do not propose to elucidate that statement. The hon. gentleman has a legal mind and training and he knows the reference that has been made. It is a point that has been amply discussed by the previous speaker, and I am quite sure that it would be the opinion of any lawyer who had interested himself particularly in labour matters and who had a background pf that kind. It is for that reason that I am prepared to support the bill.


Ernest Lapointe: Does my hon. friend not know that this is entirely a constitutional matter? There are men in the Department of Justice who have made a life study of that branch of law, and I may tell the hon. gentleman that if he went there- because he interjected the remark that there might be some political affiliations-he would have some trouble in finding Liberals in the department.


William Allen Walsh: I am sorry that the Minister of Justice should have taken that view; I did not intend to make any such suggestion. I am sorry if that is the impression I have created. I merely questioned their opinion, and I wish to put beside that opinion the opinion of other lawyers probably just as competent.


Ernest Lapointe: Who are they?


William Allen Walsh: I could mention some.


Ernest Lapointe: Mention one.
29SC
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William Allen Walsh: The minister probably knows at least one whom I could mention under the circumstances, but it is not my place to do so. I make that statement, however, as a reason for my support of the measure before the house. I believe I could find an opinion at least equal to that given in support of the minister's contention.


Ernest Lapointe: One
name, please.


William Allen Walsh: I am not at liberty to
mention names at the present time. The Minister of Labour knows of lawyers whom I could consult.


Norman McLeod Rogers: I certainly have not consulted any lawyer who has given an opinion contrary to that expressed by the Minister of Justice. I would certainly wish the hon. gentleman to be entirely free to suggest the name of any lawyer he has in mind who has expressed a contrary opinion.


William Allen Walsh: I urge again that the Minister of Labour endeavour to have attached to his department a lawyer whom he could consult without having to consult the lawyers in the Department of Justice. I agree with the points of view expressed by members to my left, and I am ready to support this measure on the basis of what has been suggested.


Ernest Lapointe: With
regard to the hon. gentleman's last suggestion, that there should be attached to the Department of Labour a lawyer who would have knowledge of all constitutional matters, may I tell him that under the law, under the statutes of Canada, the Department of Justice and the Minister of Justice are responsible for any legal opinions arising in any department and for any legal work done in all the departments of government. Unfortunately for my hon. friend, therefore, even with his legal light installed in the Department of Labour, it would still be the Minister of Justice who would be responsible for the opinions given to him. May I tell my hon. friend also that when lawyers working in other departments are confronted with some difficult matter they always ask the opinion of the Department of Justice. They have more confidence in the officials of that department than my hon. friend has.


John James Kinley: In view of what the hon. member for Mount Royal (Mr. Walsh) has said, I may inform the house that the subject matter of this bill

is Liberal reform, because the Liberal government in Nova Scotia passed in 1937 an act, being chapter 6 of the Revised Statutes of 1937, respecting the rights of employees to organize. It is almost word for word the same as the bill that has been introduced by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth), and it indicates that Nova Scotia considers the matter to be within its jurisdiction. That province evidently believes it has the jurisdiction to pass such legislation, and it seems to me it would be utter folly for the parliament of Canada to try to invade the rights of a province after it has taken action on a particular question.

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



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
Marketing services-Live stock and poultry, $537,339.
Harry Leader: I do not want to delay the item unduly, but in view of what I said this afternoon, and having regard to the information that grew out of the discussion, I feel that I must reiterate what I said. Though I am sure t'he minister is actuated by the best intentions in the world, I believe he is off on the wrong foot. I suggest that we should give this project a 100 per cent test. We have had undertakings to place on the British market the product which I mentioned, fresh-killed meat. The minister gave us a certain amount of information this afternoon, when he told us that in the experiment conducted by the university of Saskatchewan meat processed at Montreal fetched a little lower price than British killed meat. Then he told us that meat processed at Saskatoon fetched still less than that processed at Montreal. It seems to me that if we would go just a little further and process this meat right at the Atlantic seaboard, we would have a chance to place this product in the British market in such a way that it would perhaps fetch a price equal to that paid for the home killed product itself.
The minister also told us that the government were to reimburse the packers for any loss they might sustain in this experiment. I want to say in all sincerity that I think the government would be well advised to go just a little further. There must 'be abattoirs on the Atlantic coast, at Halifax and Saint John; perhaps they are owned by the same people. Why not have this meat processed on the

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Atlantic coast, as I have suggested, and give it that final and the only sure and fair test? So my suggestion to the minister is that in the interests of Canada and of this great industry we should do everything within our power to place the best possible product on the market that we hope to enter.


Mr. FAIR:: I should like to refer to the statement made by the minister two or three hours ago, that we in the west should raise cattle and send them to the east coast for finishing. I have been wondering why we could not make use of our own products; why we could not send our grain out in the form of beef rather than pay high freight rates and have to put that grain through the exchange at Winnipeg. I believe we could escape that evil at least by sending our cattle to the seaboard in a finished condition. In that way I believe quite an improvement would be brought about to the advantage of the western farmer. Another thing I believe we should do is provide a steady market for our cattle. I have before me the numbers of cattle that have been shipped to the United Kingdom and to the United States since 1928, and there has not been at all a steady flow.


Frederick George Sanderson: Order. Will the hon. member speak a little louder? The Hansard reporter has difficulty in hearing him.


Robert Fair: If hon. members would not talk quite so loudly, perhaps it would be a good deal easier to hear me. We find that our exports of cattle to the United Kingdom in 1928 numbered 405. In 1929 there was none exported at all. In 1930 the number was 5,400. In 1931 that number increased to 27,149. In 1932 it was 16,568; in 1933 it rose to 50,317; in 1934 it was 53,953; in 1935 it dropped to 6,704; in 1936 it rose again to 38,495, and in 1937 it decreased to 9,610. With an irregular flow like this, I do not think it is possible to maintain a worthwhile market, and I should like to support the remarks of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, who suggested that the government had an opportunity through this experiment to do something beneficial for the farmers of the west.


Mr. FINN:: When I came in this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister of Agriculture was speaking of "live stock"; and I felt that while I was not in the category about which he was speaking, I was still alive, and to prove it I am now on my feet. I was struck by the remarks of the minister this afternoon in explaining this item, as I was by the remarks of the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) who is leading
the opposition to-night in the regrettable absence of the right hon. the leader of the opposition, and by the interest shown by that hon. gentleman in the development of cattle raising and cattle exporting from the maritime provinces. I was also impressed by the remarks of my colleague the hon. member for Queens-Lunenburg (Mr. Kinley). It seems to me that Nova Scotia-and I speak more particularly of the constituency which I have the honour to represent together with my colleague the other member for Halifax- has not been as progressive in this matter as might be wished. It is not my duty to speak for the entire province, but I should like to explain my position and what I believe to be the position of the cattle raisers of Nova Scotia and more particularly of my own constituency. I wonder if I could obtain the figures as to the exports of cattle raised in the maritime provinces or Nova Scotia, to the British market, through the efforts and under the general policy of the Department of Agriculture?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Carried.


Robert Emmett Finn: I am not being carried; I am still alive. I may be able to obtain that information later, but it is a regrettable fact that in our province, and in the county of Halifax more particularly, we are taking a retrograde step in reference to this item, which is a branch of agriculture. When you go to the agricultural fair up in the Musquodoboit valley, which is one of the most fertile spots in our lovely province, you see on exhibition some of the finest cattle that can be seen in any part of Canada. If you go to the provincial exhibition in the city of Halifax you will find the same thing. H you go to the various county fairs throughout the province, in those counties where cattle can be raised profitably if given a fair show, you will see cattle that will compare favourably with what is known as western steer beef. I heard the minister say this afternoon that he was interested in the same breed of cattle as that in which the hon. member for Shelburne-Yarmouth-Clare was interested; I think it was the "Aberdeen-Angus." I do not know whether that is a mixture from Scotland and the premier of Nova Scotia, whose name happens to be "Angus" L. Macdonald. It does seem to me that the great obstacle, the great setback, the hindrance, to our people is largely due to the fact that the large corporations, such as Canada Packers, practically control the maritime market. They are not a great benefit in the city of Halifax or to the cattle breeders of the province. When tenders are called from persons engaged in the legitimate business of cattle raising and cattle

29S2
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selling, these tremendous corporations, which sell directly to the wholesaler in Halifax and throughout Nova Scotia, tender also in competition. In nine cases out of ten the wholesaler is put to one side because Canada Packers would get the contract. The man in the wholesale business paying his income tax, his rent, his business tax, his city tax and his school tax, has to stand aside while this corporation, which has developed like the roots of the rubber tree in southern countries, obtains the business. Where those trees grow one cannot build a house, because once the roots of the tree are reached it is impossible to find the terra firma upon which to build, and the land in the neighbourhood of the tree must be abandoned as a possible site for building. If this sort of thing continues, agriculture in Nova Scotia and the other maritime provinces will become a thing of the past.
Let me give one further illustration which, to my mind, is convincing beyond contradiction of even the most technical expert in agricultural matters. Eatons and Simpsons have come into the maritimes market in the city of Halifax. In construction Eatons spent about a million dollars. They bought out Mahon Brothers, one of the two leading retail general dry goods stores, one which had a splendid standing in the community, and developed a large business. The Eaton company paid its help less wages, and followed a practice of taking some of them on for two or three days and then laying them off for a similar period. In connection with their store a groceteria has been developed in which they display, to a degree of which only Eatons and Simpsons are capable, beef and other agricultural products. The displays are presented in such a manner that the people flock to the store. While buying other things, they visit the groceteria, and on Saturday, which is market day, they buy their beef, eggs butter and cheese in those departmental stores.
The matter has developed to such an extent that on one occasion I thought it well to speak to the premier, the Hon. Mr. Macdonald, on the point. I said to him that I thought the effect of that type of trade was against the interests of the agriculturists of the province, and particularly those in the vicinity of Halifax. I was not speaking politically. Most of those agriculturists are to the north, northeast and east of Halifax city, across the harbour, on the Dartmouth side. We know that in the vicinity of Cole Harbour there is fertile land suitable for the raising of cattle and poultry, or in the production of eggs which some day may develop into chickens. We find that the farmers come in to Halifax

from Cole Harbour, Eastern Passage, Cow Bay, Lawrencetown, East Chezzetcook, West Chezzetcook, Little River, Middle Musquodo-boit and Upper Musquodoboit. They used to come to the market and stand around on the sidewalks of what was known as Cheapside, opposite the post office. There they sold the products of their farms and did a splendid business. Rain or shine they were there, without cover. At that time an attempt was made by the city council to drive them out. I was serving in the legislature of Nova Scotia

I do not raise the point through any desire to speak about myself-but "Joe Howe" preserved to them their interminable right to cany on their trade there, and I placed legislation upon the statute books to permit them to continue to carry on their trade on these sidewalks. Later on, the city of Halifax built a market on Market street.
What is happening to-day? Those people are doing scarcely any business. The people who do buy from them wait until late Saturday afternoon so that they may get something for nothing. In fifty per cent of the cases the farmers carry back most of their produce to be fed to the animals. They come back with their pockets empty because they have been unable to sell what they had produced on their farms. This condition is due solely to the great corporations coming into the market and taking part in every business under the sun-of course they have not attacked the sun or the moon. The result is that not only have they brought fear to the hearts of the farmers but they have brought unhappiness to the farmers' homes. The resoluteness of the farmer is gradually dying; the young men and women are leaving the farms and going to the cities and towns, even at the risk of facing unemployment.
In speaking about western beef this afternoon the Minister of Agriculture said that "the markets were practically controlled by Toronto and Montreal." Why should they be controlled in that way? Why should provision not be made under this very item for quotas from those provinces which produce cattle of a kind suitable for shipment to the old country? If such provision were made, there would be some impetus given to that kind of business, a trade which through no fault of their own the farmers have permitted to fall by the wayside. Such provision would give them and those who came after them some encouragement to stay on the land, and not to go the cities and towns to seek a precarious livelihood. I said to the Premier of Nova Scotia, Mr. Macdonald, that I thought there was one way of overcoming the difficulty,

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and that was to put a heavy tax on corporations such as Eatons Limited and Simpsons Limited. My observations are not directed particularly against those two companies; I am referring to other companies as well which are driving the farmer out of business.
The old merchants of Halifax are a thing of the past. You may go along Barrington street or along Granville street outside Wood Brothers, and you will not find any of the old firms left. The only wholesale house doing a drygoods business in Halifax to-day is the house of J. & M. Murphy, which is one of the oldest and weathered the gale. When we think of those old merchant firms we think of Mr. T. E. Kenny, who was once a member of this chamber and an honoured citizen, and we think of Burns & Murray, Doull & Miller. I look back upon those old reliable firms which were carrying on when I was a boy; at that time also there were ten or twelve wholesale grocery merchants in Halifax, but only one or two have survived. They are gone. Our industries are gone. Two or three are left, but the rest have been taken holus-bolus to Montreal. That is not the cattle industry either.
I would say to the minister that if they had remained, cattle would be used, cattle would be bred and cattle would be purchased from our own farmers. I do not desire to take a sectional view of this matter; I want to consider it broadly. However, we are at the extreme east of this great dominion. This is the time when there are differences between the various provinces as to the question of jurisdiction under the terms of the British North America Act. A royal commission, at the head of which is Chief Justice Rowell, is now sitting to consider these matters. There is a great diversity of opinion among the provinces, and one of them has come before the commission and said, "No, we will give you no information." This is a critical time in the history of Canada, and the country is not being welded into a whole as it should be.


Frederick George Sanderson: I would point out to
the hon. member that he is not confining his remarks to the item before the committee which has to do with live stock and poultry.


Robert Emmett Finn: I have all due deference for
your rulings, Mr. Chairman; but as I said once before, matters have been discussed which involved in their finality the very matter to which I am referring. If I am not in order, if I cannot extend my remarks to the ultimate goal and the ultimate finish, then let me say that while I have not gone the distance I might have gone, I believe I 51952-1891
have said sufficient to bring this matter to the attention of the committee, and the people whom I represent. I am on the right road, and I shall go the limit at the proper time when the order paper is clear and no question can be raised as to whether I am in order or out of order. I am looking to the ultimate results that can be achieved by a proper development under this item which has to do with live stock and poultry.
I have a suggestion I should like to make to. the minister and to the technical officers of his department. If it is possible to do so, a quota should be allowed to the farmers and poultry raisers in Nova Scotia. An officer of the department should go there to see what cattle would be acceptable to the markets of Great Britain or Europe, we should not forget that the nearest point of shipment is Halifax. I am not talking against the port of Saint John or the summer ports on the St. Lawrence river; I say this in order that our people may feel that some interest is being taken in their welfare. A survey should be made of the possibilities of these maritimes. I know the Minister of Agriculture is interested in this matter. He has assiduously and fearlessly addressed himself to the problems involved. Through personal contact he has kept in touch with the markets abroad. He has studied these problems in the best way possible, and I believe the matter is safe in his hands and in the hands of his technical advisers.
I submit that the people of the east, particularly those in Nova Scotia and in my own constituency, should foe given a chance. If they can produce live stock and poultry which come under this item, they should be allowed an export quota. If that were done, it would offer them considerable encouragement and would be better than any " back to the land " sign you could put up. It would illustrate that " back to the land " means something. The people on the land would be able to feel the coin in their pockets, and others would see possibilities of making a living by going back to the land.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: I should like to direct the attention of the minister to the dissatisfaction that exists throughout the farming community in connection with the grading of hogs. The farmers who have been in the bacon hog business for years know a select hog better than do some of the graders. Some of them have been taking particular pains to feed and breed these hogs, but when they send shipments to the abattoirs they find that they have only one or two selects. There is a strong suspicion that some influence is brought
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to bear upon the graders who are at the abattoirs all the time and that the farmers are not getting a square deal. I find this dissatisfaction existing all over the country. I know of one farmer who had a lot of some twenty-five bacon hogs. I looked at them and I judged that at least twenty were selects. They were Yorkshires and had been fed and bred in the proper manner. When this man got his return from the abattoir he found he had only three or four selects. Will the minister investigate this matter because I feel an injustice is being done to the producers of bacon hogs.


Robert Emmett Finn: Just before the minister answers that question, may I say I was developing a point and I do not want to leave a wrong impression. I was referring to a conversation I had had with the premier of Nova Scotia in connection with imposing a tax. That tax was not to prevent the concerns to which I referred from doing business. The suggestion was that they should make a statement to the provincial secretary of the cattle and other farm products purchased in the province, and the tax would be lessened by the amount purchased to a minimum which would be fixed, and that would be the business tax.


William Earl Rowe: What
progress has been made in the grading of hogs on the rail instead of on the foot?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are two methods of grading hogs; one is to grade them while they are still running around, and the other is to grade them after they have been hung up on the rail. It is much easier to grade them after they are on the rail because they can be fully examined. For a considerable number of years before I was in the department, it had been promoting the idea of rail grading. There was considerable opposition to this at first, as there is to any idea being introduced for the first time. However, there has been an increasing satisfaction with rail grading as compared with grading of the hogs while they are still alive. The figures indicate this growing satisfaction. In 1935 the number of carcases graded on the rail was 115,209; in 1936, 447,493; in 1937, 1,002,541. In those three years the figures have risen from 115,000 to over 1,000,000. Those are very satisfactory results, encouraging people at least to accept rail grading. It is much easier for any person to be satisfied with the grading when it has been done in that way.
But there has been objection taken to rail grading by those who are in the trade, and on occasion also by individuals; the objection is

based largely on the idea that our hogs are purchased mostly by private packers, and some people maintain that they would much prefer to have the hog graded while still running around and while they can dispose of it in some way, to having it hung up on the rail in a packer's plant and graded there. Rail grading has been developed to the highest point, I think, in Denmark where, as I said the other day, hogs are bred by the cooperative, in the first instance; where they are fed by the cooperative, and sold and marketed by the cooperative, the whole process right through being carried on in that way, and where that is done there is no difficulty in rail grading even up to 100 per cent. But here it is a case of persuading the people to accept rail grading as against the grading of the hog while still alive. I personally have had my own doubts. I sell some hogs from time to time from my own farm, and I do not know that I have been entirely satisfied that I got all the selects I should have received. I doubt very much if any of us are entirely satisfied with the grading of our live stock, or our grain, for that matter, unless we get top grade all the time. It is just possible, nevertheless, that there are some things which can be improved upon in connection with the grading, and an attempt is being made from time to time to make those improvements and to make it more easy to avoid mistakes, to put it mildly, in the grading, or an attempt on the part of some to take advantage of the fact that the farmer does not always know what the grade is.


Harry James Barber: I think the province
of British Columbia has not been considered a very heavy producer of swine, and there have been reasons for this in the past. One was the high cost of feed and other conditions that prevailed in some dairying districts, but of late years there has been a great effort made to revive and bring about an increase in the production of hogs. I was reading in the paper only to-day of one hog farmer in the lower mainland of the province who is producing about one thousand head a year, and another one about five thousand. But when one looks over the statistics one finds that we are importing into the province about 99 per cent of the ham and bacon we consume. The minister is aware of the fact that this industry is being organized on a large scale; that associations have been formed, and that a large number of farmers in the lower mainland of the province have joined these associations.
I notice that swine graders are being provided for in the item before us. Let me

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remind the minister that during the last two or three months representations have been made to the live stock branch by the swine associations of the lower mainland for the appointment of a field man or a swine grader. I should like to know if the minister has taken that into consideration and if any provision will be made in the estimates to provide for such an official in that district?


James Garfield Gardiner: Arrangements are being made at present to have a man established in British Columbia who will take charge of the grading of hogs in that province. That service was not previously given by the department in British Columbia; but the numbers produced, as has been indicated by the hon. member, have increased, and we feel now that we should give that service to the province.


Harry James Barber: Will this official be grading on the rail at the abattoirs or will he also act as a field man, so that the farmers could get some information on the type of hog they should raise and how to improve them?


James Garfield Gardiner: The one man at that particular point will do both. He will grade in the stockyards on the hoof, and also grade in the packing plant on the rail.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: Has the farmer any say at the present time as to how these hogs are graded? Can he have them graded on the rail or graded on the hoof as he desires?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is for the farmer to decide whether they shall be graded on the hoof or on the rail.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: When he sells to the drover, and the hogs go into the stock yard, has the farmer the right to say: "I want these graded on the rail," or "I want them marked," and then have them forwarded on as they are to the abattoirs?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is a deal between the drover and the farmer. They can be graded on the rail if he makes that deal with the drover.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: He has the option?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: I think every encouragement should be given to the farmer because if the dairy cow and the bacon hog in eastern Ontario are eliminated, the farmers would go bankrupt. Those are their greatest assets, and I am pleased to know that the minister is giving the matter his consideration and giving more thought to the grading of hogs.


James Garfield Gardiner: With regard to the remarks made by the hon. member for Halifax
(Mr. Finn) and the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) as to the number of cattle that can be shipped from Nova Scotia, I have the figures here from 1932 to 1936. Beginning with 1932, the number of cattle exported from Nova Scotia to all other markets was in that year 999; in 1933, 213; in 1934, 918; in 1935, 765; in 1937, 1.007. As to the number sold directly to the packers, I have not the figures for 1932 or 1933; but in 1934 the number was 1,275; in 1936, 102; in 1937, 370. That is, as the numbers exported went up, the numbers sold to the packers apparently went down. The grand total of cattle marketed in the different years, according to these figures, was in 1932, 240; in 1933, 212; in 1934, 2,210; in 1935, 955; in 1936, 1,409. As against that, store cattle were brought in, in 1933-I have not the figures for 1932-to the number of 36; in 1934, 64; in 1935, 46; in 1937, 1,365. It will be seen that the number of cattle brought in during 1937, 1,365, is about 100 less than the total number marketed through the packers or through export. This indicates that practically all of the cattle which are produced in the province of Nova Scotia are slaughtered locally and consumed locally.


John James Kinley: How many were brought in from the drought area?


James Garfield Gardiner: I should judge that most of them were, but that illustrates the point which was up this afternoon and again this evening. It would be very difficult to select 1,300 cattle from Nova Scotia to be shipped out, even under the test we are following, if we took all that were available. There has been only one year w'hen that number was shipped from Nova Scotia.


Robert Emmett Finn: Why would that be?


James Garfield Gardiner: The chief reason, I suppose, would be that they have been gradually going out of the production of cattle, and agriculture has been somewhat backward in the province from time to time.


Robert Emmett Finn: Lack of markets.


James Garfield Gardiner: But I do not know why that should be the case. My views about that are pretty much the same as those of the hon. member for Halifax. The people of Nova Scotia are located close to port. Some of the cheapest feed which can be found in the world can be shipped to Halifax at a lower price than it could be shipped anywhere else in Canada; even if they are not breeding cattle and producing them there themselves, I cannot see any reason why there could not be developed a good feeder industry in Nova

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Scotia, and it is in the hope that we may be able to develop that industry that we have been encouraging the shipment of cattle from the west to Nova Scotia and to New Brunswick during the last few years. I think this figure for 1937 will be accounted for largely by the fact that we have been encouraging these shipments. The increase from a few hundred a few years ago to 1,409 last year is probably partly accounted for by that.


Robert Emmett Finn: The minister said that the
figures he gave included shipments to Europe as well as -?


James Garfield Gardiner: That is all the exports out of the province.


Robert Emmett Finn: Not to any particular place. Then, might I ask the minister with reference to the 1,007 in 1937, an appreciable increase and pleasing to hear about. Were the cattle which were sent in for that purpose sent to people who were raisers of cattle in Nova Scotia, or did they go to special interests there?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have not the figures before me as to how many cattle which went in under the special policy adopted two years ago are included in these figures, but a considerable number of cattle were purchased in the drought area of western Canada both for Nova Scotia and for New Brunswick in the fall of 1936 and again last year.


Robert Emmett Finn: That is, by the agriculture
department?


James Garfield Gardiner: No. The Department of Agriculture pays the fare of an individual from eastern Canada who wishes to purchase a carload or more in the west, and then the person purchasing the cattle comes back with the cattle; so that the fare of the individual is looked after in going west to buy cattle in the drought area. Then we paid one-half the freight provided the individual kept the cattle for three months and fed them; at the end of the three months we paid one-half the freight on the cattle shipped through. That was done particularly for the purpose of assisting people in getting rid of their cattle in the drought area and for the purpose of encouraging people in the far eastern part of Canada to import cattle from that area and become feeders of cattle.


Robert Emmett Finn: Would it be possible to obtain from the statistical branch of the minister's department, as regards the 1,007 cattle that were shipped in 1937 from the drought area to Nova Scotia, who were the purchasers of those cattle, where the freight was paid or partly paid, the fare of the person who went

for them, where he came from and who he was, whether he was a farmer or just some person who went out like a cattle buyer or a horse buyer-they are sometimes called something else?


James Garfield Gardiner: These figures can be
obtained. I have not them here with me this evening, but the information with regard to the individuals who purchased cattle and obtained payments can be furnished.


Robert Emmett Finn: Thank you.
Mr. MacKENZIE (Lambton-Iient) I am not quite clear what the departmental rulings are with regard to the marking of hogs. Formerly a drover bought hogs from the farmer and graded them in the pen or the shipping yard before they left the shipping point. I believe that is still the practice in some places. The instructions which the department is now sending out are that each buyer must mark the hogs individually and make payment for the hogs on the basis of the official grading returns. This has caused a good deal of dissatisfaction in some places, and I want to know if that is the universal ruling of the Department of Agriculture or if it is simply applicable in some places.


James Garfield Gardiner: The regulation is that all hogs have to be graded. If there is any doubt with regard to the grading, it can be required that the hogs be marked, and when they go to the central point they are regraded; but the general practice is that when the drover buys hogs he marks them, and there are very few people who raise complaints. The idea is that when he once takes them in at the central point they are his hogs; but the regulations require that if the person is not satisfied with the grading, he can have the grading checked.


Mr. MacKENZIE (Lambton-Kent):: The
understanding I have is that the department has sent out instructions to the buyers that they must mark all these hogs separately, individually, before they leave the shipping point, and they are paid for on the basis of the official grading returns as they are killed in the abattoir.


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand there is some difficulty from time to time, and I am informed there has been some in the area from which my hon. friend comes; but my information is that wherever difficulties of that kind have arisen

and it applies to the case in question

the department has insisted that these hogs be marked, and that has been done in at least some cases in the area to which he has referred.

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William Earl Rowe: Would the minister consider the advisability of a regulation to have all hogs graded on the rail, in the interests of the export end of it and in the interests of the hog industry generally?


James Garfield Gardiner: We have considered the advisability of it. We have not felt that public opinion is sufficiently behind it to warrant doing it at this time. When we are convinced that the public are ready we shall, of course, be prepared to make any further provision necessary.


William Earl Rowe: The department more or less agrees that this is the more efficient way?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; the department agrees that it is the more efficient way.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: Regarding hog grading, I might say it was customary for the drover to grade the hogs, but one can understand that the drover gets in wrong with a great many of his customers if they think they have not as many selects as they should have; the majority of the drovers do not care to grade these hogs when they buy them, so they are marked and sent on to the abattoirs, where the government grader grades them, but the raisers of the hogs have to wait until the next shipment before the drover gets back his returns and pays them $1 apiece for their selects.
I see by this item that there are senior swine graders, swine graders and junior swine graders, and I should like to know the difference between them. There are three senior swine graders, fourteen swine graders, and twenty-five junior swine graders, and they are all paid different salaries. What is the difference?


James Garfield Gardiner: The names applied to them describe pretty clearly what the difference is. The junior man is the man with the least experience; he has not as great a responsibility as the senior. The junior has the least experience, the swine grader next, and the senior swine grader is the most experienced.


Hugh Alexander MacKenzie: There is an impression in our part of the country that the premium of $1 a hog is not large enough to encourage the farmers to produce the proper type of bacon hog.


James Garfield Gardiner: The amount now is SI a hog.


Mark Cecil Senn: What control, if any, is exercised over the differential in the different grades of hogs? It is -true that the premium for select hogs is $1; but when you get light hogs, even if they are the right type and the proper conformation, sometimes there is a
differential between the bacon price and the price of the live hog; and similarly with heavy hogs. Sometimes the differential is quite large. In some instances this creates a certain amount of dissatisfaction in the minds of the farmers. Does the department exercise any control in that regard?


James Garfield Gardiner: The only control is in the matter of the premium of $1. As regards other differentials in other grades, that is a matter of agreement between the buyer and the seller.


Mark Cecil Senn: What progress is being made in the grading of beef? I understand that an attempt is being made to grade beef and to have certain grades established.


James Garfield Gardiner: There are two established grades, and in British Columbia, in three cities, they are establishing four. Those are compulsory. There are two optional grades established by the federal government.


Mark Cecil Senn: I know there are two grades of beef, different labels, but I want to know what progress is being made by the department towards the universal grading of beef. Is any attempt being made to make it countrywide?


James Garfield Gardiner: The question of expansion has been considered from -time to time. What is now being done in British Columbia is only an experiment, and if it works successfully it probably will be more widely applied across Canada.


James Houston Spence: I have listened with a great deal of interest to this debate, and to me it is wonderful the number of friends the dear farmer has in this house. If the farmer is not doing the drover, the drover is doing the farmer; but for my part I have never yet seen a farmer that anybody could do, and except for the last three or four years I have been dealing with them for thirty or forty years. If ever I was trimmed it was by a farmer, because I have always watched the business man or the dealer, but I never thought of watching the farmer. That is why I got trimmed.


Robert Emmett Finn: Who watches you?


James Houston Spence: If you try to trim me, I may try to trim you; but if you give me a square deal I will give you one. I am willing at all times to make contributions or grants or subsidies to the farmers in order to assist the country, because without happy, contented farmers we cannot be happy; but I do not want to make the farmer so helpless that he will not be able to do anything at all for himself. If we go on in this way, doing,
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necessary work for everyone, I am afraid we shall become a nation of imbeciles who will not be able to think for themselves, and that is bad policy.
I congratulate the hon. member for Halifax upon the remarks he made in regard to conditions in that old city which I knew so well years ago. There were quite a number of respectable wholesale houses there, but they were driven out by the chain store system. In my opinion, that system has done more to ruin the country than anything else. It is the same with big combinations of packers. They will drive out ten or fifteen wholesale business firms, respectable businessmen of high integrity, and they will do it ruthlessly. They steal all the business they can from everyone. I have absolutely no use for the chain store system, and in my opinion the government should have taxed them $1,000 for every store in Canada over one store in any city or town. If that were done, the country would be much better off. Money used to flow freely through everyone's hands; but to-day it is confined to a few, and it is in the control of big packers and the big interests. You can blame governments and no one else for this condition. You can talk until you are crazy and you will not get governments to take action.


An hon. MEMBER:: What has that to do with the marketing of live stock and poultry?


James Houston Spence: It applies to the marketing of beef, which the Minister of Agriculture is trying to assist.


Frederick George Sanderson: The point of order is not well taken.


James Houston Spence: I understand that the minister is trying to assist in building up a market for meat killed in Canada and shipped to the old country. Is that right?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


James Houston Spence: I endorse all that, but I will not endorse the establishment of a big abattoir at Halifax or Saint John, because I know something about abattoirs. I was in the city council of Toronto once and we established one. It was said that it would reduce the cost of living, and the city of Toronto paid from $50,000 to $200,000 a year loss. That is what will happen in connection with this proposal. No doubt the minister will agree with the abattoir that they should take over the offal, and they will get a considerable sum from that. They will get a good deal of money from the hides and so on.


Mr. McNEVIN:: Will the hon. member permit a question?


James Houston Spence: No; sit down. To-day there is a duty of 3^ cents a pound on animal fat going into the United States. Fat here is very cheap and still we are bringing in vegetable oil free. I am afraid that if we get mixed up in the running of an abattoir, no one will know what the loss will be. It is suggested that the farmers should be reimbursed for their loss, but who will say what the loss is? If you kill twenty-five or fifty head of cattle and ship the product to the old country, every farmer who owned any of the cattle would demand compensation for loss. I submit that those who are charged with the responsibility of handling public money should handle it as carefully as their own. If the department is endeavouring to obtain the highest possible price for a farmer's cattle, expending the country's money in that effort, then I think he ought to be ready to take a chance too, and has no right to be reimbursed. It seems to me that we are getting more and more to the stage where apparently no one is fit to do his own business. Even men who think themselves smart are advocating that sort of thing in this house.
As I say, I am willing to do anything within reason to assist the farmer. In fact, I have made my living off the farm and you will not find any man in the province of Ontario who will say that I ever gave the farmer anything but a square deal. So I do not want it said that I am criticizing money spent to help build up business between here and the old country, because that is where we should build up our business, and not so much between Canada and the United States. I think we should pay less attention to the United States, because it is a most unstable market. They will take your goods for a week or so, if they need them; then, overnight, when you are caught at the border, they will put on an embargo or, if they do not put it on, they will ask the railways to do so. I remember that once, some years ago, I went to Winnipeg to buy ten carloads of western potatoes to be shipped to the United States. I had three carloads at the border, I think it was near Detroit, when I wired my son in regard to the potato market in the United State?. He wired me at once to get away from the potato market, that the United States had gone hooey and there was no market for potatoes, so I was stuck with those potatoes at the border. That is the way in which the United States does business, and we should treat them in the same way. We are not looking after ourselves in this country at all; we are just hewers of wood and drawers of water, raising families and educating them in this country, then sending them to the United States to build

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up industry there. That is what we have been doing for many years, but now they do not want our people any more. They did take our best educated people, however, for many years, and we kept this country poor educating them. In Canada we have men equal to those anywhere in the world; you cannot get better. I do not want to start saying that our people are so much better than those in other countries, but they are a very high type of people, and we do not realize just how good we are.


An hon. MEMBER:: What about poultry?


James Houston Spence: I do not know anything
about poultry, so I am not going to talk about it. But I do know something about abattoirs; I was for some time chairman of the abattoir committee of the city council of Toronto; I visited that abattoir every day for two years and saw what was going on. It was an absolute mess, and if you get into that business you will get into another mess. Let somebody run the abattoir who knows how to run it, and if you can, tie him up so that he cannot do anything wrong. That will be difficult, however, if you are dealing with Canada Packers, because I have no faith in them at all. However, I am not here to criticize the packers any more than anyone else. I am certainly opposed to monopolies of all kinds; I have always been opposed to them. I say to-day the individual should get the chance to do business, but he is not getting it. The man with the best brains, the man who works the hardest, should be allowed to make some money. To-day you cannot make money unless you are a monopolist and have barrels of money. A few hundred thousand dollars is not enough; men with millions of dollars come along and drive you out of business. That is what is happening to-day in Toronto and Montreal. Hon. gentleman do not realize just how bad things are in the business world. I am not going to cry blue ruin, but just watch what may happen in the near future.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: I take no objection to the hon. member for Parkdale not desiring to answer a question, Mr. Chairman. In fact I am in agreement with him in regard to the erection of an abattoir at the Atlantic coast. I think it would be an expensive experiment at the present time. I rose to point out that I think there was a period in the history of the Toronto civic abattoir when, under efficient management and without interference from the city hall, that abattoir operated successfully and showed a profit.


James Houston Spence: It always lost money.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: Will the hon. member just do as he requested me to do when I asked him a question-kindly sit down and let me finish?


James Houston Spence: I shall keep quiet.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: I am also in agreement with the idea that to a large extent we have a meat monopoly in the Dominion of Canada, and I do not think any monopoly operates to the best advantage of the majority of the citizens of this country.


George Halsey Perley: Mr. Chairman, it has
been interesting to listen to the discussion this evening. I must say that I am not wholly in agreement with the hon. member for Parkdale, and I do not like to disagree with him, because I am generally in accord with his views.


James Houston Spence: The hon. member wants to be spoon-fed all the time.


George Halsey Perley: Well, certainly I do not agree when he says that he was always done by the farmers. I do not think the farmers intend to do anybody. I believe if a census of the honest people of Canada were taken, you would find as many honest farmers as you would find honest men in any other line of business.


James Houston Spence: I did not say anything to the contrary.


George Halsey Perley: It was interesting to hear the minister give the results of the trial shipments of fresh beef, and I certainly commend the department for what it is endeavouring to do in the way of shipping fresh beef to Great Britain. I would support many of the suggestions of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie. The figures quoted tonight in regard to the shipment of live animals show that there has been no continuity in these shipments, with a very great differential between the high and low marks. For instance, in 1934 there were some 53,000 animals shipped. In 1935 that dropped to about 6,700. Then in 1936 it went up to 38,000, while in 1937 it was back to 9,000. It is quite apparent that you cannot have a market of any real value when there is such a fluctuation from one year to another, and I agree with the minister that it is quite proper to endeavour to develop a market for chilled or dressed beef. We might keep our shipments of live cattle to an average number, maintaining continuity in that respect, and then I think we could find a vast market for our dressed and chilled meat.
I want to refer briefly to dressed poultry. Saskatchewan is noted not only for its wheat and beef but also for its poultry I would
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remind hon. members of this committee- and no doubt the record can be found in the Department of Agriculture-that under the former Minister of Agriculture, Hon. Mr. Weir, a trial shipment of dressed poultry was sent to Great Britain, I think in the fall of 1931. That shipment, which consisted of some 800,000 pounds of dressed poultry, principally turkeys, was accompanied by an official of the department. I believe at least 80 per cent of that shipment came from the province of Saskatchewan. The poultry was dressed under the instructions of the officials of the department, and according to the report that came back the shipment was well received. The Saskatchewan birds found a ready market, and compared favourably with the home grown birds. I wish the minister would pursue some experiments, make some further trial shipments, with respect to poultry.
I might also remind the committee that in 1931, owing to the efforts of the government of that day and particularly of the Department of Agriculture, the embargo on cattle entering Great Britain was removed or the time within which they had to be slaughtered was extended. At that time I believe the live animals were permitted to enter and go to feed lots or to pasture. I think the records can be found in the department showing that a trial shipment was made of two carloads of cattle, one of which I think was of the Poll-Angus breed. One carload went to the feed lots and the other carload turned out to pasture, and the result was extremely favourable. Apparently the grass cattle took to the pasture over there readily and made wonderful gains, and that was also the case with the feed lots. That would open up a market for a different quality or weight of animal, and I understand if the right type and grade of live animal is shipped, a market might be developed for that lighter weight animal. Those are matters in connection with which the Department of Agriculture should be commended. There is a great market over there, and I trust the minister will bend every effort towards making further trial shipments and further experiments with respect to this matter.
Could the minister give the committee some information with respect to the number of cows shipped to the United States in 1935, 1936 and 1937?


James Garfield Gardiner: With respect to dressed poultry may I say that in 1931 the total number of pounds shipped to all countries was 298,000. That is a greatly reduced figure from those which prevailed about 1925;
1 Mr. Perley.]
considerable quantities were being shipped at that time. The figures respecting shipments to all countries are as follows:
Year 1932. .
1933..
1934.. 1935. .
1937..
Pounds
910,000
1.552.000
1.688.000
3.164.000
4.139.000
The quantities to the United Kingdom are as follows:
Year
Pounds
1934		 1,428,000
1935		 2,831.000
1937	 3,509,000
The amount of dressed poultry shipped to the United States is very much less, but a great volume of live poultry is shipped to that country. I believe there is a greater volume of live poultry shipped to the United States than of dressed poultry to Great Britain.


George Halsey Perley: What have been the results of shipments to Great Britain? Are thev living up to the trial shipments so far as quality is concerned, and how were those shipments received?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; the quality is improving as they go along and as they obtain more experience. When I was overseas two years ago I found that the main criticism with respect to our poultry was not as to quality but as to the fact that it was not standardized. When the British retailer buys a box containing two or three dozen chickens he wants to know how much each will weigh when he takes it out of the box. Those chickens are sold to families of a certain size which require birds weighing a certain amount. The main criticism with our production was that while our poultry would come over in even better condition than the poultry from central European countries, it did not sell as well, because when the box was opened the merchant never knew what the size of the chicken was going to be. On the other hand, the chickens coming from central Europe were of uniform weight, and the weights were marked on the ends of the boxes. That seemed to be the main criticism, and we are attempting to overcome it by trying to improve our own packing. Grading has been developed along the same lines as the grading in connection with other products, and is gradually improving.


George Halsey Perley: Was there any way by which the people could tell from what part of Canada the different shipments came?


James Garfield Gardiner: No; they are just marked "Canadian"; that is the only mark placed on them.

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Thomas Alfred Thompson: In view of the fact that the quota to Great Britain has not been filled, can the minister say why the hog population of Canada decreased in 1937?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have not the figures for 1937, but I am informed there was no decrease in the number in that year. On the contrary, there was a slight increase, although it may not have been as great as in previous years.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: How many trial shipments of fresh eggs were sent to England in the last year?


James Garfield Gardiner: In answer to the hon. member's former question the figures show that in 1935 the hog production amounted to 2,957,000; in 1936, to 3,796,000, and in 1937 to 3,966,000. It will be seen that there were about 170,000 more in the last year than in the previous year.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: I asked for the hog population.


William Earl Rowe: Those are production figures.


James Garfield Gardiner: Those are the figures for hog marketing. I am not just sure as to how the population stands.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: Would the minister answer my question as to how many trial shipments of fresh eggs were sent to Great Britain last year?


James Garfield Gardiner: There has been a total export of a million and a quarter dozen. Four carloads were assembled in Montreal.


William Earl Rowe: Were any trial shipments of fresh eggs made by the government last year?


James Garfield Gardiner: The shipments are not made by the government. They are made by the packers, but the government assists in the assembling and grading of them.


George James Tustin: In connection with the grading of hogs the minister said it was not compulsory to have hogs graded on the rail. If a farmer brings a load of hogs and the drover grades those hogs on foot, how must the drover sell them to the abattoir? Does the abattoir accept his-grading, or are they graded on rail by the abattoir?


James Garfield Gardiner: The hogs are graded under government direction, and the packer accepts the grade given by the government inspector.


George James Tustin: But where the drover buys hogs and grades them himself, on foot, will
the abattoir accept his grade when he sells them to that abattoir, or do they grade them on the rail?


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand the abattoir accepts only the government grade.


George James Tustin: Do I understand that they do accept the government grader's grade on foot?


James Garfield Gardiner: The packer must accept the government grade.


George James Tustin: According to the report of the committee which studied marketing in England, we find that each egg was labelled " empire." Is that still done, or has there been any amendment to -the regulation?


James Garfield Gardiner: The regulation is in the old country, not here. I know, however, that they must be either graded with the name of the country from which they come, or marked " empire." Canadian eggs can be marked either way, but they must be marked one way or the other.


George James Tustin: There is no regulation in the department stating they must be stamped with the word " Canada "?


James Garfield Gardiner: If the regulations are applied to eggs, there will be, when the new regulations go into effect. But up to date there has not been any.


George James Tustin: I know several shipments have been made from Napanee. As a matter of fact, fifty cases of fresh eggs were shipped last week to the old country and each egg had stamped upon it the word "Canada."


James Garfield Gardiner: They would have to be stamped one way or the other.


Mark Cecil Senn: The other evening we had some discussion about our shipments of bacon to the mother country. There is no doubt that this forms one of the most important items of export to Great Britain. The prices we receive in Great Britain do not compare very favourably with the prices received for bacon from Denmark and other countries. It has been said, I believe with a great deal of truth, that the prices received for our Wiltshire sides of bacon in the English market determine to a great extent the prices paid to the farmer in Canada. If we were receiving the same prices in England for our bacon as is received by Denmark and other countries, it would mean possibly a cent or more added to the price of hogs in Canada. Whether the difference would be as much as that, I do not know, but there is no doubt that there would be some difference, to the benefit of
Supply-A griculture-M arketing

the farmer. In the report known as the Shaw report there is a good deal of discussion about the type of bacon that goes to the mother country. I notice that under the heading, Selection and Grading, the following is said;
The grading and selection of Canadian bacon are not entirely satisfactory and must be improved. Selections are occasionally mixed, and, less frequently, grades are inaccurate.
The other night I made some reference to the fact that our bacon is not all inspected as it goes out for shipment to the old country; that there is simply a sample inspection. There are not too many abattoirs in Canada from which shipments of bacon, are made to the old country. We already have government graders and inspectors at the abattoirs, and I think it would be possible to see that the very best grade of bacon is baled. While I am on my feet I should like to refer further to this report. The statement is made that there are not enough Wiltshire sides shipped to the motherland, but that there are large quantities of what are known as box cuts and hams being sent to this market. The statement is made by the wholesalers over there that the large quantities of Canadian cuts have a depressing influence on the price of Canadian Wiltshires. It seems to me that something might be done, perhaps more than is being done now, to ensure that more Wiltshire sides of the proper size and grade are sent to the motherland. I have in my hand a pamphlet entitled, A Letter on Canadian Live Stock Products, dated February, 1938. Some reference is made to the size of bacon sent to the old country. There are three grades, and I understand within each grade there are three sizes. The standard grade runs between fifty-five and sixty-five pounds to the side. This is what is said in this letter:
In 1937, the bacon from Canada was exported in two grades, "A" and "B." Of the total shipped, 84 per cent was grade A and sixteen per cent was grade B. But only twenty-five per cent of the total export was of grade A sizeable. No. 1 selection, and sixteen per cent grade A sizeable, No. 2 selection.
The No. 1 selection is that which runs between fifty-five and sixty-five pounds. It goes on to say:
Considering the matter of weight alone, only 58 per cent of our bacon fell within the sizeable range of fifty-five to sixty-five pounds.
I cannot understand why that should be. This letter lays the blame largely at the door of the farmer, stating that he is marketing his hogs in sizes from which it is not possible to get this size of Wiltshire sides.
I believe there are sufficient hogs slaughtered in our abattoirs of select and bacon grades
(Mr. Senn.]
from which could be obtained sufficient of this size to fill all shipments. I wonder what is being done by the department to rectify this situation? So long as we continue to send undersize bacon and bacon of lower grades to England, we shall never realize the price for our bacon that other countries are getting. So long as we are getting a lower price than we should be, our farmers will not be realizing the prices they should. Just what is contemplated to remedy this situation?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is a representative of the Department of Agriculture in London who checks this bacon as it comes over. It is quite true it is only a sample check as one man could not check it all. Where there is any reason for criticism, that criticism is sent back to the department and forwarded to whoever may be concerned. An attempt is made to have only the best quality shipped, and I think eventually that is what should be done. Only the best of our bacon should go to Great Britain. There is some question in the minds of those who wrote the report just referred to as to whether we can meet the demands which have been created by the development of that market up to the moment. However, an effort is being made to see that only the best goes forward.


William Earl Rowe: What were our exports last year?


James Garfield Gardiner: 192,000,000 pounds.


Mark Cecil Senn: The minister says an effort
is being made, but what are the efforts?


James Garfield Gardiner: In the first place, an effort must be made by the man who produces the hog. In the second place, an effort must be made by the man who feeds the hog. In the third place, an effort must be made by the man who houses the hog to see that it is housed properly. The only way to meet the competition of Denmark is to do what they do. The Danish people have a line of hogs which have been bred up to standard during the last 200 years. It is sometimes thought that the small shoulder and parts of the back having to do with the grading of the bacon are due altogether to the breeding, but I am informed that this is not the case. I am told that the manner in which the hog is housed has just as much to do with it as anything else. When a hog is allowed out to root around it develops a large neck, as people do who do other things, and it also develops a large shoulder. The Danish people stop the hog altogether from digging. They put him on cement where he can not work. All he does

Supply-Agriculture-Production
is eat the proper foods. The hogs have definite rations dealt out to them. When our hogs are let out to root up roots and other things they develop large shoulders and necks and all that kind of thing. It is absolutely impossible to get a standard slab of bacon with that kind of production. We shall have to start with the breeder and follow it through to the housing and feeding. We must get our people producing the one type in the one way all across Canada if we are to meet the competition of a country like Denmark.


Mark Cecil Senn: I would not want the minister to leave the impression that the farmer is entirely to blame for this situation. I notice on page 958 of Hansard of this year an answer given by the minister to a question asked by the hon. member for York East (Mr. McGregor). The information is given that there were 714,847 hogs officially graded as selects in Canada in 1937. I do not know whether they have the heavy shoulders of which the minister speaks. If they had, I do not think they would be classed as selects. In addition, there were some 312,000 that were classed as A grade. In either one of these grades of hogs perfectly good Wiltshire sides can be obtained. There were only one million hogs shipped to England last year altogether, in the form of Wiltshire sides, so the minister's explanation that we are not shipping enough Wiltshire sides over there and laying the blame on the growers is not altogether warranted. I believe there is some difficulty within the packing industry itself, because no doubt they have to cater to the Canadian trade to a certain extent.


James Garfield Gardiner: I thought that was what the hon. member advocated, that this was the trade to which we ought to cater.


Mark Cecil Senn: Certainly, but we have also
a surplus that we must dispose of, and when the price we get in the British market determines the price which the farmer in Canada receives for his hogs, I do not think it is wise for us to send over bacon which is not going to command the highest price in the British market. If we cannot export a small quantity successfully, what are we going to do when we get a much larger hog population in this country? I am not particularly condemning the department. I am simply pointing this out to the committee because I believe there is something that can be done by way of inspection and supervision over the exports, and I am afraid that to-day this is left altogether too much in the hands of the packing industry itself, instead of having a supervision that might very well be undertaken by the department.


George Halsey Perley: I asked the minister for
the number of cows shipped from Canada to the United States in 1935, 1936 and 1937.


James Garfield Gardiner: We had that information in front of us a moment ago. While it is being looked up, I might say in reply to what the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn) has just said, that to supply the weight of bacon which was exported to Great Britain last year would require 1,600,000 hogs-


Mark Cecil Senn: I said Wiltshire sides, not
the total amount of bacon.


James Garfield Gardiner: If we were going to
sell all Wiltshire sides, we would have to have that number of hogs in order to send the sides forward, and even the figures that were indicated are not sufficient to do that


William Earl Rowe: Of the
select quality?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. In reply to the
hon. member for Qu'Appelle, the number of dairy cows shipped from Canada to the United States in 1935 was 6,752, and in 1936, 6,549.


George Halsey Perley: What was the number of
dairy cows in Saskatchewan in 1936 and 1937?


James Garfield Gardiner: We have not the provincial figures.


George Halsey Perley: If the information could
be made available, I should like to have it in order to see whether there has been a decrease in the number of dairy cows in the province in the last two or three years.


James Garfield Gardiner: I have not those
figures, but I could get them some time later on.


George Halsey Perley: Has the minister the number of cows that were shipped last fall under the regulations reducing the herds in Saskatchewan?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have the total number of cattle, but I have not the figures broken down showing the number of cows.


Mr. HANSON:: I think the committee
has now been given a great deal of information on hogs and cattle, and we should consider human beings for a while.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Production services-Production services administration, $60,700.
William Earl Rowe: Again I
wish to draw the committee's attention to this document that was presented instead of the Shaw report.


James Garfield Gardiner: That does not come
under this vote.
2994	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Health oj Animals


William Earl Rowe: This deals with production services.


James Garfield Gardiner: I was asked by the hon. member for Greenwood (Mr. Massey) to allow item No. 12 to stand, and what my hon. friend has in mind would come under that item.


William Earl Rowe: I was
going to speak of one feature of production, and I shall not hold the item further than to refer to paragraph 4 on this famous page ten of the minister's document, which I do not think is included in the original report. Page ten gives the proposals of the Shaw committee which have already been made effective, and paragraph 4 on page ten says:
The seed of a particularly promising new variety of tomato has been purchased. It has been distributed among canners throughout Canada who have undertaken to have the crop produced and processed under the supervision of the Department of Agriculture.
This afternoon, under another item, the minister stated that the seed had not been distributed except to the experimental farms.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think it would be well if this discussion came up under item No. 18, which deals with seed. I think we had reall}r better wait until we reach that item.


William Earl Rowe: Very well.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Health of Animals-Administration of Animal Contagious Diseases Act and Meat and Canned Foods Act, $1,625,610.
George Halsey Perley: What is the number employed under this vote?


James Garfield Gardiner: The details appear on page 59 of the estimates.


George Halsey Perley: How jnany veterinary inspectors are employed?


James Garfield Gardiner: The number is 262 veterinary inspectors this year as against 270 last year, and the complete service comprises 437 this year as against 447 last year.


George Halsey Perley: Were any of these veteri-naries employed at the Carberry pasturage last year?


James Garfield Gardiner: A few of them, in connection with the testing service. We tested all the breeding stock that passed through the pasture for Bang's disease and T.B., and there were veterinaries there carrying on that service.


William Earl Rowe: Would the minister explain the great reduction in the compensation for animals slaughtered? I see it is less than half what it was last year.


James Garfield Gardiner: The custom has been to deal in the supplementary estimates with the final amount necessary. This vote provides only the original appropriation.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Has the department any plan for eliminating Bang's disease in certain areas in a manner similar to the policy adopted for the eradication of tuberculosis in different areas? I know that certain resolutions have been passed by municipal councils and other organizations urging the government to adopt a policy similar to that which has been so successfully adopted for the elimination of tuberculosis.


James Garfield Gardiner: We have not gone so far with this as we have gone with tuberculosis. As my hon. friend will recall, at the beginning of the activities in connection with tuberculosis there was considerable doubt whether the tests made were satisfactory and whether they were always reliable. We are experiencing exactly the same thing in connection with the Bang's. There is a great deal of disagreement at the moment as to whether the method followed to detect the disease and deal with it is satisfactory. Until that is fairly well established in the minds of breeders it is impossible to apply it in the same way. But we have, I understand, a number of herds that we are using at the present time in order to try to establish certain information, and consideration is being given to adopting certain areas and trying to clear Bang's disease out of those areas.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Where are the herds? I mean, are they in Ontario?


James Garfield Gardiner: The herds are in the vicinity of Ottawa, by private arrangements with the owners. I was just questioning the advisability of naming the owners.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: No; I am not asking that. I was asking if they are in Ontario.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Mark Cecil Senn: What investigational work is being done, if any, to ascertain just how far this disease has extended? From what I know of it, it seems to me that the ravages of the disease are more serious than even tuberculosis in its worst stage. There seems to be some hesitation on the part of those whose herds have the disease to let it be known, and I wonder if there is any investigational work going on to find out just how extensive this disease is. While 1 am on my feet, might I ask what work is being done by the department to develop new serums to eombat the disease and to provide a better

Supply-Agriculture-Health of Animals
method of testing for it. I understand that the province of Ontario, particularly through the college at Guelph, is doing quite an important work in this respect. Whether this department is cooperating with them or not, I do not know. I should like the minister to say what is being done both in the way of ascertaining the extent of the ravages of the disease and as to the reliability of the test, and to produce serums or some kind of inoculation that will do away with the disease.


James Garfield Gardiner: The tests that we have conducted in connection with the first question, that is as to the extent to which the ravages of the disease are found, show about two per cent. Fifteen thousand have been checked, and out of the fifteen thousand we found two per cent. We checked all of the females that passed through Carberry pasture. They were gathered from a very large area in the western part of Canada, and that test showed 1-7 per cent, which is less than half of the reactors in tuberculosis, on an average, in the different areas. This would indicate that so far as investigation has gone the ravages of the disease are only about 50 per cent of what they are through tuberculosis. As to the reliability of the test, as I said a moment ago, that is something upon which all persons are not agreed. But I think the officials of the department are fairly well in agreement that the test which is being used is at least as satisfactory as can be expected.


Harry James Barber: What is being done in British Columbia in regard to Bang's disease? I think I drew to the attention of the minister last year that certain serums could be purchased across the line which veterinaries claimed were very effective, but they were not permitted to be brought into this country. Have they been investigated, looked into more thoroughly?


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand that there has 'been some discussion with regard to calf vaccination with the hope of preventing the disease, but that is still in the experimental stage. We have about ten or twelve herds under observation at present in connection with the use of these serums. We are not yet in a position to state whether the serums are satisfactory or not.


Harry James Barber: There is a matter I discussed with the officials of this department a few days ago. A disease which is quite prevalent in certain parts of British Columbia is what is commonly known as red water, and I understand that the department about six years ago leased or took over a farm on the lower
mainland of British Columbia at which they were to carry on experiments. I believe they have demonstrated in the first place that the disease is not contagious, and also that it did not develop under certain conditions which were supposed to have caused its development. Of late it has been demonstrated, I believe, and the veterinary in charge is convinced, that it is more prevalent on what are known as rolling farms, where sloughs exist or similar conditions retain water for a certain length of time. What I want to impress upon the minister is the importance of carrying on that part of the investigation, at any rate of proceeding with it a little further. When I was at home at Easter I visited a number of farms, and it was suggested to me that on one of these farms a few acres might be leased-which could be done for fifty or sixty dollars a year-and some of the cattle taken from the farms located on the lower mainland, and placed on that land. The particular farmer's loss, I believe, runs to about twenty-seven cattle in the last ten or twelve years. Another farmer lost twenty-eight. One farmer I know of told me that his losses ran to somewhere about $200 or $250 a year. It is estimated that the total loss through this disease alone in the lower mainland will run to somewhere about $100,000 a year. The minister will, therefore, understand that it is quite important that this investigation should be pursued still further, and I trust that he will see fit to extend this research work in connection with the disease.


James Garfield Gardiner: The research work in connection with the disease is being continued, and as has been suggested, every opportunity
is being taken of trying to meet the disease and find ways and means of preventing its development.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: I notice that in the item of temporary assistance this year as compared with last there is an increase of approximately $80,000. Why is there such a large proposed increase in this item?


James Garfield Gardiner: The increase in the temporary service is largely due to the fact that we have to set up organizations to take care of the inspections in connection with tuberculosis areas. The numbers vary from time to time, depending upon the amount of money that is voted by this committee for that purpose. If we get the amount we are asking for this year we shall do a certain amount of work, but if we are refused that amount we shall have to cut down on our staff. The supplementary estimates have not yet been considered, and
2996	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Health of Animals
I cannot say what the extent of the work will be this year. Last year we obtained the amount we thought was necessary, and of course our temporary staffs throughout the country had to be increased to take care of the work. We do not put on permanent appointees to do all that work. The same applies to the inspection of meat. When the marketing of meat at a certain point is fairly high we have to have some inspection service, and that requires new help. Where new abattoirs are opened, as in the last year or so, we have to supply a service there.


Mark Cecil Senn: I would be glad to think that Bang's disease is prevalent only to the extent which the minister outlines, namely, two per cent of the cattle of the country. My impression was that it was much worse. What regulations are in effect for the shipment of cattle to the United States so far as Bang's disease is concerned? Is there any arrangement between the two countries? If so, what is it? I am under the impression that the regulations have been tightened up to some extent, and I believe they have also been tightened up with regard to cattle coming from the motherland. Can the minister give us any information?


James Garfield Gardiner: The federal regulations for cattle going into the United States are the same as the regulations for cattle coming from the United States to Canada, but some of the states have regulations that differ from the federal regulations, and in those cases there may be greater difficulty in getting cattle into those states than there is in bringing cattle into Canada. The regulation is that breeding stock must be tested before it goes from Canada to the United States.


Mark Cecil Senn: If they pass the test, are they accepted?


James Garfield Gardiner: The federal government will accept them, but some of the states have additional requirements.


Mark Cecil Senn: Have there been any changes recently in the regulations for cattle coming here or leaving the country?


James Garfield Gardiner: There have been no recent changes so far as the federal governments are concerned.


Mark Cecil Senn: What about cattle coming from England? I was under the impression that some changes had been made and that cattle that had been found free in England have now to be kept in quarantine.


James Garfield Gardiner: Great Britain does not require a test for either Bang's or tuberculosis, but we do make the test. Cattle coming from Great Britain to Canada must submit to the test for Bang's and tuberculosis.


Mark Cecil Senn: Is that in the motherland,
or after they come here? I believe that originally they could be tested in England, but now they have to be tested in quarantine here.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; they are kept in
quarantine here.


William Earl Rowe: How does
the minister arrive at the two per cent he mentioned?


James Garfield Gardiner: That is, two per cent
of the 15,000 that we have tested. We do not know whether those herds may have been tested before and some weeded out. I should not like to say definitely, but I think the closest check so far as the west is concerned is the one made at Carberry where we gathered without selection every heifer or cow that came into the pasture, no matter where they came from, and checked them before they went out. That was less than two per cent, and it was a fair test of that particular area.


Mr. STIRLING:: What number did that
cover?


Mr. GARDIER:: Approximately 2,000.


William Earl Rowe: The minister said that if the amounts asked for were not granted the number of inspectors would have to be reduced. I do not agree with those who believe that we have too many inspectors. In all our criticisms of the estimates so far it will be observed that very little has come from any part of the house with reference to the amounts expended or proposed to be expended. Personally I am sorry that the government sees fit to budget for only a little over $9,000,000 total expenditure in agriculture. I see no item in the estimates that looks too large, and in fact I would be glad to see the government take a more active part in connection with inspection generally, extending it until all the live stock of the dominion are covered. It is all the more important with reference to the export trade.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.

Questions
Wednesday, May 18, 1938