1939-03-21

Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved:: That the name of Mr. Taylor (Nanaimo) be substituted for that of Mr. Fournier (Hull) on the standing committee on banking and commerce.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Official Report
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. A. THOMPSON (Lanark):: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day are called I should like to draw your attention to an error in yesterday's Hansard. When the orders of the day were called yesterday the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) rose in his place and read a carefully prepared statement to the house, at the conclusion of which he stated that one page had been omitted from his notes. He then retired from the chamber and the house proceeded with ordinary routine business. Returning to the chamber in about three-quarters of an hour the Prime Minister read his entire statement, including the page which had been omitted. I find on looking up Hansard this morning that the Prime Minister's original statement, together with certain remarks that were made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Manion) have been omitted from Hansard. My question is:	On what authority is this being
done?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, may I say first to my hon. friend that I had nothing whatever to do with the matter myself. The arrangement of Hansard is in the hands of the Hansard staff. Where on previous occasions there have been obvious omissions or transpositions of some kind, in the arrangement of Hansard those omissions or transpositions are usually dealt with as the editor of a paper would deal with any matter of the kind in presenting it in its final form. I inquired last night as to what Hansard proposed to do, whether it was proposed to insert verbatim et literatim the little interjections with regard to a page being missed out of my statement and the whole repeated as reread. I was informed that Hansard proposed to have the matter printed as if the page had not been omitted, and simply give the full account as was originally intended and as subsequently read. I understood that Hansard-I may be wrong-before taking that step had intended to speak to the leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion) to see if he would have any objection, but the leader of the opposition not being here in the evening, I am informed the matter was then referred to the chief whip of the Conservative party. That is what I am informed. The chief whip, I was told, said he thought it would be quite right to have Hansard printed without indicating the brief exchange concerning the omission of a page that had taken place. I believe that was the courtesy which was extended by hon. gentlemen opposite-I may be wrong. But certainly
I should think in any circumstances it was quite a proper thing for Hansard to have done. If I had altered any sentence or remark in the second reading of the statement as read on the first occasion or had in any way sought to deceive the house about what was purely an omission occasioned by a failure on the part of a stenographer to copy one of the concluding pages, I think there would have been something to the point which my hon. friend has raised. But for the purpose of the intelligent reading of Hansard as a matter of record I think it was much better to have repetition avoided and the complete statement put in the form in which it was.
I may say to my hon. friend that when I came back into the house with the complete statement the hon. leader of the opposition indicated to me across the floor of the house that it might be best to read it from the beginning in its entirety so that all members would have the complete context, and I did that. I thought at the time my hon. friend was seeking to assure me that that would be the best way of proceeding, if I was to have the statement in its entirety' as it appeared'. I am giving my hon. friend the situation as I understand it. If there has been any fault in the matter, I hope it will be put on my shoulders as leader of the house. If Hansard were to come to me and ask me what I thought was correct in the matter of reporting the proceedings of the house in a case of that kind, I would say it was much better to have Hansard state the situation as hon. members would wish to see it stated, rather than in any way unnecessarily to burden Hansard with something that did not affect the proceedings.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: I had no idea that the leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion) and the Conservative whip (Mr. Casselman) had agreed to this. I simply saw in Hansard that it had been omitted. During this session there have been several omissions from Hansard, and I wish to protest against omissions being made from Hansard by any person, or Hansard having authority to make these changes.


Mr. SPEAKER:: If, as the hon. member suggests, there were omissions before the occurrence of yesterday, he should have drawn the attention of the house to them, and they would have been dealt with accordingly.


Mr. A. C. CASSELMAN (Grenville-Dun-das):: Mr. Speaker, in view of the statement of the right hon. Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) I think it is incumbent upon me to say something. I understand the right hon. gentleman to say that I did concur in
Official Report

the deletion from Hansard. It is quite true that Mr. Young, the editor of debates, communicated with me last night and asked me if I would acquiesce in such a change. I told him that at that time I would not acquiesce, that I had no authority to assume to myself any responsibilities that are covered by the rules of the house. In order that there should be no misunderstanding, I took the matter up with the editor of debates before the opening of the house to-day, believing that he might have misunderstood me. In conversation with me he stated positively that I did not acquiesce in any change.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I apologize then to my hon. friend and to the entire house. I can only say that I made inquiry last night of my secretary who reported the circumstances to me exactly as I have given them to the house. I have not had a word with him since, and I let the matter drop at that stage. As a matter of fact what I suggested to my secretary was that he should see the Speaker and ask him about it. His reply to me was that the whip of the Conservative party. had already indicated he thought that that would be a perfectly correct procedure. If the house thinks that Hansard ought to be reprinted with the correction to which my hon. friend has drawn attention, I :am perfectly agreeable. I must confess that I cannot see where there has been any attempt to invade any privilege either of the house or of its individual members.


Hon. R. J. MANION (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, I did nod across to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) yesterday and I concurred with him in the suggestion that he read the whole statement from the beginning in view of the fact that he had read part of it and then stated he had forgotten a page which he brought in later. I wanted to hear the whole statement read continuously. I had no intention of bringing up this matter, but since it has been brought up I do not think that this is a question of the details concerned. I admit perhaps that there has been no change made in the ideas or substance of the statement in any shape or form; there is no suggestion of that. The Prime Minister says that he did not have it done, and he mentions that the editor of Hansard or someone on his behalf endeavoured to get in touch with me. My secretary told me this morning that that is correct. I went home from this house yesterday afternoon with quite a cold, and I decided that the telephone should not bother me all evening; I gave instructions that it should not be answered I think it rang at
(Mr. Casselman.]
least a dozen times, which is probably eleven times too many. I would not answer it and I refused to let anybody else in the house answer it. I wanted to go to bed to rest.
The point I should like to make is Ibis. There is no question of a change in the context because I understand there was none except that the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Thompson) does mention that I said a few words. If I recall, the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth) said a few words. We both did, and they were both cut out. Not that my remarks were probably of any importance anyway, but I do deny to the editor of Hansard or to anybody else the right to remove anything said by me without my consent. I was twitted across the floor of the house the other night for having changed a word in Hansard. Incidentally I have searched that since, and my secretary, who is really to blame if anybody was, as he checks over Hansard, as to my remarks, and we find there was no change. However, to-day two or three pages have been cut out of Hansard by the editor of Hansard apparently without the consent of the Speaker and of both sides of the house. That seems to me to be a most extraordinary proceeding. Therefore, I wish to say this:	I do not think the editor of
Hansard has any right at any time to cut out two or three pages of Hansard without any excuse whatsoever unless he gets the consent probably of the leaders of all parties and the Speaker as well. I think it is too serious a matter to have the editor of Hansard have the power in his hands to do any such thing.


Mr. J. S. WOODSWORTH (Winnipeg North Centre):: Since I was one of the
members concerned, I may say I was in the Hansard room just after the discussion had closed down here. The editor then was rather in a quandary as to how he was going to manage the report. A very important statement with regard to foreign policy was being split up and sandwiched in between apples and oranges, and all that kind of thing. What the leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion) had said he said again; what I had said, I said again a little later in the debate. I stated to the editor of Hansard that it seemed to me it would be an excellent thing not to repeat all that kind of thing and simply put it down as it stood. It seemed to me that in an important matter of this kind the various little interjections which were made under these peculiar circumstances did not warrant the marring of Hansard, which would

Dominion-Provincial Relations
go out not only all over Canada but perhaps over the entire world. I think it should be left as it is.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I do not wish to add to the discussion, but I -think probably the purpose which my hon. friend had in mind in raising the question will have been amply served by having the pages of Hansard covered with the' fact that I did not have a complete statement when I came into the house, because one page had not been copied at the time; and that I was not aware of that when I started to read the statement which I had left to others to have transcribed.


Robert James Manion: I rise to a point of order. The right hon. Prime Minister has no right to impute the motives which he did to my hon. friend, the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Thompson). He said the object which the hon. member had in mind was served by having this spread on Hansard. I think that is imputing a motive which he has absolutely no right to do.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I must say to my hon. friend the leader of the opposition that I cannot see any motive at all in raising the question, unless it was to make clear that the Prime Minister had read a statement and had in so doing omitted a page which he thought had been included, and that Hansard had not recorded the fact, that he went back to get the page and then was permitted by the house to read the whole statement over again. That is all I wished to imply. My hon. friend may have had another purpose in view in raising the question. May I say that Hansard is not here to answer for itself, but I 'will take full responsibility, as I must, for the action of Hansard in this matter. I do think that Hansard exercised a reasonable editorial right in presenting yesterday's discussion in the form in which it appeared to-day.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: I want to say that I had no idea of doing what the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has rather imputed I was doing. My idea in bringing this matter *before the house was this: Several times in this house the same thing has occurred-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: -and on reading
Hansard I want to say that the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie) made certain statements in this house-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: -and they were
deleted-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: They did not appear in Hansard.


Walter Edward Foster: Order. I ask the hon.
member to resume his seat. I do not think he is fair in his remark that it has happened on many occasions before. If there were such occasions they should have been brought promptly to the attention of the house.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: They were. DOMINION-PROVINCIAL RELATIONS



INQUIRY AS TO DATE OF PRESENTATION OF REPORT OF ROWELL COMMISSION

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, the leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion) asked me on March 13 when I expected to receive the so-called Rowell commission report. I replied that the last time I had had word with the chairman of the royal commission on dominion-provincial relations was at the beginning of the year so that I might advise parliament when parliament met, and that I was then informed that the commission hoped to have their report ready about Easter. I added that I was sorry I was unable to say whether they were still of that opinion. The following day, that is, on March 14, I wrote the chairman of the commission and drew his attention to the question of the leader of the opposition, and I have received from him the following reply:
Royal commission on dominion-provincial relations
Ottawa, March 15, 1939. The Right Hon. W. L. Mackenzie King, M.P.,
Prime Minister of Canada,
Ottawa.
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
I have your letter of March 14 inquiring when the commission's report will be ready. -
When we last met I mentioned that the commission hoped to have the report completed about Easter. Additional work and time, however, have been necessary on the public finance statistics and other basic studies, and it does not now appear possible that the report will be finished before July. We are making every effort to expedite the work, and if an earlier date of completion can be achieved, we shall be able to transmit the report to you somewhat sooner.
I am,
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
Sincerely yours,
Jos. Sirois, Chairman.
European Situation



EUROPEAN SITUATION


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, may I answer a question put yesterday by the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell). He asked:
In view of the international situation and reported suggestion for a conference of certain democratic powers, will the government consider the advisability of proposing a meeting of the League of Nations assembly with a view to formulating a joint policy for peace and with a view to seeking cooperation with the United States for such a policy?
The answer I would make to that question is as follows. In view of the fact that consultations have already been initiated by the countries immediately concerned, under the procedure they have considered appropriate for the stage that developments have reached, it is not considered advisable that the Canadian government put forward the suggested proposal.



TRADE AGREEMENTS


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. C. H. CAHAN (St. Lawrence-St. George):: I would ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) or the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler) whether in connection with the Canada-United States trade treaty a statement has been prepared of the imports into Canada, during eay the last fiscal or calendar year, under the various items which appear in that treaty, and if so, could not such a statement be laid upon the table of the house? Perhaps that has already been done, but as I have been absent I should like to know.
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance):	Mr. Speaker, the tabular statement which is in the hands of all members does not contain the precise information to which my hon. friend from St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) refers. On pages 21 and forward in the tabular statement there are four columns showing the rate of duty under the new agreement, the effective rate under the 1935 agreement, the rate on United States goods prior to the 1935 agreement, and the British preferential tariff rate. In preparing the document, which includes other information as well relating to the other schedule of the treaty, I had to decide whether it would 
be possible, in view of the four columns of figures which I have already mentioned, to add information respecting the imports of each article. I must confess that in that connection I was rather embarrassed because one column would not give adequate information, and the imports vary so considerably as between the years that in order to inform the house properly there ought to be given at least three or four years' imports, possibly more than that. I preferred therefore in connection with the volume of imports to follow the practice of previous years, which has been adhered to on this occasion also, of giving the information as requested on any item. I have and can give in committee, on any particular item of which there is proper import record, information as to the volume of imports in any one of several previous years. If my hon. friend will refer to his copy of the tabular statement I think he will find that it contains other information that will be useful in committee.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: If I may be permitted, Mr. Speaker, to add a word, it would be of very great assistance to members in studying the items of this trade treaty if the information which has been omitted might be now given, because I find it an almost endless task to read through the trade returns in an endeavour to find from them what have been the imports under particular items, as the classification varies. I thought if the minister had such information at hand it would assist us very much if it could be published.


Mr. DUNNING:: I am doubtful about it,
because one year would certainly not, as my hon. friend will agree, present a fair or reasonable picture from either point of view.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: But if you gave it for
two or three years?


Charles Avery Dunning: It would be a complicated statement.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: If a new schedule were
printed it would be easy to incorporate the returns of imports for different years.



TARIFF BOARD


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. W. NEILL (Comox-Alberni):: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) if he has any knowledge as to when he expects to receive a report from the tariff board on the reference respecting vegetable oils.

Canada-United, States Trade Agreement
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance): I hope my hon. friend will allow that question to stand. He can understand that, owing to the very much regretted death of the chairman of the tariff board, it will take a little time for me to assure myself as to just how things stand with regard to various tariff board reports. I frankly confess I have not had time even to commence doing so as yet.



INQUIRY FOR RETURN


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the government when I may expect an order for a proper return asked for on January 12, again on February 3, and again on March 10 relating to a most important matter, that of a national register for defence or economic or industrial or labour purposes, and whether a census or national register will be compiled of Canada's industrial power, economic power, food power, man power, military and defence power, and the unemployed. I should like to find out from the various ministers concerned-defence, labour and agriculture-where this return is, because the defence of the realm is important. My question was:
1.	Have any steps been taken by the government to secure a national register for Canada for defence or economic or industrial or labour purposes ?
2.	If so, what are they?
3.	Will a census or modern doomsday book, or national register be ordered or compiled of: (a) industrial power (b) economic power; (c) food power; (d) man power; (e) military and defence power, and (f) unemployed?


Hon. IAN MACKENZIE (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, so far as the Department of National Defence is concerned, the information was forwarded to the appropriate department, but as the return concerned at least three departments of government it would be tabled by the Secretary of State.


Thomas Langton Church: Can the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) tell us when we may expect his part of the return on food power? Where is this return so far as the Department of Agriculture is concerned?


Hon. FERNAND RINFRET (Secretary of State):: Mr. Speaker, I shall inquire into the matter and see if I cannot expedite the tabling of the return.



WAYS AND MEANS


[Stage Direction]
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister
of Finance) moved that the house go into committee of ways and means.
Thomas Langton Church: Before you leave the chair, Mr. Speaker; although I do not wish to delay the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning), there is a matter which, with your permission, I should like to bring before the house for three or four minutes, and this is the only day this week on which it can be mentioned. I ask the government to clarify the statement which was made by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) yesterday on foreign affairs and Canada's position. I agree with a great deal of what he said, and also with what the leader of the opposition (Mr. Manion) so well said. We should also, I say, have in this country a maximum of unity on these matters of national security and defence, and a minimum of criticism, because, as Adam Smith said, and do not forget that, security is better than opulence. At the same time I wish to point out that, although this is the forty-eighth day of the session, no action has been taken, the house does not know and the country cannot read between the lines and find out what is Canada's policy on this great question of life and death which confronts civilization to-day. Where is Canada, and what is she doing? It seems to me that Canada's policy is that "the pen is mightier than the sword"; but that is not so with Hitler and the other dictators. This land is much coveted by them because of its great natural resources and raw materials. I think the time has come when all the facts should be told and the country should be taken into the confidence of the government. I do not think we could do better than to follow the precedent in respect to publicity of facts set in England by Mr. Chamberlain, when, in his recent speech at the last dinner of the parliamentary press gallery in London, he said:
If the people are not allowed to know the facts; if they are only allowed to know what their rulers choose them to know, then that people are in danger of being led to embark upon a course which may presently lead them into disaster.
Speaking later in the House of Commons, he defined the country's commitments, gave the exact details and answered dozens of questions. I have examined day by day the London newspapers, particularly the Times,
2096	COMMONS
Canada-United States Trade Agreement
and I find that there was a very elaborate debate in the House of Commons the other day on this matter; almost every day the question is up there. One question which was then asked was, "Where is Canada?" Well, as I have said, we are at the forty-eighth day of the session, and parliament and the country are entitled to know, and we do not know as yet, where we are with regard to our security or defence on land, on the sea, or in the air. We have practically no defences except those supplied by the mother country as was the case in 1812. I believe that my honoured leader, who served so ably and faithfully in the war, gave a very fair statement as far as it goes, and I agree with him that we must not introduce politics into this matter or try to keep the country in the dark. Our silence is playing of politics. How is it that by leave of the radio commission this subject of defence of the realm and foreign affairs can be debated every Sunday and every day almost on the radio, yet this house is denied the right of knowing the facts which concern the security of Canada at this time? We do not know where we are. Italy and Japan our old allies have been driven since 1922 into the arms of Germany and very foolishly so; to-day Britain is "going it alone" with France. We should certainly know something more about what is going on.
I do not wish to embarrass the Prime Minister. Far from it; I should like to support him; and I believe the country, irrespective of class or creed or politics or anything else, will support him if he will do something. We do not know whether in Canada we are secure or not. Are we to wait until the enemy sails up the St. Lawrence? We know they can be here in a few hours if they come west instead of east, and they can by an air attack destroy every public utility in Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, and Toronto in a few hours. The maritimes and Quebec will be the first to suffer. We know what a lack of defence policy and silence led to in 1914. The late Lord Roberts went up and down Great Britain and came to this country and told the people of the grave danger ahead, but his speeches were called pernicious and dangerous, even up to three days before the outbreak of war, because he predicted it and he had not a single statesman except Lord Milner with him. Are we going to repeat that in 1939 by our silence and lack of preparation before it is too late.
I am not going to take up any more time, because I should like to see the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) get on with his work, 
but I believe that the time has come when we should have some action and an announcement from the government, or a day set aside soon so that the matter may be discussed.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I might say to my hon. friend that it seems to me the more appropriate time to discuss the matter to which he has just referred would be on the estimates of the Department of National Defence or on the estimates of the Department of External Affairs. Those estimates will be presented as soon as we have made the desired progress with the measures which have been before the house up to the present time.


CANADA-UNITED STATES TRADE AGREEMENT
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of ways and means, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.
On schedule I.
Customs tariff-234.	Perfumery, including
toilet preparations, non-alcoholic, viz., hair oils, tooth and other powders and washes, pomatums, pastes and all other perfumed preparations, n.o.p., used for the hair, mouth or skin: 30 per cent.
Mr. MacNICOL:: When the committee
rose last evening I was about to ask if the n.o.p. in this item referred to the whole line of perfumes, or if there is some other item in the tariff which applies only to perfumes?


Charles Avery Dunning: There are several items, but within this item are comprised creams, solid and liquid of all kinds; brilliantine, oily or liquid; face powders, talcum powders, sachet powders, lipstick, compacts, bath salts, lotions, and toilet water, non-alcoholic.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-236. Surgical dressings, antiseptic or aseptic, including absorbent cotton, lint, lamb's wool, tow, jute, oakum, woven fabric of cotton weighing not more than seven and one-half pounds per one hundred square yards, whether imported singly or in combination one with another, but not stitched or otherwise manufactured; surgical trusses and suspensory bandages of all kinds; sanitary napkins, and abdominal supports: 20 per cent.
Mr. COLDWELL:: This is a matter of
surgical dressings, and I should like to put in a plea against the charging of duties on goods of this description which are used in the case of sickness, and on equipment used for the relief of people who are invalids. It seems to me that, having made some concessions with regard to people who are suffering from blindness, we should be well advised

Canada-United Slates Trade Agreement
to consider the granting of the lowest possible prices to those who in the event of sickness have to pay for supplies. Here we find that on "surgical dressings, antiseptic or aseptic, including absorbent cotton, lint, lamb's wool, tow, jute, oakum," and so on, the rate of duty under the new agreement is twenty per cent. I am of the opinion that, if we are not to move in the direction of the elimination of tariffs, there are at least certain things on which no duty should be charged. Surgical supplies which are essential in the case of sickness, or other articles which minister to the comfort of people who are invalids-I have in mind things like wheel chairs-might well be considered when the minister brings down his budget. I am raising the matter now so that perhaps some consideration may be given to supplies for use of invalids.


Charles Avery Dunning: The duty on this class
of articles has been reduced from thirty-five per cent in 1935 to twenty per cent under the new agreement. I shall take note of what the hon. member has said and give it consideration, although the reduction already effected is very substantial.


Mr. McCANN:: And it is ten per cent
under the British tariff.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes. I should have
remarked that under the British preference there is only a ten per cent rate.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-237.	(c) Synthetic resins,
n.o.p., in liquid, powder, granular, or lump form; or in tubes, cylinders, strips, sheets, plates, blocks, bars, rods, angles, channels, tees or other shapes or sections, not further manufactured than moulded, extruded or pressed, when for use in Canadian manufactures: free.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-238a. Manufactures of pyroxylin plastics, or of which pyroxylin plastic is the component of chief value, n.o.p.: 271 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-238b. Cellulose nitrate or pyroxylin plastics, in tubes cylinders, balls, strips, sheets, plates, blocks, bars, rods, angles, channels, tees or other shapes or sections, not further manufactured than moulded or pressed, when for use in Canadian manufactures: free.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-238c. Moulding compositions of cellulose acetate or other derivatives of cellulose, in powder or granular form: free.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-239.	Lamp black, carbon
black, ivory black and bone black: free.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-242. Dry red lead; orange mineral; antimony oxide, titanium oxide, and zinc oxide such as zinc white and lithopone; white pigments containing not less than 14 per cent by weight of titanium dioxide: 15 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-243. Dry white lead, 20 per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: Are the reductions in
items 243 and 244 to compensate the paint manufacturers for the reduction on paints which is referred to in a further item?


Charles Avery Dunning: I do not like the word "compensation,"-


John Ritchie MacNicol: It is a good word.


Charles Avery Dunning: -but we did take into account that when a reduction was effected on a manufacturer's finished product, the materials entering into that finished product should be carefully scrutinized. That was done in this particular case.


John Ritchie MacNicol: In the case of 243,
is any of it manufactured in Canada, or is it all imported?


Charles Avery Dunning: Our production in Canada in 1936 was 4,321.900 pounds by weight, valued at $284,100. The imports have been very small indeed. We imported from the United States last year, $1,958 worth and exported to the United States $2,300 worth.


Mr. SENN:: Is any class of this goods
coming from Great Britain?


Charles Avery Dunning: From Great Britain
we imported $1,155 worth and exported to Great Britain $8,700.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-244. White lead ground in oil, 25 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-246. Oxides, fireproofs, rough stuff, fillers, laundry blueing, and colours, dry, n.o.p.: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-247.	Liquid fillers, anticorrosive and anti-fouling paints, and ground and liquid paints, n.o.p.: 25 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 247a. Artists' and school children's colours; fitted boxes containing the same: 25 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Canada-United States Trade
[Stage Direction]
Agreement
Customs tariff-248. Paints and colours, ground in spirits, and all spirit varnishes and lacquers: 85 cents per gallon.
John Ritchie MacNicol: What are our imports?


Charles Avery Dunning: Last year our imports
were $53,500 from the United States and $5,400 from the United Kingdom. In the same year the exports were $14,700 to the United Kingdom and S109 to the United States.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-249.	Varnishes, lacquers,
japans, japan driers, liquid driers, and oil finish, n.o.p.: 15 cents per gallon, and 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-252.	Shoe blacking; shoemakers' ink; shoe, harness and leather dressing, and knife or other polish or composition, n.o.p.: 22i per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-256. Printing ink, 17i per cent.
Mark Cecil Senn: What are the figures under this item? This is an important item in Canada.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend understands that this is neither a reduction nor a change. It merely binds us not to increase the rate of duty during the currency of the agreement. The imports from the United States last year were $149,200. The exports are not separately recorded; apparently they are very small.


Mark Cecil Senn: What is the extent of the Canadian business?


Charles Avery Dunning: The last figure we have is for 1936. The production was S2,387,300.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is that the latest figure?


Charles Avery Dunning: It is the latest available.


John Ritchie MacNicol: It would be interesting to know what it was last year. I am sure that after the annual reduction of $400,000 worth of business in one magazine printing office as a result of the 1935 treaty the reduction in ink production must be appreciable.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend will be interested to note that Canadian production rose between 1935 and 1936.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Exactly, because under the Bennett tariff, magazines were being printed in Canada. It was not until the treaty was passed in 1936 that the reduction began.


Charles Avery Dunning: The hon. member forgets that the last agreement with the United States came into force on the first of January, 1936.


John Ritchie MacNicol: And the fiscal year ended March 31, 1936.


Charles Avery Dunning: That does not make any difference.


Mark Cecil Senn: There is what is known as the powdered ink industry. Is that included in this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: What my hon. friend refers to as powdered ink must be included in this, because it is described as inks, printing, mimeographing and lithographing. It must be merged in the quantities I gave.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-261. Turpentine, spirits of tree.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-272. Refined petroleum jellies and oils, tor toilet, medicinal, edible, or similar purposes: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-274. Petroleum coke: free. Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 281. Firebrick containing not less than ninety per cent of silica; magnesite firebrick or chrome firebrick; other firebrick valued at not less than one hundred dollars per one thousand, rectangular shaped, tile dimensions of each not to exceed one hundred and twenty-five cubic inches, but not including firebrick made substantially of silicon carbide and/or fused alumina, for use exclusively in the construction or repair of a furnace, kiln or other equipment of a manufacturing establishment: free.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-281a. Firebrick, n.o.p., of a class or kind not made in Canada, for use exclusively in the construction or repair of a furnace, kiln, or other equipment of a manufacturing establishment: 12J per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-281b. Firebrick, n.o.p.: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-282. Building brick and paving brick: 15 per cent.
Mr. GRAYDON:: What are the importations?


Charles Avery Dunning: Our imports of building brick from the United States last year totalled $20,900. Of paving brick, the figure was $17,000 last year.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That would be a special kind of brick?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, a special brick. I should mention by way of information that we also exported $20,900.

Canada-United States Trade Agreement


John Ritchie MacNicol: Of building brick?


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, of which $17,800
went to the United States.


Mr. LOCKHART:: I wonder if the minister would mind giving the production of firebrick in Canada? The item carried a moment ago.


Charles Avery Dunning: There are two firebrick items. The last production figures we have from the bureau of statistics are in every instance for 1936. The production figures are nearly always two years behind in our official publications. There are several items here-firebrick from domestic clays, of which we produced in that year $118,900; firebrick and stove linings from imported clays, $390,200; fire clay bricks and shapes from domestic clays, $65,200.


Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: Why should firebrick of a class or kind not made in Canada have a duty of 121 per cent while firebrick under item ex 281 is free?


Charles Avery Dunning: Neither of those items
is made in Canada.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-282a. Manufactures o-f clay or cement, n.o.p.: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-284. Drain pipes, sewer pipes and earthenware fittings therefor, chimney linings or vents, chimney tops and inverted blocks, glazed or unglazed, n.o.p.; earthenware tiles, n.o.p.: 30 per cent.
Mr. BARBER:: Would the minister give
the imports?


Charles Avery Dunning: Imports of tiles and
earthenware-that is part of the' item-from the United States, $15,500; 'and drain pipes and sewer pipes from the United States, $12,700. The United Kingdom in the one case ships us much more of that material than the United States.


Harry James Barber: Do we export any?


Charles Avery Dunning: They are not separately recorded. They are under a general classification-products of clay.


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: AVhat is the amount of imports of tile from the United Kingdom? It is quite a large amount, I believe.


Charles Avery Dunning: Last year, S68,800.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-288a. Chemical stoneware composed of a non-absorbent vitrified body specially compounded to resist acids or other corrosive reagents: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-288b. Hand forms of porcelain, when imported by manufacturers for use exclusively in the manufacture of rubber gloves in their own factories: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-289. Baths, bathtubs, basins, closets, lavatories, urinals, sinks and laundry tubs of earthenware, stone, cement, clay or other material, n.o.p.: 27i per cent.
Mr. CLARKE (Rosedale):: What amount of this item is imported?


Charles Avery Dunning: Imports last year from the United States, $65,800; from the United Kingdom; $86,100. Our total imports come from those two sources.


Mr. BROWN:: What is the rate of duty on those items going into the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: If they are uncoloured, 30 per cent, and if coloured or painted, 35 per cent.


Mark Cecil Senn: Is there any change in the United States rate?


Charles Avery Dunning: No.


Mr. McNIVEN:: The articles covered by
this item are required and used in the construction of houses, and the very high cost of them works against the success of the minister's housing scheme. For example, in a house built in Regina the unit cost was $102, and for a similar house built in St. Catharines the cost was $69.


Mark Cecil Senn: That is the freight.


Donald Alexander McNiven: Freight-it is a fright! These are essentials in the construction of small houses. The cost is very high in all parts of Canada, and there is a common and popular opinion that the manufacture of these commodities is a monopoly. They have a protection of 27i per cent. I would ask the minister to give serious consideration to further substantial reductions in this item when he brings down his budget, in order that the cost of house building may be brought more within the ability of the average man.


Charles Avery Dunning: The major source of supply of these articles outside of Canada is Great Britain. Under the agreement with Great Britain the rate is 15 per cent. What we are doing at present is reducing an aggregate rate of 38J per cent to 27i per cent, which is a fairly substantial reduction. However I shall be glad to bear in mind my hon. friend's remarks.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Should not the minister take the trouble to point out to the hon. member for Regina (Mr. McNiven) that the articles he was talking about are not covered
2100	COMMONS
Canada-United States Trade Agreement
by this item at all? Baths and plumbers' supplies ordinarily entering into the construction of small houses are not covered by this item. This is a special item not otherwise provided for- porcelain, etc., a high-class article not used in ordinary homes at all.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes, I should have
mentioned that this item does not cover the ordinary bathtub made of iron and coated with enamel. This is the earthenware article, not the one which is most frequently used in small homes.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff

296c. Magnesium carbonate, imported for use in the compounding or manufacture of rubber products: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-296d. Feldspar, ground but not further manufactured: 15 per cent.
Item agreed to.	.
Customs tariff-305.	Flagstone, sandstone
and all building stone, not hammered, sawn or chiselled, and marble and granite, rough, not hammered or chiselled: 12J per cent.
Item agreed to.
ihistoms tariff

306. Marble, sawn or sand rubbed, not polished; granite, sawn; paving blocks of stone; flagstone and building stone, other than marble or granite, sawn on not more than two sides: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-312 and 312a. Asbestos in any form other than crude, and all manufactures thereof, n.o.p.: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-315. Carbons or carbon electrodes over three inches in circumference or outside measurement and not exceeding 35 inches in circumference or outside measurement; carbons of a class or kind not produced in Canada, when imported for use in the manufacture of dry batteries and dry cells: free.
Item agreed to.
. Customs tariff-320. Plate glass, not bevelled, in sheets or panes not exceeding 7 square feet each, n.o.p.: 20 per cent.
Albert A. Brown: What is the rate of duty
on that item going into the United States, and what are the imports from the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Of plate glass in small
sheets-my hon. friend understands that there is a difference between the small sheets and the larger sheets entering both countries- we imported last year 8455,000 worth. The

rate of duty entering the United States is 12i cents per square foot up to 19J cents per square foot. It is dependent on the size.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-326.
(i)	Demijohns or carboys, bottles, flasks, phials, jars and balls, of glass, not cut, n.o.p.; lamp chimneys of glass, n.o.p.; decanters and machine-made tumblers of glass, not cut nor decorated, n.o.p.: 27J per cent.
(ii)	Opal glassware, glass tableware, cut glassware and illuminating glassware, n.o.p.: 25 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-326a. Manufactures of glass, n.o.p.: 17J per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-326e. Articles of glass, not plate or sheet, designed to be cut or mounted; articles of glassware when imported by manufacturers of silverware to be used in receptacles made of or electroplated w ith precious metals, in their own factories: free.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-326g. High thermal shock-resisting glassware: 15 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-345.	Zinc dust, strip and
sheets; zinc plates for marine boilers; sal ammoniac skimmings and seamless drawn tubing of zinc: free.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-346. Zinc, manufactures of, n.o.p.: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 346. Zinc slugs or discs, when imported by manufacturers of electric dry batteries for use in the manufacture or seamless cups or shells for such batteries, in their own factories: free.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-348c. Brass scrap and brass in blocks, ingots or pigs; copper in bars or rods, not less than 6 feet in length, unmanufactured, n.o.p.; copper in strips, sheets or plates, not polished, planished or coated; brass or copper tubing, in length not less than 6 feet, and not polished, bent or otherwise manufactured: 10 per cent.
Albert A. Brown: What is the duty on that
item going into the United States, and what were the imports from the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Our imports from the
United States of all these items combined amounted for the last fiscal year to $433,049. The rate entering the United States-it is differently described from ours-is 4 cents a

Canada-United States Trade Agreement
pound on the copper content plus the regular duty on some of the forms. On brass bars and sheets, it is 4 cents a pound on the copper content plus 4 cents a pound gross. The United States tariff set-up on this item is quite different from ours.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-350. Wire of all metals and kinds, n.o.p.: 30 per cent.
Albert A. Brown: Will the minister give the
same information as to this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: Imports of wire of all
metals and kinds, n.o.p., $211,449, from the United States. The United States duty depends on the kind of metal in the wire, but on their n.o.p. item which most nearly corresponds to this, the duty is 25 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-351. Wire, single or several, covered with any material, including cable so covered, n.o.p.: 274 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-352. Brass and copper nails, tack's, rivets and burrs or washers; bells and gongs, n.o.p.; and manufactures of brass or copper, n.o.p.: 25 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 352, ex 362c, ex 432d, ex 446a, ex 506. Metal parts in any degree of manufacture, coated or not, and wooden parts in the rough, when imported by manufacturers of spools, quills, pirns, bobbins and shuttles, for use in the manufacture of such articles, in their own factories: 10 per cent.
Charles Avery Dunning: It is all one item, Mr. Chairman.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 353. Aluminum and alloys thereof, crude or semi-fabricated, viz.: Pigs, ingots, blocks, notch bars, slabs, billets, and blooms; bars, rods and wires; angles, channels, beams, tees and other rolled or drawn sections and shapes; pipes and tubes; plates, sheets and strips, including circles: 274 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-354. Manufactures of aluminum, n.o.p.: 274 per cent.
Albert A. Brown: Could I have information with respect to the duty and the imports?


Charles Avery Dunning: Of aluminum manufactures n.o.p., we imported $748,000 worth from the United States last year. We exported $67,000 worth to the United States. The United States tariff, where an article is wholly or in chief value of aluminum is 45 per cent.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-354a. Kitchen or household hollow-ware of aluminum, n.o.p.: 274 Per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-357. Britannia metal, nickel silver, Nevada and German silver, manufactures of, not plated, n.o.p.: 25 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs	tariff-362.	Articles consisting
wholly or in part of sterling or other silverware, n.o.p.: manufactures of gold or silver, n.o.p.: 32j per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-362a. Metal parts, electroplated, for loose-leaf binders: 25 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-362c.	Nickel-plated ware,
gilt or electro-plated ware, n.o.p.: 30 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-367. Watch cases, and parts thereof, finished or unfinished: 324 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-368. Clocks, time recorders, clock movements, clockwork mechanisms, and clock cases: 30 per cent, but not less than each, 40 cents.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-369. Parts of clock movements or of clockwork mechanisms, finished or unfinished, not including plates: 25 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-375. Ferro-alloys:
(f) all alloys used in the manufacture of iron or steel, n.o.p.: 5 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-377a. Blooms, cogged ingots, slabs, billets, n.o.p., sheet bars, of iron or steel, by whatever process made, n.o.p.: $4 per ton.
Albert A. Brown: I should like information from the minister as to the rate of duty into the United States and the value of imports.


Charles Avery Dunning: Last year imports from the United States were valued at $362,000. Our exports were mainly to the United Kingdom, and were valued at nearly $3,482,000. Only an infinitesimal quantity went to the United States. The United States rate of duty is in fact a variety of rates, mostly specific, on steel billets, according to the value thereof. These rates range from a quarter of a cent per pound on billets valued at not over 14 cents per pound to 20 per cent on billets valued at over 16 cents per pound. It is difficult to compare each specific item.
2102	COMMONS
Canada-United, States Trade Agreement


Albert A. Brown: It works out so that there is a higher rate.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-377f. Bars or rods, of iron or steel, hot rolled, viz.: Rounds over 4J inches in diameter and squares over 4 inches: $6 per ton.
Albert A. Brown: Would the minister give the same information with respect to that item?


Charles Avery Dunning: Our imports from the United States were valued at S13.600. The United States tariff would be the same as on the previous item, because it merges with that item in the United States tariff.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-378. Bars and rods, of or steel; billets, of iron or steel, weighing than CO pounds per lineal yard:
iron
less
(a)	Not further processed than hot rolled, n.o.p.: $7 per ton.	'
(c)	Cold rolled, drawn, reeled, turned or ground, n.o.p.: 20 per cent.
(d)	Hot rolled, valued at not less than 4 cents per pound, n.o.p.: 121 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-380. Plates of iron or steel, hot or cold rolled:
(a)	Not more than 06 inches in width, n.o p : $8 per ton.
(b)	More than 60 inches in width, n.o.p.: $6 per ton.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-381. Sheets, of iron or steel, hot or cold rolled:
(a)	-0S0 inch or less in thickness, n.o p * 20
per cent.	'	^
(b)	More than -080 inch in thickness, n.o.p.:
tfo per ton.	1
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-382. Hoop, band or strip, of iron or steel:
(a)	Hot rolled, -080 inch or less in thickness, n.o.p.: 12^ per cent.
(b)	Hot rolled, more than -080 inch in thickness, n.o.p.: $7 per ton.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-383. Sheets, plates, hoop, band or strip, of iron or steel:
(a)	Coated with tin, of a class or kind not made ill Canada, n.o.p.: 15 per cent.
(b) Coated with tin, n.o.p.: 171 per cent.
(c) Coated with zinc, n.o.p.: 17} per cent.
(d)	Coated with metal or metals, n.o.p.: 10 per cent.
Item agreed to.
manufacture of pipes and tubes, in their own factories, under regulations prescribed by the minister:
(a)	Not more than 14 inches in width: 5 per cent.
(b)	More than 14 inches in width: 5 per cent. Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-385a. Sheets, plates, hoop, band or strip, of rust, acid or heat resisting steels, hot or cold rolled, polished or not, valued at not less than 5 cents per pound: 17J per cent.
' Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-386; ex 442. Sheets, plates, hoop, band or strip, of iron or steel, as hereunder defined, under regulations prescribed by the minister:
(e)	Sheets, plates, hoop, band or strip, hot roiled, being mould boards, shares, cultivator or shoe shapes, plough plates, land sides or disc circles, when such rectangles, circles or sketches are cut to shape but not moulded, punched, polished or otherwise manufactured, when imported by manufacturers of agricultural implements for use exclusively in the manufacture of agricultural implements, in their own factories: Free.
(m) (ii) Sheets, hoop, band or strip, of .iron or steel, hot rolled, when imported by manufacturers for use exclusively in the manufacture of sheets, hoop, band or strip, coated with zinc or other metal or metals, not including tin, in their own factories: 17} per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-388. Iron or steel angles, beams, channels, columns, girders, joists, tees, zees and other shapes or sections, not punched, drilled or further manufactured than hot rolled, weighing not less than 35 pounds per lineal yard, n.o.p.; piling of iron or steel, not punched or drilled, weighing not less than 35 pounds per lineal yard, including interlocking sections, if any, used therewith, n.o.p.: $3 per ton.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-388b. Iron or steel angles, beams, channels, columns, girders, joists, tees, zees and other shapes or sections, not punched, drilled or further manufactured than hot rolled, n.o.p.; piling of iron or steel, not punched or drilled, including interlocking sections, if any, used therewith, n.o.p.: $7 per ton.
John Ritchie MacNicol: There is not very much
in the iron and steel items on which the minister can be congratulated, but I do think I can congratulate him upon not having this item changed.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-384. Skelp of iron or steel, hot rolled, when imported by manufacturers of pipes and tubes for use exclusively in the 
Customs tariff-390. Castings, of iron, malleable, n.o.p.: 22} per cent.
Item agreed to.

Canada-United States Trade Agreement
Customs tariff-390a. Castings, of iron, nonmalleable, n.o.p.: 22J per cent.
Mr. LENNARD:: I should like to have
information with respect to imports from the United States on items 390, 390a and 390b.


Charles Avery Dunning: On item 390 imports
from the United States last year were valued at S158,000, and exports to the United States were valued at $123,000. The United States tariff rates are 10 per cent. On item 390a imports from the United States are valued at S219.400, and the exports are part of the figures I have already given in connection with item 390. The United States tariff rate is 10 per cent. With respect to item 390b, imports from the United States last year were valued at S142,600, and the exports are included in the total I have previously mentioned. The United States duty is 45 per cent, if annealed. Otherwise they vary, according to the content of the alloy.


Mark Cecil Senn: There is a reduction in these
three items from the rate prior to 1934, and the one effective under the 1935 agreement. Has the minister figures to show where there has been any increase in importations, owing to the reduction under the 1935 agreement?


Charles Avery Dunning: I am sorry that in connection with these items I have not figures farther back than 1937. If the hon. member is interested, however, I shall be glad to supply him with the figures, apart altogether from the deliberations of the committee.


Mark Cecil Senn: I imagine these are largely
used in connection with the manufacture of farm implements.


Charles Avery Dunning: No; automobiles, principally.


Mark Cecil Senn: In any case there is no doubt that there must have been an increase in the importations?


Charles Avery Dunning: I should say very likely, yes. But farm implements are under separate items.


Mr. HARRIS:: In connection with these
particular items, as the minister probably knows, there was a very substantial decrease in the importations following the 1930 emergency tariff, put through by a previous administration. In line with the suggestion made this afternoon by the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George (Mr. Cahan) I have drawn up a schedule showing the effect on individual items since 1930, and coming right down to date-to January 1, 1939. I reiterate what I said on a previous occasion
in regard to this point, which was referred to in the question asked this afternoon by the hon. member for St. Lawrence-St. George. Apart from the fact that it has not been done in the past, I feel that in connection with a very important measure such as this -and I am sticking to items 390, 390a and 390b-we should have more information than we have.
The minister and the committee know that when we are dealing with commodities as outlined in table 1 of schedule II we have at hand at once the dollar value effected by a particular item. And on the Canadian side of the picture the same applies with respect to table 2 of schedule I. Hon. members do not know, prior to the consideration of an item-unless they carry out a good deal of research-the particulars with respect to it. It is quite a task to get that information, and requires considerable time. The minister has the benefit of it. We should have it. Those of us who delve through the records to find the information encounter all sorts of difficulties. If we had the information we could give proper and adequate consideration to the items before the committee.
It took six clerks about four weeks in my office to do this work. Now that I have it I find I have not got it in the same sequence as has the Minister of Finance. However I have an idea from which I can make general observations. The statistics which the very efficient commissioners of ours dealt with when they were in Washington were United States statistics and are for the calendar year. They had to bring them into relation with our statistics which are for the fiscal year ending March 31. I have no doubt they had great difficulty, and it is almost impossible for us to give the consideration we would like to give to these items with the meagre information that is provided.
These particular items cover castings of iron, malleable n.o.p.; castings of iron, nonmalleable, n.o.p., and castings, of steel, n.o.p. When we deal with these items we enter another phase of Canadian economy which I emphasized some two years ago, again last year and again this year. There should be some correlation between those charged with negotiating trade treaties, on the one hand, and those charged with the responsibility of expanding employment for our people, on the other. If you take item 390, castings, of iron, malleable, n.o.p., and then the Purvis report and trace that one item through from 1930, as is done in this statement of employment conditions in Canadian industry,
2104	COMMONS
Canada-United, States Trade Agreement
you will find that in the iron and steel industry there are 45,700 workers without employment.


Charles Avery Dunning: In the malleable group?


Joseph Henry Harris: I said the iron and steel group.


Charles Avery Dunning: The whole thing?


Joseph Henry Harris: It is not analysed as the malleable group. That is a great handicap in dealing with this matter. It is impossible from the records to trace how many fewer employees are working to-day because of these reductions. That cannot be done even from this rather large report on employment conditions. I think the minister will bear with me if I use the total figure.


Charles Avery Dunning: Oh, yes.


Joseph Henry Harris: If the minister is desirous of having questions put in connection with every item, he knows we will not reach the last page before dominion day. Perhaps we may be permitted to make our remarks a little more general. Perhaps you, Mr. Chairman, in your breadth of vision and thoughtful conduct of affairs in this committee, will allow us a little more latitude. There was a total import of 16,000 hundredweight of malleable castings into this country in 1936, and there has been a substantial increase since that time. We find that the total duty paid on castings and other items in that particular schedule prior to the passing of this trade treaty, that is all items over $25,000, amounts to $368,649. We now find that under the trade treaty which came into effect on January 1 our United States brethren will be able to ship the same quantities of these items upon the payment of a total duty of $283,838. They will have to pay SS4,811 less to get their goods into this country. Those who were previously employed in the production of iron castings or malleable steel products will not feel very happy about that situation.
I should like to make one general observation on the entire group. We are being asked to consider items 390, 390a and 390b. The reductions in duties amount to $3,964 on one item, $3,484 on the next and $3,564 on the next. When we apply this argument to the entire iron and steel schedule we find that in all items over $25,000 a total duty was paid last year of S7,835,075. After January 1 the same items could have entered upon the payment of $2,727,978 less in duties. I am not taking into consideration the excise tax which would make a still further substantial reduction.
I think we might say that the United States is over-industrialized as far as the production

of malleable, non-malleable and steel castings is concerned. Anyone who has had the privilege of going through the plants in the Pittsburgh area will realize this. Anyone who has high hopes of the city of Hamilton becoming the Pittsburgh of Canada will feel badly about this particular situation. I should like to make this observation. The entire concession in export schedules does not balance what has happened in concessions given in iron and steel imports alone.


Mr. KINLEY:: Is the hon. member taking account of the free items?


Joseph Henry Harris: The concessions granted by the United States by this trade treaty in connection with iron and steel products which might flow from Canada to the United States amount to only $13,696 on items over $25,000. That is the actual dollar value of the concessions they have given us in the iron and steel group. All the concessions granted in connection with goods entering the United States have a difference in the dollar value payable of $2,411,742. The concessions given by Canada in connection with iron and steel alone have a dollar value of $2,727,978 less duty to pay, apart entirely from the excise tax. I ask hon. members to carry this picture in their minds along with the picture given in the report on employment conditions in Canadian industry. We must remember that ever since 1927, 1928, 1929 and 1930 our friends in the United States have found themselves over-industrialized, especially in the iron and steel industry. It must be patent on the face of it that any action taken that will bring more of such products into this country will automatically-I do not like to use the word "paralyze"-still further handicap those of our citizens who are employed in the iron and steel industry. It is difficult for moulders of castings, such as are covered by item 390, when they reach the age of forty or fifty, to readjust themselves and enter some agricultural pursuit. They have probably started in as apprentices in the foundry at the age of fourteen or fifteen, and it is very hard for them to find themselves out of employment in middle life. They are a type of citizen who have their modest homes established near the centres of industry and probably pretty well paid for, and it is difficult for them to pick up and go into some other vocation or pursuit.
So I say that with this information in hand there should be more correlation between the activities in connection with this treaty and those of the Minister of Labour, who is charged with the responsibility of trying to find work for these 45,000 people. He should

Canada-United States Trade Agreement
have made strong representations that the people engaged in the iron and steel industry-should not be further handicapped by throwing open our markets by these tariff reductions -small reductions, I will admit, but nevertheless reductions which affect the very labour group which is suffering the most. I say that you want a strong Minister of Labour to administer that department, and I mean every word I say. The men in the industry affected by item 390 would gladly come to Ottawa and sit around a table with the Minister of Labour and with representatives of the Minister of Finance with a view to finding ways and means of expanding work in that particular industry so as to take up the slack.
I do not want to belabour the Minister of Finance; I do not want to worry him in any way whatsoever, and I hope he will not get up to reply to me. I do not feel that he should be charged with the responsibility of putting this treaty through the house in his present state of health. In fact, I stayed away from this treaty for a day or two to restrain myself, just because of the high regard I have for the Minister of Finance. But at the same time I have a duty to discharge, and when I say that the reduction made in items like 390, which is a representative item, will further restrict the possibility of the expansion of employment in the very group that is suffering the most, I say it most sincerely and with knowledge of what I am talking about.
I reiterate what I said in my opening remarks, that this committee is not supplied with the information necessary to enable it to deal intelligently with the items that we are asked to consider. Following the collapse of 1930, we had got back by 1935 some real activity in this line of business, but the action now taken in connection with this particular group of items is just enough to cripple a growing industry in such centres as Hamilton, Belleville and Toronto, and in the outskirts of Vancouver. Anyone in business knows that it takes so very little to switch an order for castings from one firm to another. They have codes and they try to adhere to fixed prices, as is done in other sections of the iron and steel group; although I must say at once to the credit of the Steel Company of Canada and our steel industry generally that they have kept their level of prices in Hamilton, for instance, lower than the level which obtains in Buffalo. They have not, in other words, taken full advantage of the tariff protection they have, with the net result that the minister could put his hand on any one of those seven hundred odd files which he was speaking of
with reference to this particular commodity and no doubt find a reference there from some of the larger steel industries to the effect that this trade treaty is not doing them very much harm because they played fair with the Canadian people and kept their price lower than the price which obtains in Buffalo. But now that you have narrowed that spread, you have got them closer to the Buffalo price, and so far as iron and steel products in the big sheets, rolls and bars are concerned, the industry is going to find it more difficult sledding. When you get down to castings such as are covered by item 390, you get down to the smaller industries, foundries and the like, all of which will find the orders they have been accustomed to receiving being bid on by other concerns, and the price cut finer. The net result will be that instead of an expansion of employment in this group where conditions are very serious we are likely to find a retraction of employment.
I will close this phase of my remarks by saying again that the schedules which have been most seriously disturbed are the very ones which affect the group in which we have the most serious situation in Canada as regards unemployment.
The other observation I shall make is this. It is far better, Mr. Chairman, to have a Canadian citizen working in the foundries of Canada or in the iron and steel industry of this country than for hon. members to sit around this house and discuss ways .and means of providing unemployment relief for those unfortunate Canadians who find themselves out of work.


Charles Avery Dunning: Dealing with one or two points raised by the hon. member for Dan-forth (Mr. Harris), I think he is under one misapprehension. These items have never been subject to any change in duty since my budget of May, 1930. The previous government made no change at any time in these duties. Any change in the inflow of imports or in home production cannot have been brought about by tariff changes, because there have been none in the intervening years.


Joseph Henry Harris: If I may interrupt the minister just at that point, he will have observed that I made no reference to the inflow since 1930 in these three particular items. I will give the figures of imports. In 1930 the dollar value was $189,743; for the year 1938, in the case of item 390, the figures are practically the same, namely $158,537. I use these three items as an illustration. The minister says there is no change in the rate of duty. As he knows, in 1930 it was 27J per cent, and it was 25 per cent
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in the tariff prior to January 1, 1939. Now, as I understand it, it is 22& per cent. I make the observation again that the drop of 27i per cent to 22J per cent, in common with these others, and the excise tax, and the overindustrialization of the United States, restrict the possibility of expansion in this very necessary industry.


Charles Avery Dunning: In any case I understood my hon. friend to say that there had been a duty change. However, that is not particularly relevant. What I did wish to say on the question of employment in this industry is that it should be noted that our exports of commodities covered by item 390 exceed our total imports. From the employment standpoint no very great injury is done to the industry when one contrasts imports with sxports. I would also point out that in this whole group of items our home production, according to the latest figures I have available, is about 120,000,000, and the total imports are about $500,000. That would not appear to indicate that Canadian employment is suffering at all severely, particularly when, as I mentioned, there is an export feature in connection with it.
I have gone with some care into iron and steel because it is an old friend of mine. I had to put through in 1930 the revision of the iron and steel schedule; and, while my friends behind me will not take it as much of a compliment, the succeeding government made less changes in that schedule than they did in any other. The reason was, I think, that there is such an inter-relationship from the primary products to the highly finished consumer's article in the iron and steel schedule that it is rather difficult to start anywhere without whatever action you take having an effect all up and down the line. In other words, unless you are prepared to revise the whole schedule with very great care, the iron and steel schedule is a difficult one to touch at merely one or two places.
That is about all I can say. It is true, as my hon. friend has stated, that the iron and steel industry has not indicated to me that they regard themselves as seriously affected by the new treaty. That is undoubtedly due, in part at least, to the fact that the Canadian iron and steel industry have not, generally speaking, taken advantage in their price structure of the tariff protection they have enjoyed. It is rather hard to make a generalization of that kind exactly accurate. It might not apply and in fact does not apply on some items, but I think it is generally true; and it is for that reason, possibly, that they do not regard themselves as seriously affected.


Joseph Henry Harris: With regard to the question whether they consider themselves seriously affected, the minister will agree with me that as regards the major industry that is quite true. But the minor industries which depend on the large iron and steel industries for their raw material, for instance, those which have to buy their rods and plates and so on for further manufacture, are a group which in my opinion could absorb a great deal more Canadian employment than they do to-day if this had not been changed.


John James Kinley: With regard to 390 and
390a, it will be noted that while the rate of duty against United States imports is 22J per cent, the British preferential rate is 15 per cent. That is the way it should be; I am not complaining about our giving a prefernce to Great Britain; but that is the protection standard because the British are efficient in the manufacture and exportation of iron castings and if there is any danger of Canadian workmen being put out of jobs, it would not come primarily through the agreement which we are now discussing, but through the preferential tariff.


Charles Avery Dunning: The United Kingdom
has not been successful, even with that low tariff, in shipping us any considerable quantity. It was only $1,800 worth last year under the first item, $3,600 under the next, and $2,400 under the third. The product is too low in price to stand the expenses of transport, even with the 15 per cent duty.


John James Kinley: The necessity of making a pattern controls the situation to a great degree; and there are usually heavy transportation charges.


Albert A. Brown: I was going to make this
observation later on, but it may be appropriate to do so here. Some of the factories which have their parent bodies in the United States take advantage of this tariff in some cases when the duty is reduced to ten per cent on goods which are not made in Canada. These factories have stopped making their goods in Canada and are now making them in the United States, shipping them over under the ten per cent clause applicable to goods not made in Canada.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am afraid I cannot
get the application to this item of the remarks of my hon. friend.


Albert A. Brown: I am bringing that forward in connection with say, general machinery. *

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Charles Avery Dunning: When we come to the
machinery item my hon. friend will have an opportunity of discussing that.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-390c. Piston ring castings of steel, in the rough as from the moulds: free.
Frank Exton Lennard: I note that the duty has been cut from 25 per cent to free. Do we not manufacture steel piston rings in Canada; and if so, why the change?


Charles Avery Dunning: They are not cast in Canada, but rough castings are finished in this country.


Frank Exton Lennard: There are none east in Canada?


Charles Avery Dunning: No. We are of opinion that the free entry of the rough castings should aid Canadian manufacturers of piston rings to meet the competition of rings imported in a finished condition. Finished rings for tractors are now imported free of duty as tractor parts. The idea of this item is the possible finishing in Canada of the work on the rough castings.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-ex 392. Forged golf club heads of iron or steel, with or without face or similar marking, but not ground, polished, plated or otherwise finished: 10 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-392a. Forgings of iron or steel, in any degree of manufacture, hollow, machined or not, not less than 12 inches in internal diameter; and all other forgings, solid or otherwise, in any degree of manufacture, of a weight of 20 tons or over: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-393. Tires, of steel, in the rough, not drilled or machined in any manner, for railway vehicles, including locomotives and tenders: 7i per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-394. Axles and axle bars, n.o.p., and axle blanks, and parts thereof, of iron or steel:
(a)	For railway vehicles, including locomotives and tenders: 25 per cent.
(b)	For other vehicles, n.o.p.: 30 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-397. Pipes and tubes, of wrought iron or steel, plain or coated:
(a) Welded or seamless, with plain or processed ends, not more than 10J inches in diameter, n.o.p.: 25 per cent.
(d) N.o.p.: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-400. Fittings and couplings of iron or steel, of every description, for iron or steel pipes and tubes; complete parts thereof: 25 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-401. ex (b) Wire, of rust or acid resisting steel, twisted or stranded, for use exclusively in commercial fishing operations: 10 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-402a. Woven or welded wire fencing, of iron or steel, coated or not, n.o.p., wire cloth or wire netting, of iron or steel, coated or not: 30 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-402b. Woven netting, of iron or steel, coated, made from wire of 17 gauge or heavier, with meshes not smaller than one inch and not larger than two inches, with specially strengthened joints, when for use exclusively on fur farms, under regulations prescribed by the minister: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-407a. Chains, of iron or steel, n.o.p., and complete parts thereof: 30 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-408. Malleable sprocket chain and link belting chain of iron or steel, including roller chain of all kinds for operating on steel sprockets or gears, when imported by manufacturers of agricultural implements for use exclusively in the manufacture of agricultural implements, in their own 'factories, under regulations prescribed by the minister: 5 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409. Cream separators and complete parts therefor, including steel bowls: 12J per cent.
Mr. THORSON:: In the first place, on
behalf of the dairy farmers of Canada I should like to thank the administration very much indeed for the reduction in duty on cream separators which has been made. It has had an immediate beneficial effect in the reductions in price which have taken place. Certain importers of cream separators put price reductions into effect immediately at the beginning of this year. Many were hoping, however, that cream separators would be put on the free list. They were on the free list in 1930 before the previous administration came into office. The record on cream separators is a rather interesting one. In 1932, as hon. members will recall, the tariff was raised to 25 per cent, and in the Ottawa agreement it was specified that this margin of preference should be fixed during the life of the agreement. When the agreement came to be revised, in 1937 I think it was, this fixed margin of preference was eliminated.
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It thea became possible for the first time to make reductions in the tariff on cream separators. The question was studied by a special committee of this house on agricultural implements, which brought in a unanimous report to the effect that cream separators should be on the free list.


Mark Cecil Senn: Oh no.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Yes.


Mark Cecil Senn: No.


Charles Avery Dunning: He is questioning the
unanimity of the report.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: There was no dissent
from the report; the matter was discussed during the session of last year, when an extensive debate on the subject took place. Those of us who are in favour of reduction in the tariff on cream separators-


John Ritchie MacNicol: Are against employment in this country.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: -regret that they have not been put on the free list, and that greater progress has not been made towards the implementing of this recommendation of the special committee on farm implements. It is our hope however, that in the budget the government will go the whole way and place cream separators on the free list where they belong.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I had not intended saying anything on this item, merely because I know the uselessness of discussing it. Now it has been brought up by a western member I will say a word or two. I had hoped that no western member would say anything about this or the following items, for the reason that the two eastern provinces are bled white now assisting relief measures in the west. We are gladly doing it and are trying in every way we can to help the west, but we should like to see some encouragement given by western members to the promotion of some employment in eastern Canada. Every time any member from the western group attacks industry in this country he is attacking employment and to that extent doing something to put more men out of work, and I wish to protest as vigorously as I can against this continuous onslaught of western members upon workers in eastern Canada.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The west has paid tribute to the east long enough.


John Ritchie MacNicol: And eastern Canada has been bled long enough. I wish to say something now about cream separators. The Bennett government did put a duty on cream

separators and this at once stopped the importation to a large extent, because by the time that government went out the number of cream separators imported had been reduced to 12,148, for the fiscal year ending in 1935; whereas, for the fiscal year ending in 1937, as a result of the 1935 tariff, importations had risen to 20,394.


Charles Avery Dunning: Is that numbers or
dollars? It cannot be dollars?


John Ritchie MacNicol: Not dollars; I said cream separators. In other words, there had been an increase in importations of roughly 8,000 between 1935 and 1937. The effect has been to put many men out of work.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: The whole tariff was on during that period.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Yes; that is what it was put on for, to give employment. The tariff had been put on by the Bennett government to provide employment.


Mr. ROSS (Moose Jaw):: And was still on until the first of January.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Yes, and I hope it stays on. Surely, with the return to prosperity, which hon. gentlemen have so often talked about-and we admit that for the first two years of their administration that was true to some extent-there should have been an increase in purchases. But now watch what will happen. The tariff on cream separators is being reduced and it cannot help affecting employment in this industry. Take the index issued by the department itself. On January 31, 1938, the index of employment in the agricultural implement industry was 75-2-I presume they mean as of 1926-and in January of this year it was 59-6. How in the name of common sense are the people in the east going to be able to put up money to rehabilitate the west unless they have an opportunity to make a dollar?


Miss MACPHAIL:: You use separators in the east too.


John Ritchie MacNicol: This country will be destroyed if every industry is crucified by this continuous onslaught by western members against employment in the east.


Mr. FAIR:: I support the contention of the hon. member for Selkirk, and gusts of wind such as we have listened to should be ignored in the house.


John Ritchie MacNicol: On a point of order, I want the hon. gentleman to withdraw that word "wind." I have spoken from experience.

Canada-United States Trade Agreement
I have had a lot to do with labour. If the hon. member had employed a fraction of the people that I have he might talk.


An hon. MEMBER:: Withdraw the word "wind" and leave the "gusts."


John Ritchie MacNicol: We are fed up with the constant attack from the west.


Robert Fair: In answer to statements like those which the hon. gentleman has just made, I would ask where the markets for eastern products are?


John Ritchie MacNicol: Mostly in Ontario and Quebec.


Robert Fair: Not many days ago I gave some figures, but because at that time I had not sufficient opportunity to make a full presentation of them I shall take occasion at the proper time to return to those figures. I shall be able to show the hon. gentleman then that without the west the east would go begging as the west has done for a number of years by reason of the tariff and other things.


Charles Avery Dunning: On a point of order, now that we have had two well balanced presentations, would it not be fair to suggest that we confine ourselves to cream separators?


The CHAIRMAN:: The minister's point of order is well taken. I would ask all hon. members to confine themselves to the item, which is cream separators.


Robert Fair: I do not think that I strayed very far from the item, but perhaps it does not suit some hon. members to hear these things. The question of cream separators in the west is a vital one, and in the near future it may become of still greater importance to that part of the country, because if we are put out of business in one line we shall have to go into another, and the two central provinces, about which we hear so much, will have a chance to taste some of the conditions we in the west are up against. About two months ago the price of butter fat in the west was down to 16 cents a pound. I wonder what it was in Ontario at that time. I know it was not anywhere near that. The hon. member for Selkirk put up a very strong case for the free importation of cream separators!, and I have to support him in that plea. To some hon.-members who are supposed to be greatly interested in labour conditions, who make statements such as they made here today, I would suggest that:
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:


Mark Cecil Senn: I would like first to congratulate the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Thorson) upon the influence which he has had with his party in having this duty removed. At the same time I must contradict some of the statements which he made. For instance he stated that the report brought down by the committee a year ago, asking for the complete removal of the duty on agricultural implements, was unanimous.


Mr. McINTOSH:: On cream separators.


Mark Cecil Senn: Cream separators. I say
to him as a member of that committee that I at no time agreed with that suggestion; I voiced my objection while the committee was sitting and while the report was being drafted, and later voiced these same objections in the house. And not only myself but a number of other hon. members did the same, some of whom were sitting on the government benches at the time.
He has stated that this small reduction in duty has been instrumental in bringing down the price of cream separators. I agree with that statement. However I am afraid that the reduction may not be permanent. When the duty on agricultural implements was reduced it had the immediate effect of raising the prices to the farmer.


Charles Avery Dunning: That will be the next
item.


Mark Cecil Senn: I am just using that as an
illustration. My hon. friend made the statement that the importers immediately reduced the price when the reduction in duty became effective. I imagine there was some method in their madness in that respect. I am afraid that if this particular manufacturing industry is driven out of Canada and the dairymen of this country are left in the hands of foreign manufacturers, we may see a very different picture in the near future. It has happened in many instances before, and I am afraid it will happen again. If we are left at the mercy of foreign manufacturers we shall find ourselves in the same position as we have been in regarding agricultural implements. Being a farmer I am of course interested in the price of cream separators, but there is another consideration which with me outweighs the price I have to pay for a cream separator which I may buy perhaps every fifteen or twenty years. There is a home market created by the men employed in this and like industries, which home market I believe is the greatest asset of the Ontario and eastern farmer. Every time we drive an industry out of business by removing the protection it enjoyed, we not only
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injure that particular business and deprive men of employment but we are thereby injuring our home market, which is the most important market the farmer has.


Harry Gladstone Clarke: What is the
duty on cream separators and their parts entering the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Up to $50 in value,
free; beyond $50 in value, 25 per cent.
Perhaps I might be permitted a word on the employment situation in this connection, to point out that at what appeared to be our maximum year of Canadian production, under the duty of 25 per cent which prevailed up to January 1 last, our maximum production appears to have involved about $791,000 worth of cream separators. I merely give that information in order that we may see matters in their proper perspective. True it is that to an individual who loses his job that is very important to him, but the relationship of a total value of production of $791,000 under the higher tariff conditions which prevailed does not make it appear that cream separators are a tremendously important factor in employment.


Agnes Campbell Macphail: I am sorry to say that on this occasion I am going to have to part company with the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNieol). I hear a great deal in this house about passing the benefits of protection on to the Canadian working man. If that were done I think we should be willing to pay with a great deal more grace than we do the higher prices caused by the tariff-I am speaking agriculturally. But I do not believe that the tariff protection is passed on to the working men of Canada. By far the greater part is kept by the manufacturer. I know the Conservatives do not agree with me.


Harry Gladstone Clarke: We certainly do not.


Agnes Campbell Macphail: And some Liberals too, perhaps. But I think there is a good deal of proof of what I say, although I am not giving it at the moment.
With butter prices what they are-they are extremely low; all people handling butter are taking very severe losses this winter-farmers will certainly welcome any lowering in the tariff on cream separators. This is not a matter which affects only western Canada, because the farmers in Ontario and Quebec, and I suppose in the maritimes also, use cream separators, and it matters a great deal to them what the price of the separator is.
Of course it seems to me that this whole discussion of items of a treaty which is already the law is really futile. If the presentation [Miss Macphail 1
were made before the treaty was written there would be at least some excuse for making it, but there seems not to be much now. We might just as well OH. it at once, because it is all passed and has become law; we are just talking about it. But I simply wanted to say that the farmers in Ontario need any reduction in price of cream separators that they can get. The present prices of butter do not enable farmers to pay out much money. They have very little purchasing power to buy cream separators or anything else from present butter prices. Therefore I approve the lowering of the tariff; I believe it should result in lowering the price to the farmer. If it does not, there must be some combine or artificial grouping which prevents it.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409b. Cultivators, harrows, seed drills, horse rakes, horse shoes, seufflers, manure spreaders, garden seeders, weeders, and complete parts of all the foregoing: 71 per cent.
Thomas Alfred Thompson: What are the imports from the United States under this item? On several of the following items, all practically connected with farm machinery, there is no change from the trade agreement that came into force on January 1, 1936. But farm implements were reduced in 1936 from 25 per cent to 7i per cent, and immediately that reduction was made, the price of farm machinery increased very materially. There was $30 more on a binder, and similarly with other farm machinery. Not only did we have to pay more for our farm machinery, but, as the hon. member for Davenport (Mr. MacNieol) has said, we lost a great deal of employment in Canada through our manufacturers having to lay off their men. And the imports from the United States have increased. I am very sorry indeed, because in my own riding I have a very large farm implement manufacturing company, the Frost and Wood people of Smiths Falls, and they are vitally affected by this lowering of the tariff; also the farmers of Canada were adversely affected by an increase in the price of their machinery. May we deal with these items one by one? If so, I should like the minister to deal first with item 409b.


Charles Avery Dunning: Under item 409b the
total imports from the United States were valued at $640,000, and of the same items we exported from Canada about $1,200,000 worth. It may be interesting to note that of these items we exported very considerably from Canada to the United States.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: What was the United States rate?

Canada-United States Trade Agreement


Charles Avery Dunning: Free. Of these items we exported about $300,000 worth to the United States.


Mark Cecil Senn: I understand the reason these items are put in this schedule is that they are bound now for the period of the agreement; is that correct?


Charles Avery Dunning: Bound against increase.


Mark Cecil Senn: But not against reduction?


Charles Avery Dunning: That is correct.


Mark Cecil Senn: I noticed one or two items in connection with which already there has been a reduction. I believe they appear farther down on the list.


Charles Avery Dunning: Yes.


Mark Cecil Senn: However, the minister has just said we have exported a certain amount of goods included in this particular item.


Charles Avery Dunning: Twice as much as we imported.


Mark Cecil Senn: Yes, but it may be fairly well understood that a good deal of the exports, perhaps not of this particular item, but of agricultural implements which go out of Canada, go to' foreign countries and not to the United States. Meantime, since the 1935 treaty has been in effect we have increased to a very great extent our imports from the United States on all lines of agricultural implements.
For instance, in 1935 before the former treaty came into effect, we imported about $5,000,000 worth of agricultural implements of all kinds. Immediately the treaty went into effect in 1936 we imported $8,000,000 worth-in fact, nearly $9,000,000 worth. In 1937 we imported $16,000,000 worth and in 1938, $19,000,000 worth. My contention is that if a larger amount of these goods had been manufactured in Canada we certainly would have had increased employment. It is true that during those years our employment figures have increased somewhat in Canada- that is, of the men who were employed in the manufacturing of agricultural implements. But it is also true that in the last three or four years the farmers got to the position where they had to have agricultural implements, and had to buy. Through a great many years they were unable to buy, and their implements were largely worn out. In 1937 and 1938 they were compelled to buy agricultural implements. But it must be noted as well that they have been buying them at higher prices than formerly, because immediately the treaty of 1935 came into 71492-133
effect there was a rise in the price of agricultural implements. That price has been continued right up to the present time.
Had I the time I should have liked to give some of the figures showing increases in prices of agricultural implements. I have taken figures with respect to representative implements, and have secured information with respect to the prices of those implements in 1930, 1935 and 1939. I have found that in 1930 the price of a thirty-tooth rake, with tongue and yoke, was $61; in 1935 the price was down to $58 and in 1939 the list price is $64. I have a whole list of prices of implements with which I could show that immediately after the tariff was put on in 1930 prices were reduced, and that when it was taken off in 1936 they increased. I have figures before me with respect to a four-horse double disc drill. In October 1930 the price was $256; in 1935, it was down to $246, a reduction of $10; despite the fact that the tariff had been raised to 25 per cent. But when the tariff was again reduced to 7i per cent the price went up again to $263, or an increase of nearly $20.	.
It seems to me these figures prove conclusively that these reductions in duties have not been of any advantage to the farmer in Canada, that if we had been still manufacturing these articles under the 25 per cent duty the farmers of Canada would not be paying the prices they are now paying, and we would not be importing a large amount of these goods and thereby putting our own people out of employment. I believe it would have been a better situation for the country, all around. I am sorry these items are bound until 1940, because I feel sure that within a very short time another party will be in power which might otherwise have had the opportunity of reducing them.


Mr. GOLDING:: If the hon. member for Haldimand has separated the figures with regard to importations of machinery from the United States, would he tell the committee the total amount that came in as tractors, which are noc made in Canada at all?


Charles Avery Dunning: Perhaps I can answer that. I was going to mention that the rather large figure of $19,000,000 mentioned by the hon. member for Haldimand probably included $12,000,000 worth of tractors.


Mark Cecil Senn: I do not think it was that much, but it was large. I think if the minister will look up the figure he will find it was something like $9,000,000. But even then there is an increase of $10,000,000 over the importations-
Kansas edition
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Charles Avery Dunning: $12,000,000 worth of
tractors for the last fiscal year.


Mark Cecil Senn: I have the figures for 1937.


Charles Avery Dunning: And another $3,000,000 for parts.


Mark Cecil Senn: Very well. But even then, taking all those figures into consideration, and taking into consideration the fact that the implements belonging to the farmers were largely worn out and they had to buy, if they wished to continue their operations, there is a veiy large balance, still showing that there was a larger importation than formerly, under the former rates of duty.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409c. Ploughs; farm, field lawn or garden rollers; soil packers; complete parts of all the foregoing: 74 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409d. Mowing machines, harvesters, either self-binding or without binders, binding attachments, reapers, harvesters in combination with threshing machine separators including the motive power incorporated therein, and complete parts of all the foregoing: 74 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409e.
(i)	Spraying and dusting machines and attachments therefor, including hand sprayers; apparatus specially designed for sterilizing bulbs; pressure testing apparatus for determining maturity of fruit; pruning hooks; pruning shears; animal dehorning instruments; and complete parts of all the foregoing: 5 per cent.
(ii)	Fruit and vegetable grading, grating, washing and wiping machines and combination bagging and weighing machines, and complete parts thereof; machines for topping vegetables, and machines for bunching and/or tying cut flowers, vegetables and nursery stock, and complete parts thereof; box-lidding machines, egg-graders and egg-cleaners, and complete parts thereof not including aluminum parts: 5 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409f. Hay loaders, hay tedders, potato planters, potato diggers, fodder or feed cutters, ensilage cutters, grain crushers and grain or hay grinders for farm purposes only, post hole diggers, snaths, stumping machines and other agricultural implements or agricultural machinery, n.o.p., and complete parts of all the foregoing: 74 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409g. Incubators for hatching eggs, brooders for rearing young fowl, and complete parts of all the foregoing: 74 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409h. Hay presses and complete parts thereof: 74 per cent.
Item agreed to.
[Mr. Senn.1
Customs tariff-409i. Scythes, sickles or reaping hooks, hay or straw knives, edging knives, hoes, pronged forks, rakes, n.o.p.: 74 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409j. Fanning mills, peavin-ers, corn husking machines, threshing machine separators, including weighers, wind stackers, baggers and self-feeders therefor; complete parts of all the foregoing: 74 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409k. Windmills and complete parts thereof, not including shafting: 74 per cent.
John Ritchie MacNicol: May I point out briefly that the firms manufacturing windmills have suffered materially as a result of the 1935 trade agreement, which is now bound in the present agreement. I notice that in the calendar year 1935, the last year during which the previous government held office, Canada imported S21,217 worth of windmills. With the cut in the duty, in the calendar year of 1937 Canada imported $54,268 worth of windmills. All I have to say in that regard is that the greater number of windmills imported provided employment in other countries when it reduced employment in this.


Charles Avery Dunning: Would my hon. friend please be good enough to explain why it is that when the beneficent government of which he speaks was in office, the Canadian production of windmills in 1934 was worth only $5,000? That is the record I have here, and unless there is some mistake that is the value of the total Canadian production.


John Ritchie MacNicol: What is it now?


Charles Avery Dunning: The last figure I have is for 1935, when it was valued at $34,000. There is no figure for 1936 because there were fewer than three firms engaged in production, and the bureau of statistics do not issue statistics when there are less than that number.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I used to know a number of substantial windmill manufacturers in this country, but I do not know how many there are to-day. Perhaps tariff tinkering up and down the years has crucified most of them.


Mr. McNEVIN:: The gas engine and
electric motor have replaced a great many windmills.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: I want to confirm what the last speaker said about the windmill business. You can get a windmill for almost a trifle from the farmers. As my hon. friend said, they are all installing gas engines and hydro power which do the work much more efficiently. The windmill business is on the decline.

Canada-United States Trade Agreement


Mr. PERLEY:: The items from 409b to 409m cover practically all the agricultural implements. I agree with much of what has been said on both sides of the chamber. The hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn) gave certain figures in connection with purchases of implements. As far as the west is concerned, this is an important matter. I believe I placed on Hansard this year the value of implements purchased in the western provinces. In 1938 these purchases ran into millions of dollars. I would be ready to support the lowering of these duties if it were going to mean cheaper implements. The minister referred to the benevolent government which was in power from 1930 to 1935.


Charles Avery Dunning: The beneficent government.


Ernest Edward Perley: The fact is that while duties were increased, prices of implements were lowered. The hon. member for Haldimand gave the particulars. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. When the duty was reduced in 1936, we were met with a major increase in price, and there have been two more increases since. When we were discussing the report presented by the implement committee, I recall that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) made a bold statement that he would read the riot act to the implement companies, that he would give them warning that if there were not a reduction in price certain things might happen. I should like to know what has happened and if the government is taking any action in connection with the companies that are importing implements.


Frederick George Sanderson: I would remind the
hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Perley) that we are dealing with windmills.


Ernest Edward Perley: That is practically a farm
machine. The same argument would apply to windmills. I should like to know what action the government has taken to see that there shall be a reduction in the price.


Charles Avery Dunning: The three per cent special excise comes off by virtue of this treaty.


Ernest Edward Perley: Has the government understandings with the companies that are importing implements?


John Gordon Ross: Hon. members
have stated that during the last regime while the tariff was held up, prices of agricultural implements, including windmills went down. If hon. members will go back to look up the record they will find that prices went down less in connection with. those commodities than they did in connection with many others.
They certainly did not go down to the same extent in Canada as they did in the United States.


Mark Cecil Senn: Oh.


John Gordon Ross: My hon. friend says "oh." This is the first time in the history of these two countries that prices of agricultural implements have been comparable on both sides of the line. There is one reason why there has not been a greater drop in the price of agricultural implements. Everyone knows that because of war conditions which have existed for several years, iron and steel prices have been kept quite high. Prices of United States and Canadian implements are however, closer to-day than they have ever been before. The hon. member for Haldimand does not like the fact that this duty is bound, but that is what I like about it. If we get back to normal in the next two or three years; if prices of iron and steel come down and the nations of the world are not still in an armament race, there is a possibility that prices of agricultural implements in the United States will come down considerably, and prices in Canada will have to come down accordingly. Then the farmer who has to buy implements will get a chance to buy them at a reasonable price.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: May I remind
the hon. member who has just spoken that at the time of the reduction in the tariff on agricultural implements the implement manufacturers of Canada were selling implements to the fanner cheaper than the manufacturers of any other country in the world. At the time he speaks of, prices of agricultural implements in the United States were much higher than they are now. At the present time we find that there is a comparable leyel in prices of implements in Canada and in the United States. At the present time these items are bound. On February 14, 1939, the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) made this statement as reported on page 908 of Hansard:
Those agreements are inseparable in the sense that neither could have been effected without the other.
Later on he said, interrupting me in my speech, that all the concessions that were granted were necessary in order to enable the agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States to be concluded. But in respect of those concessions which have been granted to the United States-


John Gordon Ross: No, to the Canadian farmer.
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Douglas Gooderham Ross: No. These items are bound for three years and therefore they are concessions. The general public believes that all the concessions which Canada granted were granted at the request of Great Britain in [DOT] order that they might be able to consummate a treaty with the United States. The discussion this afternoon puts that thought out of my mind to a certain extent. It shows me that these concessions and these reductions in duty have been made in order to get us closer to free trade in Canada. I should like to know whether the government of Great Britain asked Canada to have these items bound, or whether it was necessary for us to bind these items and give this concession in order to enable Great Britain and the United States to make these treaties, as the Prime Minister stated to me when he interrupted me in my remarks.


Charles Avery Dunning: Mr. Chairman, I do not want to get into a general discussion, but the meaning which my hon. friend attributes to the Prime Minister is, I am quite sure, not the correct one. The Prime Minister, in his remarks to which my hon. friend makes reference, was referring to such reductions as were made in Canadian preferences in the British market.
In answer to my hon. friend's specific question, this item is here because the government considers it good business for Canada to have it here.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-4091. Traction ditching machines (not being ploughs) and complete parts thereof: free. .
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-409m. Internal combustion traction engines; traction attachments designed to be combined with automobiles in Canada for use as traction engines; complete parts of all the foregoing: free.
Joseph Henry Harris: Would the minister be good enough to give us the imports from the United States?


Charles Avery Dunning: Imports in 1938 of traction engines, internal combustion, amounted to SI2,056.000. Imports in 1938 of traction attachments designed to be combined with automobiles, amounted to 82,800,000.


Joseph Henry Harris: Perhaps the minister will agree with me that imports have increased very considerably from 83200,000 in 1935 to the figures just given, which are in the neighbourhood of 814,000,000. This is one example where the three per cent excise tax

on this volume of business represents to my mind a straight gift to the United States.


Charles Avery Dunning: To the Canadian buyer.


Joseph Henry Harris: To the Canadian buyer,
if you will, perhaps, but I would say to the United States. The minister knows and I know that a United States manufacturer of any commodity, when he is competing with a Canadian manufacturer, will invariably absorb a great deal if not all of the three per cent excise tax. I do not want to get into an argument on that particular point, but I wish to make this general observation, that on this item the loss to the Canadian treasury in actual dollars on excise tax alone is 8394,770. Why was it necessary for all these three items-there is a long string of them-to be bound for three years and relieved of the three per cent excise tax when, so far as my research goes, I can find no compensating benefit that we are getting in a lower cost or relief from taxation on our exports to the United States? Inasmuch as imports under this item amount to something like 814,000,000, it would be safe to say that we are losing almost half a million dollars in excise tax. Perhaps the minister can tell us just how much the loss in excise tax will amount to this year compared with last.


Charles Avery Dunning: I think I had better
defer that until the budget.


Joseph Henry Harris: Perhaps the minister would indicate' what benefit Canada's treasury is getting. I cannot agree with him that the whole benefit of this half a million dollars goes to the Canadian people.


Mr. NEEDHAM:: I take it that this item includes complete parts for tractors and that these parts will come in free. I have a letter here complaining about this very item. It says that the roller and ball bearings are not free; that the customs officials recently showed my correspondent regulations and stopped the free entry of these parts, and that they would not even allow a declaration that the user wanted these parts for a tractor.


Charles Avery Dunning: That is a matter of customs administration. Wherever an article is a standard article, such as ball bearings, there is no question that if declarations were accepted that the bearings were for a purpose that would entitle them to duty-free entry, the matter would be rather difficult of administration. My -hon. friend the Minister of National Revenue (Mr. Ilsley) can deal

Canada-United States Trade Agreement
with the question more explicitly, but ball bearings are not necessarily a part of a tractor any more than a part of something else for which they could be used.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-4101. Ore crushers, rock crushers, stamp mills, grinding mills, rock drills, percussion coal cutters, coal augers, rotary coal drills, n.o.p., and complete parts of all the foregoing, for use exclusively in mining metallurgical or quarrying operations: 17J per cent.
Douglas Gooderham Ross: What are the
imports from the United States under this item?


Charles Avery Dunning: Imports of ore crushers, rock crushers, stamp mills, n.o.p., from the United States, were $886,900; imports of percussion coal cutters, coal augers, rotary coal drills and parts, from the United States, were $6,400; and imports of rock drills and parts, from the United States, amounted to $594,000.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Is that the total? I have some figures here which I received from the bureau of statistics with respect to the importation of mining machinery in various years. Last year, imports of dutiable goods amounted to $2,406,000, and $4,304,000, making a total of $6,711,000.


Charles Avery Dunning: That covers very many other items.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: Yes, but I will come to the point in a moment. We have in Canada a mining development such as is going on in no other part of the world. We have the natural resources which belong to the people of this country, and it seems to me there should be an opportunity for the Canadian people to enter into the manufacture of the machinery which is necessary to develop our mining resources. What an opportunity there is there! Yet we find this item bound at 17J per cent for three years. Several mining men have told me that if they could get reasonable protection against dumping they would do something in the line of manufacturing some of this machinery in Canada. I wish to protest against the binding of this item for three years, because it precludes the establishment of an industry in this country for the manufacture of this machinery unless government assistance of some kind is given.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: In referring to what the hon. member for St. Paul's has just said, I believe that our primary industries like mining and agriculture are entitled to every
concession possible in the way of getting their machinery at the lowest possible price. I am in full agreement with the binding of this item.


Mr. MARSHALL:: I note that there is a rate of five per cent covering the British preferential tariff. This would lead me to conclude that there must be some imports from the United Kingdom. Would the minister give the figures, say for a three year period, covering importations from the United Kingdom?


Charles Avery Dunning: I shall have to give these in three sections, because there are three different items included in the one.
Ore crushers, rock crushers, stamp mills, grinding mills, and parts, from the United Kingdom: 1936, $154,000; 1937, $155,000; 1938, $144,000.
Percussion coal cutters, coal augers, rotary coal drills, from the United Kingdom: 1936, $4,500; 1937, $5,100; 1938, $8,900.
Rock drills and parts, from the United Kingdom: 1936, $162,000; 1937, $162,000- 1938, $154,000.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-411a.	Machinery, logging
cars, cranes, blocks and tackle, wire rope, but not including wire rope to be used for guy ropes or in braking logs going down grade, and complete parts of all the foregoing, for use exclusively in the operation of logging, such operation to include the removal of the log from stump to skidway, log dump, or common or other carrier: 15 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-412a. Machinery and apparatus, n.o.p., viz: Gun and mould apparatus for making press rollers; machines and apparatus for making electrotypes and stereotypes; engraving machines and apparatus, including photoengraving apparatus, and other plate-making apparatus, used in the manufacture of printing plates of all kinds; machines and apparatus for graining metal plates; machines and apparatus for sensitizing, grinding or polishing metal plates; machines and apparatus including cameras and camera equipment, lens, prisms, camera and printing lamps, screens, and vacuum frames for transferring by photographic processes, or direct, to plates or rolls for use in lithography, rotogravure and printing; shading apparatus; machines and apparatus for addressing and/or wrapping newspapers, magazines, periodicals, pamphlets and catalogues; machines and apparatus for embossing or stamping or producing embossed or engraved effects, bookbinding, looping, stitching, sewing, gathering, inserting, bronzing, dusting, creasing, scoring, cutting, perforating, drilling, punching, slitting, re-winding, glueing, pasting, gumming, waxing, varnishing, carbon coating, patching, numbering, ruling, jogging, sheet piling, tying, bundling, tube-making, metal mounting, eye-letting, staying or stripping, reinforcing and box-covering; complete parts, not to include saws, knives and motive power; all the foregoing when for use exclusively by,
2W6	COMMONS
Canada-United States Trade Agreement
and in their capacities as printers, lithographers, bookbinders, manufacturers of stereotypes, electrotypes and printing plates or rolls, paper converters, or by manufacturers of articles made from paper or cardboard: free.
James Alexander Marshall: What is meant by the figures under the " rate on United States goods prior to 1935 agreement"; "ten per cent" and " thirty-five per cent " are bracketed together.


Charles Avery Dunning: My hon. friend will notice that a great number of articles are embraced in this item. In 1935 the tariff item as it now stands was put together. Prior to that time some of the articles now included in it were at different rates, so we show both rates in order to give correct information.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
_ Customs tariff-412b. Flat bed cylinder printing presses, to print sheets of a size 25 by 38 inches or larger, and complete parts thereof; machines designed to fold or sheet-feed paper or cardboard, and complete parts thereof: 10 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-412c. Typecasting and typesetting machines and parts thereof for use in printing offices: free.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-412d. Offset presses; lithographic presses; printing presses and typemaking accessories therefor, n.o.p.; complete parts of the foregoing, not to include saws, knives and motive power: 10 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-413. Machinery' and apparatus, of a class or kind not made in Canada, and parts thereof, specially constructed for preparing, manufacturing, testing or finishing yarns, cordage, and fabrics made from textile fibres or from paper, imported for use exclusively by manufacturers and scholastic or charitable institutions in such processes only: 5 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-414. Typewriters and complete parts thereof: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-414a. Dictating, transcribing and cylinder shaving machines and complete parts thereof, including cylinders and unfinished wax blanks: 12i per cent.
Item agreed to.
Customs tariff-414c.
(i)	Bookkeeping, calculating and invoicing machines and complete parts thereof, n.o.p: 12J per cent.
(ii)	Adding machines and complete parts thereof: 20 per cent.
Item agreed to.

Customs tariff-415. Electric vacuum cleaners and attachments therefor:	hand vacuum
cleaners; and complete parts of all the foregoing, including suction hose, n.o.p.: 20 per cent.
Mr. ESLING:: With reference to this item- and the same thing would apply also to many other items of electrical equipment- has any thought been given to the patent phase? When the Canadian people are invited to import this electrical apparatus, the Patent Act interferes, it seems to me, to some extent, because the importation of an article which is made in the United States, and on which a patent is registered in Canada is, it has been shown, an infringement of the Patent Act, and this applies to all articles of electrical equipment as it does to radios. People are invited to import at reduced duties, and at the same time such importers may be subject to action for infringement of patents. It is impossible to get away from that if there are patents registered in Canada on articles of machinery or electrical equipment manufactured in the United States.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am advised that the patent difficulty does not arise in connection with this class of electrical equipment. That is, there is a sufficient variety available to prevent any possibility of abuse in that direction. My hon. friend of course has reference particularly to radios and radio tubes. There is difficulty in that connection. As the committee knows, the matter of radio and radio tubes is before the tariff board for inquiry with particular reference to the relationship of the patent situation to the difficulty which exists in Canada. I am sorry I cannot say anything more definite than that in reply to my hon. friend. He is, I am sure more aware than most members of the committee of the very great difficulty which surrounds this patent relationship to the tariff question. It is constantly being studied.


William Kemble Esling: I did refer to the radio patents in so far as matters of infringement are concerned; but where there is a patent the same principle applies to any piece of machinery or to any article which is patented in Canada and made in the United States, unless there be some special arrangement as between the Canadian importer and the manufacturer in the United States who holds that patent. My point is, by inviting the Canadian public to import these patented articles, is the government not at the same time inviting an action for infringement?


Charles Avery Dunning: I am afraid I cannot answer that, except to say that in the case of the item before us the fact that there were some S800,000 worth of imports would

Canada-United. States Trade Agreement
make it appear that the patent difficulty does not materially affect the situation. I spoke of radio tubes merely as an illustration of an extreme situation along the lines that my hon. friend is referring to, not meaning to say that it was an isolated case, although I believe there are very few cases where the alleged abuse occurs to the degree to which it has been alleged to occur in connection with radio tubes. It is not a matter on which I can speak positively at the present time.


Mr. STEVENS:: I should like to support the view expressed by the hon. member for Kootenay West. It is a principle which I think we in this country have to face. I had the matter up four years ago. In 1935 there was quite a discussion on it. At that time I think there were some amendments to the act. The matter has arisen on several occasions since. Unfortunately, when one mentions this subject, the tendency is for certain of our larger institutions, with which as institutions I have no quarrel, rather to take the attitude that you are attacking them. That is not the point at all. The real point is that there seems to be a confusion of the rights of the owner of a patent and the right of an individual to import.
I will illustrate the matter in this way. An article is patented; it is registered under the patent acts of the United States, Canada and other countries, under the general international arrangement. The royalty to the maker of the patented article is paid wherever the article is made. No one disputes that. I do not, and I do not think anyone does. But my point is that once the royalty is properly paid, whether in Canada, in Belgium, in Great Britain or in the United States, that is the sole right that the owner of the patent should be permitted to claim. In practice, however, this is what occurs. Usually the original inventor sells to some corporation, but we will stick to the simple illustration, taking the original inventor. He may sell his right to A in the United States, B in Canada and C in Great Britain. He sells the right to the royalty plus the right to manufacture. Then A, B and C argue that, having bought the right for the respective countries in which they operate, no one else has the right to sell the article in that market, even though he buys it in a market where the royalty has already been paid. That is an absolutely wrong principle, because obviously it means that one can impose a tariff, which might be 100 per cent or 500 per cent-that is, what is in effect a tariff-


Charles Avery Dunning: Far more than a tariff.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It is not a tariff but the equivalent of a tariff. The article may be free, and-


Charles Avery Dunning: The price differential may be 100 per cent.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes. As a matter of fact,
I illustrated it on a previous occasion with electric light bulbs, and as the hon. member for Kootenay West says, the same thing applies to a great many other articles.
One reason why nothing much is heard about the matter is that a great many of these articles are manufactured by concerns in the United States who establish agencies, in Canada, and they control the outlet in Canada, so that the point does not arise. But the purchaser is paying the shot, nevertheless.


Charles Avery Dunning: Would my hon. friend be good enough to develop the international patent agreement side of the question?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I must confess I am not quite competent to do that, because it is a matter for a legal mind rather than mine, but I will say this. The claim is made that where, in Canada for instance, a man secures the right to make and sell an article, that right to sell is inherent in the patent. My argument is that it is not. I believe there was a case before the exchequer court of Canada, and although I am not quite certain of this statement, I believe that court handed down a decision that the right was inherent in the patent by virtue of the statute as it stands.
My argument in 1935 was that we should so amend the patent law that while we absolutely preserved the protection to the inventor, we should not allow the right of control of sale to be attached to the patent, provided that the article that is imported has paid the royalty in the country from which it is imported.


Charles Avery Dunning: What bearing has the international agreement on that question? I am not familiar with it myself.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I have not looked the matter up. It is a complicated question and it is a little difficult for me to explain it from memory. Speaking subject to correction by some of the lawyers present, I understand that the international agreement does not interfere with the right of any country to make its own patent laws. There is nothing to prevent the parliament of Canada from amending, in any way it likes, its statutes controlling patents, provided that we do observe the registration of the invention under our law, just as any other country observes the registration of inventions at home under
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their own laws. I am advised that there is nothing to prevent Canada or the United States or Germany or any other country from passing its own statutes controlling patents, in so far as the points I have mentioned are concerned, where sale and royalty are involved. For instance, we in our patent law declare that after a given number of years, if the invention is not used, the commissioner of patents may declare the patent open. That is a power which we reserve to ourselves. We fix a certain number of years and some other country may have a different period. I submit that there is nothing inherent in an invention that prevents Canada from passing its own statutory controlling law, although, as I say, I speak subject to correction.


Charles Avery Dunning: My question was whether there was anything in the international agreement?


Henry Herbert Stevens: I think not.


Charles Avery Dunning: It is an interesting point. Of course, it is not in my department.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I agree with the minister to this extent, that so long as our law stands as it is, the international agreement precludes our acting in this matter. But my argument in 1935 was, as it is to-day, that we should review the whole situation with a view to modifying our law in order to rectify the matter.
Before I left the department as its minister, I suggested that we should have the national research council make a complete survey, judicial if you like, of the patents held in Canada to-day. A great many patents are held that are not used, but the public do not know this. After all, the most sacred right is the preservation to the inventor of the benefits of his patent; that is the one underlying principle. But the public are entitled to have these inventions used; and if they are not used by the holder of the patent, then, under our law, if the fact is drawn to the attention of the commissioner, the patent may be declared open. Therefore there should be a careful examination by an expert body, and I believe that the national research council is the proper body. A survey would take a long time, but it should be made.
Let me add this-because I am treading on rather delicate ground. I am not for a moment advocating anything that would in any way impinge upon the right of the owner of the patent with respect to his royalty. I do not wish to call in question unduly the corporations concerned, but in so far as there
 '
is a clash between their right, so-called, and the public interest, an effort should be made to balance them.
The hon. member for Kootenay West, as we all know, has made a close study of these matters, and in bringing them up to-day I think he has done a good service. I am not at all critical of the government, because I know the difficulty and the complexity of the matter, but we should look very carefully into this phase of it.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: What number of
refrigerators were imported under that item?


Charles Avery Dunning: Imports from the United States of electrical refrigerators last year amounted to $950,000; of other refrigerators, $245,000. The number imported from the United States was: electrical, 14,894; others, 4,049. We exported a total of 7,000 refrigerators, the biggest customer being Australia, with the United Kingdom second.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: The reduction of
five per cent in duty and the three per cent excise tax amounts to eight per cent. In 1935 we imported 2,230 refrigerators; now the figure has gone up to over 15,000.


Charles Avery Dunning: There is surely something wrong with that figure. I have the figures for the fiscal year 1936 here, and we imported in that year some 5,000.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: There are some
fine industries manufacturing refrigerators; they are both manufacturers and importers. This reduction in duty is not, I think, going to hurt the industries themselves, because they will simply import more parts or more refrigerators; they are agents as well. What I am worried about is that this reduction is going to throw a number of men out of employment. I do not suppose there is anything we can do about the matter, but I point out that there will be a reduction in employment in that industry.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: With the extension of
hydro in rural Ontario, there is a great need for equipment of this kind. To my mind, if the duty were reduced another five per cent it would still be sufficiently high. Very many homes where electricity has been installed have not yet been able to purchase a refrigerator, and I consider that the needs of the consumer should be given consideration.


Mr. WERMENLINGER:: I have information from some manufacturers in Canada of refrigerator parts such as shelves; they say that the reduction in the duty plus the elimination of the excise tax will oblige them to bring down their prices, and they can do that

Reformatories-Determinate Sentences
only either by cheapening the production or by doing away with labour. So I am pleased to support what the hon. member for St. Paul's has said.


Joseph Henry Harris: I have the figure of imports of electrical refrigerators. For the calendar year 1935, it was 8189,000. For the year 1937, on account of the reduction under the 1935 trade pact, imports rose to $893,000. In other words, the amount of imports was multiplied five times. I am in accord with the hon. member for Victoria, Ontario (Mr. McNevin). I think he will agree with me that he does not want this industry wiped out entirely; his friends in Peterborough particularly would like to manufacture some of these refrigerators. The speed with which the agreement of 1935 cut into that industry will now be accelerated under this new agreement.


Charles Avery Dunning: In reply I might say
that our exports have gone up in a similar ratio-


Joseph Henry Harris: Not to the United States.


Charles Avery Dunning: Our total production
has shown a steady increase. Frankly, I expect that on an item which is becoming so important a consumers' item as refrigerators, when you have a duty of twenty-five per cent, we are going to have demands for its reduction rather than increase.


Mr. MacINNIS:: I wish to support the
hon. member for Victoria, Ontario, on this item. People are just beginning to realize the value of refrigeration in the home, and we should make it as easy as possible for farmers particularly and people living in the country to get this equipment; they have more need for home refrigeration than people living in the city. When the industry is on an export basis; it is an indication that the tariff is high enough. There is a case here for a reduction from the twenty-five per cent provided in the agreement.


Thomas Langton Church: This particular industry
has had a very rapid expansion in the last few years. For many years it was a struggling industry; it has led to the use of a great deal of hydro-electric power. The protection formerly afforded up to 1935 was forty per cent; then by the treaty of 1935 it was reduced to thirty per cent, and is now further reduced to twenty-five per cent.
Progress reported.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.



PRIVATE BILL


[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 43, for the relief of Stefano Guilio Luciano Roncari.-Mr. Walsh.


[Stage Direction]
Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview) moved the second reading of Bill No. 12, to amend the Prisons and Reformatories Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, the object of the proposed bill is to amend the Prisons and Reformatories Act. This Bill No. 12 is described as "An Act to amend the Prisons and Reformatories Act," and starts out in this way:
His Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada enacts as follows.
And then follows section 1 of the bill headed "determinate sentences only." It substitutes the old law of the determinate sentence for the indeterminate sentence.
Since the British North America Act and confederation provincial courts have imposed imprisonment for one year and three hundred and sixty-four days. For a great many years that was the law, until the passing of the indeterminate clauses.
The Prisons and Reformatories Act gave the courts jurisdiction to impose an indeterminate term in a reformatory. The bill proposes to substitute a determinate for an indeterminate sentence. The several expressions relating to "indeterminate sentences" are found in eighteen sections or subsections of the act, and the draftsman considers it inexpedient to amend each of such sections by a separate clause. This bill would revert to the old law of sentences for a definite period only. The indeterminate legislation has been condemned by many judges and magistrates as inhuman and illegal.
Canada's prisons at present are filled with youth, many first offenders, who have been unable to secure work. The lack of employment for youth and of a proper national apprenticeship system, by cause and effect is one of the main reasons for crime. Recently the appellate division of the supreme court of Ontario questioned the legality of suoh legislation, because the provinces had the right of providing confinement for only one year and three hundred and sixty-four days, and also condemned the legislation on grounds
[Stage Direction]
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of public policy. The law has not acted as a deterrent, nor is it reformative. It should be repealed, because in practice it confers on officials of these institutions the right to detain those who have not influence enough to have employment awaiting them at the end of a definite period, and gives to their decisions the force of statute law.
The effect of these clauses respecting indeterminate sentences is to remove a certain amount of jurisdiction from the courts and to place it in the hands of officials of these institutions, and the parole board. Following judgment in a case Mr. Justice Middleton made some comments, and the attorney general's department circularized the county judges and magistrates advising them to retain a reasonable relationship between determinate and indeterminate sentences.
The royal commission concluded that with the probation system and a central board to administer the ticket-of-leave regulations, the statutory provision for indeterminate sentences might be repealed. On more than one occasion the attorney general for Ontario has intimated his desire to see justice done. May I say that the particular judgment to which I referred is Rex v. Bond, as delivered by the court of appeal. In giving judgment on April 16, 1937, as reported in the Ontario Reports, Mr. Justice Middleton said that the accused was charged with two offences, and pleaded guilty. On each charge the magistrate sentenced him to two years less one day, and an indeterminate term thereafter not to exceed two years, less one day.
Out of the Rex v. Bond judgment I did, when introducing the bill, quote three or four paragraphs. Judge Middleton said that the criminal code, Revised Statutes of Canada, 1927, chapter 36, defines various crimes and, speaking generally, fixes the maximum punishment that may be awarded, but makes, except in a few instances, no provision for the minimum. He said:
In 1916, parliament determined to adopt, so far as the province of Ontario is concerned, the system of indeterminate sentences, and, instead of making an amendment to the code dealing with the matter, passed a statute which is snugly tucked away in the dusty recesses of the Prisons and Reformatories Act, Revised Statutes of Canada, 1927, chapter 163, section 46. This section provides "Every court in the province of Ontario, before which any person is convicted for an offence against the laws of Canada, punishable by imprisonment in the common gaol for a term of three months, or for a longer time, may sentence such person to imprisonment for a term of not less than three months and for an indeterminate period thereafter of not more than two years less one day in the Ontario reformatory instead of the common gaol."

This section, it will be observed, is a departure from the fundamental idea that reformatories were for prisoners to be incarcerated for a period of less than two years.
As complementary to this section there is a provision found in section 43 of the same act:
"The lieutenant-governor of the province of Ontario may appoint a board of parole for the said province whose duty it shall be to inquire from time to time into the cases of prisoners sentenced to the Ontario reformatory. . . . And where as a result of such inquiry the board thinks proper it may permit prisoners serving indeterminate sentences to be paroled under conditions approved of by the Minister of Justice and when the terms on which such prisoners have been paroled have been complied with, the board may recommend for the consideration of the Minister of Justice the final discharge of such prisoners."
When I was speaking on Saturday last to one of the ablest crown attorneys, he told me that a great many magistrates in the province do not thoroughly understand the indeterminate sentence. He believes the judgment to which I have referred has a great deal of merit in it. I shall read two further clauses in which the learned judge said:
Many judges and magistrates when imposing an indeterminate sentence address the prisoner somewhat in these terms. . . . "If during this determinate term you prove yourself to be a good prisoner, and comply with the rules of the institution and show a disposition to be law-abiding, the parole board may, at the expiry of the definite term, allow you your liberty. It all depends upon yourself and your conduct as to how much, if any, of the indefinite term you may be called upon to serve."
Thus encouraged, the prisoner proves to be a model prisoner. He gives every indication of his reformation, and is taken at the expiry of the definite term before the board. He is hopeful of liberty and full of good resolutions, and the board announces that by reason of an earlier conviction, a fact well known to the judge who imposed the sentence, they will not allow' him parole, and he must serve the indefinite term. I can imagine no situation more cruel and more likely to convert a man really desiring to reform into an enemy of society.
Indeterminate sentences had their origin in Michigan, and have been adopted in many places. Fundamentally reformatories are for up to one year and three hundred and sixty-four days definite, and by being indeterminate are made four years. The legality of the whole thing is questioned and the court of appeal makes criticisms on its usefulness.
I believe that in these days, when institutions are filled with so many young people, we must take special consideration of the circumstances. We should have law reform all along the line and a Borstal system. I have before me from the bureau of statistics some figures on criminal statistics in Canada. They are issued under the authority of the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. Euler). There is reference to the great increase in crime by young people since the depression

Reformatories-Determinate Sentences
began, and it mentions the increased numbers of youthful offenders in all the courts. It also refers to causes and effects. I shall not go into the blue-book tables in detail, because that course, although the figures are most relevant, may not be advisable here on account of time. I may point out briefly, however, that the high prison population is to a large extent the result of unemployment of first offenders, lack of law reform and the sending of too many youths to gaol by magistrates.
Two such youths may get into trouble and appear before the magistrate. The magistrate may fine each ten dollars and costs. One boy's father can pay; but the other boy cannot pay, and as a result there is imprisonment for debt and no way to pay the fine by instalments as I suggested in 1937. That takes place under the system of determinate and indeterminate sentences. Imprisonment for debt was supposed to have been abolished in England in 1864. It is still in vogue in Canada.	[DOT]
I did introduce an amendment in 1937 on behalf of those youthful offenders. My amendment was fashioned after the law in England, known as the Money Payments Procedure Act, 1935, 25 and 26 George V, chapter 46. This was modern, useful legislation, adapted to Canada, and closed many prisons in England, but the minister did not see fit to adopt it, probably on account of his belief that there would be conflict in jurisdiction between the dominion and the provinces, because we are away behind in law reform.
The annual report of the inspector of prisons of the province of Ontario agrees with the federal report in regard to the large number of these youthful offenders. I received many letters from people who have suffered because of the indeterminate and inhuman provisions of this act. One is from an offender whose name I shall not give, but whose number is 21570 at the industrial farm. He says:
Theoretically all men who receive an indefinite sentence have an equal chance of being paroled for the indefinite period of their sentence but in practice this does not seem to work out, seventy-five per cent of those who have indefinite sentences are obliged to serve both the definite and indefinite terms.
The second man, who was sentenced by Magistrate Jones at Toronto, says that he appeared before the parole board, but they refused to' take any action. Parliament has turned over to this board many of its powers and prerogatives. This was never the intention of the fathers of confederation.
I should like to quote from a letter which I received from the attorney general of 71492-134J
Manitoba, Hon. W. J. Major, re this bill of mine. Under date of February 6, 1939, he says:
I find, however, that you and I have approached the problem from different angles. Your quarrel appears to be with the indeterminate sentence; mine is with the determinate sentence. I have taken the position, and so expressed my views in my brief to the penitentiaries commission (copy of which I enclose) that the most reasonably effective method in dealing with the reformation of juvenile delinquents is to permit the imposition of a modified indeterminate sentence with a maximum of three years, and to omit entirely all reference to determinate sentence.
I think after consideration you will conclude that the reason is obvious. When a juvenile is faced with a determinate sentence of two years to be subsequently followed with an indeterminate term the efforts toward reformation will not begin for some period after his incarceration, if at all. He realizes that he must serve two years, with the prospect of further detention.
He argues in favour of the indeterminate sentence, but I think it would be a hardship and inhuman and not in the public interest to put anyone into an institution under such a sentence system. It would not be in the interests of public safety, nor would it be in the interests of the public generally, or of law reform. It would require more prisons than ever, while in England they have closed up half their prisons because of the liberal interpretation they have given to the law, by wise and humane reforms, and by the institution of a national apprenticeship system and national service for youth.
I could read from other letters which I have received, but I do not think I shall say anything more this evening. However, there is one point I should like to bring up. There should also be much greater care taken in the appointment of judges and magistrates. You cannot learn to be a police magistrate in a day. Colonel Denison was a great and humane police magistrate in Toronto for thirty-eight years, and he introduced many wise and modern reforms. He did not have any assistance of outside commissions and new duplicate courts in carrying out the duties of his court. When a family or the husband and wife came to him in trouble, he would advise the wife to go home and cook her husband some good meals, and not both to get cross at the same time. He gave good advice to many youthful offenders. He was always very careful as to whom he sent to prison, not as is the case now in dealing with first offenders in trouble from distress and lack of work.
To-day a man is sent to prison simply because he has no money. One boy comes up before a court, and because he is well off
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he is able to pay the ten dollars he is fined. Another boy is too poor to raise the fine and he goes to gaol. There should be more care taken in making these judicial appointments and in deciding who is to be sent to these institutions. We are twenty-five years behind England in these law reforms, as the prison reports of England show. I do hope there will be a study made of this particular system. The leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (Mr. Woodsworth) has taken an interest in this work in Winnipeg. I do not think it would be in the interests of justice to have indeterminate sentences instead of determinate. A man would not know when he was going to get out. Perhaps that would be all right if the officials in these institutions were properly trained. Notwithstanding what the Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) said the other evening, there are hundreds of these young people riding the rods. They get into trouble, and they receive determinate plus indeterminate sentences.
I am sorry that I have not been able to find a long letter which I received some years ago from the late Chief Justice R. M. Meredith at the time when the indeterminate sentence legislation had been in force for years. It was either shortly before or shortly after he retired that he wrote me this long letter in which he gave his views of the indeterminate sentence. He contended that such sentences were illegal under the British North America Act and under the code and against public policy. He was very much against them. He was out on circuit for thirty-eight years, and I believe he tried more cases than probably any other judge we ever had in the province in the supreme court. He was strongly opposed to the principle of indeterminate sentences as inhuman and unreformative. This principle has also been condemned by the court of appeal, as I have already shown.
In these days when so many young people are getting into trouble, instead of bringing about reforms and providing education we are doing the exact opposite. The result is that many men are sent to these institutions for committing the most trivial offences. There is an injustice on the families as well. I should like to quote from a report as to the number of inmates in the Toronto gaol. I did not note in the press report the date. I lost it. Governor Denning reports to the city hall:
There were 295 inmates in the gaol last night, nearly an all-time record. Out of this total 275 were men and 20 women. All cells were occupied. Cots had to be placed in the corridors. The normal limit at the gaol is 230; that is what the gaol can accommodate.

After that it is up to the governor and his staff to figure out how to "bed down" tbe prisoners and look after the discipline.
Those may not be the exact figures for to-day, and this condition may not apply all over the province. The commission which recently sat found many of our provincial institutions had been built before confederation and against all the known laws of hygiene. I think we should follow the example of England where they have closed up half the prisons, and have some modem prison reform.
Right Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice):: Mr. Speaker, the express
object of this bill is to eliminate the power to impose indeterminate sentences in Ontario under the Prisons and Reformatories Act. Section 46 of that act authorizes the courts of Ontario to impose upon any person convicted for an offence punishable by imprisonment in the common gaol a term of three months' determinate and an indeterminate period thereafter of not more than two years less one day in the Ontario reformatory instead of the common gaol. Under section 43 of the act the Ontario board of parole is instituted whose duty is to inquire into the cases of prisoners sentenced to certain institutions. After such inquiry the board may permit certain prisoners serving indeterminate sentences to be paroled under conditions approved by the Minister of Justice.
The section continues:	[DOT]
.	.	. and when the terms on which such
prisoners have been paroled have been complied with, the board may recommend for the consideration of the Minister of Justice the final discharge of such prisoners.
The question of the indeterminate sentence was studied by the royal commission appointed to investigate penitentiaries and to study penal reform in general, and in their report they devote a few pages to this question. They mention that there have been some difficulties in Ontario because of a certain conflict between some of the magistrates and the board of parole, which led to the decision in the appeal court to which my hon. friend has referred. That decision is also mentioned in the report of the royal commission. I think for the better understanding of this question I might be permitted to read just a few sentences from that part of their report which the commissioners devote to this question. After commenting upon that decision of the appeal court they say, at page 247 :[DOT]
Your commissioners are of the opinion that if indeterminate sentences are to be continued in the province of Ontario there should not be such conflict between the board of parole and the judges and magistrates in tbe province. It is clear that judges and magistrates should not sentence prisoners to the Ontario refor-

Reformatories-Determinate Sentences
matory for indeterminate periods when, having regard to the prisoner's previous record and his opportunities for reform, it is clear that he is not likely to be a good subject for parole at the end of the determinate period. As has been pointed out, the success of a prisoner on parole does not depend on his behaviour in prison, but on his will and determination to conform to the laws of the country and the conventions of society and on the likelihood of his carrying out that determination under proper supervision.
The efforts of the authorities who are in charge of the reformatories in Ontario are greatly handicapped by the practice of sentencing incorrigible criminals to the reformatories, by means of imposing indeterminate sentences, for longer periods than would otherwise be justifiable under the act. Mr. Neelands drew the attention of your commission to one case in which a prisoner was sentenced to the reformatory for terms of two years less one day determinate plus two years less a day indeterminate on each of two charges which were to run consecutively, with the result that the prisoner wras required to serve a term in the reformatory of eight years less four days. Your commissioners are of the opinion that this was not the intention of parliament when the legislation was enacted.
Following the judgment of the court of appeal in May; 1937, Mr. I. A. Humphries, K.C., the deputy attorney general for the province of Ontario, sent out a circular letter to all magistrates and county judges, enclosing a copy of the "Reasons for Judgment" of the court of appeal, and adding certain observations thereon. These observations may be summarized as follows:
1.	The period of the indeterminate sentence should bear some relation to the period of the determinate sentence. For instance, a definite sentence of three months should not be followed by an indeterminate sentence of two years less a day;
2.	Consecutive indeterminate sentences should not be given;
3.	In no case should the court state to the prisoner what the action of the board of parole may be, or the considerations which may impel the board of parole to release the prisoner.
It appears that this letter has had some effect in correcting the situation that had previously existed in respect to indeterminate sentences.
Your commissioners are of the opinion that, if the recommendations of this commission are adopted in respect to the establishment of an adult probation system, and a central parole board is established to administer the Tieket-of-Leave Act, with adequate investigation and supervision in the provinces and an adequate system for the treatment of young offenders in the prisons, the present statutory provision for indeterminate sentences in Ontario might be repealed.
So this recommendation, is subject to certain other improvements that would first have to be made before we would do away with the system which has prevailed in Ontario for such a long time. The commission which will be appointed will have to study the various aspects of this question, and until this is done I would not favour any amendment to the Prisons and Reformatories Act
so far as the indeterminate sentence is concerned.
I may say, and my hon. friend has shown it himself, that opinion is far from being unanimous on this question. As a matter of fact, at the time my hon. friend was introducing his bill to do away with indeterminate sentences, the attorney general of Manitoba was asking the Department of Justice to change the criminal code so as to do away with determinate sentences. As my hon. friend said, he and the attorney general of Manitoba are perhaps trying to reach the same goal, but they view it from a different angle. He wants to abolish the indeterminate sentence, and Mr. Major wants to abolish the determinate sentence. I have here the letter of the attorney general of Manitoba, but I suppose it is not necessary to read it and put it on Hansard. Indeed, he rather asks my hon. friend to change his bill altogether and substitute the abolition of determinate sentences rather than the indeterminate.
With respect to the wording of the bill, I do not think it would accomplish satisfactorily the object which my hon. friend seeks to accomplish. For instance, his bill merely says that whenever the expression, "an indeterminate sentence" or "an indeterminate period" is found in any one of the sections which he mentions in his bill it should be replaced by the expression "determinate term." So, under section 43, which gives to the parole board of Ontario certain powers with respect to indeterminate sentences, if you changed indeterminate to determinate sentences, you would be clothing the parole board of Ontario with powers which are really under the Minister of Justice with regard to remission or mercy in all cases of determinate sentences.
For these reasons I believe this bill cannot be adopted at this time more particularly, and even if it had more merits than I am able to find in it, I would say that it is premature and my hon. friend should wait until such changes as are suggested by the royal commission can be studied.


Thomas Langton Church: Might I ask that the attorneys general give the matter consideration when the general bill is coming up? As I see it, there is nothing premature about it. Similar legislation is being considered in England and very largely adopted. So much depends upon the attorneys general of the provinces because, after all is said, it seems to me that the federal power has been very largely delegated to the capitals of the provinces and that it is at its lowest ebb since confederation. This parliament has control, not the attorneys general of the provinces.
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Walter Edward Foster: Order. I draw to the attention of the hon. member that if he speaks now he closes the debate.


Ernest Lapointe: I am pleased to tell my hon. friend that whole question, which is intimately linked with the question of parole, will be considered and studied in relation to this particular aspect of it. My hon. friend may be assured that all his suggestions and arguments will be carefully considered.
Bill withdrawn.



CRIMINAL CODE


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed, from Friday, February 17, consideration of the motion of Mr. J. S. Woodsworth (Winnipeg North Centre) for the second reading of Bill No. 5, to amend the criminal code.
Mr. C. G. MacNEIL (Vancouver North):: Mr. Speaker, when the debate on the second reading of this bill was adjourned, I was attempting to show the necessity of the federal enactment which is now proposed by the hon. member for Winnipeg North Centre (Mr. Woodsworth). I was also pointing out how powerful corporations may defeat the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively, and was using as an illustration the experience of the strike at Blubber Bay, in British Columbia.
The purpose of the bill, as explained, is to prevent employers from refusing to employ, or from dismissing employees, or conspiring with others therefor, for the reason that they are members of a trade union. It was pointed out that it was lawful for workmen or employees to form themselves into trades unions and bargain collectively; that therefore, as a matter of public policy, it should be unlawful for employers to seek by overt acts of intimidation, threats or conspiracy, to prevent their employees from belonging to such trade unions. Throughout the years organized workers have by dint of great struggle attempted to build up their rights to organize. A fundamental right of civil liberty is the right to organize, the right to bargain collectively. Their rights in this respect are not clearly defined, and under circumstances which prevail in some parts of Canada it does become readily possible for powerful corporations to invoke the law resulting in severe penalties to organized workers if they attempt to assert their rights, or where police forces are susceptible to influence, to use the law enforcement agencies to defeat their purposes in attempting to bargain collectively.

In British Columbia we have an act known as the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act. I mention that because the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) last session made a special point of stating that in all the provinces adequate legislation existed to deal with the question, and therefore it should be left exclusively to the jurisdiction of the provincial authority. He also claimed that it would be inadvisable to make it a crime for employers to act in this way. May I point out that frequently, because of the lawful efforts of organized workers to assert their rights, and because of lawless efforts on the part of the employers who are not restrained under the criminal code from such activities, serious situations result such as that to which I am about to refer.
British Columbia provides, under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, that it shall be lawful for employees to bargain collectively with their employers and to conduct such bargaining through representatives of the employees duly elected by a majority of the employees affected, and any employer or employers refusing so to bargain shall be liable to a fine not exceeding S500 for each offence. An attempt has been made in British Columbia to enforce that act, and on one occasion we had the amazing declaration made by the minister of labour of British Columbia that it would be impossible for him to enforce this act against a powerful corporation because unquestionably they would carry the matter on appeal to the privy council and make it extremely awkward for the provincial government.
The situation to which I refer specifically, the strike at Blubber Bay, was with regard to the operations of the Pacific Lime Company, a company controlling practically the only payroll on Texada island, an isolated spot. Comparatively few men were involved, but the strike assumed importance because of the proximity of other unions on the mainland at Powell River and of the miners' organizations on Vancouver island. All these organizations have been extremely interested in the strike at Blubber Bay and in the policies disclosed with regard to the attempted settlement of the strike.
Approximately 150 men are employed in quarrying operations. The company quarries limestone and has control over practically the only source of high-class lime on the Pacific coast. Working conditions for some time were unsatisfactory. The men made some attempt to organize during 1937, and several disputes ensued. Finally, in September, 1937, a definite agreement was reached between the employees and the company as

Criminal Code-Trade Unions
a result of organization, and this agreement is the one I have in my hand. It reads in part as follows:
This company agrees to bargain collectively with its own employees through a committee elected by the employees as a whole; it being understood that the company does not recognize any affiliation between its employees and any outside union.
The company also agrees that no discrimination shall be shown against any employee by reason of the strike declared on July 23, 1937.
The agreement then proceeds to outline increases of pay and pay for overtime, and concludes with the sentence that:
Either party to this agreement desiring to terminate same shall notify the other party in writing thirty days in advance of termination.
In addition to this agreement, certain practices were followed at Blubber Bay, and particularly with regard to the employment of men laid off during the slack period. During slack periods the work was rotated in a fashion; the men remained in the district, and if available were reengaged when the work increased. But after the attempt was made to organize, and even after this agreement was reached, it is, I think, now a matter of record that the company violated almost every article of the agreement made with the men. As a matter of fact, only four days after the agreement was signed they disregarded the understanding with regard to boat loading, and they also employed new men for drilling operations, although the old-time employees, men experienced in the work of drilling, were on hand. The union then formed found it necessary to threaten a strike in order to maintain satisfactory working conditions in that regard. But the company made a special point of refusing to reengage men who had been active in the union, and imported from Vancouver men who had not been in the employ of the company. May I add just at this point that the average term of employment of the employees was approximately fourteen years.
In January following this agreement the company actually called together a meeting of its employees and attempted to exercise influence to have them declare themselves against the International Wood Workers of America, an international organization with which the union was affiliated. Three members of the International Wood Workers' Association were actually at one stage excluded from the meeting by the activities of the company. Finally the men voted ten to one for the union committee, and, following the meeting, ninety-two signatures were obtained on a petition to the minister of labour of the province. The petition asked that a conciliator be sent in to deal with the various matters
in dispute. On February 12, 1938, a commissioner under the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act was sent in with Mr. Moriarty, as interpreter, and a meeting was held between the employers and the employees. A secret ballot was taken to determine their method of representation, making it clear that the employees should have the right to select a union of their own choice. Two slates, one named by union and the other by non-union men, were submitted to the employees. They voted eighty-seven to thirty in favour of a union committee. The conciliator, Mr. Mc-Geogh, ruled in favour of the men and ordered the company to meet with the committee elected by the men. However, when that committee approached the company the company flatly refused to negotiate and notified the committee that in future the company would hire all men from Vancouver.
That was an exceedingly serious matter because any man who could not secure employment with the Pacific Lime Company would be virtually compelled to leave Texada island inasmuch as there were no other forms of employment available to him there. Again the organized employees applied for a conciliator under the provincial act. I emphasize the fact that the employees who were in dispute with the company followed step by step every legal process open to them under the provincial law. Before the conciliator arrived, the company again indulged in discriminatory practices, and the men went on strike on March 6, at the same time presenting their grievances to the company. Again two commissioners arrived at this point and persuaded the company to open negotiations on condition that the men returned to work. The men returned to work on March 12. The committees and officials of the company met in negotiation, but a deadlock soon took place, following which the men made application for an arbitration board as provided under the arbitration act. Even then, during the month of April, 1938, while the government of British Columbia was taking steps to set up an arbitration board, the Pacific Lime Company discharged nine of their regular employees, for no other reason apparently than that they had engaged in the organization of a union, and filled their places with men recruited from recipients of relief in the adjacent districts.
Here I pause to stress the fact that these men were recruited through the agency of the provincial police of British Columbia from the area known as the Sechelt peninsula. Men who were on relief, it is declared in affidavits, were told that if they did not accept strikebreaking duty at Blubber Bay their relief
Criminal Code-Trade Unions

would be cut off. A number of affidavits were produced to that effect. As a result of these practices the employees again quit work and appealed to the minister of labour of British Columbia, who instructed the company to reinstate the men or face prosecution under the act. In the arbitration proceedings which followed, Mr. Harold Winch, M.L.A., represented the men before the board of arbitration and produced a letter which had been circulated among the men by their employers urging them against belonging to an affiliate of the C.I.O. Counsel for the company stated that this organization was not a Canadian union but was controlled in the United States and that its reputation was not such as to inspire the company with confidence, thereby making it clear that the company intended to deny the men the right to select a union of their own choice. There are innumerable instances of anti-union activities on the part of the company, and there was continual discrimination, which resulted in the application for the board of arbitration.
Mr. Justice McIntosh was chairman of the board, the other members being Mr. Frank Leigh, and Mr. R. D. Williams, designated by the lieutenant governor in council. The board held sessions at Blubber Bay on May 4 and 5, and on May 10 handed down a unanimous report. The Pacific Lime Company notified the department of labour of British Columbia that they would accept the award. I have here a copy of the award. Several sections were in dispute as being ultra vires of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, a section of which requires the employer to recognize a committee elected by a majority of the employees. At the request of Mr. Pearson, provincial minister of labour, Mr. Justice McIntosh returned to Blubber Bay and dealt with these difficulties to the satisfaction of the company and the men.
One of the principal clauses of the award was that the company should reinstate the men who had been black listed, if those men were available and as opportunity should arise. The meeting following the second session of the arbitration board proceeded to work out plans for the implementing of the terms of the award. The chief point was the reinstatement of twenty-three men who had been black listed by the Pacific Lime Company. Although the company professed their willingness to accept the amended award, they definitely refused to work out a plan for the reinstatement of the twenty-three men who had been black listed. They refused to declare when they would reinstate the men, or to set a time limit, or to suggest any procedure that would be followed with a view

to reinstating them. They said that they would have to consider their so-called loyal employees, that is, the men brought in, in the weeks immediately preceding, to take the place of the men who had been black listed because of trade union activities.
Mr. Justice McIntosh did not spare the company in his remarks, particularly in regard to their stand on behalf of the so-called loyal employees. He said definitely that they "should go down to the mill in the morning and dismiss those men." He emphasized that the men were brought in during the dispute and said that he would not be in the least surprised if they were dismissed, and he pressed the company to reinstate the twenty-three men round whom the dispute centred and who had been loyal to the company for terms of employment ranging up to thirty years. The company refused to make terms of reinstatement, but stated quite defiantly to the government and to the men that they would not reinstate them; and after waiting several weeks the men struck on June 2, 1938. As far as I am aware, that strike is still in progress.
Since the strike was declared the authorities in British Columbia made several earnest endeavours to settle the dispute. For several very good reasons there is still danger that certain business will be tied up if the unions in the United States handling cargoes take a sympathetic point of view. Sympathetic action on the part of affiliated trade unions would seriously disrupt business operations in British Columbia.


Mr. REID:: The hon. member mentioned twenty-three men who were dismissed. Were any of the old employees retained?


Charles Grant MacNeil: Yes, I believe there were; but I am referring to the men who formed themselves into a union and attempted to secure recognition of that union by the company, and who were black listed and dismissed1; none of those men was reinstated. Mr. John Stanton, barrister of Vancouver, made a splendid effort to bring the company and the men together. Mr. Colin Cameron, M.L.A., Mr. Harold Winch, M.L.A., and many other individuals approached the company, and eventually Mr. Justice McIntosh again went to the company, urged the courts to adjourn the various trials, and attempted to reach some settlement. The company refused to reinstate the men. At first they promised they would reinstate six or seven or eight of them; subsequent negotiations revealed their willingness to reinstate the majority of the white men but not any of the orientals involved, who had given long and faithful service.

Prairie Farm Rehabilitation
To every attempt made by the provincial government during or subsequently to the arbitration proceedings the company took a defiant attitude and evinced determination to crush the strike.
When the strike was called, a detachment of the provincial police was sent to Blubber Bay, and it is to the disgrace of British Columbia that this police force was used to intimidate the strikers and provoke them to disorder. The employees were men known to be industrious and law-abiding, but they were subjected to what I consider to be acts of terrorism. There was a lady in the community, whose house had been built by public subscription when her husband died in the employ of the plant and whose house was not on the company property; an attempt was made forcibly to evict her, in the presence of the police officers. Affidavits were made showing that attempts were made to suborn witnesses to give perjured evidence that money was obtained by methods of extortion, without the man being formally charged or appearing before a magistrate. There was deliberate provocation by the police, until a large number of charges of unlawful assembly resulted. Men were arrested on various pretexts. I well remember that for a whole Sunday men crazed with liquor ran wild in Blubber Bay, intimidating and in some instances actually assaulting innocent persons, and the police standing by offered no protection to those who sympathized with the strikers. I was present on one occasion when a barrister of repute made an affidavit in the presence of the attorney general of British Columbia to the effect that the magistrate sitting on one of these cases had been under the influence of liquor when dealing with the case. The whole matter was such as to undermine confidence in the administration of law and order in that section of British Columbia, and it resulted from the deliberate and determined efforts of a well entrenched company to deny a legitimate union the right to conduct its legitimate activities.
The situation became so serious that one police officer was finally charged with assault, convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment. The offence which he committed was that he did assault a man arrested on a charge of unlawful assembly after that man had been placed in the house used by the police detachment for their purposes. That man was seriously injured, and although sentenced on the charge of unlawful assembly was at the point of death for many months, as a result of these injuries.


Ernest Lapointe: Was that the municipal police?


Charles Grant MacNeil: A provincial police officer, a member of the detachment especially imported to Blubber Bay on strike duty, who,
I say, took no pains to conceal their desire to take the part of the company and smash the strike. A few level-headed police officers on the scene might have made it clear that they were there to protect property and maintain law and order, and might have avoided all the serious trouble which resulted. The courts were clogged with charges of assault, unlawful assembly and rioting for many months afterwards, and this caused grave concern to citizens of British Columbia interested in the maintenance of law and order. The law was brought into ridicule because of the actions of some police officers sent to Blubber Bay on strike duty.
While I cannot now go into more details of a very sad chapter in the industrial history of British Columbia, I suggest to the Minister of Justice that it is a crime for employers to do what was done in Blubber Bay. They used the power which is theirs to intimidate employees and prevent legitimate trade union activity; they found it possible to influence law enforcement in British Columbia in order to place the strikers at a disadvantage, and where you have officers susceptible to that kind of influence it is very easy to charge that any assembly, such as a picket line, is an unlawful assembly, threatening or presumed to threaten a disturbance of the peace. The law was brought into contempt in British Columbia 'by reason of that action with sad results, which will leave a deep impression in the minds of citizens of British Columbia for many years to come. I suggest it is now high time that we make definite provision in the criminal code of Canada declaring it to be unlawful for employers to intimidate in that fashion employees who are attempting legitimately to bargain for their rights.
On motion of Mr. Macdonald (Brantford City) the debate was adjourned.



PRAIRIE FARM REHABILITATION


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) moved the third reading of Bill No. 36, to amend the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act.
Henry Herbert Stevens: When this bill was up for second reading and during the committee stage I discussed it at some length. I shall endeavour not to traverse
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation

again the ground that I covered on those two occasions, but to state briefly some reasons why I consider this legislation to be of a retrograde character.
Over a long period of years there have been developed in the legislation of Canada certain safeguards to control the expenditure of public money. As a result of long experience certain principles have been adopted to ensure this control.
This is a bill to amend the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, which originally was passed in 1935 as an emergency measure. The original legislation was of this nature: There had been an area in Saskatchewan and Alberta and the western section of Manitoba subjected to drought for several years; there was soil drifting, and the -farmers in -this district were suffering. It was found advisable for parliament to pass certain legislation enabling a study to be made of the situation. So a bill was passed authorizing the appointment of a representative committee. I read the details of that clause on the second reading. This committee was of an advisory character to advise the minister as to what measures might be taken to rehabilitate the area. That, as I say, was in 1935.
In 1937 the act was amended, broadening its character. It must be borne in mind-and I wish it had been possible for the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) to have been present to-night, because I consider this is a matter of rather unusual importance-that the original measure provided for examination into the situation, and for certain emergency measures. But it limited the amount of expenditure in the act itself, and provided for other safeguards and limitations.
In the act of 1937 the original act was amended and the groundwork somewhat broadened. The 1937 bill really erects what was originally passed as an emergency measure into an important piece of permanent legislation. It may be questioned as to whether or not it is permanent. But when I point out that in his elucidation of the works which had already been undertaken and brought into operation the minister stated last night that some of it was constructed to last for at least twenty years, the permanency will be realized.
I think in regard to many of the operations he would not limit it to that time.
Furthermore,' thousands of acres, tens of thousands, yes, hundreds of thousands of acres of land have been and are being purchased, which erects the whole undertaking as a permanent structure. For instance, when speaking last night the minister gave certain information, some of which I shall quote. He apparently impressed the house with the significance 
of what the government is doing. For example, he referred to Caron water storage, at a cost of $400,000; Cypress lake storage, at a cost of $304,696.13; Downie lake irrigation project at a cost of $61,461.65; the Brooks irrigation project extending over an area of 25,000 acres, the Eastend extension at a cost of $30,661.45; the Glen Ewen dam storage at a cost of S9.471.40; the Kisbey Flats irrigation project costing $23,121.50; the Pipestone lake storage, costing $7,523.25; the Oxbow-Souris river storage dam at a cost of $16,130; the Souris-Estevan irrigation project at a cost of $52,903.86; the South Saskatchewan river storage project at a cost of $243,106.25; the west Valmarie irrigation project at a cost of $43,987.50; the Weyburn rural municipality underground storage -project, costing $3,333,33, and the Leavitt irrigation district project, to cost $46,304.80.
These are the works with which we are dealing in this legislation. And I may say that, in addition to these, there are about 5,000 individual, smaller operations.


Mr. GARDINER:: Would the hon. member mind my asking him a question? I understood a moment ago that the hon. member was going to proceed to quote from something I had said to show that hundreds of thousands of acres of land had been purchased. There is nothing in the remarks he has made which indicates that.


Henry Herbert Stevens: I did not think the minister expected me to quote to any great extent. However, I shall quote some of it. For instance, these pasture lands acquired by the government-


James Garfield Gardiner: Those are not purchased.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Fenced by the government.


James Garfield Gardiner: They are not purchased.


Henry Herbert Stevens: They are fenced.


James Garfield Gardiner: They are given to
the government.


Henry Herbert Stevens: They are taken over. The minister said last night that title in them was in the government. Are they or are they not deeded to the government?


James Garfield Gardiner: The title is given to
us by the provincial governments, but they are not purchased. There is no money passed.


Henry Herbert Stevens: None of them purchased?


James Garfield Gardiner: There may be certain
acreages, small acreages, purchased-but not hundreds of thousands of acres.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Here is what we have
acquired, anyway; in other words, title has been taken by the dominion government in connection with these properties:
Acres in
Name of pasture Coldfields..		
Estevan-Cambria..
Laurier	
The Gap No. 1.. .. The Gap No. 2.. .. Brokenshell No. 1.. Brolcenshell No. 2.. Excel No. 1.. .. Excel No. 2.. ..
Rudy	
Usborne	
Dundurn	
Montrose	
Mariposa No. 1.. Mariposa No. 2.. Park	
pasture
6,500
6.400
24,960
5.440
6,720
20.480
8,160
6,880
10,560
7,360
12,160
20,800
11.680
7.320
14.720
5,760
Total	175'900
In addition to that the minister gave some very large figures last night-


James Garfield Gardiner: Over 400,000 acres.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Yes, some 400,000 acres.
That saves me the trouble of looking it up.
The only point I make is that this constitutes a permanent undertaking. It is not something which is any longer of an emergency nature. My complaint is that m this legislation before the house we are giving to the minister powers which over the years have gradually been taken away from ministerial control, not through any reflection upon ministers, but as a matter of experience and to safeguard the proper control of public
expenditures.
As an illustration let me turn to the Department of Transport Stores Act, 1937. There we find this safeguard:
All transactions affecting the accounts herein provided for shall be subject to all the . provisions and regulations of The Consolidated Revenue and Audit Act 1931, except as otherwise herein provided.
That is one safeguard not found in this
legislation.
Then, the Public Works Construction Act was somewhat similar to the measure now under consideration. It, too, was emergency legislation. Let us remember that in connection with these undertakings for the irrigation of land, valuable areas of land are to be acquired. Under this measure, subject to the approval of the governor in council, we empower the minister to acquire lands, and so on. But in the Public Works Construction Act, section 3 we find this:
The governor in council may acquire such lands as may be necessary for the purposes of this act and the provisions of the Expropriation Act, chapter 64 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1927, shall apply.
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation
I am not saying that in every instance the Expropriation Act should apply, but I do submit it would be advisable to have the acquisition of land under this legislation subject to the Expropriation Act or, in cases where the Expropriation Act were not considered necessary, the governor in council should make special provision for it.
Another point is this:	It is not obligatory
upon the minister to call for tenders. On the other hand, under the Public Works Construction Act it is obligatory upon the minister to call for tenders, and the provision reads as follows:
Except as hereinafter provided the minister or department of the government entrusted with the administration, management and execution of any of the works set forth in schedule A to this act shall invite tenders for the construction and execution of such works, and contracts for all such works and undertakings shall be awarded under the direction of the governor in council.
I submit that also should be included in this bill. Another provision which should be included is to be found in the Public Works Construction Act, 1935. This reads:
All orders in council made under the provisions of this act shall be laid before the House of Commons forthwith after the making thereof if parliament is then sitting, and if not, then said orders in council or an abstract thereof disclosing their essential provisions shall be published in the next following issue of the Canada Qazette and laid before parliament in the case of all expenditures the amounts of which are not specifically set forth in schedule A to this act within the first fifteen days of the next ensuing session.
The reason for that provision in that act was similar to the reason why a similar provision should be included in this legislation. The new section 12 empowers the minister to dispose of equipment; in fact, under that section he can dispose of a great many things. I did not attempt to look up the records, but I have referred to the Public Works Act, which is chapter 166 of the Revised Statutes of Canada. This is a very old statute, and I cite it because it shows that for years parliament has carefully guarded this sort of thing. Section 39 of that act reads:
Notwithstanding anything in this act, or in any other act contained, any public work not required for public purposes may be sold or leased, under the authority of the governor in council; and the proceeds of such sale or lease shall be accounted for as public moneys: Provided that such public work shall be so sold or leased by tender or at auction after public advertisement.
And so on. The reason why I refer to that is the fact that yesterday it was suggested to the minister that these articles should be disposed of by public auction. There is a wide range of activities authorized under this
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation

bill. It is impossible for the minister personally to keep in contact with several thousand undertakings. When I say several thousand, I am not exaggerating because the report which was tabled, which is incomplete, shows that applications have been made for over
11,000,	and the projects reported completed number 4,588. That was a year ago, and during 1938 several thousand more have been added. It is obviously impossible for the minister or the deputy minister to keep in touch with the various projects, and therefore it is doubly desirable that reasonable safeguards should be maintained. I am not asking for anything new, I am simply suggesting that the existing safeguards in connection with the disposal of equipment and property shall be maintained. I think that could be done by adopting in this measure the old, well tried practices of the Department of Transport, which was formerly the Department of Marine, in connection with its stores, and of the Department of Public Works and the other operating departments of the government which through long experience have found the best method of dealing with these matters.
It was not my intention to prolong the debate or delay this matter. I simply wanted to reiterate what I had expressed before, that in my opinion this legislation represents a loosening up of what has long been recognized as the necessary control by parliament over the expenditure of public money. It is a retrograde step. This legislation is making permanent that which was adopted a few years ago under an emergency, and we are doing it with an almost frivolous attitude. We have not worked out a well thought out statute to control this vast undertaking. It is a vast undertaking. It is like having a working government within the government. It has all the potentialities of a Department of Public Works being operated by the Department of Agriculture. This latter department has not the personnel or the training to deal with many of these larger undertakings. I have already referred to irrigation schemes which will run into $300,000 or $400,000. These are to be constructed under the direction of the Department of Agriculture when we have an efficient Department of Public Works which could undertake this work. The small dug-outs and the little local water storage basins could probably be constructed by the Department of Agriculture, but these larger works ought to be under the Department of Public Works, and be supervised by the laws of the country which control expenditures of this kind.
I am quite aware that I shall lay myself open to the suggestion that I am reflecting 
on the minister, but this has nothing to do with him at all. It is purely a non-personal matter. My objection is to the principle of the bill, to the retrograde nature of the legislation and to the at least partial abandonment of the regular safeguards which have been used for many years in this country in connection with such matters.
Mr. KARL K. HOMUTH (Waterloo South): Mr. Speaker, I have had some experience with legislation and with government. One thing which amazes me is the number of measures which are passed through this house empowering ministers to do within their own departments works which should necessarily come under some other department. One almost begins to wonder whether or not this session is just a prelude to a general election when what is so often referred to in the United States as the pork-barrel is opened up for the purposes of an election within a few months. Everything in connection with this bill gives to the minister power which I submit no minister should have. When expenditures such as these are undertaken, I believe that they ought to be undertaken by the department of government which knows something about construction, engineering and the carrying out of such works. We have gone into the motion picture business; we have the Department of National Defence; apparently everything that is being done is subject to the charge of patronage. Surely the time has come when the people of Canada should be sick and tired of political patronage. They are sick and tired of it. I for one want to protest against the putting through of legislation which, like this bill, is going to give the power of political patronage to a minister.


Thomas Langton Church: Mr. Speaker, we are being asked to approve the third reading of Bill No. 36, to amend the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. The main part of the amendment has to do with an appropriation of $450,000, a large sum of money. The minister may make argeements with the provinces, with municipalities, cities and towns, or with any individual or corporation. That is contrary to the other labour and relief legislation of the government where the municipalities must deal with the provinces.
I think this Bill No. 36 is class legislation of the worst kind. If you are going to assist the prairie provinces on their way to recovery, then by the British North America Act in relation to concurrent jurisdiction in agriculture, there should be equality of treatment for all the other provinces because they have farm problems as well. I was very much

Prairie Farm Rehabilitation
surprised at the kind of argument that was used on the second reading of this bill. It was claimed that the prairie provinces had paid St7.000,000 through the tariff over a period of years, and now three or four million dollars a year are to be set aside to assist the prairies because of that new argument. That seems to be the principle on which the minister is going in this bill. I never knew any other minister to accept or adopt such a principle. It is based on a fallacy and unfounded. I never heard such an argument used before in all the parliaments I have sat in until this one.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, this bill is sectional, for the benefit of one part of Canada only at the expense of another. As I said in parliament last year in connection with similar legislation, I cannot understand the policy of this government as it appears in this bill. The policy is all wrong. There was a return brought down to this house for the late Mr. McCrea which showed that so far as agriculture was concerned the jurisdiction under the British North America Act was concurrent between the dominion and the provinces. It never was the intention of the fathers of confederation by the widest stretch of imagination that the principle of federal assistance to the prairies should be carried out along the lines of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, and this amendment by Bill No. 36. This is class legislation; it is not in the public interest, and somebody must pay for it. The return to which I referred showed that these millions of dollars of assistance for the prairies came from the industrial provinces of Ontario and Quebec to the extent of eighty per cent. These two provinces pay eighty per cent of all the cash taxes of Canada. Since the present minister has been in charge of this department, he seems to have turned this high court of parliament into a parliament only for the benefit of Saskatchewan at the expense of the rest of Canada.
The argument that the east is getting a subsidy through the tariff is very far-fetched indeed. Hon. gentlemen from the west say that the three prairie provinces have contributed 517,000,000 through the tariff to the east. Where is it? What did that $47,000,000 consist of? It is simply an academic argument, and I never heard it used until the present Minister of Labour (Mr. Rogers) came into the house in 1935. It is not an economic or a business argument or even a fact. It sets one section of this country against another. It sets the west against the industrial provinces of the east, against Ontario and against your province, Mr. Speaker, from which sixty-five members come to this parliament looking for similar treatment.
I will give the reasons for the principles of this bill. I stated in the.house last year the reasons for the failure of agriculture on the prairies, and I quoted at that time from an article in the National Review entitled "Waste Not Want Not," which describes conditions on the prairies and in the waste agriculture places of the United States. It says:
There is no country in the world where machinery is utilized more in everyday life than in the United States of America, and there is no country in the world where human and material waste is becoming more evident. The American used the machine to extinguish the amenities of his soil, and he reaps the whirlwind, or the dirt storm. He turned his machines on the timber, and he finds himself confronted with rising waters in the shape of floods, and falling waters in the form of droughts. If he continues on the same lines, employing his ruthless mechanisms on industrial projects without due consideration of wastage of raw materials and wastage in human power, he may conceivably awake like Rip van Winkle in another generation and discover that all the empty gunny sacks in the countryside will not clothe and feed the miserable population.
In the Dominion of Canada the fisheries are a declining factor, consequent on the application of a maximum of mechanical age and a minimum of human power. The prairies in the central regions are losing their fertility in an endeavour to supply wheat for exportation with a maximum of machine power and a minimum of man power; and the same sequence applies to timber or mineral productions. Over eighty per cent of Canada's exportations are basic raw materials, or primary products, and the whole population of this vast extent of the earth's surface is only in the neighbourhood of 11,000,000.
The point which I wish to make clear is that during the last decade since machinery in the dominion has been employed in geometrical progression towards the destruction of primary natural resources for export, the country has failed to increase in man power. Not only is this the case, but the problem of unemployment is probably as acute in Canada as elsewhere. The same reasoning holds to a more or less degree when applied to other parts of the British empire from which countries, dominated by industrialism or unrelentless machine economy, derive their supplies of raw material.
It is no solution of this question of raw materials which contends that if ^ the imperial markets from whence Great Britain obtains her present supplies were thrown open to the world at large under a league of nations or other committee a situation would be created whereby peace would become the stabilized condition of human existence, machine economy and trade the governing factors, and war an outrage.
I contend that if the government of Canada, which has concurrent jurisdiction with the provinces in agriculture, is going to give
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation

by this bill federal assistance running into tens of millions of dollars a year to the prairie provinces, then under the British North America Act the farmers of the other provinces are entitled to the very same treatment. Agriculture, as a matter of fact, should have been at confederation a provincial responsibility, with each province looking after its own agriculture; but under sections 91 and 92 of the British North America Act the dominion and the provinces have concurrent jurisdiction in agriculture. Is it to be concurrent only for Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, or is the concurrency to apply to the other provinces where they have similar problems of drought and poor crops? I say that the other provinces are not going to stand for contributing out of current revenue and out of capital all this federal assistance to one section only of Canada.
Hon. gentlemen argue that the west has contributed 847,000,000 through the tariff, and they contend that the east is subsidized through the tariff. I believe in the only principle of confederation, each for all and all for each, for each of the provinces. If you cany that argument to a legitimate conclusion-although I have never used it before, I have heard it used in a great protectionist paper, the Evening Telegram of Toronto, by a gentleman who was editor for nearly forty years and probably knew more about protection and the tariff in relation to the prairies than some members of the cabinet;
I am not using it; I am' giving it in answer to the argument proposed-it is not. open to hon. gentlemen on my left to say that the industrial provinces have a subsidy of 847,000,000 from the west, because I can tell them this, that the greatest enemy the western farmer has is not east of the great lakes, his greatest enemy as a grain grower is the free trader on the prairies. The free traders are very largely to blame for this trouble on the prairies. They, the elevator combines, the grain exchange and others in the west are responsible largely for the farmers' difficulties because they have tried to make western agriculture a north and south industry instead of an east and west industry. Some of the worst enemies the west had were free traders in Regina and other prairie capitals and cabinet ministers who shared their opinions when they proposed free trade in grain along those lines and when they opposed inquiries into the grain industry, as, for instance, when they secured an injunction in the Maharg case, so preventing a proper inquiry into the evils suffered by the farmers on the prairies from combines and middlemen who handle grain,

I believe in the principle of confederation, each for all and all for each; but I believe the day is not far distant when parliament can no longer make these hand-outs under the British North America Act to the west unless they give the same treatment under the very same act under concurrent jurisdiction to the maritimes, to British Columbia, and to the industrial provinces where, in Ontario and Quebec, are hundreds of farmers in destitute circumstances.


Robert James Manion: I wish to say just a few words, occupying probably two or three minutes, on this bill. I had not the good fortune to be in the house to hear it thoroughly discussed, because I was "knocked out" a little bit and did not have an opportunity of being here. Merely to read the bill makes anyone come to the conclusion that its powers are too wide, and it is for the purpose of protesting against such powers being given to anybody that I rise in my place. Although one or two or perhaps all of the clauses have been slightly modified, numbers 10, 11 and 12 give the minister power to enter into agreements with the provinces and perform many duties. Section 10 states:
The minister may . . . enter into agreements with any of the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan or Alberta or with any city, town or other municipality within any of the said provinces, or with any person, firm or corporation.
By section 11:
The minister may, for the purposes of the act, and with the approval of the governor in council, purchase, lease or otherwise acquire, or sell, lease or otherwise dispose of, any lands or premises which may be required . . '. upon such terms or conditions as he may deem desirable.
Section 12 states:
The minister may . . . purchase or rent whatever machinery or equipment may be required in connection with the development, construction or operation of any project, or scheme, and may sell or otherwise dispose of such equipment upon such terms as he may deem desirable.
To my mind that gives the minister power to do anything on earth, within the limitations of the money which he has at his disposal.


James Garfield Gardiner: With the approval of the governor in council.


Robert James Manion: Well, only one of the
sections, No. 10, states that.


James Garfield Gardiner: And No. 11.

Prairie Farm Rehabilitation


Robert James Manion: "The minister may . . . with the approval of the governor in council, enter into agreements." The others do not say so.


James Garfield Gardiner: And No. 11.


Robert James Manion: Yes, that is right. I had not noticed it in section 11. But it is not in section 12.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is now, with the
amendments.


Robert James Manion: Even thus, to give power of that sort to any minister, to any man, is, to my mind, to give him excessive power in these days. We know what power does to some people. I am not suggesting that it might make the minister lose his head, because he is a pretty level-headed politician. At the same time, Hitler got too much power, and we know what is happening to him and what might happen to us. Lucifer was in the same class, although he got thrown out of his job. I am afraid that the minister-


Ernest Lapointe: Do not compare the minister with Lucifer.


Robert James Manion: I know the minister is one of those high-minded gentlemen who would not think of doing anything for political purposes or reasons of that sort. At the same time-to be serious-I believe that this bill gives him far too much power. Nobody knows better than the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) himself that this is far too much power to give to anybody. I have not any doubt, despite the cry we hear about wasting the time of parliament and idling away our time here when we should be occupied with other matters, that if we were in power and attempted to put through a bill of this sort, it would be held up, not for days, but for weeks, by our friends on the other side. I do not suppose the minister would refuse the power offered to him, but I suggest sincerely to the government that to give him the power which this bill enacts is far too much. It would be too much to give to any individual, be he ever so high-minded, sincere and desirous of dealing justly and fairly with the people of the three prairie provinces. I merely rise to put in my protest against the passing of a bill of that kind.


Ernest Edward Perley: I am not going to hold up the passing of this bill to any extent; I desire to make just one or two further observations. On previous occasions I have said practically all that I intended to say. But, more particularly with the amendments which were put into the bill last evening, having looked them over
as I read them in Hansard to-day, I cannot see that the bill is improved very much. It is no more of a safeguard upon the expenditures of public money than it was in the form in which it was originally presented to the house. As the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) has stated to-night, under this bill the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act is made permanent. What I should like to draw to the attention of the minister, and what I should like to have him undertake, is, if possible, some system of checking up on expenditures with respect to the staff, not only their salaries but their expenses as well. I refer to the men who are now employed in the city of Regina and the province of Saskatchewan. Return No. 59 which was tabled yesterday by the minister shows that at the present time there are 261 persons employed, seventy-one in Regina and 190 outside the city. The return gives the names and the salaries.


James Garfield Gardiner: In the three provinces.


Ernest Edward Perley: The expenses of some of them are given. I notice in the auditor general's report for the year ended March 31, 1938, that salaries paid under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act in Saskatchewan were in the neighbourhood of half a million dollars, and the expenditures of these employees ran to over S200.000. I think the minister would be well advised to have a very careful check-up in this matter, particularly of the expenses. I notice in the auditor general's report that one man had an expense account of $7,000. It will be found on page 57 of the report; the name of the man is J. I. Mutchler; he was employed as one of the field men. I think any man operating a car and running up an expense account of
87,000	should have his expenses carefully checked. I notice also that there are 123 men operating cars, and that the expenses of some of them run around $2,000 each.
Wide powers are given by this bill to the minister. We are not suggesting any ulterior motive or making any imputation. The work is of an important character and in its main result will prove of great benefit to the province, but I repeat that the expenditures should be checked very carefully indeed. I recall that when the previous government was in office, auditors were sent out from the federal treasury department and kept on the job and everything was checked carefully. It is along this line I should like to have the minister's assurance that a more careful tab will be kept with regard to some of these officials.
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation

I have here a letter which I received this morning. It is a report from the proprietor of a rooming house in Regina stating that one or two of the employees under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, who had been taken into the organization in December last at salaries of S125 and S150, are now on three weeks holiday with full pay. I do not think the minister should allow that sort of thing. It is evidence that there may be a little slackness in the way in which matters are controlled in the province. The bill, however, will go through, anyway,, and I will not hold it up.


James Garfield Gardiner: One or two remarks have been made to which I should like to reply. In the first place it has been suggested by one or two of the speakers that this is a rather remarkable piece of legislation. In particular, I believe the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth), in the few observations he made, referred to it as a set-up just prior to a coming election for the purpose of giving patronage. If one looks at the legislation on which these amendments are based, one finds that the legislation was passed by the House of Commons on April 11, 1935, which was just prior to the last federal election, and passed by the government which was then in office; and in spite of the remarks of the hon. member for Waterloo South, who has very lately come into the house, I am not inclined to think the bill was passed by the government of the day for the purpose of giving out patronage in connection with the election which was then in the offing. I am quite sure that members of the house to-day are not at all in agreement with the hon. member for Waterloo South that the present intentions with respect to any legislation that may be brought into the house are for the purpose he indicated.
Bill No. 55, introduced in 1935, is in principle identical with the act which is still on the statute books. This bill deals in very much the same terms as the act which is now on the statute books. In the first place, the first section declares:
In this act and in any regulations made thereunder, unless the context otherwise requires, "minister" means the Minister of Agriculture.
In other words, it was not the present government but the government of our predecessors that placed this particular work under the control of the Department of Agriculture, and it has remained under the control of the Minister of Agriculture from that day to the present time.

Section 3 provides that the governor in council may establish a committee. The only change in that section was made during the session of 1937 when the word "committees" was substituted for the word "committee." On that occasion the then leader of the opposition suggested that the word "advisory" should be added to the word "committees," and when the bill finally went through the house the words "advisory committees" were embodied in it. So that instead of one committee advising the minister, as we had under the legislation set up by the other government, we now have three committees advising. Well, if there is any change in policy in that respect, it is a change that gives the minister more advice than he had under the legislation of 1935.
Section 3, it is true, goes on to state how the committees shall be constituted, and as I pointed out last evening, the only difference between the committees as constituted now and the committee as constituted then, is that the farming population of the area concerned is represented by members appointed by the municipal bodies instead of by members appointed by the grain growers or other organizations of that type in that section of Canada.
Section 4 provides that the committee shall consider and advise the minister, and the section now reads:
The advisory committees shall consider and advise the minister as to the best methods to be adopted to secure the rehabilitation of the drought and soil drifting areas in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and to develop and promote within these areas systems of farm practice, tree culture, water supply-
In the legislation of 1937, in that section, just a few words were added:
. . . land utilization and land settlement. . . .
These activities were added to the others enumerated in the section; otherwise the legislation is exactly the same. The provision was broadened to the extent of adding the words " land utilization " in connection with the activities previously carried on, and the words " land settlement," which probably involve an enlargement of the activities under the bill.
Section 5 provided that no member of the committee should receive any pay, and that is still the condition. Section 6 provided:
The minister may appoint such temporary technical, professional and other officers and employees as he may deem necessary and expedient for carrying out the provisions of this act. . . .
That is exactly as it was. The minister does what he did in the legislation laid down by

Prairie Farm Rehabilitation
the previous government. Section 7 is identical with section 7 of the previous legislation:
The governor in council may make such regulations as may be necessary or expedient tor the effectual execution and working of this act and the attainment of the intention and objects thereof.
The only change in the next section is that instead of fixing a definite sum to be spent each year in connection with this legislation, the present legislation provides that we spend the sums given us through the estimates that pass this house from time to time.
I do not see any particular change in the policy of this government in relation to this matter, or in the principle of this legislation, from the principle which had been adopted in the previous legislation; and in so far as these sections which are added now are concerned, all the powers that are to be exercised under these three sections were previously exercised under section 7 of the original bill. These powers were all exercised by officials of the Department of Agriculture under the previous government. Their activities were continued by the present government, and, as I said the other day, many of the officials carrying on those activities in the department are the same officials that carried them on under the former government.
The statement with regard to these sections suggesting that the minister is given exceptional powers are hardly borne out by a careful reading of the legislation. Section 7 of the old bill provided that the governor in council might make regulations, and those regulations were the only provisions that really governed the activities of the minister. Under this particular legislation it is provided that the minister may, subject to section 4 of the act, that is subject to getting advice from the advisory committees, and with the approval of the governor in council, enter into agreements. We were entering into agreements before. We were doing all the things enumerated in this particular piece of legislation under the powers contained in section 7, and it is only because it is considered wise to ask this house to have those powers conferred directly by the house rather than have to depend upon order in council legislation in order to give the powers to the minister, that this particular bill has been brought in at this time.
There was one other remark made in regard to which I might say a word, that is the statement by the hon. member for Kootenay East (Mr. Stevens) as to several thousands of undertakings; he went on to indicate that there are some 11,000 applications for undertakings in connection with which the sale of equipment would be involved. There is no government equipment used in the digging of dug-outs. These dug-outs are dug on the farms of farmers, usually with equipment provided by the farmer himself. When not constructed by farmers with their own equipment they are constructed with equipment that the farmers borrow from the municipality or some other body in the neighbourhood. Most of the other undertakings are not carried out with government equipment at all; they are carried out under contracts let by tender to contractors who use their own equipment. All the large dams are constructed in that way; all the large irrigation works are constructed in that way; all the ditch digging is done with equipment of that kind owned or controlled by contractors, and therefore not at the disposal of the government to sell.
Mr. PERLEY; Does the minister mean to say that all the dug-outs were dug with farmers' own equipment, that there was not government machinery going round, and after the farmers had taken off the surface did not government machinery come and finish the job?


James Garfield Gardiner: No, the government
has no machinery going round doing that work. As regards work that is completed with what are known as drag-lines, these drag-lines belong either to municipalities or to contractors who have taken a contract from the farmers or through the municipality to clean out the bottom of the dug-out. In other words, what actually happened in Manitoba in connection with many of these undertakings is that the municipalities have made arrangements for drag-lines to be brought in to take out the bottom six feet of the dug-outs. So far as Saskatchewan is concerned in some instances groups of farmers formed into agricultural associations have secured drag-lines through contractors to come and do the same thing. This equipment does not belong to the government at all, and is not equipment over which the government would have any control either to sell or do anything else with. There are very few of the undertakings in any of the provinces in connection with which the government has control over any of the equipment. And much of that is carried on not under the set-up that is generally known as the P.F.R.A. set-up; it is carried on under the regular experimental farm set-up in those provinces. Take, for example, the leveling of lands in connection with irrigation undertakings; that is carried out under the direc-
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation

tion of the superintendent of the experimental farm at Swift Current, and the equipment purchased for the carrying out of the work is largely purchased under recommendation from those officials of the department, who are chosen not by the minister but by the civil service commission, regular officials of the Department of Agriculture carrying on the activities of the experimental farms branch.
I make those statements in order to clear up any suggestion that these thousands of undertakings are being carried on with government equipment and that this equipment is at the disposal of the minister to sell or do what he likes with. I suppose there would not be more than a dozen undertakings in Saskatchewan last year, probably not more than three or four in Alberta, and very few in Manitoba, on which equipment would be used with which the minister had anything whatever to do as to either purchase or sale.
In relation to the suggestion that under the previous government, a very careful check was kept of all the activities in connection with the department, exactly the same kind of check is being kept by the present government; more of it, because we are spending more money. And many of the same individuals, who were checking the accounts then are checking them now.
I say this in order to indicate that considerable care is being taken in connection with activities involving the expenditure of money in the department. It is only proper that these checks should be made of all expenditures of government money, whether in this department or in any other.
Motion agreed to and bill read the third time and passed.



AGRICULTURAL PESTS


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) moved the second reading of Bill No. 40, to amend the Agricultural Pests Control Act, and change the title thereof.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.
Section 2 agreed to.
On section 3-Definitions.
Mark Cecil Senn: Why are these changes being
made, who is asking for them, and what is the significance of the changes?


James Garfield Gardiner: A general suggestion
that the changes be made has come from the fruit growers and others interested in this matter. For example, the change suggested in section 3 largely has to do with the use of the word "guarantee" instead of "guaranteed analysis." Owing to the wide range of products coming under this act, the different uses of those products, and the fact that many of them do not lend themselves to chemical or other analysis, different lcinds of guarantee are required. Most of the products require a chemical guarantee; others require specific gravity and viscosity guarantee. A large number, and particularly those in which the active substances are unstable or for which there are no methods of chemical analysis, require a guarantee of biological effectiveness. Examples are the rotenones, pyrethrums, squills and some of the mercuric organics. It is therefore important that the interpretation of "guarantee" be left as broad as possible. The intention is to broaden it so that it can be applied properly.


Gordon Graydon: Has any objection been raised to the changes which are now contemplated?


James Garfield Gardiner: There has been no
objection raised, but there has been some discussion with the pharmaceutical associations, and there has been general agreement. One amendment was suggested, which will be brought in later.


Mr. STIRLING:: Was a copy of the draft
bill submitted to the various organizations, farmers' institutes and so on, across Canada?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, I understand that hundreds of copies went out to fruit growers, pharmaceutical associations and manufacturers.


Gordon Graydon: With the exception of
the one amendment, there was general agreement with the contemplated changes?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, I understand that is correct.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 4 agreed to.
On section 5-Application for registration of a pest control product.
Gordon Graydon: To revert, if I may, to section 5; what is the practical change with regard to it?


James Garfield Gardiner: I would point out that subsection 1 of section 4 of the act has been rewritten to clarify and extend its application. The intention is to obtain all essential

Agricultural Pests
facts regarding the composition, purpose and utility of the product before registering and thereby permitting its sale. That is the intention,, generally, although odd words, here and there, are changed. I do not know whether the hon. member wants a detailed answer.


Mark Cecil Senn: To follow up the question
asked by the hon. member for Peel, does this mean that there will be greater restrictions upon manufacturers than there were under the old act?


James Garfield Gardiner: No, it does not; there are no greater restrictions.


Mark Cecil Senn: What is the object, then?


James Garfield Gardiner: It covers new products, and gives further information with regard to new products, rather than further restrictions. New products have been developed since the act was first passed.


Mr. RICKARD:: This is in regard to poison to be used in connection with spraying materials?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 6-Registration fees.
Grote Stirling: Is it only the manufacturer who pays this annual fee of $5?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is only the man who registers the product who pays the fee. I understand that while previously the fee was $20, there were many who brought in some poison or some product to be used for this purpose who would not really sell $20 worth in the period of time over which the permit extended. The idea was to reduce the fee to reasonable proportions.


Grote Stirling: If I may judge by the explanation on the opposite page, it would seem to me that it is the manufacturer- probably in every case the manufacturer-who pays the fee.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is the man who applies. He may be a manufacturer, but in other instances he may be a man who has no manufacturing plant. Probably he is an individual who has devised some mixture which serves a purpose, and he simply puts it on the market. He may be an individual who would not have a manufacturing plant.


Gordon Graydon: That feature does not apply to the retailer, then?


James Garfield Gardiner: No, not to the retailer. There are 504 registrations under the act.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 7 agreed to.
On section 8-Exceptions.
James Garfield Gardiner: We want to amend this section.


Mark Cecil Senn: May we have the amendment first, because there are one or two questions I should like to ask regarding this section?


Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: I move in amendment:
That section 8 of Bill 40 be amended to include a new subsection (c) to read as follows:
"(c) Any pest control product which has been prepared by a retail druggist registered under a provincial pharmacy act in Canada from an unsolicited prescription submitted by the purchaser thereof, and provided that such pest control is not purchased for resale in Canada."


James Garfield Gardiner: Since the drafting of Bill No. 40, information was secured indicating that a large number of unsolicited prescriptions were filled by druggists for purchasers, and therefore the purpose of the change in section 8 is to avoid having to send such a large number of these prescriptions for countersigning by an inspector.
Further, it is believed that, since the purchaser when submitting a prescription to be filled by a druggist evidently knows what he wants, the act should not prevent him from getting it. It should be noted that the materials used by druggists in the preparation of these unsolicited prescriptions must come up to the standard established under a provincial pharmacy act.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Then, we are to understand that paragraph (b) as it now appears in the bill remains, in addition to the paragraph (c) now suggested?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It seems to me, as the hon. member for Haldimand points out to me, that one contradicts the other. In paragraph (b) there is reference to any pest control product which has been manufactured from an unsolicited prescription submitted by the purchaser thereof, provided that the prescription is countersigned by an inspector and that such pest control product is not purchased for resale in Canada.
In the first place it strikes me that paragraph (b), which is substituted for paragraphs
(b)	(c) and (d) in the act as it now stands, is not as good as the old act, because it subjects the purchaser, who knows what he wants and submits a prescription for his own use, to the authority of an inspector. Surely we are narrowing down government control to a very, very narrow compass, when we make it obligatory upon a purchaser acting with his own intelligence on his own behalf-not for
Agricultural Pests

trading or sale, but for his own use-to have the prescription countersigned by an inspector Pretty soon we shall have to have inspectors giving us authorization before we can buy breakfast foods. It strikes me the draftsman of the bill is going a long way in this matter.


James Garfield Gardiner: Paragraph (b) of the
bill is in these words:
(b)	Any pest control product which has been manufactured from an unsolicited prescription submitted by the purchaser thereof, provided that the prescription is countersigned by an inspector and that such pest control product is not purchased for resale in Canada.
That applies largely where some particular pest infests a certain community, and it may be that a farmers' organization, an individual or a group of individuals may have some means of meeting the condition which exists in that community. The prescription is submitted, to be filled for their use in the community. It is countersigned by the inspector, and the mixture may be made available for the purpose intended. It is not for resale.
The amendment refers to:
(c)	any pest control product which has been prepared by a retail druggist registered under a provincial pharmacy act in Canada from an unsolicited prescription submitted by the purchaser thereof, and provided that such pest control product is not purchased for resale in Canada.
The amendment deals rather with preparations being put up by druggists as against preparations being prepared by others.


Henry Herbert Stevens: How many inspectors are there now operating under the act?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are forty-eight or fifty; I am not certain as to the exact number.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Under this act alone?


James Garfield Gardiner: Under this division of the department.


Henry Herbert Stevens: A nice little army.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section 8 as amended agreed to.
On section 9-Offences and penalties.
Mr. MASSEY:: It seems to me that this section cannot mean what it says. If I am a retailer and receive some poison which is described on the package to be such and such, and if I advertise that poison in accordance with the marking on the package and the contents are found to be not in accordance with marking, then I am subject to a fine of $100, when I have advertised the product in absolutely good faith. In other words, you are penalizing the retailer.


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand that in most instances the product is registered by the manufacturer, and the offender is the person who registers.


Denton Massey: But it does not say that here, and that is why I say the section cannot mean what it says. I think I know what is in the minister's mind, but the bill does not say that. This new section 17 is to read:
Subject to the provisions of section eighteen hereof, any person,
(a) who advertises, exposes, offers, or holds in possession for sale, or sells, in Canada-
In other words, a retailer.
-a pest control product registered under this act which does not meet the guarantee.
In other words, the retailer who advertises a product in accordance with the marking will be subject to a fine of $100, and the same applies to a retailer who holds a product for sale.


James Garfield Gardiner: It says, "subject to the provisions of section 18 hereof." You would have to have section 18 in order to get at the meaning.


Denton Massey: I have not that section before me.


James Garfield Gardiner: It reads:
Any person accused of selling, offering, advertising, exposing or holding in his possession for sale any poison which does not comply with the requirements of this act or of any regulations hereunder, who proves that the poison respecting which action is taken was bought by him directly within one year from a manufacturer or merchant domiciled in Canada, that if contained in a package said package was not opened, and whether contained in a package or not that the state of the poison was not altered while it was in his possession, and that he had no reason to believe that the said poison did not comply with the provisions of this act, shall, upon disclosing the name and address of the person from whom the poison was purchased, the place where it was purchased and the date of the sale, be liable upon conviction for the costs of the prosecution only, and a prosecution may be brought against such last named person for violating the provisions of this act or any regulation within six months from the date of such disclosure and not later.


Mark Cecil Senn: What recourse would a retailer have where the poison had been imported?


James Garfield Gardiner: If it were purchased from outside Canada, the agent domiciled in Canada would have to take the responsibility. I do not think there is any other practical way of handling the matter.


Major James William Coldwell: It does not seem to me to be just that the retailer should have to pay the costs when he offers the article in good faith.

Supply-Agriculture-Experimental Farms


James Garfield Gardiner: The section I have just read has been in the act from the beginning.
I think the reason for its being there is to place some responsibility upon the individual who is selling the product to make sure that he is buying it from a reputable firm.


Grote Stirling: Supposing a cooperative concern imports a quantity of poison; what would be its position if the poison were found to be contrary to the description?


James Garfield Gardiner: If they are importing to distribute to others at a price, then they would be in the position of agents or anyone else who sells it.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 10 agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
Experimental farms-
IS. Central experimental farm, $626,950.
John Ritchie MacNicol: What revenue is received from the experimental farms?


James Garfield Gardiner: The total revenue was $229,367.96.


Mark Cecil Senn: I was not in the house the other evening when this particular item was under discussion. I notice there is an increase from eight}' to ninety-one in the number of permanent employees at the central experimental farm, and I should like to know who these people are and what are their duties.


James Garfield Gardiner: There was reclassification which made permanent a number of temporary employees. I understand there is actually no increase.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
J.'i. Branch farms, stations and illustration stations, $1,406,427.
Ernest Edward Perley: Would the minister make a statement as to the work carried on at Indian Head experimental farm, with respect to rust resistant wheat?


James Garfield Gardiner: There have been certain experiments carried on at the Indian Head farm for some time in connection with the growth of rust resistant wheats. The one which seems to have given the greatest satisfaction from the point of view of appearance, yield and in every other way, was grown in considerable acreage on the farm
this year. I visited the farm myself during the period when the rust was most prevalent in that section of the province, and that particular wheat had no traces of rust upon it whatsoever. Even Thatcher wheat growing in that community at that time did have rust on the leaves and on the stem below, what is known as black rust, which eats into the stem. But the particular wheat I speak of was entirely clear of rust, and it showed a very heavy yield when grown on land of the farm, running to forty and forty-one bushels to the acre. It is a very fine wheat, and an attempt is being made at the present time to put it out for multiplication so that it can be distributed throughout western Canada.


Ernest Edward Perley: Is that designated as 975?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, 975. It has recently been called Regent.


Ernest Edward Perley: Is there going to be a
general distribution of small quantities of it to farmers?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is a general
distribution being made now of about four bushels to different individuals who will grow iit this year, and that will multiply so that it can be distributed.


Ernest Edward Perley: What steps does the farmer have to take to get the four bushels?


James Garfield Gardiner: They make application to the Indian Head farm or the central experimental farm for it, and it is distributed as far as it will go to the individuals who apply.


Gordon Graydon: May I be permitted under this item to ask the minister what progress is being made with experiments in regard to oats? I understand that some progress has been made in regard to Victory oats. It is of great interest to our eastern farmers.


James Garfield Gardiner: There are two rust resistant varieties of oats, the Erbin, which is used in Ontario, and is being propagated I believe at Guelph, and the Vanguard oat, which is distributed in the western part of Canada, and in some parts of the east as well.


Gordon Graydon: Would the minister indicate whether or not there is any distribution of these new oats among the farmers?


James Garfield Gardiner: They are being propagated among the farmers. I purchased one hundred bushels of Vanguard myself this year from somewhere in Manitoba; I have forgotten the individual from whom I purchased it during the winter months. I think it can be obtained quite widely, and the Erbin oat can be obtained in the east.
2140	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Experimental Farms


Major James William Coldwell: What is the present rate of wages paid to seasonal help on the Indian Head experimental farm?


James Garfield Gardiner: The rate is twenty-seven cents an hour for seasonal labour, and from twenty-seven to thirty-three for year round labour.


Major James William Coldwell: There has been an
increase?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, very materially.


James Alexander Marshall: Would the minister give details of the item, "Appropriation not required for 1939-40 "? In answer to a question which I asked of the minister on February 16, as reported at page 1044 of Hansard, concerning the "appropriation not required for 1939-40, $76,700," in connection with a previous vote, the minister replied:
The $76,700 is not taken out of this service. It was voted last year for buildings, and is not required this year because the buildings have been erected.
Upon investigation I find that buildings have nothing whatever to do with these particular votes, and I should like to have the break-down of this amount of $54,515, which is the appropriation not required for 1939-40, and is a credit.


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not know where the hon. member made his inquiries, but I am informed by the officials who handle these matters that the $76,700 was the amount voted in our supplementary estimates last year for buildings, which have been constructed. This other item of $54,515 was also voted in the supplementaries last year for buildings, but the buildings are now built and we shall not require the money this year for that purpose.


Mr. QUELCH:: Can the minister state to what extent Canus wheat has proved itself drought resistant?


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand that nothing substantial has been done in that direction. Some attempts have been made to get a wheat that would stand drought better than other varieties, but I am quite sure that the hon. member for Acadia will understand that it is difficult to get anything to grow under drought conditions.


Mr. HANSON:: What progress has been
made with respect to the experimental farm at Smithers, British Columbia?


James Garfield Gardiner: The land was secured, and I understand that a considerable part of it is cleared and that the house and barns are under construction. Some experimental work was carried on last year, but the farm is not yet in full operation.


Mr. HAYHURST:: I notice from the details given on page 57 of the estimates that a number of forestry engineers and forestry assistants are employed in connection with the branch farms and stations. What is the nature of the forestry work they carry on?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are forestry farms at Indian Head and at Sutherland, which is just outside the city of Saskatoon. These forestry farms are conducted for the purpose of producing nursery stock, which is distributed to farmers throughout the prairie sections of western Canada.


William Hayhurst: Not any attempt at reforestation, but rather an attempt at beautification?


James Garfield Gardiner: They are engaged in connection with that part of the prairie farm rehabilitation work which has to do with the planting of shelter belts and that kind of work.
Mr. COLDW'ELL: Will the minister give us some idea of what use is being made of this particular service at the present time? Is a greater use being made of it by the individual farmer? I know, of course, that a great deal of work has been done under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act and many trees planted in certain districts. In my own constituency, around Conquest, valuable work has been done which has been greatly appreciated. I am wondering just what effect the planting of shelter belts has had on the drought, and if any difference has been noticed.


James Garfield Gardiner: Well, there is an open question, of course, as to the extent to which it assists in the matter of drought. I think there is grave doubt whether it has anything to do with producing more rainfall. Rainfall rather produces trees than the reverse. Valuable work is being done at Conquest under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act activities, also in the vicinity of Ivindersley, which is west of Conquest, and at other points. There has been a marked increase of recent yearn in the planting of trees, that is trees secured from these particular places. I am not in a position to state the extent to which that is on account of the fact that people are not so well off as they were a few years ago, and they may not be using more trees but they are getting more trees at the places they can get them at least cost, that is the farms operated by the department. I understand that nurseries in these sections have encouraged the giving out of trees from the forestry farm, because they think it induces the planting of more and more trees in those vicinities, and so they do more business at times when

Supply-Agriculture-Experimental Farms
people can afford to purchase. But the trees that go out run into the millions. I am not in a position to give the number.


Mr. MARSH:: Would the minister comment on the possibility of overlapping between the federal farms and the provincial farms? I note that this is a vote for $626,000, and that it is S10.000 less than last year. Governments of all kinds are coming in for a great deal of criticism for over-taxation because of overgovernment.


Frederick George Sanderson: Order. I would point out to the hon. member that we are on item 14, not item 13.


John Allmond Marsh: I will ask my question on
another item.


James Garfield Gardiner: The answer to the first part of the question, which does refer to item 14, is that there are no farms conducted by the provinces, excepting one in Ontario at Vineland, other than those which are associated with institutions, that is schools like the Guelph agricultural college and the farm which surrounds the Kentville school, which are operated in connection with the educational activities of the provinces. Only the provinces conduct activities having to do with education, and they have farms associated with those educational institutions.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: How many of these
stations are there in Canada; how are they divided by provinces, and how many are there ini each province?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is one in Prince Edward Island at Charlottetown; two in Nova Scotia, one at Kentville and one at Nappan; one in New Brunswick, at Fredericton; six in Quebec. Does the hon. member require the names?


Mr. WEIR:: What are those stations for?


James Garfield Gardiner: They are experimental
farms and illustration stations. Referring to the fourteen branch farm stations and illustration stations, I may say there are three in Ontario; one at Ottawa, one at Harrow, and one at Kapuskasing; two in Manitoba; five in Saskatchewan-all put there, by the way, before I was minister-two in Alberta; four in British Columbia.


Mark Cecil Senn: I notice that this is one of
the largest votes in the agricultural estimates. It mentions branch farms, stations, and illustration stations, and I believe that also there are some substations which have been set up under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. What is the difference between the operations in, say a branch farm, a station, an illustration station, and a substation?
There must be some system under which the operations of these different farms are carried out, indicating what their objective is.


James Garfield Gardiner: The branch farms are
known as experimental farms. We have one central farm at Ottawa, and the others are known as branch farms. There are twenty-five of them. They are units which are doing some work that is supposed to be suited to the particular area in which they are located. Then there are what are known as stations, and they are rented sections of a man's farm. He is paid a certain rental for the land; he is allowed to grow certain crops, and he is allowed the proceeds of the crops. He carries on demonstration work under the direction of departmental officials for the benefit of those living in that community. They are illustration stations illustrating what has been learned on experimental farms elsewhere. The substations are of a little different type, usually rented as well. Some of them are owned by the government; but as a rule they are rented, the whole farm rather than just a part being rented, and operated for the carrying on of tests in connection with controlling soil drifting and work of that kind.


Mr. ROWE (Dufferin-Simcoe):: How many are there per province?


Mark Cecil Senn: Stations and illustration
stations are mentioned. Is there any difference between the two? I understood from the minister that one is rented and one is not. There are a great number of illustration stations scattered throughout Canada, and some provinces seem to be especially favoured in regard to the number of illustration stations which they have. Could the minister tell us, while he is answering, what is necessary or in what way the illustration station is established? Does some particular community ask to have such a station in its particular vicinity, or how is the location of these stations determined, and when and where are they set up?


James Garfield Gardiner: They may be asked for by people in the community or the department may select areas in which they think they should be. The branch farm is usually the parent farm in any particular province or area, and these stations are all included in the list which I read. Some of the farms in that list are what are known as experimental farms and the others are stations. The experimental farms are all owned and operated by the government. The illustration stations are farms which are rented from farmers and operated with the farmer himself having charge.
2142	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Experimental Farms


Mark Cecil Senn: Just one more question. I notice that, for instance, a year ago there were in Saskatchewan fifty-one illustration stations; in Quebec there were also fifty-one; but in Ontario there were only seventeen. There might be one or two reasons for that. One, perhaps, is that the farmers of Ontario are a little better qualified to farm than are farmers in those other places; or it may be that they are not willing to ask for assistance or for these stations.


William Earl Rowe: Maybe
they would not be granted,


Ernest Lapointe: They are so shy.


Mark Cecil Senn: Maybe they should ask for them. But I should like to know why it is that so many more stations have been set up in some provinces than in others. It seems to me that we all need education along those lines.


James Garfield Gardiner: These are the illustration stations:
British Columbia	 18
Alberta	  11
Saskatchewan	 20
Manitoba	 12
Ontario	 17
Quebec	 52
New Brunswick	 18
Nova Scotia	 15
Prince Edward	Island	 13
One of the chief reasons for the differences as between Ontario and some of the other provinces is that there has not been the same demand for them in Ontario. Why that is I cannot say. I suppose some members may think Ontario farmers do not require the same amount of instruction. Whatever the reason is, there is not the same demand.


Mark Cecil Senn: Are those the figures for 1937 or 1938?


James Garfield Gardiner: Those are the latest figures.


Mark Cecil Senn: The figures in the minister's report for the year ended March 31, 1938, are much different from those he has read. There was a difference of five or six in British Columbia, and there were differences all down the line. Are these illustration stations closed from time to time and new ones opened up?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes.


Mark Cecil Senn: What is the reason for closing them?


James Garfield Gardiner: After an illustration station has completed its work, it is closed. For example, a station is set up in some

area to demonstrate how a certain kind of land can be used. In a new section of Saskatchewan with which I am familiar, the growing of alfalfa seed has recently been developed. A few years ago there was no alfalfa seed growing there; the farmers did not think they could grow it. The natural thing is to establish an illustration station where it is found that the land is suitable for the purpose, and to indicate to the people what can be grown and in what manner. When that demonstration is completed and the people are conducting themselves as the department think they should, there is no further necessity and the expenditure is made somewhere else.


Mark Cecil Senn: May I offer one suggestion? I do not find fault with these illustration stations; they do a great deal of good. The minister, however, might attempt one other thing by way of illustration. I suggest that somewhere in Ontario he set up an illustration station to demonstrate to the farmers how they can conduct their farms on a paying basis. If that were done, more good would be accomplished than by all the other illustrations that can be given the farmers. It is worth trying, because if we are to be taught this and that at stations, and by officials who are experts in their own line, they might be able to demonstrate to the farmers of Ontario and in different parts of the country how to conduct their farms so as to make them pay. It is a burning question in Canada to-day.


Joseph Henry Harris: I believe the minister said there were eighteen stations in New Brunswick, fifteen in Nova Scotia and thirteen in Prince Edward Island. How many of these are devoting their energies along the line of fox farming?


James Garfield Gardiner: Eight of them are fox farms.


Joseph Henry Harris: In New Brunswick?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are three in New Brunswick, three in Nova Scotia and two in Prince Edward Island.


Joseph Henry Harris: The work that is being carried on in these particular stations is of a very high class and is having a beneficial effect on that particular industry. The man in charge of the experimental station just outside Summerside as well as the man in charge of the illustration station, I have reason to know, are doing wonderfully good work, and I should like on behalf of the industry to compliment the department upon having such splendid men as these in charge of that particular work. They have taken a real interest in it.

Supply-Agriculture-Experimental Farms


Ernest Edward Perley: How many illustration
farms are operated with the farmer in charge?


James Garfield Gardiner: All the illustration
stations.


Ernest Edward Perley: In Saskatchewan?


James Garfield Gardiner: Everywhere.


Ernest Edward Perley: How many in Saskatchewan?


James Garfield Gardiner: There are twenty illustration stations in Saskatchewan and thirty-one substations which are related to the prairie farm rehabilitation work. These are spread over the drought area. There are fifteen in Alberta and six in Manitoba.


Ernest Edward Perley: As regards the substation at Regina, is the work carried on along the lines of experimenting with control of soil drifting?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. The station at Regina is for the purpose of controlling soil drifting.


Ernest Edward Perley: What is the result of the experiments at the Regina station?


James Garfield Gardiner: They are carrying on two activities, one having to do with soil drifting and the other with weed control. Some of the work that has been developed in connection with soil control is to leave a sort of dressing of stubble and other material on the top, but it is generally recognized in the west that what holds the soil best, in the Regina district particularly, is rain, and if it does not rain, the soil blows in spite of everything one can do.


William Earl Rowe: What
rental is given the farmers from whom these stations are acquired?


James Garfield Gardiner: I think the best answer to that question is to read a summary of the contract that is entered into with those who operate:
1.	A rental of $5 an acre is paid where the plots do not exceed one-quarter acre each. Usually this plot area does not exceed one acre. On this class of work the supervisor puts in all the crop and harvests it.
2.	Where the plots are smaller than %o acre each, the operator receives $25 an acre compensation for the loss of the crop on such small areas.
3.	A rental of $3 an acre is paid where the blocks of land do not exceed three acres. The total area of such stations is frequently from twelve to fourteen acres. The operator handles all of this crop.
4.	A rental of $1 an acre is paid for the district experiment substations in the P.F.R.A. area in the prairie provinces. Large scale work is undertaken with strip farming, cover crops and surface tillage in connection with soil drifting control.
On some of these district experiment substations small plot experiments are also conducted.
5.	Special contracts have been made in connection with special work such as with cranberries, raspberries, hops and irrigation. None of these exceed $150 each. For certain operators along the line of the Hudson Bay railway an annual payment of $5 per acre is made while some of these operators receive no payment whatever.
For pasture experiments no rental is paid but the fertilizer is supplied free.
6.	Total maximum payments to any operator in eastern Canada is confined to less than $100.
In western Canada the limit is confined to below $200 for illustration station operators, while for operators of district experimental sub-stations the limit varies, being $1 an acre up to one section of land, plus payments for small experimental plots at the rates set for illustration station compensation. The upper limit, therefore, would not exceed $800 and usually is considerably less.


William Earl Rowe: Who is
paid for putting the crop in; is it the farmer from whom the farm is rented? What is paid for the work done?


James Garfield Gardiner: Nothing is paid to the farmer for his work. A rental is paid for the land on which the operation is carried on, but the farmer does all the work and gets the proceeds from the crop.


Mr. BROOKS:: Is the farmer supplied with the seed?


James Garfield Gardiner: Only where it is seed investigation work and where it is thought necessary to supply the seed because the test is of the seed.


William Hayhurst: Did I understand the
minister correctly to say that there are eleven illustration stations in Alberta?


James Garfield Gardiner: I think that is correct, eleven of the one type and fifteen of the other.


William Hayhurst: Where are the eleven
stations located?


James Garfield Gardiner: Iron Springs, Chedder-ville, Rocky Mountain House railway station Dickson. Leslieville, Stettler, Sangudo, Chau-vin, St. Paul, High Prairie, Fairview.


Thomas Langton Church: This particular item has grown by leaps and bounds since I have been in the house. Since the present minister has had control, there seems to be no thought of economy in the department. Look at this item 14, details of which are on page 57 of the estimates. I do not know where this standing army is going to end. And when one considers that the provinces have concurrent jurisdiction, why should the dominion establish a great big department like this?

2144	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Experimental Farms
Look at some of these items-it puts me in mind of the army and navy added together -Chief supervisor of illustration stations, same as last year; senior agricultural scientist, forestry engineer, eleven experimental farm superintendents, all kinds of things; forestry engineer, animal nutritionist and genetecist, fourteen more experimental farm superintendents, five senior assistant agricultural scientists, two assistant superintendents, one assistant chief supervisor, another forestry engineer, an assistant agricultural scientist- there is no deputy assistant-two tobacco specialists, we have plenty of them in the lobbies all day long; an animal nutritionist and physiologist at $2,520, twenty-one more farm assistants of all kinds and grades, supervisors, irrigation specialist-they are all specialists-eighteen farm foremen amounting to $35,000 this year, $28,860 last year, an increase of $7,000, and no doubt more votes will be obtained this year. Then clerks, grade 4, forest assistants, a graduate assistant-one more graduate, no doubt of the agricultural college, eleven head herdsmen, nine of these at $1,800, one at only $1,785, a $15 deduction. Twelve head poultrymen, head gardeners, head beekeepers, head plotmen, head gardeners, grade 3, a stenographer, five poultrymen, a greenhouseman, more clerks, beekeepers, stenographers, herdsmen, gardeners, a part time assistant to dominion animal husbandman, one only caretaker, no janitors, and temporary assistance amounting to $117,000. Then, on the next page printing and stationery, rents, supplies and materials, et cetera, and travelling expenses, make a total of $1,406,427.
Where is the money to come from to pay all this? It has to come out of the income tax and the sales tax collected from the industrial provinces. Talk about economy! I commend this to the publisher of the Globe and Mail, the friend of my friend the minister, to find out what economy there is in this. Ballots might well be sent to all the farmers in this country to find out what they think of this department which has grown by leaps and bounds. These estimates should be dealt with on the municipal system, and we could sit - here and divide this million and a half dollars in half; let them get on this year with $750,000 to ran this branch of the army; that would be plenty for this department. With that kind of extravagance in this department, what is it going to amount to when they all -add it up and where is the money to come from? In view of these treaties I should think we would need fewer officials in the Department of Agriculture owing to the changes which have been made in the agreements to which I have referred.

It is eleven o'clock; I move that the committee rise and report progress.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is still one minute to eleven. Before the hon. member takes his
seat-


Thomas Langton Church: I have not concluded my remarks.


James Garfield Gardiner: -I should like to say that there are just the same number of employees in this branch of the department that there were last year.


Thomas Langton Church: I have not finished my remarks.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member moved a motion.


Thomas Langton Church: I have the floor. Both of us cannot talk at the same time.


James Garfield Gardiner: There are just the same number as last year.


Frederick George Sanderson: It is eleven o'clock.


Thomas Langton Church: That sort of thing may be all right in the Saskatchewan legislature, but it does not go here.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, March 22, 1939

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. MALLETTE:: How many flying clubs, per province, are actually recognized by the government in the granting of subsidies to help develop aviators?


Mr. HOWE:: Alberta, 2; British Columbia, 1; Manitoba, 2; New Brunswick, 1; Nova Scotia, 2; Ontario, 10; Prince Edward Island, 0; Quebec, 1; Saskatchewan, 3. Total, 23.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-SALE OF SCRAP METAL
[Stage Direction]
Mr. DOUGLAS Weyburn):
1.	Are old box-ears and other railroad equipment being demolished in the Canadian National railw'ays shops at Port Mann, British Columbia?
2.	To whom is the scrap metal being sold?
3.	Is such metal being sold directly, or indirectly through dealers, to Japan?
4.	Is such metal being shipped on Japanese boats?

Questions
Mr. HOWE:: 1.	Not at present; forty-nine cars were demolished in 1938.
2.	Scrap is sold by competitive tender.
3.	No scrap is sold by the railway to Japan. The management have no information concerning disposition of scrap after it is sold by the railway.
4.	See answer to question 3.


QUESTION OF EXISTENCE OF BUTTER COMBINE IN MONTREAL AND DISTRICT
Mr. LACOMBE:: 1.	Is it true that there exists in Montreal and surrounding district a combine in restraint of the trade of butter?
2.	If so, what steps does the government intend to take to put an end to such combine?


Mr. ROGERS:: No complaint has been received by the government in regard to an alleged combine in Montreal and surrounding district in restraint of the trade of butter.


*BELL TELEPHONE TOLLS AND CHARGES
Thomas Langton Church: Will the Minister of Transport order an immediate inquiry of his own volition into all the tolls and charges of the Bell Telephone Company of Canada by the board of transport commissioners for Canada with a view to securing an immediate reduction of rates and tolls in view of the earnings and reserves of the company and the economies in operation the company has effected?


Mr. ILSLEY:: I am authorized by the department to say that the subject matter of this inquiry is now receiving the attention of the board of transport commissioners.


DIGBY-ANN APOLIS-KIN GS INCOME TAX RETURNS
Mr. CAHAN:: 1.	What was the aggregate amount of personal income taxes shown by the income tax returns of residents of the electoral district of Digby-Annapolis-Kings, in the province of Nova Scotia, for each of the calendar years 1916, 1917, and 1918?
2.	How many individual returns were included in the aggregate amount of personal taxes shown for each of the said years?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	Not available.
2.	Not available.
Statistics not maintained in such a manner as to give information requested.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: I would ask the Minister
of National Revenue (Mr. Ilsley) whether these statistics are available for any lesser area than a province. Is the province divided into districts for which statistics would be available? My desire is, in making certain economic studies, to ascertain what is the in-71492-1351
come, for instance, of a large apple-growing district. I thought of asking similar questions with regard to certain other districts which have distinctive occupations.


James Lorimer Ilsley: I shall look into the matter and see if there is an area smaller than a province for which statistics would be available, and let the hon. gentleman know.


Charles Hazlitt Cahan: Thank you.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. WALSH:: .
1.	How many passes are issued by the national harbour board for the Jacques Cartier bridge?
2.	To whom are these passes issued?
3.	On what authority are these passes issued?
4.	Who pays the deficit, if any, on the operation of this bridge?


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-MONTREAL TERMINAL
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	On what date did the Canadian National Railways board of directors sanction the vote for the completion of the Canadian National Railways terminal at Montreal?
2.	Will a copy of the minute of the board of directors and a copy of all reports on which they acted be tabled for the information of parliament?
3.	What has been done to carry out the statute respecting coordination of services and eliminating duplication and waste on Canada's railways?
4.	On what date did the government, or the Minister of Transport, deal with the question of the new Montreal terminal, and were the objections of those who wrote considered, and, if so, when, and by whom?
5.	Did the government, or any minister thereof meet the Canadian National Railways board on the matter? If so, where, when, and with what results?
6.	Will any order in council herein be tabled?


MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Arza Clair Casselman: For a copy of all orders in council passed since January 1, 1938, authorizing the issue of governor general's warrants.


THE KING V. WALKER
Henry Herbert Stevens: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, telegrams and other documents exchanged between the Minister of Justice, from January, 1936, to March 17, 1939, and Mr. J. C. Mac-Corkindale, barrister, of Toronto, or any other persons in regard to the case of "The King v. Walker"; also any report made to the Minister of Justice or any official of the Department of Justice regarding the evidence of George E. MeLay in regard to this case.
Motions for Papers


Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, I have looked into this file, and I find that it contains nothing which is not confidential. All matters connected with the exercise of the discretion of the Minister of Justice with regard to the prerogative of mercy are according to the rules and practice of the department, confidential and have never been tabled. However, I have no objection to allowing the motion to go through with this reservation, that only documents that may be produced will be brought down.


Walter Edward Foster: Carried, with the reservation stated.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.

Alfred Johnson Brooks: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, telegrams and other documents exchanged between the federal government, or any department thereof, and the provincial government of Nova Scotia, or any department thereof, with reference to payment of contribution towards a bonus to " Dry Salt Fish Producers," from January 1, 1937, to date.


REESTABLISHMENT OF NOVA SCOTIA LOBSTER FISHERMEN
Alfred Johnson Brooks: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, telegrams and other documents exchanged between the federal government, or any department thereof, and the provincial government of Nova Scotia, or any department thereof, with respect to the cooperation of the two governments in assisting to reestablish lobster fishermen after the serious storm in Nova Scotia, in December, 1938.


PORT OF HALIFAX TRADE AND COAL TONNAGE
Alfred Johnson Brooks: For a copy of all correspondence, letters, telegrams and other documents exchanged between the federal government and the Nova Scotia government with reference to the resolution mentioned in the following paragraph from the speech from the throne, proroguing the Nova Scotia House of Assembly on April 14, 1938: "The resolution you have adopted regarding movement of trade and coal tonnage through the port of Halifax will be transmitted to the federal authorities."


INQUIRY FOR RETURN
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Louis Édouard Fernand Rinfret: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for
Broadview (Mr. Church) inquired about a return which was passed by this house on January 12 in reply to his question as follows:

1. Have any steps been taken by the government to secure a national register for Canada for defence or economic or industrial or labour purposes ?
There were other questions to the same effect. I might say in reply that all the departments interested were communicated with by the Secretary of State's department and that a return was tabled on February 8 last containing all the information we have on this subject. Since the hon. member for Broadview has on a couple of occasions asked whether we could supply him with additional information, I must state to him to-day that all the information was tabled in the return of February 8.


Thomas Langton Church: Mr. Speaker, the government's reply to my inquiry as to what is the national policy for defence, for food power, economic matters and other matters referred to in my question was contained in one small paragraph. It gives no information whatever concerning economic power, man power, food power, military and defence power or a register of unemployment. The various ministers have not answered the question. We shall wait till doomsday before anything is done, or until the dictators arrive in Canada.



BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Robert James Manion: Mr. Speaker, I would ask the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) if he is prepared to tell us what further legislation is likely to be brought down before the end of the session. I ask it because of his own remarks some time ago regarding the end of the session. I think it would be of interest if he could tell us, and if he is not prepared to do so to-day, perhaps he may be in a position to give an answer to-morrow.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I shall be very happy to give a reply to my hon. friend, but possibly he might allow me until Monday to make a statement, by which time I hope to be able to have exact information.



SUBVERSIVE PROPAGANDA


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. A. A. HEAPS (Winnipeg North):: I should like to direct the following question to the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). In view of the vast amount of propaganda being

Privilege-Mr. Lacombe
carried on in Canada designed to undermine our democratic institutions and also to foster religious and racial hatreds, much of which emanates from abroad, will the government undertake a thorough public investigation into all forms of such propaganda?


Ernest Lapointe: Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman kindly sent me a copy of the question he intended to ask, and I wish to give this answer. There is no doubt that some propaganda along the lines suggested by the hon. gentleman is being carried out in certain parts of Canada. More particularly certain scurrilous and offensive publications are doing their utmost to undermine democratic institutions. One of their methods is to abuse parliament and slander public men. They have not been interfered with, mostly because of their insignificance and to avoid giving them a publicity which they relish. In some cases it would seem that they are the tools of foreign agencies interested in their destructive work. We are keeping a pretty careful watch over their activities, and we are prepared to protect Canadian laws and institutions, if needed.
I personally believe that a public investigation, whether by a parliamentary committee or a royal commission, might become desirable as to the existence, the activities and the financial support of all associations or societies which are carrying on subversive work, inimical to the institutions of Canada, and the suggestion of my hon. friend will be duly considered as to opportunity, time and form of such possible investigation.



NATIONAL DEFENCE


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. J. HARTIGAN (Cape Breton South):: I would ask the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Mackenzie), in view of reports to-day that Germany is negotiating with Iceland for a seaplane base in the north Atlantic, and Canada's vulnerability to attack from the air on the Atlantic seaboard, whether our air defence on the Atlantic seaboard should not be speeded up to completion without waiting for any interdepartmental committee or anything of that sort. The very latest report states that Germany is negotiating with Denmark for an aeroplane base on the Atlantic.


Ian Alistair Mackenzie: I have not seen the dispatch to which my hon. friend alludes, but I can assure him that very aggressive steps will be taken during this present year for the development of airports on the Atlantic coast.
PRIVILEGE-Mr. LACOMBE



SPEECH DELIVERED BY THE HON. MEMBER FOR DORCHESTER AT MONTREAL ON MARCH 17, 1939

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. LIGUORI LACOMBE (Laval-Two Mountains) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a question of privilege. The hon. member for Dorchester (Mr. Tremblay) is reported in the newspaper Le Canada of March 18, 1939, as having made the following statement at Montreal on the 17th instant at a meeting of the Mercier Liberal Association:
The most strenuous opponents of national defence have been the Communist groups. It is they who have sent to Ottawa the largest number of protests against any increase of appropriations intended for the protection of Canada and more particularly of our west coast. The Communists do not want us to protect our own country against foreign attack, but they ask us to go to fight in Europe. Their attitude is strange, to say the least, since Soviet Russia, whose dangerous policies they approve, has the most powerful army of any country in the world.
Since the hon. member has not yet seen fit to repudiate this statement, I have reason to believe that he persists in the opinion he has thus expressed. Therefore, as it is not only my right but my duty to defend my honour as representative of Laval-Two Mountains in the House of Commons, I energetically protest against the hon. member's statement. I have always been irrevocably opposed to any increase in military appropriations, knowing that such appropriations would lead to our participation in foreign wars. My opposition remains irrevocable. Nevertheless I hate Communism from the bottom of my soul. I abhor its hideous and pernicious doctrine. I therefore refer the house and the hon. member for Dorchester-


Walter Edward Foster: Order. I must ask the
hon. member to be as brief as possible. Only the question of privilege can be discussed at this stage of the proceedings.


Liguori Lacombe: I just wish to quote a
statement which I made in the House of Commons on January 23 last. I respectfully submit that my case is not unlike that of the hon. member for Parry Sound (Mr. Slaght) who discussed at some length a statement of Mr. Herridge.


Walter Edward Foster: Order. The hon. member is entitled to state his question of privilege, but I do not think he can be permitted to deliver a lengthy speech.


Liguori Lacombe: I do not wish to make
a speech; I am simply referring to a decision which you rendered yourself. This is what I said on January 23 last-
2148	COMMONS
Canada-United States Trade Agreement


Walter Edward Foster: Order. I do not think
the hon. member is entitled to repeat his statement at this time. He will have other opportunities of stating his position.



WAYS AND MEANS


[Stage Direction]
Hon. CHARLES A. DUNNING (Minister of Finance) moved that the house go into committee of ways and means.
Mr. M.C. SENN (Haldimand): Mr. Speaker, I believe it is the time-honoured privilege which is accorded to representatives of the people to ask for redress of grievances and to bring before parliament matters of public importance when a motion of this kind is before the house or when the house is being asked to grant supply. I intend, therefore, to take this opportunity to bring to the attention of the house a matter which I think is of paramount importance to Canadian agriculture.
Farming in Canada is a highly diversified occupation. Many different branches of agriculture are carried on in this country. The nature of the production on Canadian farms depends largely upon a number of factors, such as climate, types of soil, proximity to markets and to consumer centres of population.
According to the classification made by the Department of Agriculture and by the bureau of statistics we have the following branches of agriculture: wheat growing, field crops, dairying, live stock, fruits and vegetables, poultry products, and several others. The ones I have mentioned are of major importance, and all of them return a considerable amount of money to the farmer.
I should like to give the house an idea of the relative importance of these different branches of agriculture, as indicated by the following figures which I took the opportunity of getting from the bureau of statistics, showing the value of these different lines of farming in the nine years from 1930 to 1938 inclusive :
Value
Product	(in round figures)
Wheat	$1,557,000,000
Other field crops	 2,930,000,000
All farm animal products, including wool	 1,064,000,000
Dairy products	 1,805,000,000
Poultry and eggs	 482,000,000
Fruits and vegetables		375,000,000
I ask the house to note particularly the importance of the dairy industry and the live stock industry as indicated by the figures

I have just given. Dairying stands second and live stock fourth in order of importance.
The last census returns show that in Canada we have approximately 730,000 farms. More than half, probably two-thirds, of the farmers derive a considerable portion of their income from either dairying or live stock. Anything, therefore, which may have an adverse effect upon either of these two great branches of our agricultural industry should be carefully considered, and, if possible, measures should be taken to alleviate the situation.
In recent times increasing numbers of our cattle, sheep and hogs are being slaughtered and processed in the abattoirs of Canada. The price which the farmer receives for this live stock is determined, at least partly, by that which is received by the packers for the sale of the products and the by-products.
Animal fats in particular, in the form of edible and inedible lard and tallow, are one of these important by-products. It is estimated that each hog slaughtered in Canada will produce approximately fifteen pounds of lard. Each 1,000 pounds of cattle or sheep slaughtered will produce forty pounds of tallow. On this basis the average anual production of lard in this country is approximately 90,000,000 pounds and of tallow, some
100.000.	000 pounds. If we add to this the annual production of creamery butter, amounting to some 270,000,000 pounds, and the annual average production of dairy butter amounting to some 100.000,000 pounds, we have altogether a total of approximately
560.000.	000 pounds of edible animal fat produced in Canada annually.
The hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris), who, by the way, is my desk-mate, when speaking on this matter in the house in 1937, stated that the best authorities on dietetics placed the amount of fats required by human beings to maintain life in a climate like that of Canada at fifty pounds per person annually, which would mean that we require in this country each year 550,000.000 pounds of fat for human consumption. I believe that these estimates are well within the mark; they are quite conservative, so that the Canadian dairymen and live stock producers should be in a position to supply our human requirements or very nearly so.
In addition to these figures there is also a considerable amount of inedible fat produced in Canada-I refer to animal fats-which is also being displaced by the use of vegetable oils in the manufacture of soaps, grease and so on. In view of the figures I have just given, it seems to me that no one can fail to look with alarm upon the enormous annual increase in Canada's importation of vegetable﻿MARCH 22, 1939	2149
Canada-United. States Trade Agreement
oils. This importation is accompanied, of course, by a corresponding, increase in the manufacture and sale of vegetable oil shortening in Canada and, as well, in the use of the inedible portion of these oils in the manufacture in Canada of certain products such as soap, lubricating greases and so on.
I should like now, if I may, to give the house a table of figures showing how these importations are increasing. It is true they are not listed as foods in the tariff item, but as a matter of fact they are refined and a very large proportion of them is used as food for human beings. The importations during the fiscal years I shall enumerate were:
Year	Pounds
1933	  84,000,000
1934		 110,000,000
1935		 148,000,000
1936	  195,000,000
1937		 251,000,000
1938		 255,000,000
These, in round figures, were the importations of vegetable oils in the years mentioned. I am sure the house will be struck with the rapid increase in these importations. These oils enter Canada in steamer loads at a very low price, absolutely free of duty, with the exception of a three per cent excise tax, and they are imported by a few firms whose processing costs are relatively inexpensive. After being refined, a large proportion becomes edible and enters into human consumption. I wish to give figures showing the tremendous increase in the production of vegetable oil shortening in Canada. The production in Canada, in the following years, was:
Year	Pounds
1932	 61,000,000
1933		 67,000,000
1934		 88,000,000
1935	 103,000,000
Since that time it has been impossible to obtain accurate figures showing the amount of vegetable oils produced in this country, owing to the refusal of the bureau of statistics to make public the figures of vegetable oils produced by two of the large competing companies in Canada. However, if we estimate the production last year according to the proportions of vegetable oils that were refined and used as human food in other years, it will easily amount to 145,000,000 or 150,000,000 pounds.
In addition to these vast amounts of vegetable oils which are rendered edible by processing and which are used for human food, there is a large proportion of the content of imported vegetable oils which is sold and used in the manufacture of certain commodities such as soap, and so on. It cannot be denied, I do not believe anyone will dispute the fact,
that because of the use of these imported oils there is a corresponding displacement of animal fats in the markets of Canada, and of butter, lard and tallow in use in our Canadian homes, and in manufacturing as well. Prices of butter in this country are to-day relatively low, and are in many instances below the cost of production. One cause of this is the fact that for a considerable length of time we have had more than a normal surplus of butter, ranging from 10,000,000 to 15,000,000 pounds above the average of other years.
Undoubtedly a considerable quantity of vegetable oils has been used instead of butter as shortening in the processes of cooking and baking, and I believe it is also true that evidence is not lacking that a certain quantity of vegetable shortening is used as spread in place of butter. It is difficult, of course, to estimate to what extent this is carried on, but I venture to say-I do not think there is any doubt about it-that of the 150,000,000 pounds of vegetable shortening produced and sold in Canada last year, sufficient was used in place of butter to account for the abnormal surplus of butter we have on hand at the present time.
In addition to the replacement of Canadian butter by the use of vegetable oil shortening, there is a corresponding or even a greater displacement of lard and tallow which are rendered from the fat of hogs, sheep and cattle. In restaurants and bake-shops, and in many private houses particularly, because of the intensive campaign of advertising which has been carried on by those companies that are refining vegetable oils and placing them on the market, these are being used rather than Canadian products.
I can recall distinctly the agitation and the debates that took place in this house between 1922 and 1924 regarding the manufacture and importation of oleomargarine. There was at that time a keen division of opinion respecting the matter. It was necessary for a bill to be introduced each year to authorize the continued manufacture and importation of oleomargarine. It was not until 1924 that no further bill was introduced ' and oleomargarine no longer allowed to be produced in or imported into Canada. I think it is within the memory of many hon. members that between 1925 and 1930 there was a constant annual increase in the importation of New Zealand butter. This increase continued until the dairy industry of this country became so alarmed, and there was such an insistent demand to revoke the order in council which allowed New Zealand butter to come in under a duty of one cent a pound, that it was finally revoked, I believe, when
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the budget was brought down in 1930 by my lion, friend who is now Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning). If importations of these small amounts of oleomargarine and New Zealand butter had the effect of injuring the dairy and live stock industries of Canada, as evidently the farmers of Canada believed they did, how can we sit quietly by at this time and watch the large importations of vegetable oils entering this country and replacing our Canadian produced animal fats, without taking any action whatever?
Fluctuations in the price of by-products manufactured from slaughtered cattle, hogs and sheep, have, as I have already stated, a direct effect upon prices paid to the producer for those animals on the hoof. Prices quoted in the live stock markets and the stockyards are based on the returns received from every part of the animal when processed; the better the market for the by-products, the more the farmer should get for the live animal.
Mr. Stanley McLean, president of Canada Packers, Limited, delivered an address before the Holstein Breeders' Association at the Royal York hotel in Toronto in 1936. He is reported in the Globe and Mail of that date to have stated that the granting of an application, made by certain interested parties, which was then before the tariff board, would probably increase the price to the farmer one-fifth of a cent a pound on cattle and one-third of a cent a pound on hogs. Subsequently a statement was made to the tariff board by those who made the application; they also stated that if their request were granted, the additional return to the farmer would be about SI a head on every hog and at least $2 a head on every finished cattle beast sold. A conservative estimate based on these figures would indicate that Canadian farmers are losing about $6,000,000 annually in the price which they receive for their cattle and hogs owing to the increase in the use of vegetable oils and fats and shortenings in this country.
For a number of years we had a good market for Canadian lard in the British isles. We were able to export our lard at attractive prices; because of that the price of lard remained at a fairly good level until a year or two ago, when prices dropped in the British market, and we have now lost that market entirely, or nearly so. In 1936, another thing happened which had a detrimental effect upon the lard producers of this country. The government of the United States passed the Bailey amendment imposing on all fats entering that country an excise tax of three cents a pound over and above the regular rates which were in effect at that time. As
fMr. Senn.]
a result of this action our market in the United States fqr our surplus fats has been practically lost, and prices of animal fats in Canada have accordingly dropped to most unprofitable levels. This excise tax was of course also applied to vegetable oils imported into the United States. In certain instances an additional processing tax of three cents a pound, and 4i cents a pound on another group of vegetable fats entering the United States, was imposed. These taxes had the immediate effect of decreasing by about twenty per cent the amount of vegetable oils entering the United States. The effect of this was immediately felt by producers of animal fats of different kinds over there. It also resulted in a reduction of from 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 pounds in Canadian fats entering the United States, which had a very serious effect upon prices of lard and tallow in Canada.
Early in 1926 an application was made to the tariff board by a group of packing house companies not interested in the importation and processing of vegetable oils, together with the national dairy council and manufacturers of inedible animal greases, fats and oils. They applied for revision of the customs tariff on all fats and greases entering Canada except butter and cream. The hearing of this application took place on December 9, 10 and 11, 1936, over two years ago. Yet, as far as I am able to learn, no finding has been brought down. I believe the hon. member for Comox-Albemi (Mr. Neill) asked a question of the Minister of Finance yesterday, and if I understood the minister's reply correctly, no finding has yet been brought down. I cannot imagine that the tariff board has not reached a decision on this matter in two years. It is difficult to know why its finding has not been submitted to the finance minister, unless it be that perhaps he is not anxious to have it.
Charles Avery Dunning: I am very anxious.


Mark Cecil Senn: If the minister is anxious at the moment I think he should have been anxious a little earlier; for I fancy that if he had demanded it, it would probably have been brought down. I am not going to accuse him of deliberately abstaining from asking for it, but I am afraid that at least he did not press for it.


Charles Avery Dunning: I shall answer my hon. friend in that regard later.


Mark Cecil Senn: This question was dealt with on the floor of the house in 1936 by my colleague who sits to my right (Mr. Harris), and it has been discussed every year since in this house, so that the finance minister and

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the government cannot plead ignorance of it. They must be alive to the situation and what is going on.
The action taken by the government of the United States is in direct contrast with that of the government here. I have already told the house of the measures taken by the administration of that country to protect the interests of farmers producing animal fats in the United States. I am making this statement at this time in the hope that something may be done in the near future for farmers producing this line of goods in Canada.
It is true that there are in this country certain interests who are opposed to any action being taken. But I point out that the action which was taken by the United States government in imposing excise tax and processing tax upon the importation of vegetable oils into that country did not increase the price over there of the different brands of vegetable oil shortenings produced in that country. As a matter of fact, although these oils enter Canada entirely free of duty and with no excise tax, prices in Canada and the United States to-day for vegetable oil shortenings are practically on a par. I had a report a few days ago which quoted vegetable oil shortening in tierces in Chicago at nine cents a pound, and in Toronto at eight cents a pound. But adding the sales tax of eight per cent to the Canadian price makes them practically equal.
No matter how important foreign markets may be, the fact remains that the home market is the farmer's most valuable asset. He has to buy in a protected market. I believe that the Canadian market should as far as possible be preserved for goods manufactured in Canada. But I am equally convinced that Canadian farmers also should as far as possible enjoy the full benefit of the home market. They should not be placed in the position of having their products pushed off the home market and undersold by cheap substitutes imported free of duty from countries with low standards of living and low production costs.
Our friends on the government benches, I know, always shy away at the word "protection." They seem to have an obsession against tariffs, or at least the government seem to be afraid to impose customs duties for fear of offending some of their supporters. It is true, of course, that they leave in effect customs duties already imposed; but why should we attempt to protect the Canadian dairyman, for example, by placing and leaving in effect a duty of five cents a pound on butter, while at the same time we allow vegetable oils to come into this country absolutely free of duty in order to take the place of that butter?
Why should a tariff be imposed on the importation of lard in order to protect producers of lard in this country, while at the same time we allow vegetable oils to come in absolutely free?
Yesterday we heard an hon. member on the government side compliment the Minister of Finance upon a small reduction, amounting to some 124 per cent, in the duty on cream separators. On a separator costing $100 this would mean about $12, if the purchaser got the full benefit of the reduction. The life of a cream separator is at least ten or twelve years, which would mean that the dairyman who bought that separator would benefit to the extent of possibly $1 a year. At the same time we allow these vegetable oils to come into this country to replace butter and all kinds of animal fats. Up to the present nothing has been done about the matter, although the government has known of the situation ever since it has been in office.
I know it is useless to ask the government to impose duties for the protection of the dairymen and live stock producers of Canada, but in conclusion I should like to suggest that they might at least follow the course that has been pursued by the government of the United States and impose some processing tax or excise duty. I warn the government that the situation is bad; it is growing worse and becoming more critical as the days go by.


William Earl Rowe: Mr. Speaker, the subject under discussion is one which deeply affects the business in which I am interested, that is, agriculture. I believe it is highly important that the government should give careful consideration to the remarks of the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn) and the sound logic of his arguments; and because of the urgency of the situation I cannot resist the temptation to express my approval of what has been said by the hon. member.
There are two features I should like to discuss, without unduly trespassing on the time of the house and without repeating what has been said so well by the hon. member, in reference to the increasing importations of vegetable oils into this country. In the first place it is vitally important that we protect the health and sustenance of our own people. In the second place we should seek to bring about national prosperity by maintaining agricultural stability. Nature has provided vegetable oils for use as foodstuffs in tropical zones, but in the cold and rigorous climate of this country it has long been recognized that animal fats provide better food for our people. So I think we should discourage the growing

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tendency to depend upon foreign producers of foodstuffs. If we engaged in a world war it might be very difficult to bring to this country fifty steamers, each carrying the equivalent of a trainload of vegetable oils, which we would have to do in order to maintain the importations of the last few years. Since a very large percentage of these huge shipments has been made up of edible oils, I believe this is a factor that must be seriously considered at this time.
We have seen this dangerous competition to Canadian producers growing in this dominion for many years. As the hon. member for Haldimand has said, I recall that a few years ago, when four or five million pounds of oleomargarine were being consumed in this country, many members of this house rose almost in rebellion against the importation or manufacture of this commodity. As a result the government of the day, which I believe was supported by the party sitting opposite, prohibited further importations of oleomargarine by means of increasing the tariff. To-day we find 255,000,000 pounds of vegetable oils flooding our markets, and our people becoming more and more dependent upon this type of foodstuff.
I mention that as a matter of vital importance to the consuming public of this country. I believe it is highly important that we should maintain a sound agriculture in Canada, and in my opinion the stability of this great industry can be best brought about by developing greater diversity of production. I think this would have a direct effect on the greatest problem facing Canada to-day, namely that of the employment of our people. Last year I suggested that the government, through the economics branch of the tariff board, carry on a methodical research in order to ascertain the effect of these huge importations of vegetable oils on the live stock industry of Canada. So far as I know no such research has been undertaken, in spite of the fact that our importations last year showed an increase over the year 1936 of approximately 60,000,000 pounds.
The importance of this issue has been emphasized by the hon. member for Haldimand, but I should like to remind the house once more that there are 750,000 families on farms throughout Canada, and in addition an enormous number of hired men employed on these farms. Over 500,000 of these farmers are breeders of live stock, with over $4,000,000,000 invested in lands and buildings; and it must be remembered that climatic conditions in Canada force thosh engaged in the production of animal fats and dairy products to house their live stock with some care and (Mr. W. E. Rowe.]
at considerable expense. We have 500 million dollars invested in live stock, over 600 million dollars invested in equipment, and the agricultural industry pays 100 million dollars annually to the wage earners of this country. It pays $54,000,000 in property taxes. I mention only these few features to remind hon. members that the farming industry has always been regarded as the backbone of Canada. Many hon. members have been in this house much longer than I, but they will remember that at least ten years ago I urged upon the government the dangers of a lopsided development of our Canadian agricultural industry. Since that time I have watched a continuous lopsided development. Yesterday we amended the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, a piece of legislation which will cost this country two or three million dollars. Last year we paid $60,000,000 as a wheat bonus to relieve this lopsided development. What has this government done? In fact they did nothing from 1921 to 1930 by way of a study of this all important problem. This government's policy has shown a tendency to develop in such a way as to threaten the very lifeblood of Canadian agriculture. I have stated in this house that the time would come when we would regret this lopsided development, when we would regret not having encouraged a greater diversification of production in this industry. I well recall what one of my friends from western Canada said to me at that time. He was a delightful gentleman who sat down here to my left, but even he was defeated at the subsequent election. He said that we did not understand wheat production, that western Canada would always be the bread-basket of the world. He felt that they were almost guaranteed dollar wheat for many years to come. Only one year afterward, every elevator in this dominion was loaded up with unsold wheat.
I have heard the idea advanced on scores of occasions that we must buy where we can buy the cheapest, that only in such countries could we hope to sell the wheat produced on the vast prairies of western Canada. Since I have been a member of this house I have seen one after the other of those countries raise their tariffs. I shall not take the time to refer to them individually, but every member within the sound of my voice will recall that those countries raised their tariffs, in many cases to a point where the duty imposed was more than the price of Canadian wheat. We might as well face the facts. Through a haphazard agricultural policy we have risked the future prosperity of Canada. We have placed ourselves at the mercy of the whims of foreign countries. We must face the chances of weather conditions throughout the

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world and compete with chemical substitutes which have been developed to take the place of flour made from No. 1 northern wheat, which we were told so often was impossible of substitution.


Mr. LANDERYOU:: Is the hon. member suggesting that we should diversify our agricultural endeavours in western Canada?


William Earl Rowe: That is only part of the great national issue. My hon. friend probably knows better than I that there has been a rapid development in the diversification of agriculture in his own province. I ask the hon. gentleman not to raise any argument in connection with this issue, because it is too important. I challenge any hon. member within sound of my voice to show me any country whose agriculture has been maintained down through the years with the production of wheat alone. We have seen this lopsided development all along the line; all one needs to do is to look around.


John Charles Landeryou: If we were to increase the production of dairy products in western Canada along with pork and things of the kind, what would happen to the markets of Ontario?


William Earl Rowe: Before we worry about the markets of Ontario for pork products, I suggest that we first fill the quotas provided by the empire trade agreement of 1932. I suggest some of this production would be consumed by the additional hired help that would be necessary to carry on the development of mixed farming activities. Although my farm is slightly larger at the present time, on many occasions I have kept four heads of families employed on 100 acres. As compared with that, it is possible for an ablebodied man to farm 600 acres planted in wheat alone with the type of machinery that has been developed in recent years. No other avenue of endeavour in this dominion offers more possibilities for the establishment, not only of remunerative employment, but also of happy homes. I am referring to employment because the hon. member has brought it up.
All I ask the hon. member to do is to look across the border at the state of Minnesota. Within the lifetime of the youngest member of this house, that state produced more wheat than Alberta and	Manitoba	combined.
Thirty-five or forty years ago no doubt the prairie farmers of Minnesota felt that state would be a great wheat producing district for many long years to come. But a gradual diversification of production was brought about as a result of climatic conditions, loss of fertility of the soil, and other
71492-136i
causes. Minnesota produces only a small amount of wheat compared with what she produced some years ago, but she now produces more dairy products than the whole of the Dominion of Canada. This is the type of diversified and intensive agriculture which has kept the farms of Europe fertile for a thousand years. As I have said, we cannot keep on forever robbing the soil of its fertility. You cannot wisely continue to encourage only one product and depend solely upon an export market for its disposition, and depend upon the whims of every government of the world.
We are considering a plan under which the treasury of Canada is to provide $50,000,000 or $60,000,000 for one section of the dominion in order to encourage the production of an article which the world seems to desire less to-day than it did a few years ago. I suggest to the government of the day that they stop, look and listen; that they notice the signs of the times. In other words, they should come up to date and encourage the type of industry which will not only provide more employment but bring about more stability in national income and exports. There is an old agricultural saying that one should not put all his eggs in one basket. That adage was never more sound than it is to-day, so far as Canadian agriculture is concerned.
To my mind the basic stability of Canadian agriculture depends upon the effects and influences of three distinctive things. It depends, first, on markets for our products; second, on productive efficiency, and third, on soil fertility. If anyone can show me that the trend of the agricultural policy of this government has assisted in any one of these phases, I will say that this government might have a chance to return to power. But nothing has been done in that direction since 1935. In fact nothing was done by the same party between 1921 and 1930 to develop Canadian agriculture on a sound and stable basis.


Mr. TOMLINSON:: What did the government do between 1930 and 1935?


William Earl Rowe: When we
brought in the empire trade agreements, I say to the hon. member for Bruce (Mr. Tomlinson) that we did more for agriculture than was done by this government in its whole existence. The Minister of Finance shakes his head at that, thinking I am perhaps extravagant.


Charles Avery Dunning: I do.


William Earl Rowe: If he will review the record of his government so far
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as markets are concerned, and as to policies which have helped to maintain the fertility of the soil, I think he will agree with me.


Charles Avery Dunning: I am quite sure that
my hon. friend is wrong about that, so far as it relates to me.


William Earl Rowe: Convince
a man against his will and he is of the same opinion still; I shall not pursue that any further with the Minister of Finance. But I suggest to him that before bringing down the budget of this year he consider carefully having reports from the tariff board, and consider also the advisability of giving to the farmers of this dominion similar protection to that which our industrialists enjoy. I say further to him that if he does not do that, he will not write the next budget that is brought down in this house.
For many years we had greater exports to markets overseas for our live stock products than we have now. My hon. friend shakes his head. May I remind him that we sold more live stock products in the British market in 1921 than we have sold in any year since. We sold more cheese 30 years ago by far than has been sold since, and we sold more live stock products by millions of dollars in 1921 than this country sold of wheat in that year. We have had a government now for some years with a wheat complex. May I remind the minister that the greatest market for all our Canadian agricultural produce is the home market; for every dollar the home consumer spends for Canadian wheat he spends eight dollars for live stock and dairy products. The ratio is 8 to 1. We consume in our home market from 80 to 85 per cent of our agricultural products. Contrast that with our sister dominions, Australia and New Zealand. They export about 85 per cent of their agricultural products and consume 15 per cent, while we consmue about 95 per cent and more of our live stock and dairy products and other products of intensified agriculture. The large consuming markets for our live stock products and the products of our intensified agriculture, such as poultry, fruits and vegetables, are along the seaboard, in Montreal and other large centres like Toronto.
May I remind my western friends that it costs a great deal to bring their products from the west to the east. It costs $3.33 a hundredweight to bring their butter east, while vegetable oils from overseas competing with our Canadian animal products arrive at the port of Montreal by paying 25 cents a hundred.


John Charles Landeryou: Is there not a surplus of butter in Ontario right now?


William Earl Rowe: Yes, we have a surplus of dairy butter. We had at the beginning of the year about 44 million pounds, and we are importing 255 million pounds of vegetable oils-167 million pounds approximately of the edible type. There has been a reduction of seventy per cent in the consumption of dairy butter for bakery purposes during the last eight years. I submit that the 44 million pounds of butter that await a market to-day might well be consumed in this country if we consumed it at the same rate as that at which we are using imported vegetable oils.
I mentioned a tariff on vegetable oils. 1 realize that it might be difficult to place a tariff on vegetable oils; I would suggest rather the imposition of a processing tax that would equalize the conditions between our farmers and those who produce under more favourable conditions. It is so easy in tropical zones to produce vegetable oils very cheaply, and it is unfair for any government, whether Liberal or Conservative, to maintain high tariffs for the protection of our soap makers, cake makers, biscuit manufacturers and other processors and refuse similar treatment to our farmers. Our farmers have very high expenses compared with those of farmers in tropical countries, where people scarcely need to wear clothes, let alone to house their cattle. This government should be alarmed at the increase in the importations of vegetable oils. When you stop to think that we import more vegetable oils than, we produce of dairy butter, surely it is time for the government to take cognizance of the situation. I know that farmers even on the other side of the line view with amazement the inaction of the Canadian government on this issue, and I can quite understand as I read from "American Farmer" their saying "before we try to help the Canadian farmers by the United States agreement we have made with that country, they ought to be protecting their own market."
We have in Canada great possibilities, but the inaction of the government makes one doubt whether under its policies agriculture can be maintained as our great basic industry. We live in a cold climate, and in live stock production the cost of bams in old Ontario, and in some parts of western Canada, is almost as much as the farms are worth to house the stock.
I think we must consider carefully the maintenance of our home market. All who are within sound of my voice will agree that our huge importations are seriously affecting

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the live stock industry of this country, and threatening to affect it very seriously in the years to come.
Another means of encouraging stability in agriculture in this country is through productive efficiency. By that I mean, not the individual efficiency of the farmer but the efficiency of our country, our national efficiency. This government should lose no time in making a careful survey of agricultural conditions. Nobody knows what their policy is; in fact, they scarcely know from one day to the next what it is going to be. One day it is a bonus on something of which we now have too much; another day it is a bonus for acreage on which less is going to be produced; all this, in an endeavour to get away from that vicious word " protection." Yet they grant subsidies up to $60,000,000- which I submit is a more vicious policy than the protection applied to any industry in Canada. At the same time they remove the excise tax on products coming into this country, although they need revenue very badly. I am amazed that the Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) has stood for that. On his right he has the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), paying $60,000,000 for the production of something which we cannot now sell. On his -left he has the Minister of Public Works (Mr. Cardin), waiting to spend $100,000,000 for election purposes, and on his own desk he can read where he is going to have what will probably be a huge deficit. He will surrender twelve to eighteen million dollars of revenue by the removal of the excise tax, and at the same time watch the Minister of Public Works throw twelve million dollars into a sink-hole in Montreal for a terminal which is not required.
I am satisfied that when we have national planning based on a national survey, agricultural development will follow. We have watched the progress of the United States during the last few years.
I believe that in 1933 we imported a small quantity of palm oil, about 287,000 pounds. But after it was found that it could be made more edible, imports increased until in 1938 we brought in over 70,000,000 pounds of that product. The hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn) has pointed out what has been its practical effect on the live stock producers of this country. Mr. J. S. McLean, of Canada Packers, Limited, has stated that it did not mean very much to those of us who are engaged in farming. He said it represented only twenty cents per hundredweight on cattle and thirty-three cents per hundredweight on hogs. Well, on our present production that would mean $8,800,000 a year. I submit that
even those who are engaged in other enterprises will agree that an additional income of nearly $9,000,000 would stimulate production in other lines of business. There are many farmers throughout our districts who would spend a little more if they had a little more to spend. I know of many farmers' wives who could do with a new suit this spring; many of whom have not bought one since this government came into power. I know many of our people who would buy new equipment if they could get a share of that $9,000,000. It would certainly mean something to the general business activity of this country. [DOT]


John Charles Landeryou: How about the Bennett buggy?


William Earl Rowe: 
Charles Avery Dunning: I do not intend to speak at any length on the subject introduced this afternoon by the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn), in connection with which we have just listened to an admirable stump speech from the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe), which is always enjoyable-[DOT]


William Earl Rowe: I do not like the "stump" part of it so well. You are pretty good at that yourself.


Charles Avery Dunning: -except to say that it is a great pity the government which my hon. friend the member for Dufferin-Simcoe supported in 1932 did not have the benefit of the views which he has expressed to-day with respect to vegetable oils, because vegetable oils enter Canada to-day, and have done so ever since 1932, free of duty from those tropical areas from which they are garnered by the naked inhabitants to whom the hon. member has referred. And they so enter because of that very empire agreement made in 1932 to which he eloquently referred. That is all I wish to say in respect to my hon. friend's political references. There are many others who I know would desire to repay him in kind in that connection.

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Vegetable oil is a problem-leave polities out of it altogether. It is a problem; there is no doubt about it. It has been before us now for some two years, and as hon. members know, a reference has been made to the tariff board in connection with the matter. Hearings were held, complicated as always by the fact that free entry, as I have said, was guaranteed under the preference created in virtue of the British empire agreements of 1932.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Free entry from where?


Charles Avery Dunning: From British countries.


Henry Herbert Stevens: Not from the United
States.


Charles Avery Dunning: No. Something like
eighty per cent of our total imports comes from British countries. At any rate, we do not face the problem unless we take into consideration the fact that the great bulk of our imports is from the United Kingdom and British colonies. I have here the figures showing our imports:
From-	Pounds
United	Kingdom	
75,000,000Straits	Settlements	
40,250,000Ceylon	
35,500,000China	
26,500,000Nigeria	
15,000,000United	States	
30,000,000
The item from China would not be affected by the British agreements of 1932. A small proportion of the whole comes from the United States. However that may be, everyone who is looking at the problem in the manner in which my hon. friend the member for Danforth (Mr. Harris), who has presented it on former occasions, looks at it, recognizes that it is a very difficult one to deal with tariffwise, as indeed the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe acknowledged.
I am advised by the tariff board that they have continuously kept up their studies of the matter. The only criticism I have of the hon. member for Haldimand is that he intimated that possibly I had discouraged the board in its efforts because I was not particularly anxious to have a solution of the question. Apart from the public grounds which should actuate a Minister of Finance, I ask, even on low political grounds, whether any hon. member thinks for a moment that I wish to give hon. gentlemen opposite another New Zealand butter issue just prior to an election. Even on low political grounds I would naturally be anxious to have a solution if one is possible. But on broader economic grounds, from the time the matter was first referred, I have been very anxious that the inquiry should be completed and a constructive report be in my hands as soon as possible. The board advise me that this inquiry has been one of the most involved technically that they have ever had to make. I am also advised, as I intimated to the hon. member for Danforth the other day, that I may expect the report in time for any action which the government may decide to take at this session of parliament. I have made inquiries since the regretted death of the chairman of the board as to whether the board's material in connection with the reference has advanced to such a stage that I may rely upon its being available for this session. I am advised that it will, and that being the case, I do not propose to debate the matter further at this stage.
I am satisfied that a careful, thorough and painstaking inquiry into a highly involved matter has been made, and I shall have to take the responsibility of advising the government as to what course should be followed when the report is in my hands, which I hope will be before very long.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: I have listened with a great deal of interest to the addresses by the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn) and the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe). They have made a fine presentation of a serious situation that confronts the dairymen of Canada at the present time. For several sessions I have called the attention of parliament to the great handicap that the dairymen and live stock men in Canada are labouring under by reason of a product made from vegetable oils imported from tropical countries, and also owing to the reduction in the tariff on butter. These two factors have contributed to the present depressed price of butter. Last year, 1938, we brought into Canada 5,500,000 pounds of butter. That came into a country which is producing more butter than it can consume. On January 1, 1939, we had almost 44,000.000 pounds of butter in cold storage, or 16,000,000 pounds more than the quantity in storage on January 1, 1938.
In Canada we manufacture some of the finest cheese sold on the British market, but our butter has not been looked upon very favourably there; in fact, it takes only fourth or fifth place. It is highly important that the fanners and dairymen of Canada should export their surplus milk in the form of cheese, and never attempt to make butter for export. Briefly, the reason is that we are competing with a country where the cattle graze outdoors the year round, where large herds are kept, where they can support a cow on every acre, not like the farms that the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) was
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telling us about last night where it takes fifty acres to graze one animal. They milk twice a day and send * the milk to large factories where it is made scientifically and uniformly into butter, grass butter, the year round; whereas in Canada we have to stable our cattle for six or seven months of the year and provide fodder for them. Here also we have only small factories, and the practice is to collect the cream two or three times a week. The cream comes into the factory in all states of acidity, so that it is difficult to make butter from it to compete with that of New Zealand. The butter we make in Canada is very good if it is used within a few weeks after it is made, but put it in cold storage for three months and it is rancid. New Zealand butter stored for three months is as sweet as the day it was made. Therefore it is impossible for us to compete with that country in butter.
The value of the dairy products made in Canada in the past ten years exceeded by many thousands of dollars the entire value of our wheat production; yet in this house we hear nothing but wheat, wheat. We vote millions of dollars every year to buy seed wheat; we peg the price for wheat, and last night we heard in this house of a scheme- which is no new scheme; it has been going on for some time-to irrigate land where it requires fifty acres to graze one animal, in order to try to grow wheat on it, a product that is already a drug on the market. Why are we bolstering up wheat all the time? Moreover, wheat is grown to any great extent, in only three provinces, namely, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, while dairy farming is practised in every province. Dairying is far more important than wheat growing. The weekly cream cheque that came to farmers in the western provinces during the years when their crops were short kept hundreds of them off relief. Yet these very farmers, with scarcely any other income, were competing with butter made in a country like New Zealand, and shortenings made from vegetable oils imported from tropical countries.
The consumption of wheat in Canada is not very large. If we take the last three years, the average was four bushels per capita. If we take the average price for three years, this means that we spent annually $32,000,000 on wheat. But the amount spent annually in the past three years for meat and dairy products was $275,000,000. The per capita consumption of farm products annually for the past three years was sixty-four pounds of beef, sixty-five pounds of pork, six pounds of mutton, thirty-one pounds of butter, three and a half pounds of cheese and four bushels

of wheat. Of milk and dairy products we consume 647 pounds per capita a year.
We have in Canada 750,000 farmers, the great majority of whom are either dairymen or producers of live stock. These farmers ask to be given the same measure of protection that is given to the dairymen in the republic to the south of us. Canada to-day can produce all the butter and all the animal fats' that we can consume in this country. A few years ago this government in their wisdom prohibited the manufacture and sale of oleomargarine in Canada. That was a great boon to the dairy farmers; it was a good law. But to-day we are faced with a far greater menace than oleomargarine ever was, a . product made from these cheap vegetable oils imported free into Canada from tropical countries. In 1933 the entire importation of vegetable oils of all classes was 91,000,000 pounds. By 1938 that had increased to 255,000,000 pounds.
The Minister of Finance (Mr. Dunning) stated a moment ago that the late government had taken no action in this matter. I point out to him that this menace had not in those years reached the proportions that it has to-day. In 1933, 67,000,000 pounds of shortening manufactured from vegetable oils were sold in Canada. But by 1938 that had increased to 120,000,000 pounds. And just as the sale of shortenings made from vegetable oils increased, so the sale of shortenings made from animal fats decreased.
These oils come from tropical countries, and are marked " not for food." But after they come into this country they are processed by a few of our large combines that are making immense wealth out of the sale of this product. The better part of the oil is manufactured into shortening and put on the shelves of every grocery store in the country, coming in direct competition with our butter and lard. The residue is sent to our soap factories, where it again comes in competition with animal fats from our abattoirs. In 1936 the government of the United States placed against these vegetable oils duties which totaled about six cents a pound on oils other than crude, 4i cents a pound on crude oils and 3i cents a pound on tallow. Before that duty was imposed, we had a market for tallow in Chicago, but ever since that time our tallow has sold in Toronto for just 3i cents less than the Chicago price. In 1935 the price of tallow in both Toronto and Chicago was nine cents a pound; there was no duty, and the price just leveled up. Since then, however, it has been unprofitable to ship our fats to the United States.
We do not want to prohibit entirely the
importation of vegetable oils. That is not the

Canada-United. States Trade Agreement
idea. We do want a tariff or restriction or processing tax placed upon it, so that prices of butter and lard may not be unduly depressed. I realize that a great deal of the oil brought in is used for medicinal purposes, for canning fish and in certain lines of manufacture. With this we have no quarrel. I am a protectionist; I believe in the principle of protection, because in the world to-day, when every country is protecting its own interests, it is foolish to talk about anything else. It is a question of regulating that protection so that it will not unjustly benefit or unjustly harm any individual or any part of the country. I am in favour of protection for the farmer. 1 believe the farmers are just as much entitled to protection as are our industrialists, and further I say that agriculture and industry are not enemies. They are partners in this country, and they must work together. When you create employment you create markets for agricultural products. If the men and women engaged in industry have steady employment at good wages they do not care whether they pay twenty or thirty cents a pound for butter; but to-day, with our people out of work or working only two or three days a week, butter is extremely dear at twenty cents a pound. Give our people employment; keep our industries going and you will create markets for our agriculturists. Not long ago I noticed a statement by the manager of one of our large packing houses, an organization engaged in the importation of this oil and making immense profits out of it, a gentleman who knew whereof he spoke. He said he was confident that the sale of shortening and soaps produced from vegetable oils reduced the price of every hog in Canada by $1, of every steer by $2, and of the production of every dairy cow by $2. When that was figured up, it came to something between S8,000,000 and $10,000,000 that the farmers of this country were losing in this way.
It takes a farmer six months to raise a 200 pound hog. In the first place there must be careful breeding and in the second place careful feeding to produce a 200 pound hog in that time. It can be done and is done, but the man who does it must know his business. That hog will produce only fifteen pounds of lard. It takes three years to produce a steer weighing 1,100 pounds, which will produce fifty pounds of edible tallow. But out of 100 pounds of palm olive kernels, forty-five pounds of oil can be produced at very little cost. Let us be sensible about these matters. There is no use in talking free trade, protection or anything else. Let us talk business. Is it fair that these people should be permitted to come to this cold country, where we require so
much food, so much fuel and so much clothing, and where we are proud of the fact that the standard of living is so high, and to compete with us on these terms? In the United States they have protected their farmers, and those who read journals coming from that country [DOT] will be aware that an agitation is being carried on by the organized farmers to have the protection increased against the importation of vegetable oils.
A moment ago the Minister of Finance said the whole matter of vegetable oils had been referred to the tariff board and that the government was awaiting the decision of that board. To my knowledge this question of vegetable oils was referred to the tariff board on December 10, 1936, and now we are at the end of March, 1939. If it takes the tariff board two years and four months to reach a decision on an important matter of this kind, while the farmers are labouring under such a disadvantage, there must be something wrong with the tariff board. Surely we should have a report in less than that length of time.
This is a matter of vital importance. I am not trying to make political capital out of it; I am speaking in the interests of the farming community to wrhich I belong, and to which my family have belonged for four generations. I am speaking on a question that I understand. I know the requirements of the farmers of this country; I have been engaged in farming and have been connected with farmers' organizations practically all my life. This question is above politics; it is above partyism. It is a matter we are bringing up in justice to our agriculturists, in order that those~engaged in dairying may be placed upon a safe foundation.
I was going to mention another matter on which I have a note here; but it might be thought I was trying to make some political capital out of it, so I will leave it out. It had to do with the duty imposed on our cattle going into the United States. We pay practically $15 a head under the quota, and when we have used up our quota we pay $30 a head. I am referring to the average steer weighing 1.000 pounds. Then we permit the free importation of 30,000 head of cattle from the United States and the Argentine in tin cans. That is what the farmer of to-day has to consider. If we are going to live in a country where protection is necessary, our agriculturists should get their fair share of that protection.
While the importation of butter into this country and the sales of shortening have depressed the price of butter to a considerable degree, there is something else which is of
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vital interest. I refer to the under-consumption of butter through so many of our people being on relief or perhaps working only one or two days a week. These people are not able to consume the butter they would consume if they had steady employment at good wages. That factor enters into the problem.
The one thing we need more than anything else in this country is confidence. Our people seem to be afraid. Capital is running to cover. People are putting their money into government bonds which pay two or three per cent, or they let it lie in the banks at per cent. What are they afraid of? Most of them will say they are afraid of taxation. They do not want to invest in land or in the building of a home. To-day the price of agricultural land is fifty per cent of what it was ten or twelve years ago. You cannot build a home in any town or city in Canada and sell it for what it costs you to build. You cannot rent ;t and make a profit after paying taxes. There is sufficient money lying in our banks to build all the homes required, provided they could be built at a profit. The government would not need to go into the building business.
I have nothing further to say, except that I plead with the government. The Minister of Finance has left his seat; but the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), who I know is just as deeply interested in this question as I am, is here, and I trust he will use his influence to see that the great farming class to which he belongs gets a square deal so *far as the dairy industry is concerned.


William Hayhurst: Mr. Speaker, I have listened with a great deal of interest to the hon. gentlemen who have spoken this afternoon, and I feel I would be negligent in my duty if I did not say a few words on this subject.
Last year I received about a thousand communications from farmers in western Canada demanding that some tariff be placed upon vegetable oils. Some of the hon. members of the Conservative party are not exactly consistent. They do not seem to realize that western Canada is a large country and that the part I come from is just as vitally interested in the dairy industry as is Lanark or Dufferin-Simcoe. There are areas in western Canada which produce tremendous quantities of dairy products, and I believe at lower costs of production than apply in the east. If we all went into the business we might run these men out of business. I ask hon. members to be just in their reasoning and not attack the wheat problem when 
they are asking for a just price for dairy products. When we ask for 80 cents a bushel-


Thomas Alfred Thompson: We are not attacking it.


William Hayhurst: When we ask for 80 cents a bushel, which we hope the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) will give us-


Mr. HOMUTH:: Has the hon. member
heard any member of this group suggest at any time that the western wheat grower should not have protection?


William Hayhurst: Just to-day.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


William Hayhurst: We have heard it on several occasions from the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church). This afternoon the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Thompson) was attacking the wheat situation. He stated that the eastern people are going to be taxed because of wheat.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: I said nothing about a tax on the eastern people.


William Hayhurst: He said that wheat
was a drug on the market and we should not produce any more.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: Certainly it is.


William Hayhurst: What kind of argument is it when the hon. member says that butter is a drug on the market also? I say everything is a drug on the market. You have to use your judgment. It is necessary to be sure of your statements. The Minister of Finance has stated that this is a technical and highly involved matter, one difficult of solution. We believe we have a solution, but very few people want to use the solution which we have advocated in this house in connection with other matters and which would apply in the same manner to this.
The hon. member for Lanark referred to sixty acres to a cow. Evidently he does not realize that with his rehabilitation bill the Minister of Agriculture is attempting to do something to relieve the situation in the dried-out areas of western Canada. If the hon. member would travel through western Canada he would see large areas where it is necessary to have sixty acres per cow. If he comes into my district he will find that that is not necessary. I was talking to a man who lives on the plains not far from Regina and who was hauling his water five miles. I asked him why he did that, why he did not drill a well, and he told me he would have to go just as far in drilling the well. There are parts of western Canada which have had very little

rainfall, but they are not like those areas in northern Ontario which are all rock and stone and lake and woodland.


Robert James Manion: We have some good farm land in northern Ontario.


William Hayhurst: There is some good land there, but I am talking about the bad land. It is the same in western Canada. We have a lot of good land there. It is this land that the Minister of Agriculture is dealing with in his rehabilitation program. There are large areas in western Canada which could support many cows if there was sufficient rain.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: The Minister of Agriculture will give you the rain.


William Hayhurst: We hear hon. members referring to different classes of goods as being a drug on the market, or every class of goods being a drug on the market. In England they have a new minister of agriculture who believes in a certain amount of economic nationalism.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: We will have a new one here.


William Hayhurst: We will probably have a new one here unless something is done this .year.


John Ritchie MacNicol: No hope for that.


William Hayhurst: What do they say in England on this subject? They say that the advantage to the nation of a prosperous agriculture is worth paying for. It is worth subsidizing these dairy farmers and wheat farmers. In the growth of industrialism .sweated industries were closed down because of evils involved and now we all should realize that a poorly paid agriculture, with its inevitable consequences of drift from the land .and inefficient use of natural resources, is bad for the community. As a matter of fact, I think every hon. member realizes that the farm is the backbone of the nation.
I did not come prepared to speak on this [DOT]subject this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, but after hearing some of the arguments made by some hon. members which the Minister of Finance said were fallacious, and he applied the same term to an argument I used, I felt I had to say a word or two.
The hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Thompson) quoted some figures on beef, tallow and so forth. This is a subject which has been investigated, and it has been found that if a *duty of 31 to 4J cents per pound were put [DOT]on vegetable oils it would mean an increase of $2 a head in the value of every cow and $1 for every hog raised. Now if that applies to
22, 1939 2161
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eastern Canada it applies still more to western Canada, because there we have not very many soap factories and most of our tallow has to come east. The consequence is that tallow in the west is practically valueless and has to be destroyed, but if the tariff suggested were put on vegetable oils it would probably mean more than S2 a head increase for our cattle and $1 a head increase for our hogs. -
As I said, I have received a large number of resolutions, and last year I put one on Hansard. I do not need to read it again. In 1936 over 200 million pounds of vegetable oils were imported into Canada, chiefly from tropical countries. I have here over half a dozen resolutions which show that our dairymen in western Canada are vitally interested in this subject. I have addressed several meetings, and at the last one I addressed, in Edmonton in December, before coming down here I was presented with five resolutions by dairymen asking that something be done about butter. I suggested that the best thing would be a tax on vegetable oils. The importations of vegetable oils have been increasing year after year, leading to the substitution of cheap foreign vegetable oils for our Canadian-produced animal fats, and this has become a serious menace to our
750,000	farmers in Canada.
I think that is all I need say at this time because the Minister of Finance has said that the tariff board is investigating the question and he will make a statement to the house later. We shall be pleased to hear a constructive statement on the subject which will indicate that some of the troubles of our dairy farmers are to be removed.


Mr. C. B. HOWARD (Sherbrooke):: Mr. Speaker, I could hardly resist making a few remarks after listening to the speeches that were delivered by the hon. member for Haldi-mand (Mr. Senn) and the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe). The hon. member for Haldimand stated that the reduction on cream separators entering Canada was a small one, but I consider a fifty per cent reduction a pretty good reduction, and if the hon. member thinks that a small one I wonder what he would consider a real reduction.
But the main reason for my rising is because of past circumstances surrounding the two hon. members that I have mentioned. Just prior to the election in 1930 the hon. member for Haldimand, representing the cattle industry, the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe, representing agriculture, and another gentleman who is now out of his seat, toured the eastern townships of Quebec telling the fanners in that section of the country what
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they were going to do about the butter situation if they got into power in 1930. The farmers in the eastern townships listened to them-there is no doubt about that-but I want to tell those three gentlemen that I hope they will make a similar trip before next election. I will not say that they would be chased out because we do not treat visitors that way in our part of the country, but our farmers certainly do not forget what happened to butter between 1930 and 1935. Dairy butter in 1932 went down to 14A cents a pound in Montreal instead of going up, as these gentlemen predicted, to 40 cents a pound, and creamery butter went down to 16J cents a pound against the price they predicted. The consequence was that the farmers of the eastern townships of the province of Quebec decided that either these three gentlemen did not know what they were talking about or else they fooled the people completely.
I should like now to make a few suggestions to the government which I am supporting. Talking to one of the largest industrialists in Canada in his own office the other day I questioned him as to how certain reductions that were made in the tariff on the products of his own manufacture would affect him. I put the question to the house as I put it to him, without bias and free from political consideration. I asked him, "Does the reduction in the tariff affect your industry and if so, do you think it will hurt you very much ?" He replied, "We have not said one single word in criticism of the reductions on our manufactured products, because I believe that the general prosperity that will be created throughout Canada by the trade agreement will so increase the purchasing power of the Canadian people that we shall be able to sell more manufactured goods to the Canadian consumer."


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: Would the hon. gentleman mind telling what industry that was?


Charles Benjamin Howard: I stated one of our largest industries. It was one of our textile industries. But as to giving the name, after fifteen years' experience in this parliament I am not giving information that might be used to the detriment of any of our manufacturers.


Norman James Macdonald Lockhart: All I asked for was the nature of the industry.


Charles Benjamin Howard: 
Albert A. Brown: Whose fault is it?


Charles Benjamin Howard: Naturally they cannot
purchase butter. That is barred from their tables, so naturally the consumption has diminished in that section. Let me give a couple of suggestions before I say what I wanted to say from a political standpoint.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


An hon. MEMBER:: We are not hypocrites.


Charles Benjamin Howard: I will not quote from Hansard because I want to give another hon. member a few minutes to speak; but consider the situation as I see it. I suggest to the government the following as extraordinary measures. I want to say, what I think has not been said, that manufacturing industry and agriculture must go hand in hand. We want to benefit agriculture, but my proposal at the same time will indirectly benefit the manufacturing industry, and we cannot segregate the two. My suggestion is for temporary legislation. In spite of the fact that the hon. member who has just spoken and most of the

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other hon. members opposite were in this house from 1930 to 1935 and did not impose duties against vegetable oils; in spite of the fact that they were a high tariff party, and went through their five years without remedial action on this line, and went out of power,
I recognize that we have now been three years in power, and I suggest to the government that they apply a processing tax against vegetable oils of say three cents a pound.


William Earl Rowe: Make it five. Mr. HOWARD: I do not know whether they will accept my suggestion, but I hope they will.
Another suggestion I would make is this, with a view of controlling the flow of the milk supply so that no more milk will go into butter than is required for home consumption . of butter, allowing for some increased consumption following greater prosperity in this country in the next twelve months. Let us throw the remainder of that milk supply into cheese, for which we always have a market.
I suggest that the government put a premium of say two cents a pound on class A cheese, and that they set up a milk control board with an administrative head in the Department of Agriculture-there is no need of going outside the department, which has the machinery to take care of it-with a representative possibly from each province, and so try to regulate the milk flow in order that we may have butter for home consumption only.
Just one word on the New Zealand and Australian situation. Remember that from 1930 to 1935 the butter situation as regards New Zealand was never definitely arranged, but while the present government has been in power we have been getting imports of butter only when the price last winter rose to 41 cents a pound.


Mr. McGREGOR:: There were 5,000,000 pounds.


Charles Benjamin Howard: I think that is the highest price which butter has reached in the past ten years. After all, when a Liberal government can do that, it is not a bad record so far as this side of the house is concerned.


Robert Henry McGregor: Pretty good-for a
Liberal government.


Charles Benjamin Howard: May I say that, after
hearing the reference this afternoon to boat loads of vegetable oils which have come in, I -wondered whether the speaker had in mind "Rowe-boats" or ships.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Ships of state.


Charles Benjamin Howard: It looks to me as though
the slippery policy of 1930 wras being trotted out again for the next election.


William Earl Rowe: The hon.
member's party slipped out on that one, with five times less pounds.


Charles Benjamin Howard: I just want to say that
the policy which has been advocated this afternoon from the Conservative benches is one which we do not want and which the Canadian people do not want, and this Conservative piece of "oleo-aginous" hypocrisy will not go down with the Canadian consumers.


Mr. G. E. WOOD (Brant):: I should like
to make some observations at this time, although I regret having to take up time which the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris) was going to occupy. Probably he was going to draw our attention to some of the very fine ladies of Toronto who just a year ago were parading in persian lamb coats on Yonge street, protesting against a price of forty cents a pound for butter. Nevertheless I will not take too long. Maybe that was not to be in his speech, but I am sure he would want to mention it, so I thought I would do It for him.
I appreciate the remarks of my good neighbour the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn), and also the magnificent way in which the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) presented his case. I admit that it is rather difficult for me, as just one of the ordinary farmers, to endeavour to answer or to compete in oratory with men of experience such as those to whom I intend to reply. The hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Thompson) boasted of having four generations of farmers behind him. I want to say for his information that I cannot name the number of generations of agriculturists behind me, because so far as I know they always have been agriculturists. They wandered over the hills of bonnie Scotland with their herds of sheep, and I am led to believe that some of them had an income of only twenty-five dollars a year.


Thomas Alfred Thompson: Whose sheep were they getting away with?


George Ernest Wood: One thing I have observed
is that if a man has a suspicious attitude of mind it is generally because he is guilty of the sort of thing he suspects.


Robert James Manion: That is why the hon.
member for Sherbrooke (Mr. Howard) accused us of playing politics.	-


George Ernest Wood: Well, I have not been in
politics long enough to know, so I will leave the leader' of the opposition (Mr. Manion) to discuss that. But I marvel at the attitude of the hon. members for Haldimand and
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Dufferin-Simcoe, who were waxing eloquent in regard to doing something for the farmer. I wonder whether, from the years 1930 to 1935, when they had the opportunity to do something, they were really sympathizing with us very much. I myself sold pork at S3.25 and wheat at 42 cents a bushel in 1932.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: What did you get for pork in 1935?


George Ernest Wood: I am sorry I cannot give that figure now. I will give certain figures later on if the hon. member will contain himself.


Ernest Lapointe: He can't.


George Ernest Wood: The price of butter -was much lower than it is now. In spite of all the difficulties we are up against to-day with the importation of vegetable oils, the price of butter fat in 1938 was higher than it has ever been since the Liberal government was last in office in 1930.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: What is it now?


George Ernest Wood: The average price of butter fat has been:
1931.
1932.
1933.
1934.
1935.
1936.
1937.
1938.
Cents
20
22-3
22-	9
23-	7 26-6 27


Karl Kenneth Homuth: What is it now?


George Ernest Wood: We have to go back to 1934 to get anything comparable.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Will the hon. member
give the figures for pork?


George Ernest Wood: I am sorry I cannot. The hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth) has had a greater experience than I have had in parliamentary procedure, and I wish he would not put me off the track. I hope I shall never have as varied an experience as he has had in different schools of thought.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: You will not be in long enough.


George Ernest Wood: Well, if I cannot be here I do not want to be anywhere else. In spite of the fact that we are importing a great quantity of oils, and our friends are very much concerned about the state of affairs among farmers-and I do not think that the farmer is getting a fair share of the national income-I believe an effort has been made by this government, which has not been paralleled by any other government, to do something to get a fair share of that income for the
TMr. Wood.]
farmer. That has been characteristic of this government. If you go through the records you will find that when the index price of farm products is equal to that of manufactured goods, there is general prosperity. In 1937, and up until the middle of 1938, the prices of farm products were comparable to those of manufactured goods, but since then there has been a decline, and that may be responsible to some extent for the increase in unemployment.
I would draw the attention of the house, however, to some of the records given in the Canada Year Book. I refer particularly to income tax collections. Of course, it is generally conceded that the farmers do not pay income tax; they never have enough money to pay any; nevertheless, 414 farmers paid income tax in 1935, and 921 in 1937. I will not give the whole list, but I will take the next largest group, that of employees, representing the working class. In 1935 there were
149,000	who paid income tax, and in 1937, 174,000. That shows at any rate that some progress has been made in the direction of distributing the national income in such a way as to give a little larger income to those in that category.


Mr. LAWSON:: What years did the hon. member give?


George Ernest Wood: I took the years 1935 and 1937. Notwithstanding all that has been said about the difficulties of the farmers, I was very happy to hear the hon. member for Dufferin- . Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) say that a solution of the great problem was a back-to-the-land movement. I heartily endorse that suggestion.
I believe that if sixty per cent of the people were on the land and forty per cent were in the cities, we would not have the present problem to the same extent. But owing to the system under which we operate, there has been a magnetic influence drawing boys from the farm, and it is not the boys who have come from the farms that go to the offices for relief they all have jobs. They have displaced, however, many who ordinarily would have the work they are doing.
In spite of the unfortunate condition of affairs among our farmers, as depicted to us, and the fact that they are not receiving a large enough share of the national income,
I would point out that seventy-five per cent of the people on the farms own their own homes, whereas in a larger city there is a smaller percentage of home owners. In cities of 30,000 and over, only forty-five per cent of the people own their own homes; in towns of 5,000, fifty-eight per cent; and in towns of

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less than 1,000, seventy-one per cent; while, as I say, seventy-five per cent of the people in the rural districts are home owners.
The hon. member for Haldimand and the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe waxed eloquent in advocating that something be done by this government for the farmers. May I point out for their information that in 1934 the total number of commercial failures in Canada was 1,690 as compared with 952 in 1937. I point out some of these facts because I know that industry cannot prosper unless our farmers are prosperous; and I have no doubt that the condition of the farmers would have been a great deal worse had there not been a change of government in 1935.
Reference has been made to the competition of our farmers with New Zealand in regard to butter. If you take the record of importations of New Zealand butter you will find that, as the hon. member for Sherbrooke pointed out, at the time we were importing butter, the price was far in excess of the ability of the average person to pay. I do not think that hon. members will agree with me, but I believe that if the price had not been allowed to reach the high figure that it did, which had the effect of stimulating butter production, with the result that more milk went into the production of butter owing to that excessive price, we would not have had the trouble we have to-day. Unfortunately a great deal of milk which should have gone into the production of cheese went into the production of butter. That was brought about by the high price of butter. The only regret I have is that the lady friends of the hon. member for Danforth (Mr. Harris) did not get out on the streets a month or two earlier and boycott butter before the price got so high; I believe that would have put dollars and dollars more into the pockets of the Canadian farmer to-day.
I am sorry I did not have an opportunity to prepare a speech like the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn), who presented some valuable information to the house. He placed upon record many interesting figures, as he always does.


Charles Avery Dunning: But examine the figures carefully.


George Ernest Wood: I believe that is good advice. There is such a thing as using figures just enough to get people to believe what you want them to believe.
Unfortunately farmers have never had an affluence of money. I know myself if I want to buy something it generally means a good deal of sacrifice. Those who have been able to succeed as farmers and get their
mortgages paid off have generally had to sell the bacon and eat the old sow; we let our cousins in the city eat the com flakes, while we eat the oatmeal. There are printed in the newspapers many things in connection with the situation on the farms in Canada, and I think it might be wise if we as farmers emphasized some of the good things on the farm, the life and liberty we enjoy; that might operate as an inducement for a back to the land movement. It is a pity if we emphasize all the unfortunate things and do not emphasize some of the better things that farmers have.
Here is something that I overlooked when speaking about New Zealand. I have in my hand a copy of a publication of the commercial intelligence bureau issued by the Minister of Trade and Commerce. This is dated March 1 and gives a resume of the debts of various countries, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and the figures are on the same basis of exchange. The comparable figures show that in Canada we have a per capita debt of 62 pounds 5 shillings, while Australia's debt is 128 pounds per capita and New Zealand's comes to 182 pounds sterling.
I draw the attention of the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Thompson) to the fact that if Nerv Zealand can produce butter as cheaply as he states, their prosperity should be such that they would not have got themselves involved in that amount of debt. It is very difficult for me to believe that if they can produce butter so cheaply in these countries they would be carrying such a load of debt. So, while we may have to stable our cattle, at least we have only one-third of the national obligation to carry that New Zealand has. I discovered the other day in a report furnished by the bureau of statistics that the New Zealander pays $5 per capita yearly for exchange alone on interest on the money he has borrowed on bonds redeemable in London. That is a fair indication that we have many things in Canada to be grateful for in spite of what we are told in the Globe and Mail.


John Ritchie MacNicol: That $5 is on how much money?


George Ernest Wood: It was $5 per capita for
exchange. They paid 1,593,536 pounds sterling for exchange alone on the interest payable in London on the fifty-six per cent of their debt which is payable there.
As I said, I did not have an opportunity to go into this question as thoroughly as I should have liked.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: May I ask the hon.
member a question?
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Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: What we are concerned about in this discussion is to know whether the hon. member is in favour of the importation of vegetable oils or against it.


George Ernest Wood: I was just coming to that. I advised the hon. member that if he would contain himself I would probably satisfy him. The question of the importation of vegetable oils, as the Minister of Finance pointed out, is a very difficult one. In spite of the fact that I live on the farm, I do not hesitate to tell the house that I still live in the old-fashioned way; we kill our own pork, and to-day my wife has two or three crocks of lard, but in spite of that she buys domestic shortening because she is a good cook. She buys that domestic shortening because it fills a need. The average good housewife is very proud to put a good meal on the table for her husband, and housewives find that domestic shortening fills the need in a way that butter or lard do not. Some hon. members may look on that as a joke, but it is something that comes right into our own homes, because I do not believe our good women are going to be divorced from the use of domestic shortening. That is one of the things I think the Minister of Finance will find when he endeavours to make regulations-


Charles Avery Dunning: Have all the women after me?


James Earl Lawson: You can never divorce good women from anything.


George Ernest Wood: But I believe we are entitled to put a tax on that commodity just as we have a right to tax any commodity for the purpose of revenue. The hon. member for Haldimand was emphasizing the importance of doing something to encourage the production of more agricultural products-


William Allen Walsh: May I ask the hon. member a question?


George Ernest Wood: I know I am making a disjointed speech, because I did not have an opportunity to prepare this, but I should like to have an opportunity of saying what I have in mind, although I admit I am doing it in a rather crude way.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: The questions would help the hon. member.


George Ernest Wood: It might be a good idea if we as farmers said, let us put an embargo on automobiles and go back to the horse and buggy, because we can grow hay and oats; that would stimulate the production of farm 
crops. That would be similar in my estimation to the arguments of some hon. members. But we do put a tax on gasoline for certain purposes, because the automobile has made necessary an expenditure on roads which we look to the gasoline tax to defray. I believe we would be just as much entitled to place a tax upon processed vegetable oils for revenue purposes, for no other reason than that I try to carry down here the same philosophy of life that I have applied in my own business. My experience in municipal affairs in the constituency I represent shows me the benefit of the policy of pay as you go. The Liberals have followed that policy practically since confederation. The Liberals are responsible for a very small part of our national debt to-day; much the larger part is a result of the expenditures of Conservative governments. We should not leave for future generations a burden that we had not the courage and back-bone to carry ourselves.


Mark Cecil Senn: The hon. member has been kind enough to refer to me more than once. May I ask him, does he object to this imposition of a tax from the point of view of protection to the dairy farmers of Canada?


George Ernest Wood: To ask a question is so easy; one can ask a question in a few words which would take more time to answer than I have available.


Mark Cecil Senn: I am afraid the hon. member is afraid to answer.


George Ernest Wood: I would rather the hon. member would look to his own doorstep instead of imputing motives to me. I have come to the conclusion that oftentimes freer trade is the best form of protection. Does that answer my hon. friend. The government that he supported in 1933 spent more in that year than the total exports of Canada for the year.


Mr. STEWART:: We exported as big a share of the world's trade that year as ever.


George Ernest Wood: No, you did not.


Hugh Alexander Stewart: Yes, just as big a share.


George Ernest Wood: To-day Canada stands fourth in world trade; we stood sixth at the time to which my hon. friend refers. In regard to any protection the dairy farmer may obtain as a result of a tax of this kind, if it would relieve him from paying some other tax I believe it would be justified. I believe we should tax the people for services they demand; I do not think we should hand down to future generations obligations which we have not the courage to face ourselves. It may not be a popular thing to do, but the Liberals have done that all along, ever since

Canada-United States Trade Agreement
confederation. They have had enough courage to tax the people sufficiently to meet their expenditures, and I think it will be found that there have been more surpluses under Liberal governments than under Conservative governments. I feel that we should continue to follow that policy, although sometimes it may be unpopular; I believe our first duty is to be Canadian citizens, and our second duty is to be good partisans.


Joseph Henry Harris: My purpose in rising, Mr. Speaker, is to bring up to date some observations it was my privilege to make on this same question in 1936. As briefly as possible I should like to put a few facts on record. The most important is one which I believe we all realize, that in this day and age the animal kingdom is being considerably encroached upon by the vegetable kingdom. Canada is in a difficult position in that regard because naturally, on account of climate and occupation, Canada produces a large quantity of animal products.
The first observation I should like to make is that in the last few years the production of vegetable oils and vegetable oil products in Africa, the Straits Settlements, India, China and Manchuria has increased almost ten times. I shall not trouble the house with many figures, but in palm oil alone the increase has been from 268,000,000 pounds in 1920 to 1,000,000,000 pounds in 1937. In like manner importations into Canada have increased since the time this party was in power. When the Empire trade agreements were negotiated, our importations amounted to 90,000,000 pounds, and since then they have increased to 255,000,000 pounds. At the time the Empire trade agreements were negotiated in 1932, these importations did not constitute a very serious factor, because the world price level of these commodities was about ten cents a pound. However, on account of the tremendous increase in production-amounting to fourteen times in the case of palm oil in Sumatra-the price level has dropped from 10-9 cents a pound to less than four cents a pound. Hon. gentlemen opposite say we did nothing about it at that time; but, as the minister knows, we were careful to put section 18 in the empire trade agreements, which provides that any commodity covered by the agreements which interfered with the economy of any country within the empire might be dealt with.


Charles Avery Dunning: By consultation.


Joseph Henry Harris: And action. Canada's position becomes more pronounced year by year. Our friends in the United States, which is the largest consumer of fats and oils, little by little have applied taxes and tariffs of
all types and sorts against imports of oils and fats of all kinds, including fish oils, animal oils and vegetable oils. For example, first they imposed a revenue tax of two cents a pound; then, in addition, a processing tax of 4$ cents a pound in the case of cocoanut oil, which is a very large item. Then they imposed a tax of one cent a pound on palm kernel oil and a processing tax of three cents a pound. Just take palm oil alone. Back in 1932-33, when the empire agreements were negotiated, 287,594 pounds of palm oil came into Canada. In the year which closed on December 31, 1938, however, 70,360,100 pounds were imported. On the other hand, formerly only ten or fifteen per cent of the palm oil production could be used in food products, but now that figure has gone up to fifty-six per cent.
In the minute or two I have left I should like to answer a question asked by the hon. gentleman who said he was in favour of a revenue tax, and to show what has actually happened in the United States. In 1936 the United States imported 2,115,000,000 pounds of vegetable oils. When they put on their tax, it did not have the effect of stopping these importations. The vegetable oils came in just the same, except that there was a reduction of twenty per cent, as the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn) has said. Importations last year dropped to 1,647,446,000 pounds. In the meantime the revenue which has poured into the exchequer of the United States as a result of the imposition of these duties amounts to well over $80,000,000 annually since 1936. We are one-tenth or one-eleventh as large as the United States, so it would appear only reasonable to expect that as a result of putting our farmers on the same basis as the United States farmers we would automatically bring to the treasury of Canada at least $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 annually, at a very conservative estimate.


Charles Avery Dunning: If my hon. friend would permit me to ask a question, just for information, does the United States tax apply to the processing of all oils or only to the edible part? How do they deal with that?


Joseph Henry Harris: It applies to all vegetable oils imported into that country. Of course some of these taxes are excise duties; some are processing taxes; but by and large, while some rates run as high as eight and nine cents a pound, the average would be about five cents.
Just before I resume my seat I should like to direct the minister's attention to what is happening at the present time in Washington.
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This morning I received an Associated Press dispatch dated February 28, which stated that a movement was on foot, headed by the United States senator from Texas, to have the excise duty of three cents a pound, which was largely responsible for bringing $80,000,000 of revenue to the treasury of the United States, increased to five cents a pound.
The same thing is happening in Australia. Since this matter was last discussed I am informed that the government of Australia has been asked by the Queensland butter board to impose an excise duty sufficient to bring the cost of these butter substitutes up to the best price paid for the finest grade of creamery butter. Here we have two contrasting attitudes: These vegetable oils are brought to Canada in boat-loads-not rowboats but tank steamers-at less than four cents a pound, while in Australia the government is being requested to increase the duty to around nine cents. We want at least a revenue excise tax placed on vegetable oils similar to that which is imposed in the United States.
The only other point I should like to make before I resume my seat is that prior to the United States revenue bill of 1936, as amended by Senator Bailey, Canada enjoyed the full benefit of the largest fat-consuming market in the world, namely the United States. That was automatically cut off when the Bailey amendment went into effect.


Charles Avery Dunning: If there are no more
speakers, the motion might be carried; if not, it will have to stand over until Monday.
Motion (Mr. Dunning) agreed to and the house went into committee, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.


Frederick George Sanderson: Item 415.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At six o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Thursday, March 23, 1939