1941-05-12

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

Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: 1.	How much land w-as purchased for the site of the Royal Canadian Air Force equipment depot in east Calgary?
2.	From whom was this land purchased?
3.	What amount was paid per acre for this land, and to whom?


Mr. POWER:: 1.	40-73 acres.
2.	40-28 acres from the Canadian Pacific Railway Company; 0-45 acres by expropriation proceedings.
3.	$500 per acre on 40-28 acres to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, with the proviso that if at the end of the war the land is

put up for sale by the government the company is to be given the first right of refusal at the same price per acre.
0-45 acres no payment to date and none anticipated.


WAR SERVICES CAMPAIGN-NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING
Mr. SHAW:: 1.	How many daily and how many weekly newspapers in Canada have offered free advertising space to the government in connection with the war services campaign?
2.	From how many daily and from how many weekly newspapers in Canada has space been purchased for this purpose?
3.	What rate per columnar inch has the government paid for newspaper space purchased for use in connection with this campaign?
4.	What has been the total cost to date for newspaper advertising in this connection?


Mr. GARDINER:: 1.	None.
2.	By the government, none.
3.	See answers to (1) and (2).
4.	See answers to (1) and (2).
The advertising in connection with the campaign for funds for the war services organizations has been in charge of a campaign committee organized co-operatively by the war services organizations concerned.


SOLDIERS IN CIVIL PRISONS
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Are provincial and municipal gaols and lockups in Ontario being used to house soldiers charged with, (a) military offences; (b) other charges under the criminal code or municipal by-laws?
2.	If so, what gaols are so used in military districts 1, 2, 3, in Ontario, and on whose request?
3.	What is the arrangement for the use of these gaols?
4.	Were any of them condemned before the war as unfit for civilian prisoners?


Mr. RALSTON:: 1.	(a) The king's regulations and orders for the Canadian militia provide as follows:-
"When a person is apprehended by civil authorities on the suspicion of being a deserter or absentee, he will be brought before a justice of the peace or magistrate for examination and if it appears that he is a deserter he will be confined in gaol until claimed by the military authorities."
A soldier convicted by court-martial of a military offence and sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour can be confined in the nearest reformatory or penal institution, depending upon the length of such sentence.
(b)	This is the responsibility of the appropriate civil authorities.
2.	Answered by No. 1.

Questions
3.	Answered by No. 1.
4.	No information.


QUEBEC SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
Mr. ROY:: 1.	Has Mr. Victor Dore, superintendent of public instruction for the province of Quebec, joined the Canadian militia?
2.	If so, what are his duties, what is his pay and on what date did he enlist?


Mr. POWER:: 1.	Mr. Dore is a member of the Royal
Canadian Air Force.
2.	(a) He is employed part-time in an advisory capacity concerning educational duties at No. 4 manning depot, Quebec. In this capacity, he has prepared syllabi in connection with special courses in English given to French-speaking airmen in order that they may have a sufficient knowledge of the English language to enable them to understand orders and so derive full benefit from training courses which they may subsequently undertake.
(b)	He receives no pay.
(c)	Appointed to honorary rank of squadron leader, effective 1st September, 1940.


ROYAL CANADIAN AIR FORCE-TORONTO EQUIPMENT SHEDS
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	Who built the R.C.A.F. equipment sheds at Toronto harbour, east of Yonge street?
2.	What was the total cost for land, buildings and equipment?
3.	Were tenders called?
4.	If so, what number of tenders were submitted and who was the successful tenderer?
5.	Who was in charge of the work?
6.	To what use are these sheds being put?
7.	Are there K.C.A.F. guards on duty at these sheds?
8.	Does the contractor, the harbour commission, the city and police protect this property?
9.	Is there unnecessary duplication of services in this respect?
10.	How many W'ere employed on this work as carpenters, mechanics and labourers, from where did they come and on whose recommendation were they appointed?
11.	How many returned soldiers were employed on this work?
12.	Are all these sheds occupied at the present time, and does the government have to pay for those which are not?


Mr. POWER:: 1.	The contractor was Carter-Halls-Aldinger Co. Ltd.
2.	(a) The land was not purchased but is on a rental basis.
(b) The total cost of buildings and parade ground, equipment to date, in addition to sheds on piers Nos. 4 and 6 which are rented from the Toronto harbour board on a monthly basis, is 8527,199.
14873-172J
3.	Yes.
4.	(a) Six tenders were submitted.
(b) Carter-Halls-Aldinger Co. Ltd.
5.	Supervising engineer for the R.C.A.F. up to 10th September, 1940, was Mr. H. B. Long and from that date Mr. J. A. Bremner was in charge.
6.	For the storage of the complete range of technical and non-technical equipment required for units in No. 1 Training Command.
7.	Yes.
8.	Periodical patrols are made by the city motor cycle squad.
9.	Not to the knowledge of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
10 and 11. As these men were not employees of the Royal Canadian Air Force but of the civil contractors, there is no information available to provide an answer to these questions.
12.	All sheds are occupied; as the R.C.A.F. owns all but the sheds on piers Nos. 4 and 6, they would still be a charge even if not occupied.
The sheds on piers Nos. 4 and 6 are occupied on a rental basis and could be released if at any time they were not required.


FOREIGN EXCHANGE-IMPORTS OF VEGETABLE OIL
Mr. SENN:: How many United States dollars were provided by exchange control board to pay for imports to Canada of vegetable oil for the years, (a) 1938, (b) 1939, (c) 1940, (d) January, February, March, 1941?


Mr. ILSLEY:: Without a great deal of
work and expense, answers to this question cannot be obtained from the records of the Foreign Exchange Control Board, and even then the answers would not be completely accurate. The board has believed it would not be justifiable to maintain and analyse its records in such a way as to provide data of the character asked for as this would involve duplication of the work of the dominion bureau of statistics to an extravagant degree.
Records of the dominion bureau of statistics show that importations from the United States of vegetable oils are as follows:
Calendar	Vegetable Oils	Vegetable OilsYear	Food	Non-food1938 ...	. $ 31,101	$2,072,2091939 ...	. 115,024	3,673,1341940 ...	. 206,136	4,174,0421941	Jan. .	. 13.808	444,068Feb. .	. 22,040	303,885Mar. .	. 78,318	533,651


VICTORIA BRIDGE, N.B., WHARF
[Stage Direction]
Mr. O'BRIEN:
1. What was the cost of the new wharf built at Victoria Bridge, New Brunswick?
271S
[Stage Direction]
Questions as Orders for Returns
2. What was the cost of labour and what was the cost of material used in the construction of this wharf?
Mr. CASGRAIN:: 1.	811,414.87.
2.	Construction of wharf:	(a) $5,393.91;
(b) 86,020.96.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


[Stage Direction]
Mr. LaCROIX (Quebec-Montmorency):
1.	What is the number of young people,
sixteen years of age or less, employed at the Quebec arsenal and the other arsenals of Canada?	_
2.	What is the average salary paid to such employees at Quebec, Quebec, and Lindsay, Ontario?

Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: 1.	How many men in each province have completed training successfully in war emergency training classes, or technical training classes since the outbreak of war?
2.	Of these, how many in each province have been absorbed into war work or industry?



MUNITIONS AND SUPPLY-CANADA PACKERS- BUTTER


Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: 1.	What number of prosecutions were conducted in each province by the weights and measures inspection service during the fiscal year ending March 31,	1941:	(a) of independentretail	grocery	stores	and	meat	markets	forinfraction of section 63 and of section 64 of the Weights and Measures Act, giving number under each section separately; (b) of local chain	grocery	stores	and	meat	markets	forinfraction of section 63 and of section 64, of the Weights and Measures Act, giving number under each section separately; (c) of national chain	grocery	stores	and	meat	markets	for
infraction of section 63 and of section 64, of the Weights and Measures Act, giving number under each section separately?
2.	What were the number of withdrawals and dismissals and the number of convictions secured in each of the above groups of cases?

3.	What were the numbers in each province
of prepackaged goods inspected and the results of such inspections as to overweight, short-weight or correct weight, during the fiscal year ending March 31, 1941, by the weights and measures inspection service in:	(a) retail
independent grocery stores and meat markets;
b)	local chain grocery stores and meat markets;
c)	national chain. grocery stores and meat markets ?
4.	What rvere the numbers in each province of loaves of bread inspected and the results of such inspections as to overweight, shortweight and correct weight during the fiscal year ending March 31, 1941, by the weights and measures inspection service?
5.	(a) What were the number of test purchases made by the weights and measures inspection service during the fiscal year ending March 31, 1941, in each province; (b) what were the number of items overweight, short-weight and correct weight in (1) groceries, and (2) meats, showing the results separately for purchases made in independent retail grocery stores and meat markets, local chain grocery stores and meat markets, and national chain grocery stores and meat markets?


Mr. MacKINNON (Edmonton West):: Return tabled.


MOTIONS FOR PAPERS
Mr. NICHOLSON:: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, recommendations and other documents in the possession of the department relative to the appointment of the census commissioner for the constituency of Mackenzie, Saskatchewan.


APPPOINTMENT OF RADIO INSPECTORS AT ROMA, SASK.
Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, reports, recommendations and other documents in the possession of the department, relative to the appointment of Mr. and Mrs. Hrynkiw, of Roma, Saskatchewan, as inspectors in the radio division of the Department of Transport.


ADDRESSES OF MR. MENZIES INQUIRY AS TO SUGGESTED PUBLICATION BY BUREAU OF PUBLIC INFORMATION
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. R. B. HANSON (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, may I ask the Prime Minister whether consideration has been given to the publishing of the speeches of the Prime Minister of Australia delivered before the Canadian club of Ottawa and in this chamber? I made reference to the matter late last week, and the Minister of Mines and Resources (Mr. Crerar) said he would see the matter was considered. I hope the government will act on the suggestion.

Civil Defence


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: I am sorry I cannot say to my hon. friend what has thus far been done. I do know the matter was referred to one of the departments having to do with publicity. I have no doubt, however, that what my hon. friend has in mind will be carried out.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I would point out that instructions have been given for the printing of 800 additional copies of Hansard for Wednesday, May 7, the day on which the Prime Minister of Australia attended in this chamber.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that that hardly fills the bill. I should hate to send out the speech of the Prime Minister of Australia alongside that of the hon. member for Beauhamois-Laprairie (Mr. Raymond).


William Lyon Mackenzie King: My colleague, the Minister of National War Services fMr. Gardiner) informs me that his department has the matter in hand, and that there will be a publication containing the speeches of Mr. Menzies.


CIVIL DEFENCE
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. GORDON GRAYDON (Peel):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask a question of the government. In view of what appears to be an immediate and urgent necessity for more swift and effective nation-wide coordination and direction of the civilian defence measures already under way throughout Canada, particularly with respect to airraid and sabotage precautions, will the government consider the creation of a ministry of home security with the object of making early and adequate preparation for the protection of our civilian population in the event of enemy action from without or within our nation?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, consideration has already been given to the matter of preparation for protection of the civilian population in the event of enemy action from within or without. I do not believe, however, the time has arrived for the creation of a separate ministry to supervise that particular phase of the war effort.


Gordon Graydon: It may be considered in due course, I suppose?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Undoubtedly- "in due course."



MUNITIONS AND SUPPLY


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. KARL K. HOMUTH (Waterloo South): Mr. Speaker, I am sorry the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) is not in the house. On two occasions I discussed with him the question of the service for those consuming gas in western Ontario. It is an important question just now, and I was wondering if the Prime Minister would refer my question to the Minister of Munitions and Supply, to see if within a short time he could not give us a statement. Those in western Ontario who are gas consumers have been at a great disadvantage during the past winter. They want to know whether they are going to have to face the same condition next winter.
William Lyon Mackenzie King: I wish I could answer my hon. friend; however, I am not an authority on gas.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I shall be pleased to refer the hon. member's question to my colleague, the Minister of Munitions and Supply.

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


DEPARTMENT OF LABOUR
[Stage Direction]
99. Departmental administration, $134,543.
Richard Burpee Hanson: Stand.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Consideration of the item may stand until later.
Item stands.


POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT
[Stage Direction]
21,i. Departmental administration, $552,180.
Mr. MULOCK:: I would ask that this item stand.
Item stands.


DEPARTMENT OF PENSIONS AND NATIONAL HEALTH
[Stage Direction]
211,. Grant to Canadian Legion, $9,000.
Item stands.
Progress reported.

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Thursday, May 8, consideration of the motion of Hon. J. L.
The Budget-Mr. Tucker
[Stage Direction]
Ilsley (Minister of Finance) that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the house to go into committee of ways and means, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Quelch, and the amendment to the amendment of Mr. Maclnnis.
Mr. W. A. TUCKER (Rosthern):: Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Canadian House of Commons my first words this afternoon should be those of sympathy with hon. members of the House of Commons of the mother of parliaments in the destruction of her Commons chamber on Friday night at the hands of Hitler's airmen. In a very real sense, not only to those of us whose ancestors came from the British isles, and who were living there when those shrines of empire were built-the House of Commons, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Hall-but to all peoples who have espoused democracy as their form of government, the destruction of the commons chamber of the mother of parliaments is symbolical of what the forces of totalitarianism would do with our whole democratic system if only once they obtained power to do it.
No shrine-nothing-is sacred to those people, or will be permitted to stand in the way of their desire to dominate the world. As one thinks of what the people in England are enduring to-day, and as he reads about the bombings of hospitals filled with patients, among whom are little children, he considers what it must mean when a hospital is bombed in the middle of the night and children are maimed and killed. It makes people in this country feel that they should rededicate themselves to the task of saving England from defeat, of upholding her hands; for there can be very little doubt that if the front line of freedom goes down in the British isles, that front line will move to this side of the Atlantic, and what the women and children of England are enduring to-day, the women and children of Montreal and Toronto and Ottawa will have to endure in their turn. I well remember three years ago when we read of the bombing of the women and children of China. At that time we were inclined to feel that that would never happen to English-speaking women and children. We did not realize then that the fight against the democracies had already started. At that time there were those in this parliament who doubted the wisdom of our preparing even in a modest way to defend ourselves. Apparently some of them seem even now, when the war has spread over practically the whole of the earth's surface with the exception of the Americas, to think that we can still sit back and let Great Britain go down without dire results to ourselves. As I said, I want, my first word to

be an expression of sympathy to our brother commoners in the British isles and an expression of our deep determination to stay with them through these dark days until the sun of victory again shines upon the banners of the democracies of the world.
In case I should forget, may I say now that I am speaking upon the motion to go into committee of ways and means and the amendments which have been moved thereto by a member of the Social Credit group and a member of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. I do not intend to read these amendments. I realize that an amendment of this kind may contain many desirable things; I realize that in such an amendment one could include statements or expressions that would be opposed by no one in this house. But simply because an amendment contains something with which we may be sympathetic does not mean that we should vote for it. In the committee of ways and means the government submits for consideration the specific proposals by which it intends to raise money to carry on this struggle. If the motion for committee of ways and means does not carry; if these amendments, which are really votes of want of confidence in the government, should carry, at the very most it would mean an election, and at the very least it would mean an indication that in this house there are those who would deny this request to have money voted with which to carry on the war. I should like to compliment the official opposition upon the attitude it has taken in refusing to stand in the way of that request by moving an amendment. I think they have shown the right attitude. I quite realize that in time of peace such tactics are part of the ways of democracy, but in a time like this the advice given by Prime Minister Menzies should be taken to heart by every hon. member of this House of Commons, and anything which stands in the way of these war proposals should find no place here at this time.
I was interested to note that after the debate in the House of Commons in Great Britain following the speech of Prime Minister Churchill, Mr. Lloyd George, who had been critical of what the British government had done, abstained from voting. The newspapers circulating in Germany and in the enemy occupied countries did not note the fact that only three men had voted against that motion; they circulated the fact that the great wartime Prime Minister of Great Britain had abstained from voting. They were indicating to the people that there must be a considerable proportion of the people of Great Britain who were not solidly behind Churchill in this time of trial and testing of the British people.

The Budget-Mr. Tucker
Similarly, if any substantial part of this house voted against the granting of supply to carry on this war, undoubtedly it would be used in Germany and Italy to show that the people of this country are not unitedly behind our war effort. I do not care what is put in any amendment, I do not care what fine sentiments it may contain, if it means the denying to the government which is our agent the means of carrying on this struggle, I would have no difficulty in deciding to vote against such an amendment and uphold the duly elected government of my country.
It might be said, and I know it has been said that those who opposed the government of Chamberlain and finally brought into office the government of Churchill actually did a good jot) for England. It might be thought by some that by opposing the government at this time they would be following the lead of those who opposed the government of Mr. Chamberlain.


Mr. HOMUTH:: It might not be a bad idea.


Walter Adam Tucker: I propose to deal with that for a few minutes this afternoon. The situation is different, for many reasons. In the first place this government has been recently returned by the people. The people have expressed their desire, as I see it, not so much in connection with the particular policies which were laid before them at the time of the election, but rather to indicate the men whom they wanted to lead them through this crisis. The people were not deciding upon any particular policies, because in time of war you cannot be sure what policy it may be necessary to follow as the type of the conflict changes; they were deciding that they would rather have the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe) as their leaders at this time.
That having been decided a little over a year ago, what conceivable purpose can be served now by moving an amendment which shows lack of confidence in a government which has been newly elected by the people? What purpose can be served except to break up the unity of our people when unity is allimportant? I think that is something we should keep in mind at all times, that unity among ourselves at this time is all-important. We are in the nature of an army which is fighting for its very existence. No army can succeed if it is being torn continually by division and doubts as to the wisdom of the policies being followed or the commands being given. I, for one, believe that it is much better to unite solidly behind a leadership which may not always be absolutely perfect than continually to debate and wrangle and
weaken ourselves by trying to adopt what one individual or another thinks would be better or more nearly perfect.
My attitude has been and will be that the purpose of this House of Commons should not be to give a lead to people who are trying to weaken this government throughout the country. We should not provide arguments by which that government can be struck down, by which disunity can be created, by which cleavages may be brought about between different races and different religions.
On the contrary, we should give leadership in unity, leadership in forming a solid group behind the government. I grant that there should be criticism, but it should be constructive criticism. I grant that suggestions should be offered, but amendments should not be moved which show that there is not confidence in the duly elected government of our country.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: That would apply also to some of the members of the government.


Walter Adam Tucker: I have a certain line of
argument which I want to follow. When I am finished, if the hon. member wants to ask me some questions or find fault with my speech, he will be quite welcome to do so.
I have in mind the attitude adopted by the great leader of the republican party in the recent election in the United States. Mr. Willkie fought very hard to defeat the president of the United States, but once the election was over he took the stand:	Mr. Roosevelt is my president.
There were little Republicans in the United States who were concerned about the political fortunes of their party and who found fault with that attitude of Mr. Willkie, and Mr. Willkie was immediately repudiated by some of them because he was not putting his party above his country. I saw an editorial not long ago in one of our newspapers, published not very far from this building, asking why it was that we did not get the same inspired leadership in Canada that is given by leaders like Mr. Churchill and Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Menzies and so on. In the first place, Mr. Speaker, a prophet is not without honour save in his own home, and I have no doubt that if our Prime Minister were to go to Australia, going as he would with a message of encouragement to the people of Australia, his message would have just as good an effect upon them, I have no doubt, as that of Mr. Menzies had upon us. In the next place, there are these little Republicans in the United States who decry Mr. Roosevelt and say that he is not a great leader. Indeed, some of them say they would just about as soon have Hitler as
The Budget-Mr. Tucker

Roosevelt. We do not feel that way here, and when Mr. Roosevelt comes to Canada we shall welcome him and regard him as the great leader of our neighbours to the south.
Our own leaders are doing a good job. Everybody is entitled to his own opinion in a democracy, and in my opinion the government of this country is doing a good job. Probably the best job is being done in the field of external affairs by the Prime Minister himself. The work that he has done in bringing together the United States, Canada and the rest of the British commonwealth cannot be told now. It will be known only when the secret documents which have passed between the leaders of the various governments of the United States, Great Britain and Canada can be made public after this war is over. But I make this prediction, that long after the criticism of little errors and little mistakes is forgotten, when historians with all the facts before them come to write the story of this war, the struggle of the democracies to defend themselves, and the gathering-together into one camp of all the English-speaking nations and all the forces of free democracies the world over, it will record that while Mr. Churchill gave inspired, courageous and indomitable leadership to the peoples of the British commonwealth, he had an able lieutenant in the person of the Prime Minister of Canada who acted as a bridge between the United States and the British commonwealth in its hour of trial and ultimately brought the two nations together and thereby made ultimate triumph certain.
I said, Mr. Speaker, that I believed it was fair and proper that the members of this House of Commons should make any suggestions which they thought would be helpful. I think we all want to play some part in helping to won this war, and the government should welcome suggestions from members of the house no matter from which party they come, so long as they are made in a spirit of constructive criticism, and not with any idea of trying to divide the people or to gain party advantage. It is my definite opinion that not enough use is being made of the members of this house.
One of the things about which I feel very strongly is this. There is no doubt that one of the most fundamentally vital questions in regard to the successful cariying on of this war is: how you are going to manage your fiscal policy, your taxation policy, your monetary policy. What is the situation to-day?
I have every confidence in the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley). He is a very able minister. I think, too, that those in charge of the Bank of Canada and the officials of the finance department are very able gentlemen.
[Mr. Tucker.l
The more I have come to know them the more I have come to respect them for their ability. But to turn the entire control over the country's monetary and financial policy to a group of men, no matter how able- and after all that is what it means, if the House of Commons is not called upon to check it up in any way through the banking and commerce committee-is an entirely different matter. It is impossible for the minister himself to consider all suggestions from all angles as they could be considered by the banking and commerce committee or some smaller committee perhaps that might be set up, where these suggestions could be gone into thoroughly with the able officials of the department and where we could consider them together. If the government takes the attitude that that should not be done, it simply means that the government-I say this again, as I repeated it in my last speech-is showing more confidence in the permanent officials than it has in the elected representatives of the people. We are fighting in this war this very thing of putting certain people in charge of some activity because they are probably the best men that can be found to handle it and then allowing them to be dictators. It is true that his officials must advise the minister, but as I say, he alone does not and cannot expect to be able to speak for all the members of the whole House of Commons unless their opinions and advice also are ascertained.
I earnestly submit that the report of the Bank of Canada, which after all shows what has been done on behalf of the people by that great agency of government which is becoming more and more important, should without question be referred to the banking and commerce committee for study arid suggestions. I think, too, that other important suggestions that might be made should be so referred.
As an example of what I mean: I asked a question in this house as to the extent to which Great Britain is financing her war effort at the present time on a short-term basis and therefore on a very cheap basis. Great Britain is raising far more money on a short-term basis than she is on a long-term basis, using the banks and other institutions for that purpose, without putting too heavy a burden, comparatively speaking, upon the people. I do not wish to go into the matter at any length at this moment. I cannot do it. But there are members of this House of Commons, perhaps not as well trained as the head of the Bank of Canada or the head of the finance department, who have ideas and who were elected by the people to -help determine the policy of this country, and surely they are

The Budget-Mr. Tucker
entitled to consider the policy that is being decided upon and to discuss it and help the minister in determining what the right policy in this regard should be. I do not think there can be any doubt about that being a sound attitude to take-that the House of Commons should be used in every way possible to achieve the maximum effort at this time.
I have mentioned one matter. I will give another example. Mr. Keynes is recognized as one of the most outstanding economists in the whole world to-day. He has been called in by the British government to advise it as to the financing of its war effort. One of his suggestions is that part of the heavy taxation levied on people in the lower income brackets be credited to them and repaid over a period of time after the war is over. The poorer people of the country do not mind so much paying heavier taxation in a time of trial like this, knowing that when the war is over and the period of readjustment comes they will have some of their money back to tide them over that period. In my opinion this is a splendid idea; it is something which we could discuss with the permanent departmental officials, and we might well get the opinion of Mr. Keynes as to its applicability to conditions in Canada. Surely it cannot be supposed by the permanent officials or by the minister himself that within their group is contained all knowledge, all possible helpful suggestions and ideas, and that hon. members who constitute the banking and commerce committee of this house can give them no help. If, then, they admit that there may be some members of that committee who could afford assistance in this critical time, surely, instead of its being kept here and given no opportunity of helping to decide financial policies, the committee should be called together and given the chance to do its part.
Another matter I should like to mention is that of wheat storage. In that direction, too, the members of this house should be given a chance to do something worth while. We know that to carry wheat at the present storage rates will cost about $50,000,000 a year. If we are going to be able to take from the farmers no more than 230 million bushels a year, that means that the farmer will receive roughly about $115 million, and on the other hand the people who store his grain will get nearly half that amount, or $50 million. Such an arrangement, I am convinced, will not in the long run satisfy the people of this country. Various solutions have been proposed on the floor of this house. For instance, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Perley) has advocated that we take over the whole storage handling system. That course is objected to by some. It was
suggested by some of us two years ago that storage charges on wheat be reduced to half a cent a bushel per month; as a matter of fact they were then cut to two-thirds of a cent, but I think that the figure should be further reduced. Some may argue that this does not provide the owners of storage facilities with a fair return on their investment. Well, the committee on agriculture and colonization has upon it some of the ablest men in this house: why should it not be called together to study the problem, hear representations from all interested parties, and attempt to work out some scheme which will commend itself to the fair judgment of this country and of this house?
We are not sent here-God forbid-in this time of crisis merely to sit in this house and debate, without getting our teeth into some of these problems and helping the government to carry on. As a loyal supporter of the government, as one who always had and still has every confidence in its leadership, I ask the government to give the members of this house a chance to help them carry the burdens which they are carrying to-day. If they do so they will find greater satisfaction, not only among the members of this house, but throughout the length and breadth of the country.


Mr. GARDINER:: Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend will permit me: that question has been raised on a number of occasions since the session opened. May I just suggest that the only time that the committee on agriculture and colonization met during the last term for the consideration of an important question was upon the motion of a private member. There is nothing to prevent a private member from moving that the committee be called together to have any particular matter placed before them.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Was it not asked that the wheat bonus question be referred to the agriculture committee?


James Garfield Gardiner: No, Mr. Speaker.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Oh, yes, it was.


James Garfield Gardiner: I offered to call the committee on agriculture and colonization, but the committee of the whole house did not suggest further that the question be submitted.


Walter Adam Tucker: I had in mind mainly
the consideration that at this time we do look to the government for leadership. An example I have in mind is with regard to the report of the Bank of Canada. H for some reason the government does not want the banking and commerce committee to meet; if in its judgment such a proceeding would be a weak-
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ness to the war effort of the country, or in any way unhelpful, so far as I am concerned there is nothing more to be said. I have just thrown out the suggestion to the government; if for conclusive reasons it is not accepted, well and good. I am not going to embarrass the government by making a motion or anything of the sort. I realize that what the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) has said is correct. I am not blaming him at all; my suggestion was made not in any spirit of carping criticism, but rather from the motive of desiring that every possible helpful agency be set to work at this time.
Another matter, with which I wish to deal very briefly, is the position of agriculture in western Canada. I intended to go into the subject at considerable length, but I see that time, as usual, has passed faster than I expected.
As a preliminary to what I intended to say, I should like to refer hon. members to a speech of the Hon. W. R. Motherwell in this chamber in the session of 1938. He pointed out, as reported in Hansard, page 4452, that in the last war, when wheat was scarce, the government stepped in and kept the price down. He quoted the following from the evidence given by Doctor Magill before the agriculture committee of the House of Commons in 1922:
We had no information about the British buying, and I stated that if the United States and Great Britain were going to compete in our markets for our hard red fife it would not surprise me to see our wheat anywhere from $3 to $5 per bushel.
Actually wheat on the open market did go up to, I believe, $4 a bushel. The average price to the farmers during these years was S2.28 a bushel, and Doctor Motherwell gave it as his opinion that by virtue of that pricefixing policy the farmers of western Canada- I would like everybody to bear this in mind- were deprived during the last war of probably between $500 and $600 million. Now, when it comes to the point, in this war, where their product is not needed, we should remember, I submit, what was done to them when their product was very much in demand and then they were quite willing to have the price fixed and kept down in order to contribute to the common effort.
Of all these people in western Canada, those who have been most hardly hit are the farmers of Saskatchewan. We know, of course, that all over Canada the agriculturists have been hit, but the wheat growers have been affected most because of the loss of a great part of their markets. Consider the index of the purchasing power of the western grain grower. In 1925 it was 104 as compared with 100 in 1913; in 1926 it stood at 88; in 1927 at 100. At that

time the purchasing power of an acre sowed to wheat was practically the same as in 1913. In 1940 the purchasing power of an acre of wheat is only 54-4. As I have said, Saskatchewan is hurt more than any other part of the west because a larger part of its income is derived from the production of wheat.
Taking the farm revenue of the three prairie provinces in 1940, only 33-2 per cent of the income of the farmer in Manitoba came from wheat; in Saskatchewan it was 70 per cent and in Alberta 47 per cent. One can see therefore that any policy that cuts down the wheat acreage necessarily hurts Saskatchewan more than its does either of the other two provinces. There is no doubt that this policy of cutting down the acreage hits us a good deal harder than the amount voted for acreage reduction helps us. Assuming that last year we had 470 million bushels of wheat to deliver in western Canada, that ^would give us $235,000,000; this year we are permitted to deliver only 230 million bushels and that cuts the income from wheat down to $115,000,000, or a reduction of $120,000,000 for the people of western Canada, who are already on a very low standard of living.
It is true that $35,000,000 is voted to help deal with that situation, but it still leaves us $85,000,000 short, and already we were in a very difficult position owing to low income. If it is impossible to raise the price of wheat, then I submit we should get some consideration in some other direction. In 1935 the people, applying under the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act in Saskatchewan, got their interest rate on mortgages reduced to seven per cent and were given ten years to pay their debts. They have only about four more years to go until these proposals expire. The board that came in in 1936 reduced interest rates to six per cent on land Securities in Saskatchewan, and those people are carrying on on this six per cent basis. Now the present board of review is reducing the interest rate to five per cent and giving the farmers thirteen years to pay, which shows that in its opinion the ability of the farmer to pay his debts is greatly diminished as compared with what it was in 1936. This was decided on before the acreage reduction policy was decided upon.
I have suggested that consideration be given to putting in the Interest Act a provision that the rate of interest on all agreements of sale and mortgages dealt with by the proposals under the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act since it has been brought into force in Saskatchewan be reduced to five per cent so that all farmers shall pay on the same basis. It could be done by an amendment to the

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Interest Act. Since then, however, on further consideration of the situation, especially in the light of the reduced farm income entailed by the wheat policy, I have come to the conclusion that if we cannot take from the farmer of the west his product and market it, a real emergency has been created for him, and on the basis of equality of sacrifice the burden should be passed around. I submit therefore that as a war emergency measure, until we see what will happen next year, at any rate in Saskatchewan, which is hardest hit by the policy, an amendment should be made to the Interest Act, to provide that no interest at all, be charged for 1941 against any agreements of sale or mortgages covering land in that province.
It might be said that lands are not being foreclosed to any great extent in Saskatchewan. But what is happening is this: if by governmental action you deprive the farmers of their income, you may keep them on their farms for a time, but if you allow interest to accumulate against their land and keep on piling up, the time will come when the man and his family will decide that there is no hope for them and there will be foreclosure by consent, or they may move away discouraged. That, surely, is something that should be dealt with by this parliament.
Before the war broke out the situation was recognized as a very serious one, because a predecessor of the present Minister of Finance, the Hon. Mr. Dunning, who is quite familiar with conditions in western Canada, and who probably realized just how bad they were at that time-and they have got worse since then-introduced and helped to get through a bill that would relieve the situation -the Central Mortgage Bank Act. If something should have been done before the war, surely it is more essential than ever that something should be done to-day, because the situation is much worse; and if we are not prepared to deal with the situation by allowing that act to become operative-because it was passed by this parliament but was not brought into existence because of the outbreak of the war-then that is another way in which we have been injured by the war. Therefore, as a matter of emergency, I suggest that for one year, in order to encourage the farmers of western Canada-I should like to see it apply to all western Canada, but at any rate it should be made applicable to Saskatchewan-we should enact a provision that no interest shall accrue during 1941 on agreements and mortgages. That would show the farmers that we are taking a real interest in their problems and that they are not forgotten.
I asked a question with reference to the profits of banks and the answer would show that they can stand it, as a war emergency measure, for one year until we get some sort of plan worked out which would help the farmers. In that regard I would point out that the Central Mortgage Bank Act was referred to a committee of this House of Commons-the banking and commerce committee. Mr. Dunning was there and the matter was thoroughly threshed out and every aspect of it gone into. I am sure that his presence in that committee was very helpful to the ministry of the day and was a means of getting a good bill through the house. The matter could be referred to the banking and commerce committee now to see what should be done as an emergency measure on the question of interest rates so far as western Canada is concerned.
My time is almost up, but there are one or two things I should like to say in conclusion. There is the question of travelling expenses of soldiers. One feature of that, which seems to me to have been overlooked in the past, is that this war is very different from the last one. In the last war the boys enlisted and 'trained in their own province and were then sent overseas. In this war, boys will enlist in Saskatchewan and be sent say to Debert camp in New Brunswick. They are given a furlough of two weeks without any time off for travelling, and that means that they have little over a week at home. I suggest that some consideration be given the question of the distance from home of the soldier who is given furlough. It may be 'the last time he will ever see his loved ones. Surely an extra day or so could be spared to cover travelling time.
Then there is the question of cost of transportation. If the soldier comes from Ontario it costs him very little to get home, but if he comes from British Columbia, Saskatchewan or Alberta, the cost of getting home to see his loved ones on a furlough to which he is entitled is more than a private soldier can afford. I do not say that the soldiers should travel free every time they go on the railway, but on their annual furlough of two weeks transportation should be given them absolutely free so that they can go home; otherwise you are discriminating again against people in the outlying districts of Canada. You cannot get away from that, and something should be done along the line I suggest. I have heard of boys getting furlough in Debert with just enough money to get their ticket home, having to live on a cup of coffee and perhaps a little bit of bread and butter from time to time all the way home. That is not good enough for the people of this
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country and they will not be satisfied with it. I should like to see something done in this regard.
There is another matter I wish to discuss for a moment, and this may be regarded as the height of temerity; nevertheless I will make a suggestion that goes beyond our borders. During the time that Eire was struggling for her self-government she looked for and got sympathy on this American continent, from the United States and Canada.
To-day, Mr. Speaker, our boys are fighting for the liberty and self-government of Ireland just as much as they are fighting for the liberty and self-government of Canada. Everyone knows that if Great Britain goes down the liberty and self-government of Ireland will be entirely lost; and I submit that if we send our boys overseas to fight not only for our own freedom but for the freedom of Eire, then we in this house have a right to say to the people of that country as a fellow member of the British commonwealth of nations, remembering the sympathy we felt when Ireland was struggling for her self-government: "Now that we are struggling for our liberty, the fact that you will not let us use your bases to help protect our convoys means that some of our boys who are going over there to fight for us and for you are meeting death before they have a chance to strike a blow for freedom." And from my place on the floor of this house I should like to say to the leader of the people of Eire: Remember the days when you fought for freedom. To-day that freedom is more endangered than ever. We are sending our boys to fight for it, and we would like you to cooperate by seeing to it that those boys do not unnecessarily lose their lives while on the way to take part in that struggle.
We realize that Eire must make the decision, but we can send out that call. If the decision is in favour of neutrality, then we can say: Remember how scrupulously Holland maintained her neutrality, but it did not help when Hitler was ready to strike. If Eire says it is wrong to do this thing for various reasons under international law, then we may reply that their great president, Eamon de Valera, was once president of the League of Nations assembly, and in the covenant which Eire signed, as we did, it is provided that each member of the league must help to stop any aggressor. To a certain extent there is an obligation, and there is also an obligation under the Briand-Kellogg pact to cooperate to stop an aggressor. So I should like my humble voice to go from this House of Commons to a fellow member of the British commonwealth of nations, asking that

this matter be considered as carefully and sympathetically as possible under the circumstances.
In conclusion there is just one point with which I should like to deal, and that is the question of the unity of our country.


Georges Parent: Order. I must call the hon. member's attention to the fact that his time has expired.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Continue.


Georges Parent: By unanimous consent.


Walter Adam Tucker: I will take only a few
minutes. This is something I feel is important; it is probably the kernel of my speech. Perhaps I should have said it in the beginning, in order to make sure of getting it in.
If we are going to make a real contribution to this effort our unity is probably the most important single factor to be considered. Speaking in Toronto a short time ago Dorothy Thompson outlined Hitler's programme and the plans of the axis. I should like to read a few words from that speech, in which she said that their plans were-
-to set Canadians against the people of the United States; to set labour against capital and capital against labour; the masses against the intelligentsia, and the intelligentsia against the masses; the Irish against the English; the Catholics against the Protestants; the negroes against the whites, the whites against the negroes, and everybody against the Jews, in order that the war which we sought to avoid elsewhere may occur here in an internecine fight, the running amok and berserk of an imprisoned colony.
This is their plan. This always has been their plan, to stir nationality against nationality, race against race, class against class, creed against creed, that their mutual destruction of each other may work out for the glory of Hitler and the grandeur of Japan. . . .
And good men, honest men, unwitting men, work together with the frustrated, the fanatic, the sick, the bitter, the cowardly, the corrupt, the greedy, the selfish, for the end that this civilization may perish from this earth.
I should like to direct particular attention to that statement, that good men, honest men, unwitting men, work with the agents of Hitler to destroy our unity so that we may not put forward our maximum strength in our hour of trial. To-day throughout this country there must be paid agents of Hitler working along these lines, endeavouring to destroy faith in our leaders, in their ability, their honesty, their willingness to do their best in this time of struggle; to destroy faith in one another, to destroy the faith of the people of Englishspeaking origin in those of French-speaking origin, and vice versa; to destroy our faith in democracy, to show that democracy did not solve our problems before the war and that it will not solve them after the war;

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saying that the boys who are going forward now will come back to ride the rods again; that it is not worth sacrificing anything in this fight; that democracy works only for the people at the top. In this country to-day, as in other countries, there are paid agents of Hitler working along these lines. That was one reason why Hitler found it so easy to carry out some of his conquests. Anyone who reads "Revolution of Nihilism," by Herman Rauschning, will understand how Hitler convinced some of the people of France, for instance, that they had nothing to hope for from democracy as it then existed in that country, that the best thing to do was to let it be destroyed and build again from the bottom. The same thing is happening to-day in Canada. These agents are attempting to destroy our faith in our associates, our faith in Great Britain's ability to stand up to this terrible strain. They are going to the United States and telling the people there that we are not preserving democracy in this country. A resident of Canada, speaking at a labour conference in the United States recently, is reported to have said:
. . . that at present in Canada labour leaders are suddenly taken into custody by the government for no apparent reason, and there are sixty trade unionists in concentration camps along the Ottawa river.
That statement was made by a man who went from this country to speak to labour leaders in the United States, in an apparent attempt to destroy that country's faith in our desire to preserve democracy here. Could anything be more despicable, at a time when we so much need the friendship and help of that nation?
As I have said, undoubtedly there are people, paid by Hitler, who are teaching that doctrine to-day. Then, unfortunately, there are others, honest and unwitting, who are doing more than the paid agents of Hitler, because they speak with authority in their various communities. They are preaching lack of faith in our great leaders and in one another; they are saying that the French-speaking Canadians are disloyal, a statement which I protest against with all the force at my command. That sort of thing is being done by people whom you would expect to be loyal and to give everything they had to our country. They are actually doing the work of Hitler, without knowing it. They are attempting to destroy in the United States the faith which is held in this country; and I should like to add that if the man to whom I have referred is not dealt with adequately I do not think the government will be doing its duty. When we send boys overseas to fight for us at the risk of their lives we must see to it that they are not stabbed in the back at home. It is a pretty serious thing to send our men
overseas; certainly it is important to see to it that our strength at home, our power to uphold them and see to it that they win, shall not be weakened by people going out of the country and making statements of that kind.
Now, Mr. Speaker, I should like to thank you very much for the extra few minutes you granted me. May I add that if we can only stick together; if we can only preserve our confidence in one another, confidence in those of other racial origins and other religions, confidence in the British people in their heroic struggle, confidence that right will prevail- if we do all that is within our power, united as brothers in a common cause, regardless of racial origin or religious creed, but as Canadians all, then, having dedicated ourselves to the high cause of mankind and the principles we cherish, we can place confidently in the hands of Providence the issue; and right will succeed; wrong will not prevail.


Hon. H. A. BRUCE (Parkdale):: Mr. Speaker, first of all I desire to associate myself with the expressions of sympathy for the British people in the loss of their historic debating chamber of the House of Commons, so ably expressed by the hon. member for Rost'hem (Mr. Tucker), and also for the damage done to that other historic building, Westminster Abbey, containing as it does so many magnificent monuments and the ashes of men who have played so great a part in the history of Great Britain.
I should like also to associate myself with the hon. member in his appeal to the Prime Minister and people of Eire. It seems incredible to some of us of Irish descent that at this time of Great Britain's travail the little island from which some of our forebears sprang should stand out and refuse the mother country the assistance and succour so urgently needed.
I would say just a word of commendation to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Usley) for the able way in which he presented the budget, as well as for the care with which he has distributed the burden of taxation so as to ensure equality of sacrifice. Our citizens will cheerfully shoulder the burden, provided they are convinced that we are making an all-out war effort.
I would ask the Minister of Finance again if he will not now remove the restricting clause, and give the regular tax exemption to the foster parents of British guest children, irrespective of the scheme under which they were brought to Canada. Many of those children are the guests of university professors Who have appealed to me to try to get this relief. Othere are the guests of Canadians who find the increased cost of maintaining them plus the increased income tax a burden
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they are scarcely able to bear. It is a totally unjust discrimination which should never have been made. I say this with all deference to the Minister of Finance. It is a small concession to make, compared with the announcement over the week-end respecting the modification of the 15 per cent income tax on interest payments to non-residents, so as to exempt payments which are made in United States funds.
May I express the hope also that the minister will give full consideration to the facts presented by the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth) and other hon. members regarding the tax on motion picture theatre admissions. I would also plead for the removal of the tax on soldiers' railway tickets, a concession which I think the minister might very well make to offset to a slight extent the persistent refusal to give soldiers free transportation.
May I now divert for a moment to express the satisfaction and pride which all Canadians must feel at the announcement made a few days ago of the selection by Mr. Churchill of one of Canada's most brilliant sons for a position of great importance in the British cabinet. In view of Lord Beaverbrook's rare ability and magnificent achievements in speeding up aircraft production, his promotion was not unexpected. I am sure every hon. member in the house will wish him success in his new post as Minister of State. You know, we claim him as a son of Ontario, because he was born only thirty miles from Toronto.


Mr. MARTIN:: He lived that down, though.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: I think perhaps if the truth were known he would be prouder of that than of anything else he has achieved in his lifetime.
We heard yesterday over the BBC that women's contribution to the war effort in Britain is gaining in value daily, that they are now doing eighty per cent of the skilled work in some of the munitions plants. I was glad to hear the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) say over the radio yesterday that plans are being considered for the utilization of women in certain work in Canada's fighting services. There is no doubt that there are many positions which women can fill as well as men. A voluntary women's transport service was organized last summer in Montreal, and in September a detachment was formed in Toronto under the Canadian Red Cross. The Toronto detachment has 160 women members, thoroughly disciplined, who have been driving motor cars, ambulances and other army vehicles, and are able to do all the running repairs to their cars. They are

also trained in first aid and air raid precautions work. For some time Great Britain has had women performing similar services, and they would welcome reinforcements from Canada. Although the members of the Toronto detachment are anxious to go to England to help their sisters there, and for this purpose will pay their own expenses, the Department of External Affairs has refused them passports.
I should like to read the cabled reply from the head of the British motor transport corps to a message sent from the Toronto women's transport service:
Grateful for wire. M.T.C. needs hundreds of drivers, some with pay. Work includes day and night driving, London and provinces. Likelihood foreign service later. Age limit 21 to 43.
I suggest that this voluntary organization be given official recognition by the Department of National Defence, to facilitate their getting overseas for service.
No longer is there any doubt that we need more men, and need them badly and quickly. The Minister of National Defence in his speech over the radio last night gave convincing evidence of this. The minister referred to the changed situation brought about by the fall of Yugoslavia and Greece as the reason why he was now asking for more recruits. Surely, after the fall of France and the epic of Dunkirk, all that has happened since could have been anticipated. If there were any unaware of our danger, the increased shipping losses and the destruction of part of the British House of Commons over the week-end should have convinced them.
Citizens' committees are being set up to secure a definite quota of recruits from each province. The Minister of National Defence is enlisting the members of the house in the first determined drive to get recruits for active service. The minister is confident that the 32,000 men wanted immediately will answer the call to the colours. We hope sincerely that his confidence is not misplaced. But after this drive will come others, and the pressure will have to be increased constantly with steadily diminishing returns. Unfortunately we have been over all this before and certainly should have learned our lesson. In this moment of world crisis it is no longer a case of the individual making up his own mind as to where he can best serve.
From now on it is essential that the manpower of the country be used according to a national service plan. Waste of man-power is the most criminal of all failures in war. It is an unforgiveable waste to have men serving in one place when they are better fitted to serve in another. Surely no one will deny that

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there should be equality of service and sacrifice so far as that is possible. If we are to enjoy freedom, we must be prepared to fight for it.
I am not a politician and I am speaking only for myself when I call upon the government to take immediate steps to meet the present urgent situation and make available by a national selective process the men necessary to bring our armed forces up to the strength that represents the fighting might of Canada. We should have the compulsory selective service which was visualized by the sweeping powers of the National Resources Mobilization Act passed last June, without the hamstringing clause that prevents men who train under that act from being used wherever the need is urgent. Voluntary recruiting has reached the stage where it is slow, cumbersome and wasteful. I am certain that all parts of Canada will respond to the high patriotic call that the situation now requires. Selective compulsory enlistment is the only fair and efficient way to meet the complex needs of Canada. I venture to suggest, therefore, that this session should not close until we have disposed of this urgent business.


Hon. J. L. RALSTON (Minister of National Defence):: Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to intervene in this debate, but I understand that my hon. friend has been advocating what he calls national compulsory service. Last night, in an address to the people of Canada, I issued a call for 32,000 men in the next two months. I want to say to my hon. friend that if he could do anything to interfere with that call, possibly to interfere with a full response to it, it would be the advocacy of the measures which he proposes at this time. That is my reason for speaking now. It is something which should not be allowed to go unanswered, to go across this country without a reply.
We went into this war a united people. In October the only province which was called upon to vote with regard to whether Canada should participate, voted overwhelmingly for it. From that time on that province and all other provinces of the dominion have been unitedly behind our war effort. The National Resources Mobilization Act was accepted by this house and by the whole country. The thirty-day plan for compulsory training was accepted by every province including Quebec. The four-months compulsory training plan was accepted by every province. I may say that young men in the province of Quebec have come to the camps in larger surplus numbers perhaps than in any other province. The announcement which I made the other day that men who were in camp for compulsory training would be required to take their places in the coastal defence garrisons or in other duty in Canada has met with a like response.
I cannot understand why at this time, just after I have launched a recruiting campaign, my hon. friend should interject this discordant note into our national unity. I know that he is sincere in his remarks, but I say to him that it is nothing less than a blow at our national unity and, whether he intends it or not, an attempt to undermine it.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I would not think that.


James Layton Ralston: I say that. Why does
my hon. friend now bring this forward? I have asked for 32,000 men. This is the first recruiting campaign that has been put on in Canada in a year and a half of war. This is the first time a call has gone out other than a simple radio address, after which, as my hon. friend will remember, 40,000 men came in within two months. Why does my hon. friend raise this question now and create doubt in the minds of some as to whether or not this is the best way to get men? He used the expression that the recruiting system is cumbersome and expensive.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: And wasteful.


James Layton Ralston: What does my hon. friend say with regard to the method of getting money in this country? We had a war loan back in the early days when I happened to be Minister of Finance. Did we pass a law requiring everybody to subscribe, or did we adopt what he calls a cumbersome method, that of going to the people, forming committees and asking them to subscribe their money voluntarily? That was how the first war loan was carried out. The second war loan was carried out in exactly the same way. Another war loan will be on in June. Are we passing a law to require people to give their money, to subscribe so much to that war loan? Not at all; we are asking them to do it voluntarily. We had a war savings certificates campaign and a national war services campaign in connection with which committees were formed all over the country. It might have been cumbersome and it might have been expensive, but that is the way it was done by the free people of Canada.
I do not know why just at this time my hon. friend raises this question. He will see the effect of what he has said. Just at a time when we are asking men to come in voluntarily to enlist he suggests that there is some other and better way whereby some of them may be led to feel that their obligations are not so great. I say to my hon. friend in all seriousness that at this time there is no need of advocating a system such as he suggests. I am advised that there are men in this country and plenty of them to fill all our requirements with regard to the navy, the
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army, the air force and industrial production. Why at this particular time does he advocate some other system, instead of-I believe he will do this when I ask him-getting out and helping like the rest of us to induce and stimulate the young men of this country to answer the call which the nation has sent out?
If the method which the hon. member has suggested were adopted, it would be a method different from what the commonwealth of Australia has adopted. There is no compulsory national service, to use my hon. friend's words, in Australia for overseas service. In South Africa there is nothing of the kind, and in New Zealand there is nothing of the kind. And in Canada, before the first recruiting campaign is properly launched, does my hon. friend think it the part of wisdom to advocate a system of that kind here? I point out to him that this country in 1917 was seared, was divided, by the very issue which he mentions. We have unity in this country, and I ask my hon. friend to try to help us preserve it, rather than attempting to drive a wedge of disunion into a war effort of which I think Canada ought well to be proud.
I appeal to those who glibly, and perhaps without thought, advocate a change of system at a time when no need for a change has been established, to help in this campaign. I deprecate in public men and in others the attitude of advocating something different for which no need has been established, because I believe it interferes with our war effort, and particularly because it affects the call which has just gone out to the young men of Canada.
And so I appeal to my hon. friend, I appeal to members of this house and to the people of this dominion, to get behind this recruiting effort. I ask them to put it forward in just the same way as they get behind the war loans which are raised, from time to time. I ask them to help make this recruiting campaign a success; not to criticize and suggest some other means when this is the means which has been adopted in a free country- to ask men of free will to come forward and give their services to their country at this time in connection with Canada's war effort.
I do not think I need say more than that at the present time. I do feel that what my hon. friend has suggested is ill-timed and unnecessary.
May I say this to him further? Speaking of the man-power of Canada, we have 3,000,000 more people in Canada to-day than we had when conscription-let us call it by that name [DOT]-was put into effect late in 1917, in the third year of the great war. At the present time I think there are enlisted in the army, navy and air force a number something less than were enlisted in the army, navy and air force

for active service at this time in the last war-and we have three million more people to draw from. Why, then, does my hon. friend attempt at this time to divide the people of Canada and to interject this jarring, discordant note into the campaign which I believe will be supported by the Dominion of Canada? If my hon. friend will put his back into it-and I appeal to him, to my hon. friends all over this chamber, to the people of this dominion-and support this campaign, it will, I am absolutely sure, be crowned with success, just as every other appeal which has been made to the people has been crowned with success in these nineteen months that we have been at war.
Mrs. DORISEW. NIELSEN (North Battle-ford): Mr. Speaker, this is the second budget which has been brought down in this house since we started seriously to enter into the war. It is said that this budget is based upon the ability of our people to pay, but when the whole budget is viewed it cannot help but become apparent to many of us that, rather than being based upon the ability of our people to pay, it is based upon the power of the government to take, which is a very different thing.
We have to-day a government which is very proud of its balanced budget. On the one hand there is a government's balanced budget. But what do we have on the other hand? I would say that the government has found it possible to balance this budget only by making it impossible for thousands of working people to balance theirs. On the one side we have a balanced government budget. On the other side we have unbalanced family budgets, unbalanced homes for many thousands of our working people, unbalanced diets, unbalanced health; and before very long we may find an extra number of unbalanced minds and unbalanced lives because of the pressure of taxation which is put upon our people. What a structure upon which to build a balanced government budget! To me any structure which is built on such a foundation cannot be sound; for nothing can be sound which is built upon the deprivation and unnecessary suffering of our people.
The hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker), speaking this afternoon, said that it was not the right of members to criticize this budget, that at such a time as this it would be more correct for all of us simply to fall into line, to agree that the budget was fair, and to let it go by. Yet I feel that at this time it is not the proper thing to fail to point out the inequalities of a budget such as this. The member for Rosthern says that anyone who speaks against the budget or against the government is likely to create disunity.

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Walter Adam Tucker: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I distinctly did not say that. There is a distinction between making suggestions that would be helpful and supporting a want of confidence motion.


Mrs. NIELSEN:: That was the inference I drew from the hon. member's remarks. This is a budget which creates unequal sacrifice, which is far more than likely to cause disunity among our people. It is very necessary that the government or any body which is financing over a given period should know from what sources their income is to come, and of course the budget is the government's way of determining from what sources its income shall come for the administration of the country's business. But while this government has in this budget the assurance of where its income will come from for government business, what assurance have our ordinary working people of their income through the coming year which is required to maintain their family budgets?
The ordinary working people to-day are faced with a cost of living which, though not rising by leaps, is nevertheless steadily rising. It seems that as every week and every month goes by new demands are made upon our people, new appeals go out to them; and I am afraid that the people will not be satisfied to make the sacrifices which they are being asked to make to-day unless they have not only a guarantee of military victory, which of course they believe is necessary, but the assurance that out of this coming struggle the common working people will go forward to an era of new social security and economic freedom. We have had from our Prime Minister and from other members of the government promises of a new order which shall come forth out of this conflict. But they are promises, Mr. Speaker, and we have had promises in the past, but we have not had fulfilment. In many instances our people to-day are demanding something more definite than the mere promises which are coming out of this conflict. They will sacrifice, but they want to be sure not merely of a vision but of a sound basic structure of a new social economy which will give them greater economic freedom and security than they have ever had in the past. That must emerge; it must come.
I remember reading at one time some speeches made by that old Liberal statesman of England, David Lloyd George. He said on one occasion:
All through history nine-tenths of the people have been grinding corn for the one-tenth, and have been paid with the husks, and have been bidden to thank God that they had the husks.
Through the years of depression the people of Canada have, I believe, become fully
aware that while they, the working people, have produced and have given of their labour and energy in building this country, it is still apparent that they are being paid with the husks and are being bidden to thank God that they have the husks.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Does the hon. member
think they would get a better break under Hitler?


Dorise Winifred Nielsen: I do not know whether they would or not.


Paul Joseph James Martin: Well, we do.


Dorise Winifred Nielsen: The fact remains that if you win a military victory over Hitler but fail to give the people a just recompense for their labour, you will find on your hands what we had as an aftermath of the last war-namely depressions which will give the working people of this country little of the unity, the economic freedom and all that life should give to make it worth living. There is evidence enough to-day that too many of our people are not getting their just recompense. After all, we live in a machine age. Those who work with machines realize that the machine must be given the care and attention which it needs to function properly. It is provided with the best oil or gasoline or whatever it requires for smooth functioning, and when it needs attention it is given repairs so that it can continue to function as it should. To-day many of our working people are treated worse than machines. They do not need gasoline and oil; they need food, clothing and housing; they need those things which will minister to smooth and efficient working and some of the good things which life affords. Machines, especially those used in our war industries, receive the best of treatment; but when you come to examine the conditions of work of many of our people even in the war industries, you find that they are not given the very best of food, housing and clothing which they should have for their smooth functioning and for their working and their living.


Mr. EDWARDS:: Let us be specific. Give us some examples.


Dorise Winifred Nielsen: They depend upon a wage which in these days is inadequate to provide even a minimum of health and strength and security.


Manley Justin Edwards: What people is the hon. member talking about?


Dorise Winifred Nielsen: I am speaking about working people in industry; I am speaking about all kinds of our working people, in offices and on farms and everywhere where one finds people working in the lower income grades of this country.


Manley Justin Edwards: Everywhere?
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Dorise Winifred Nielsen: Practically everywhere
where they are paid a low rate of wage.


Manley Justin Edwards: Where? What is the
hon. member referring to?


Mr. HANSELL:: There are plenty of them in West Calgary.


Dorise Winifred Nielsen: As regards machines, I
suppose there is more or less a scarcity; we could always do with more of them; but as regards working people, we have too many of them. In the depression we had. To-day we have more working people than, apparently, we can employ. Of course, if some people can manage to get by on a little less money they can get the jobs, while those who have been struggling to obtain higher wages lose their opportunities and their jobs, and can be thrown out, as they were during the depression, on the scrap heap, where, so far as this government cares, they can rot, mentally, morally and physically.
After all, men and women need more than do machines. They need not only food, clothing and shelter; they need food for their minds too. Although many are apt to think that working people do not require these things, nothing the world can afford from its resources of art, of science and of literature, is too good for the working people. Yet what opportunities do they ever have of enjoying these things? Instead, we give them pulp magazines, we give them cheap movies, we give them the funnies, we give them cheap sports. Mussolini was pretty well right when he said, "You must give the working people bread and circuses." We have certainly learned a lesson from Mussolini in the way we treat our working people.


Paul Joseph James Martin: You are assisting his cause now.


Dorise Winifred Nielsen: When any budget is
brought down to this house which demands of our people certain sacrifices, any government which is truly and keenly interested in the people of this country should be certain that there is legislation guaranteeing our people an opportunity to balance their budgets and lead a balanced life. As I have said before, promises are no good; we should have something definite by way of legislation so that our people will have the assurance that out of this conflict will emerge for them a brighter day and a greater freedom.
There are three groups of our working people who are mainly affected. There are our agricultural people, the farmers and agricultural workers; there are our industrial and office workers; and there are our state dependents, those people who are living upon pensions of various kinds. I would say that this

government has failed in what should be an essential thing, if it does not enact certain definite legislation for these groups. I know some hon. members will say, with regard to bringing in social legislation, that we must consider the British North America Act. Why not, since we are a nation, grow up a little more? It is true that we should have veneration for the fine things of the past. We do have. I am sure that all of us have veneration for men like Stephenson, for men like Cartwright with his spinning jenny. But to-day we do not use the spinning jenny; we are in a stream-lined age; yet, when it comes to the constitutionality of legislation we cling to the old and fail to improve and to bring up to date those things which we need in this modern world. It is all very well to venerate the British North America Act. Most Canadians do. They venerate it, however, as something which belongs to the past, but which to-day cannot serve us in our present needs unless it is brought up to date and stream-lined to fit in with a stream-lined world. If we are to have social legislation at the present time, it would appear that, until the British North America Act is changed or revised, we must apply to England for the right to enact such legislation. I say that were we to ask Britain for the right to pass legislation of this kind the application would not be refused. She has said that the nations of the British commonwealth are autonomous. Canada as a nation is growing up and taking its place among the nations of the world, standing on its own feet financially and economically, and surely we should have the right to bring in legislation for our own needs at home. When we applied for the right to enact unemployment insurance it did not take very long to get permission. Why, then, should we not be able to pass legislation which would give more security to our people?
First of all, with regard to our agriculturists and those who depend upon them for their living, it has seemed to me that one thing above all is required to meet in a comprehensive manner the needs of both the east and the west, namely, a natural products marketing act. I am well aware of the fact that legislation of this kind was attempted before and was declared ultra vires, but I say that if to-day we were to apply for the right to enact such a measure, it could not be denied us. With a natural products marketing act, wide and comprehensive enough to take in every sphere of agriculture, we could at least establish a floor below which prices could not drop. We could at least guarantee prices which would be commensurate with the cost of living,

The Budyet-Mrs. Nielsen
and thus give our farmers a little chance to plan ahead and to know how they could best manage to finance their own family budgets, to live decently and to give to their children those advantages to which undoubtedly they have a right.
The second group comprises the industrial and office workers. It seems to me that at this time there is need for a new bill of rights for the working people, particularly in our industries and offices. We should have in this country a minimum wage law. Those hon. members who, like myself, have been receiving letters recently from many of the trade unions will realize the great differences which exist in the various industries. They will realize the terrific fight which our working people are having to put up to obtain for themselves a slight increase in wages which, under present conditions, they so greatly need. Were we to give them the satisfaction of knowing that by legislation we were going to guarantee these things to them, how much more confidence would the working people have.
I know that in the Peck Rolling Mills men are working for just over thirty cents an hour, or roughly $16.58 a week, which few hon. members could possibly agree was a fitting wage on which a man could support a family. To-day it is noticeable in all spheres of industry, even in war industries, that employers, without any shadow of doubt, are definitely flouting certain orders in council that have been passed. One finds to-day that employers are definitely hiring and firing as they will. They are even daring to tell their employees how much, in certain instances, they should contribute out of their salaries for war savings certificates and so on. They are deciding the amount of overtime and the number of hours that employees should work, and in some instances they are even trying to destroy union organization by starting company controlled unions, which is in direct defiance of orders in council passed by the government.
Besides the legislation for a minimum wage there should undoubtedly be an eight-hour day. There should also be legislation to compel employers in these times to carry out immediately the findings of conciliation boards; for that is one way in which to-day one finds employers are doing far less than members of trade unions in trying to bring about settlements in labour disputes.
The third great group of people are the state dependents. There are mothers receiving mothers' allowances, widows of ex-service men, the blind, the ex-service men themselves, veterans, and those on relief. I do not think any member of this house, if he were really honest, could rise in his place in this
chamber and say that any one group of these dependents are receiving enough to enable them to live as people in this country should live. We have our mothers, some of them in Saskatchewan and, I believe, in other places, receiving, roughly, $20 a month, and when one considers the struggle these women have, it seems to me a blot upon us as a people that we can callously disregard these things and let them pass. We have the widows of exservice men. I know that to-day there is a bill-and I am certainly hoping the recommendations which have been made by members of this house will be inserted in it-to give these widows a little better treatment. I have spoken with some of them and I have seen decent, fine women who have gone scrubbing floors in offices in their old age rather than accept relief, because they have been unable to obtain a government pension for themselves.
We have our blind, and there again the pensions are inadequate. How many of our blind people there are who, just because of that one misfortune, are unable to obtain for themselves the education of which they would like to avail themselves if they did not have that disability! Perhaps we have in this country some mute, inglorious Miltons who would give Canada something greater than the country has ever known, if they had the opportunity, the inducement and the help which we as a people should give them.
We have our workers on relief. These people have never had any desire to stay on relief, but to-day they still find themselves in that plight, unable to obtain work or to get into the army, unable to find any employment at all, try as they will. I have seen letters that have come back from the employment bureaux in Saskatchewan saying that their names will be put on the list, and that is all that these people have. Too many of our people have been subjected to these low pensions. Too many have been left to rot on this human junk pile which has been the accumulation of the depression and for which we as a nation are responsible even at a time like this.
There is no doubt about it that instead of legislation of this kind, which I have outlined, to give the people the guarantee which they need if they are to face the future, this budget even cuts down what we might call their husks-and they are still bidden to thank God that they have the husks.
We have the sugar and gas taxes, which possibly affect the poorer people of Canada more than any other tax would do. We have the tax on soldiers travelling on railways. I noticed a cutting in the paper the other day, stating that the combined earnings of the two
The Budget-Mrs. Nielsen

railways for the first quarter of 1941 exceeded the previous comparable record period in 1929 by nearly $500,000. It says that the first quarter's net earnings of the Canadian National Railways were $10,691,565 compared with only $5,437,961 last year; and the first quarter's net earnings of the Canadian Pacific Railway were $8,520,406 this year compared with $5,302,488 last year. Mind you, I am not saying that our soldiers should be given a free pass every time they wish to go from one town to another for a week-end; but, like other members, I feel impelled to say that if we are going to allow our two great railway companies to make profits like these, and deny some of our boys the right to travel home free, perhaps the last time they will travel on Canadian soil, then we are definitely not proving ourselves a government that cares for the common people.
The people are demanding that instead of these taxes upon the lower incomes, we have more of the taxes placed on the higher incomes that can so much more easily bear them. Sometimes it seems to me that the chief concern of this government is to hide from the people that there is corn and that it is well corralled. Possibly in the years to come these matters may be better understood, but already the working people of Canada are beginning to understand that there are ways and means of taxing in this country which would relieve the burden from the lower income groups and give them a little better opportunity.
I noticed a short time ago, in one of the printed lessons and lectures sent out to a cooperative school in one of the provinces- sent out by the department of economics of one of our universities, and I purposely refrain from saying which one, because our professors have to live, too-there was this statement:
Concentration of power and concentration of wealth are more likely to spell doom for us than the tramp of foreign invaders or the oratory of subversive leaders. It is this problem we must face to-day.
Mentally I take off my hat to the professor who in these times had the courage to tell the truth. To-day many Canadian people are asking themselves why we have not one hundred per cent conscription of the wealth of Canada if the crisis is as grave as the government says it is. The government knows perfectly well we do not have that conscription. We have not a one hundred per cent tax on profits. Industry could still maintain itself if that tax were applied; industry can always maintain itself. Have hon. members ever known a time when industry was not able to do so? Certainly not. Industry is able to go on. It is getting war orders; it is getting all the help that can possibly be

given it, but that help is not being given the people working on the land or in the factories. And many people are beginning to wonder to-day, though we are not going to have conscription of wealth, whether before long we may not find ourselves with conscription of man-power. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) has denied that. I was very glad to hear that denial, because only recently the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) was asking for conscription, and I noticed that a week or so ago the Toronto Telegram contained an editorial demanding that our boys, who have been conscripted for home defence, should be sent as far as Newfoundland. I was wondering whether perhaps the agitation would not go on; whether, after Newfoundland, the boys who have been conscripted might be sent a little farther away. If some of those who have been conscripted should be sent to the west coast, let us say, and there stop the bullets of the Japanese-bullets made of materials sent from this country and the United States-the people of Canada would feel very badly about it.
Finally, viewing this budget in its entirety, I cannot help saying that I feel it is unjust. This government has not given our common people any guarantee that they will be able to balance their home budgets; yet it has imposed taxes which will seriously affect those in the lower income groups, and at the same time has not brought about any real conscription of wealth.
Perhaps some hon. members may expect me to reply briefly to the blast of hot air which emanated a few days ago from the direction of The Battlefords. I have not taken the matter very seriously. I read the speech, which in turn was read so admirably by the hon. member for The Battlefords (Mr. Gregory). I read it as I have read various editorials written by the former member for North Battleford, to whom I think the hon. member for The Battlefords must have gone for a little help in preparing his speech. I read that speech with mixed feelings of amusement, pity and contempt. At this time I do not intend to delay the house by reviewing any of the unqualified remarks made by the hon. member; I simply say that time and the people will do that for me.


Mr. W. F. KUHL (Jasper-Edson):: Mr. Speaker, I and the group with which I am associated wish to see Canada make the most effective contribution humanly possible to this war effort, but with the least amount of sacrifice at home as well as abroad. Nazism is not worthy of having Canadian or empire blood, sweat and tears wasted upon it. We urge

The Budget-Mr. Kuhl
that Canada should exert herself to the maximum to bring this awful holocaust to a successful conclusion in the shortest possible time, but with the least possible amount of sacrifice.
As the greatest arsenal for the empire, under a proper budget Canada could provide at least half as much again, if not double or perhaps even treble, the amount of munitions and supplies that it will be able to contribute under this budget. In peace or war a people can do their best only when they are healthy in body and in mind. People who are undernourished, ill clothed, ill housed; people who are compelled to worry about the welfare of their children and their security both now and in their old age, are in no condition to do what otherwise they would be able to do. Canadians could produce enough foodstuffs, clothing, building materials and so on to keep themselves in the pink of physical and mental condition, and could supply all the war materials needed. This budget, however, will reduce still further the already low standard of living in Canada. People will still be asked to go without in the presence of plenty. Naturally this will increase their health problems and impair their ability to produce.
The hon. member for The Battlefords (Mr. Gregory) has said that the Liberal party is giving the people democratic government because the measures they bring before parliament are brought by a majority party in a parliament elected by the people. That is democracy, of course, but only part of true democracy and a very small part at that. True democracy includes much more than merely the adoption of measures proposed by a majority party in an elected parliament. It all depends upon the definition of the word "democracy." The only definition that I have found thus far that, in my opinion, conveys the true meaning of democracy is this: true democracy is the expression of the policy of the majority. In the light of that definition I say that the Liberal party has not given the Canadian people democratic government, at least since 1935, when it received a mandate from the people of Canada to reform the monetary system. The major appeal to the people by the Liberal party in 1935 was on the question of monetary reform, and a majority of the Canadian people supported the Liberal party in that appeal. Therefore the policy of the majority of the Canadian people was along the lines of monetary reform. Did the Liberal party, as the government, carry out the desires of the majority? Did it give expression to the policy of the majority of the people of Canada? The woefully limited war effort Canada is making is proof positive that the Liberal party has not done so. The woeful inadequacy of government policy to
deal effectively with domestic problems is still further evidence that the desires of the majority have not been carried out.
In my opinion the Liberal party, as soon as they were returned to power in 1935, broke faith with the people who elected them. Like the high priests of pagan idolatry, the Liberal party set about immediately devising new schemes for the deception of the innocent people. The stock of the Bank of Canada was juggled around a bit, and the whole sham was referred to as monetary reform. What a shameful betrayal of the confidence of the people! What base hypocrisy to be practised in the name of democracy! Never was there such great need in Canada as there has been since 1935, and as there was even before that. Never before was there such great need in war as there is to-day. As far back as 1935 the Liberal party received a mandate to order things in such a way that credit and currency would be issued in terms of public need. Nevertheless, to-day currency and credit are not being issued in accordance with the needs of the Canadian people, for either war or domestic purposes. What right, therefore, has the Liberal party or anyone in it to claim that it is giving the people of Canada democratic government?
Whatever is physically possible in Canada can be made financially possible, without a solitary cent of debt. The physical possibilities are not being realized to-day and never will be under the type of budget we are now considering. Therefore I say that the Liberal party is governing Canada contrary to the will of the majority. That certainly is not democracy. It is nothing less than tyranny, and tyranny of the worst type, because it is represented as democracy.
Moreover, in March, 1940, the Liberal party received a further mandate with regard to the war effort. The major issue in the last election was conscription of man-power. That party received a mandate against conscription of man-power. The will of the majority of the people, when they were last consulted, was that there should be no conscription of man-power in Canada's war effort. I wish to remind the Liberals that that is the chie' reason why they are sitting in the house witn their present majority. That majority does not give them the right to contend that the people of Canada approve their financial policy. The supreme issue in the people's minds, when they went to the polls in March, 1940, was conscription of man-power, and that only. The people expressed themselves definitely on that question, and the government has no right to resort to forceful enrolment of man-power until it ascertains the will of the majority, either through a plebiscite or through some other similar means.
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While I am on that subject, I'wish also to.remind the Conservative party in the house of that fact. Conservatives are constantly rising in their places and urging the government to conscript the man-power of the nation. Do they not intend to respect the mandate of the people, either? If they do, then why are they constantly urging the government to conscript the man-power of Canada, when they know full well that only a year ago the majority of Canadians voted definitely against this policy. The Conservative attitude indicates to me that they are just as contemptuous of the will of the majority as are the Liberals.
The government has no mandate for the conscription of man-power, yet it is resorting to the most inequitable and the vilest form of conscription that could be used, namely, economic pressure. Through a discontinuance of the dominion's quota of relief payments, through unnecessarily increased tax burdens, through the increased cost of living, the only alternative to enlistment left for a large number of our men is to beg, steal or starve. This is the most unjust and the vilest form of conscription that could be used. It discriminates against the most unfortunate class in society, those who through no fault of their own have no economic security whatever, or are trying to live on subsistence incomes.
If the government wishes to have conscription, then I say, let it use an honest, fair and above-board policy. Even then, as I have already indicated, I say it has no authority and no right to use a just conscription policy until it receives a further mandate from the people on that issue.
Many hon. members have showered the Minister of Finance (Mr. Usley) with verbal bouquets upon the presentation of his budget. When one considers what the minister has accomplished within the narrow confines of an obsolete, out-moded and out-of-date financial policy, one cannot help giving him all the credit which is due to him. But the point which the social credit group in the house has been making constantly is that if the minister had not permitted himself to be hemmed in by such a woefully inadequate financial policy, he would be much better off, and the people of Canada would be able to do much better in their war effort, as well as in the solving of their domestic problems.
The government is constantly appealing to our people to put forth a greater effort. The people are over anxious to do more. The files of every hon. member contain dozens of letters from people who are just begging for
tMr. Kuhl.]
an opportunity to use their hands and their heads or both. The financial policy of the government prevents their doing so. The people are ready and willing to do the work, but there is simply no opportunity for them, unless the government issues sufficient money. No budget proposals thus far have done this, and neither will the proposals in the budget now under debate. Not only is it a crying shame, but it is a crime for the government to refuse to adopt policies which would enable thousands of people in Canada to make the contribution they are so anxious to make. I am willing to give the government all the credit due it for that measure of organization of Canada's resources and man-power it has already effected. But as I have already stated, if the government had had a proper financial policy, the results thus far would have been at least doubled, and possibly trebled, with very little additional effort on the part of the ministry.
If the Minister of Finance develops a headache in the preparation of a budget of this type, then I say it is no one's fault but his own. I am quite satisfied that as a result of policies included in this budget many of the common people will develop more than a headache in trying to make their payments. So far as the minister personally is concerned, I am sure his task would be infinitely lighter and much more pleasant if he took his orders from the people who elected his government rather than from St. James street and Wall street.
Many hon. members on the government side of the house have expressed resentment at the criticism of the government's policy by hon. members of the opposition. I wish to repeat what I have said on previous occasions, that if the government wishes to be immune from criticism it must introduce measures which will remove rather than accentuate existing injustices. If every man-hour of work and every pound of material available and necessary to the war effort were being utilized, I am quite sure there would be little if any criticism from the opposition. Furthermore, if every man-hour of work and every pound of material that cannot be used or are not necessary for the war effort were used to improve domestic conditions in Canada, I believe there would be still less criticism from opposition members. But neither the general policies of the government nor its present budgetary proposals will permit the attainment of either of these objectives. And I say that just so long as that position obtains, I shall consider it my duty as a member of the house to protest against these unnecessarily unsatisfactory conditions.

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Because the budget does not permit a maximum war effort, and because its proposals will force the people of Canada still farther into the clutches of their domestic enemy, the money powers, I consider this budget unpatriotic. Not only is it unpatriotic, but it is unreal. It is nothing but a cold, callous arrangement of figures with little relationship to human life in Canada. It is merely a statement of what the government proposes to do with the pen-and-ink dollars which the banking monopoly choose to put into circulation in Canada.
There is no attempt whatever to establish a relationship between the financial proposals of the budget and the ability of the Canadian people to produce materials, either for the war effort or for the solving of their domestic problems. The minister states that if the war expenditures for the fiscal year 1941-42 reach the original estimate, they will be in the neighbourhood of two billion dollars. What does that statement mean in the real sense? Does it mean that two billion dollars worth of goods is the extent of the war supplies which the Canadian people will be able to produce during the coming year? If it does mean that, then I am quite satisfied with the amount of two billion dollars.
But I do not believe it means that, because there are thousands of available man-hours of work still being wasted, and that will be the situation next year at this time. Just so long as there are people without work or only partly employed, the budget proposals will not be providing for a maximum war effort. Why should the estimated expenditure for the coming year not be two and a half billion dollars, or three billion dollars, or even four billion dollars? The minister has not produced any facts to indicate that two billion dollars worth of materials will be the limit of Canada's ability to produce war materials during the coming year. So long as materials can be produced, why should there be any limit to the amount of money that Canada will use? So long as we have men and materials, it is just as ridiculous to say that we have no more dollars as it is to say that we cannot build a road because we have run out of yardsticks, or that we cannot use any more lumber because we have run out of feet. If the minister had stated that our war effort was being limited to two billion dollars because that will finance all the ships, all the aeroplanes, all the tanks, all the guns, all the munitions, and all the clothing that the people of Canada are physically capable of producing for war purposes, then his statement would have meant something. As it is, I do not believe that there is any real significance to the minister's budgetary statement.
The expenditure for non-war activities is to be limited to less than half a billion dollars. The same reasoning applies here. If half a billion dollars represents all the services which the government is physically able to supply to the people after war requirements have been met, then I can understand the minister's proposal. But again I contend that he has not produced any facts to indicate that half a billion dollars worth of services are all that the government can supply to the people. I should like to refer to the minister's budget address, as reported on page 2343 of Hansard. Referring to the deficit which was anticipated for the coming year, he said:
For our present purposes, I think, we will not be far wrong if we assume the figure to be $1,500,000,000. It is unnecessary for me to emphasize the staggering task which this places upon the Canadian people. It can be done without any doubt, but it will not be easy.
Then a little further down on the same page he made this statement:
I need not tell the house that to raise such an amount will require such a great increase in the savings of the Canadian people that the help of every man, woman and child will be required.
I object to the inference in those statements. They are not only incorrect; they are extremely misleading. If the minister had said that in order to meet the added requirements for war purposes, all the people of Canada must work nine or ten hours a day instead of eight, that the school children must go to work because there are not sufficient workers, then I could understand him. As I have said before, the people of Canada are more than anxious to work; they are crying out for opportunities to work; they are anxious to apply their hands and their heads, and they are prepared to work long hours if necessary. It is the duty of the government to provide money or to see that it is provided in order that the people may have an opportunity to apply themselves. Unless the financial policy of the government is such that sufficient money is put into circulation, all the people of Canada cannot put forth the effort they would like to, no matter how anxious they may be to do so.
The minister has stated that the raising of the money will be a staggering task. That is untrue. The raising of money is the simplest task in the world because that is the cheapest commodity which man has ever used. To-day money consists of nothing but coloured water and cheap paper. Money is practically costless to produce. The banks raise all the money they need at a cost of merely the ink, paper and clerical work involved. At no cost to themselves the banks have bought approximately one-half billion dollars worth
The Budget-Mr. Kuhl

of interest-bearing government war bonds. The money which they used to purchase these bonds was manufactured out of coloured water and cheap paper, just the same as another manufacturer would manufacture shoes. I wish to remind the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) as well as the hon. member for Athabaska (Mr. Dechene) that the governor of the Bank of Canada said this himself When testifying before the committee on banking and commerce in June, 1935, he made this reply to the following question:
When a million dollars worth of bonds is presented to the bank a million dollars of new money or the equivalent is created?
Mr. Towers: Yes.
The other day my colleague, the hon. member for Wetaskiwin (Mr. Jaques) emphasized the point that this creation of fountain-pen money is not a theory, that it is the fact that over ninety-five per cent of the money which Canada and all other countries use is nothing but pen-and-ink money. If the government would take back the sovereign prerogative of creating the money of the nation and exercise it itself, then it could raise money at the cost of merely the paper, ink and clerical work. Again I say that the raising of money by the government would be the simplest task in the world.
The Minister of Finance implied in the statement which he made on page 2343 of Hansard that this deficit of $1,500,000,000 would have to be raised from the savings of the people of Canada. As my colleague the hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch) has already pointed out, this will not be the situation. The common people of Canada simply will not have the funds after they have paid their taxes and taken care of their own requirements. The money will not be in existence, and it will be obtained in the same fashion as the $500,000,000 was obtained from the chartered banks. The banks will manufacture the money and buy the government bonds with their own manufactured pen-and-ink money.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Suppose the banks pay with Bank of Canada notes for these bonds which they take from the government. Do commercial banks not have to buy these notes?


Walter Frederick Kuhl: If the banks did pay for the bonds with Bank of Canada notes, but they do not.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is a dogmatic statement. The hon. member does not know.


Walter Frederick Kuhl: The governor of the Bank of Canada said that one million dollars worth of bonds was bought by one million dollars of new money created by the banks.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: What does that mean if it does not mean exactly what it says?


Walter Frederick Kuhl: This one and a half billion dollars required by the minister will be raised in identically the same fashion as the $500,000,000 was obtained. The chartered banks will create the money, and the debt will be charged to the common people, who in turn will be asked to pay a perpetual toll to the banking monopoly for the use of the people's own credit. I consider such a policy an abomination. The creation of money is the crown's prerogative, and all money ought to be created by the government's own institution, the Bank of Canada. The present financial policy of the government asks the people to pay several times over, financially, for a debt which they have paid fully, physically, and I cannot conceive of a greater injustice that could be done to a people than to be forced, they and their children, to continue to pay a toll to a private money monopoly for a war for which they have already paid fully in blood, sweat and tears. I see absolutely no reason for a national debt in peace time or for a war debt in war time.
I was tremendously inspired by the address of the Prime Minister of Australia when he spoke in this house, but he made one statement which caused me to reflect. His statement or the implication of it was that we ought to carry through this struggle even if the result were bankruptcy for us. I quite agree that we must press forward in this struggle and continue the war effort at all costs. But I do not believe that bankruptcy should necessarily follow. When this war is over, regardless of how long it lasts, our resources will be in a better position to be used for the benefit of the people of Canada than they were before the war started. Our agricultural soil will be in just as good a condition as it was in before, and if all the rest of our resources are properly managed during the war, we should have a far greater capacity to produce the necessities of life after the war is over than we had when it started. No nation is bankrupt until either the people have all perished or unless it is without resources. If all our minerals have been consumed, if all our forest wealth has been used up, if all the resources of the country have been consumed, then the nation is bankrupt. But certainly that will not be the situation with Canada or with any other part of the empire after this war is won, and I see no reason why there should be any suggestion that in order to win this war we must go bankrupt. The financial balance sheet may be arranged in such a way that it will indicate that we are financially bankrupt. But that is not true in a real

The Budget-Mr. Bence
sense. That will be the situation only because we have been using during the war a financial policy which does not reflect the facts. If the financial policy were such that it reflected the facts, it would indicate that when we have paid for the war in blood, sweat and tears, there is nothing owing and the accounts would be marked "Canada's part in the war paid for in full."
If the government had carried out the mandate which it received from the people in 1935, and had used the Bank of Canada since that time and were using it to-day, in the fashion in which the people of Canada were led to believe it was going to be used, then this war to-day could be financed without debt, and not only that but the war effort could be at least doubled or trebled. It would also have enabled the government to deal effectively with all the agricultural problems not only of the west but of the whole country. The problem is merely one of finance, and not one of dealing with physical things. There is no reason why, if the government controlled the financial policy of this country and used the Bank of Canada properly, instead of bonusing the non-production of wheat, it could not have bought every bushel of wheat which the farmers were able to produce, paid them the cost of production plus a fair profit, and stored that wheat in properly constructed elevators until such time as it could be disposed of. Whatever is physically possible can be made financially possible. There is no lack of man-power thus far; there is no lack of gravel or cement. Then why could not elevators have been constructed, using our idle resources and our idle man-power, and the grain stored in these elevators? The time will probably come when we shall be sorry that we ever thought of restricting production in this country. The storage of other kinds of food could have been handled in the same fashion.
A proper Bank of Canada policy would have enabled the government to provide the highest possible standard of living for the people during the war. Naturally there must be sacrifices, but what many of the people of Canada are being called upon to endure to-day, as has been emphasized and re-emphasized in this house, is unnecessary sacrifices. So long as there is the wherewithal to satisfy the desires of the people of this country, there should be no lack of funds to enable them to satisfy their desires. If the Bank of Canada were used as it should be, the government could to-day be providing our soldiers with free transportation at least for their annual furlough. Furthermore, the government would be enabled to set up policies to deal effectively with post-war problems. But as it is 14873-173
now, there is no policy to deal with post-war problems. The Bank of Canada, if properly used, would have enabled the government to finance any undertaking without debt.
In conclusion, the British empire is to-day facing the greatest crisis of its history. The help of every man, woman, and child in Canada is necessary to avert the danger. The Canadian people are ready, willing, and almost overanxious to exert themselves to the maximum, but they cannot do so until the government adopts a proper financial policy. The government has not done so. Until it does so, I consider it my duty to oppose and protest against the existing financial policy.


Mr. A. H. BENCE (Saskatoon City):: At
the outset of my remarks I should like to add my words of endorsement to those already uttered in this house with respect to the principle of this budget, as being necessary and in keeping with the sacrifices which are required at this time. It may well be that, when another year has rolled around, even this budget, involving what seems to us a colossal sum, will by comparison have merged into insignificance with respect to what is needed then. Who knows? We know this, however that no financial sacrifice is too great to make in order to save our bodies, our souls and our empire from conquest.
In the early stages of the war, the government determined upon a pay-as-we-go policy, and since that time it has endeavoured, so as far as it has been able, to adhere to that policy. I agree with the soundness of many of the arguments which are put up in favour of it, but I suggest that we can carry it too far with respect to the future economic wellbeing of the people. The type of taxation we have in effect at the present time is confiscatory. It is levied; it is taken; and it is gone for good. And there are so many taxes that it keeps us busy trying *o keep track of them. In the first place wc have our city and municipal taxes, with their levies on real estate, business, water, light, amusements and many other things, including poll tax. Then we come to the provincial taxes with their claims on income and on real estate: gas tax, sales tax, corporation taxes, public revenue tax, and many others. Next there is the wider field of dominion taxation, with its direct and indirect imposts and their multitude of claims. To mention just a few, there are income tax, national defence tax, excise tax, sugar tax, and now we have the succession duty tax, and a host of others about which the average man in the street knows nothing beyond the fact that he has to pay them.

The Budget-Mr. Bence

But all these taxes are only a start, so far as the claims on a man's pocket-book are concerned. Continually, worthy war and charitable appeals are being made, and the people of this country are being asked to dig more and more deeply into their pockets all the time. Any one tax or any one appeal may not in itself appear too great; but when we come to the total of these appeals and these taxes, we find that the average man has little or nothing left to put aside for his old age or provide necessary and vital protection by way of life insurance for his family. It is for this reason that, I suggest, the government may carry this principle too far.
We must realize that there are in Canada to-day many men and women who are at their pea'" so far as earning capacity is concerned wit* respect to age, mental and physical qualifications, and the opportunity which is given to their particular generation. The government should consider permitting these men and women to save at least part of the fruits of their labours so that they may have something to live upon when that peak is past, when they are older, when their mental and physical powers are not so great, and when the opportunities which are now present will not be available to them. It is important that w'e should endeavour to eliminate the sense of frustration which many of these people must have. Not a few of them have been without gainful employment for many years. They now find themselves in the position of returning to a fruitful occupation, of being able to earn a livelihood. They look forward to a few' years of activity, which may end when the war is over or even before that time. They realize at the same time that the taxation which is being imposed will not allow them to put something aside for their old age, will not allow them to feel that they can exist at that time without having to depend upon charity.
This does not mean-and I am by no means suggesting it-that we do not require every cent which we can raise at this time. We do require it. But what I am suggesting is that, at least so far as this increase in taxes is concerned, and particularly with respect to some of the lower income brackets-although I do not propose that it necessarily be confined to them-the amount which people are now earning over and above what they require to live upon should not be entirely confiscated by way of taxation, but that, at least in part, it should only be borrowed. The fact that I believe in this principle is one of the reasons why I so enthusiastically endorsed the war savings campaign. I did everything I could personally to support it, and I urged upon the people with whom I discussed it the

advisability and urgency of putting their money into it. I felt that the more money they put into the war effort by way of war savings certificates, the less they would be called upon to put in by way of taxation; and that seemed to me to be a sound principle, particularly because the war savings scheme was aimed to give people of small incomes an opportunity of making their contribution.
Savings attain several useful purposes, particularly at the present time. In the first place, of course, they help us to buy necessary war materials; second, they give those who save a nest-egg which will help them after the war is over, and also enable them to keep the wheels of industry turning and thus to alleviate the post-war depression which seems inevitably to follow every great conflict. Third-and I think this is the most important -they give more people in Canada a material stake in this dominion, and a material stake will be a great incentive, after the war is over, for the people who have it to assist us in keeping our country on a sane economic basis in the transition from a war to a peacetime economy.
Consequently, I suggest that this government, in the present budget, and in any successive budgets in which the taxation is considerably in excess of normal, should make arrangements to pay back at least part of that excess as soon as the war is over, and that it should adopt the policy which has been referred to in this chamber, which has been so long advocated by John Maynard Keynes, the English economist, and which was recently adopted by the English people. Sir Kingsley Wood, in his budget speech in the British House of Commons a short time ago, referring to the matter of the reduction in what they call the personal allowance and the earned income allowance, made this statement:
I am proposing therefore that the extra tax which any individual will pay by reason of the reduction in the personal allowance or earned income allowance will be offset after the war by a credit which will then be given in his favour in the post office savings bank.
The proposal in the British budget is that the increase in taxation will be paid back to the taxpayer after the war, without interest.
Some may point out that the comparison between income tax levied in Great Britain and that levied in Canada shows that the British people are paying considerably more in proportion by way of taxes than we are. I believe this point was referred to the other day by the hon. member for Brandon (Mr. Matthews). But a comparison of income taxes does not give us a fair picture of the comparative amounts paid by the two peoples because, as I understand it, our taxation is

The Budget-Mr. Bence
spread over many more fields, and we pay more in proportion in certain other fields than they do. It is true they concentrate on income tax. We have not as high an income tax, but we do derive funds from many other fields, a great many of them by way of indirect taxation.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Sales tax.


Alfred Henry Bence: Yes.


An hon. MEMBER:: Corporation tax.


Alfred Henry Bence: This question was referred to by the Ottawa Journal in an editorial the other day, and that newspaper made a pertinent observation which I should like to read. Referring to the difference in income tax between the two countries, it said:
But these figures, indicating a more heavily taxed Britain, must be qualified by certain facts. To begin with, the taxpayer in England pays but one income tax. In Canada-up to the present, at any rate-the taxpayer pays additional income tax to the province. Then, in Canada there is a sales tax of 8 per cent, whereas Britain has no sales tax. Also in Canada there are heavier customs taxes, plus an import tax of 10 per cent, over and above all customs taxes. Finally, Canadian property taxes-real estate-are on the whole higher than in Britain.
Taken all in all, therefore, the average Canadian's taxes are probably not far below those of the average Englishman.
Let no one make any mistake about this. We are paying very heavy taxes to-day under this budget, and I suggest that it puts us in a rather difficult position, when taxation is imposed in the indirect way in which it is in this country, because unscrupulous people can take advantage of the fact that we have spread our taxation over so many fields, to use things like the income tax, as between Canada and Great Britain, to make invidious comparisons to our disadvantage with respect to things like the income tax. Consequently, it seems to me-and I make this suggestion to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley)-that we should endeavour, so far as we are able, to bring home more clearly to the people of this country and to the peoples of other countries exactly how much of our income is going towards war materials and matters connected with our effort in this great struggle.
I do not intend to enter at this time into any analysis of the various arguments put forward by Mr. Keynes in favour of his proposal. It is sufficient to state that it met with the endorsement of the British House of Commons. There they felt that the most important thing achieved by this policy-and it is none of the three I have mentioned so far-was that it assisted materially in restraining the practically ungovernable tendency towards inflation which seems to exist in war
14873-173}
time. The people who are charged with such matters, such as the Minister of Finance, have as their task in war time, in endeavouring to keep down inflation, the question of reducing the ability of the public to spend that extra amount of money which is put into circulation as a result of increased war activity. Taxation is one of the means whereby they reduce the ability of the public to spend, but a far better way would be, of, at least to a certain extent, borrowing that money from the great mass of the people who are paying in the smaller income-tax brackets and not confiscating it all.
Sir Kingsley Wood, in his budget speech, said with respect to his proposal to pay back this extra amount of taxation:
The primary object of these proposals is not to obtain taxation for taxation's sake, nor to raise revenue for the sake of the revenue, but to make a considerable cut in purchasing power during the war, and thus to avoid the ever present dangers of inflation, which would affect most of all those with the lower incomes.
We have to-day hidden taxes on too many of our essentials, taxes that hit everyone just as hard as if they had been put on in the form of income tax, and even harder, and I repeat the suggestion that the government seriously consider the question of levying taxation in such a way that we would see more clearly how much of our income is going to the state. Let us have more direct and less indirect taxation, and let us pay back part of it after the war is over, so that the wealth of the nation at that time will be in the hands of many and not concentrated in those of a few.
So far as I am personally concerned, speaking as one of the comparatively younge! generation, it might appear foolish for me or members of my generation to suggest that we should postpone any part of the cost of this war. Speaking as a Canadian and speaking generally, however, I think I can safely say that the future generations of this country are going to owe something to those who are making the sacrifice to-day in order that those future generations may live in a free world.
I do not propose to enter into any discussion of specific matters in the budget. Like other hon. members, I shall reserve until we are in committee any comments I have to make on a number of such subjects. There are certain inequities arising in connection with the raising of national revenue which seem to me to be quite apparent, and I cannot understand why they have not already been ironed out, but as I say, I shall take the privilege of making some remarks about them when we are in committee.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
The Budget-Mr. Bence

After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Alfred Henry Bence: Mr. Speaker, when the house rose at six o'clock, I had finished dealing briefly with the suggestion that the government should relax its pay-as-you-go policy, at least to the extent that the amount which a man earns over and above what is required to live on, should not be entirely confiscated by way of taxation but, in part, should be only borrowed so that he might have something on which to live after the war is over.
I wish now to take advantage of the fact that this is one of the few occasions on which hon. members are privileged to discuss general matters, to present a suggestion in connection with the general economic set-up of the *country, with particular reference to the way in which I think the wheat problem might be eventually solved. During the last number of weeks we have heard presented in this house various policies that have been suggested with regard to a solution of the wheat problem. These have included the policy of the federation of agriculture, the policy of the wheat pools, the plan of the western prairie provinces; and of course we considered at some length the proposal-the most inadequate proposal, I submit-of this government. No matter from what angle we considered any of these proposals, whether we took the one we liked best or the one we preferred the least, we were necessarily led to the conclusion that any one was but a temporary expedient, just a medium for postponing for a year or two the final day of reckoning. I am, therefore, convinced that we should take definite steps now which will eventually result in diverting a large part of the western labour supply into channels other than agriculture.
It is trite to say that in order to exist we must produce something that can be exchanged for some other sort of wealth. We know that at the present time we are producing something which, to a large extent, cannot be exchanged for another type of wealth. In addition, it is quite apparent that with the state of self-sufficiency which was attained with respect to foodstuffs by the countries of Europe after the last war, we shall not, after this war, with the possible exception of a short period, be able to sell as much wheat or other foodstuffs to Europe as we have in the past. Because of this fact, and because of the further fact that we have greatly improved our methods of production in western Canada, we do not require the labour that we formerly did to produce our wheat crop. Yet we have done very little indeed, from an economic point of view, to endeavour to divert that

excess of labour in western Canada into channels entirely separate and apart from agriculture.
During the committee stage of the war appropriation bill, there was a great deal of discussion by hon. members as to the advisability and, in fact, the necessity of greater war production in various parts of the country. With those sentiments I was in hearty accord, because I believed that if any part of Canada were idle and it could produce essentials for war or any other purposes, we should put that part of the country to work. The necessity for the diversification of industry, by spreading war projects all over the dominion, has received a considerable amount of attention from many sections. I did not take part in the discussion on this subject when the war appropriation bill was under consideration, because when I first had au opportunity of speaking in this house, last November, I urged upon the government the advisability of turning a large part of the vast labour supply of western Canada from agriculture into essential war industries, and at that time I pointed out that to bonus non-production, idleness and useless overproduction, is economically unsound. At a time when we require an all-out war effort it is senseless to allow these men, many of them artisans and mechanics, to fritter away their time in producing something that cannot all be used.
It would appear from the discussions that have taken place in this house that many sections of Canada are not fully occupied. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that when an allout war effort is required, it should be the function of the government to put those idle parts of the dominion to work. But there does not appear to be anyone who is making it his sole job to examine this problem from the dual point of view of war production and the country's internal economic welfare. I do not suggest for one moment that the blame can be placed upon the shoulders of the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe), because he has his hands full in meeting war requirements'-without worrying about any dual purpose. Consequently I suggest to the government that this might be made a matter of general governmental policy, and that a portfolio-for the sake of a better name let us call it the portfolio of economic welfare- be created and placed in charge of a man whose sole job would be to study the economic set-up of Canada with a view to utilizing all the energy and all the materials of the country by diverting them from non-essential into essential production, of course having regard to the opportunity that is given us to-day because of war production

The Budget-Mr. Jaques
requirements. His job, for example, would be to examine the wheat problem in relation to the general economic set-up and to determine the best way of diverting or directing the energy and the brains that are available in western Canada, and that are not now being used, into essential fields of productivity.
The same thing would hold true for other sections of Canada. We heard a fairly lengthy discussion here by various maritime members with regard to the advisability and urgency of increasing shipbuilding in the maritimes. One of the strong arguments put up-and I thought it was a sound one-was that in addition to producing ships for war purposes, it would give employment and bring the maritimes back to some of the economic glory they enjoyed in the past. We in western Canada have great possibilities for producing war supplies, and for industrial work. We have potential power through our gas, coal and rivers. We have space; we have safety; we have brains; and, above all else, we have man-power willing and eager to apply itself. We have young farmers who, because of their mechanical background, are ideally suited to work in factories. I suggest that even if, because of freight rates it costs a little more to produce such commodities in western Canada, it is better to bonus for the production of essentials than for the production of non-essentials, as we are doing at the present time.


Mr. NORMAN JAQUES (Westaskiwin):: Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) upon the able manner in which he presented the budget, but I cannot agree with much of the matter contained in his proposals.
I do not intend to deal with the details of the budget, I have left that to others. I should like, however, to deal with the matter which is the subject of our amendment, namely, the failure of the government to use the Bank of Canada to help finance the war. I had thought the House of Commons had a fair understanding of our ideas in that respect. I believe we have been hammering on them for the last five or six years. Therefore, when I attended a meeting addressed by the hon. member for Selkirk (Mr. Thorson) in Manitoba recently, I was surprised when he said that the social crediters in the House of Commons had been talking for five years, and that nobody was any wiser as a result of what they had said.
That reminds me of a social credit meeting I once attended. At the conclusion of the speaker's remarks, the chairman announced that the speaker would be glad to answer any questions. A man in the audience rose in his
[Mr. Bence.?
place and said that he had greatly enjoyed what had been said, but asked if the speaker would explain again how money was created. So the speaker went through his explanation again. However, at the conclusion of that explanation the man again said, "I am sorry, but I still don't understand it." So the speaker explained it again, and still the man did not understand. The chairman then intervened and said, "I shall explain it for you," and proceeded to do so. But the man again replied, "I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, but I still fail to understand." That was too much for the chairman, so he stepped off the platform, went up to the man and said, "I'll tell you why you don't understand it; it is because you are just a plain ruddy fool!"
There are none so deaf as those who will not listen. I am sure, however, that that does not apply to a large number of hon. members; and of course I am quite sure it does not apply to the minister.


Mr. MacNICOL:: The hon. member ought to eliminate everybody.


Norman Jaques: That reminds me of another meeting I attended in one of the larger towns in Alberta. That was a meeting of the so-called People's League, which was formed at that time to oppose the social credit movement in Alberta. On the platform were the Conservative leader in the province, a former federal Liberal member from Calgary, and a former socialist member from Alberta who sat in this house. There they were, all on the platform together, united in their opinions as to the danger social credit held for Alberta. The socialist put it this way-


An hon. MEMBER:: Who was it?


Mr. MacINNIS:: We want to know whether he was a socialist or not.


Norman Jaques: It was Mr. Speakman, as
a matter of fact.


Mr. COLD WELL:: He never was.


Norman Jaques: He put his arms round the
Conservative leader's shoulders and said, "We may have had differences of opinion in the past, but when we consider the danger to our province and the danger to our women and children from the government at Edmonton, our differences fade into insignificance."
That was the year Mr. Chamberlain went to Munich. There were at that time a million Canadians on relief. We were at that time within a year of war with the greatest military power the world has ever known. There was not at that time in Canada a single tank; not one plane was being made. I heard a
The Budget-Mr. Jaques

former Minister of National Defence say in the house that the Canadian flying corps had ceased to fly.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: They were just fluttering.


Norman Jaques: Not a gun was being made in Canada at that time. Yet we were within one year of the war. The danger seen by those misguided people on the platform was nothing but a threat to a financial system which, unknown to them, but plain to everybody who understood it, had already placed Canada and the empire on the very verge of destruction.
There is no question that for years democracies, as to their policies and their way of life, have been controlled by the financial interests. There is proof of that. But that control is only another variation of the control formerly held by those who controlled religion. In the middle ages men held the world in control by fear of eternal fire and damnation. At one man's word a nation was ready to fall on its back; it was excommunicated. The power which those few men held was theirs because of the ignorance of the masses of the people. When, through the printed word, knowledge was spread, the people began to doubt these ideas, and in order to maintain their control these tyrants said, "Well, if the fear of fire in the next world is not sufficient, we will see what a little fire in this world will do," and so they proceeded to burn and torture those who ventured to differ from them. But there was the natural reaction. This did not stop the people from criticizing. They said, "If we are going to be burned in this world as well as in the next, such a system is not worth a candle, let alone a bonfire." So it was only a matter of time before that control passed away. That control, however, was then taken over by the controllers of finance, and it has been growing stronger and stronger from that day to this. As knowledge has spread, people have risen here and there, books have been written, people have spoken in parliaments and at public meetings, and gradually more and more are becoming enlightened as to the control exercised by finance.
I should like to quote from the parliamentary debates of the commonwealth of Australia, the first session of 1940. I remember that a member of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group held out to us that the New Zealand government had solved the financial problem and that there was no need for the proposals of social credit. I should like to quote from a statement by a senator in the Australian senate. He was speaking on the same idea as this amendment; that is, he was advocating that the national bank of
[Mr. Jaques.l	.
Australia should help finance the war by the issuing of interest-free credit. Another senator, Senator Hays, asked him:
Why does not the government of New Zealand issue an interest-free loan?
Senator Darcey replied:
For the simple reason, as I explained to the honourable senator, that the government "sold out" to the banks.
He then went on to explain:
When Mr. Nash -went to London, he found that he could not convert any of the loans that had been raised by New Zealand, because his government had made a radical change in the dominion's financial policy. In those circumstances, Mr. Nash had to take what he could get.
The leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (Mr. Coldwell) made a statement which I should like to correct. I am not saying that he made it deliberately, but there is no doubt that he was misinformed. He said:
According to social credit expert Byrne society is like a pyramid. The people on the outside are the circumference, and at the top there must be one directing mind. That one mind must give orders and all must take instructions right down to the outer fringe.
What Mr. Byrne did say is contained in a pamphlet entitled "Alternative to Disaster". I quote:
The two forms of organization applicable to society are the pryamidal, involving centralization of control, and the democratic, under which the wishes of the majority prevail. The pyramidal type is so termed because it can be pictured as a grouping of people in the form of a pyramid at the apex of which is a supreme authority dominating the entire structure through lesser executives working under him. Democratic organization can be pictured as a grouping of people in the form of a circle, in which administration at the centre is dominated by the majority at the circumference. This necessarily involves the ability of the majority to accept or reject administrators according to the satisfaction or otherwise they experience from their administration.
I desired to make that correction. I think the hon. member for Acadia (Mr. Quelch) has explained quite well the reason for our amendment, 'but there is one point which I should like to make. I wish to refer to the large numbers of war bonds which have been purchased by the banks merely through the process of writing cheques on themselves. Just as that money has been created by a stroke of the pen when they acquired the bonds, so will that money be destroyed when the banks sell the bonds to the people at the end of the war. These bonds owned by the banks will be a dangerous weapon of deflation after the war. We have always had deflation

The Budget-Mr. Jagues
after a war, and in the past this has been blamed upon the damage caused by the war as well as other things.
The real reason is that war creates an enormous debt. War also causes inflation, and those who own the debt see to it that, after the war, money is deflated so that the debts are inflated. That is the object of post-war deflation, and this is always done at the cost of the misery and suffering of the masses of the people. When a Liberal member from Alberta was speaking in this house the other day he seemed to regard an amendment such as ours as being unpatriotic. He asked the Speaker what he thought of our soldiers being paid in money which he referred to as "trash". That is to say, money bearing the stamp of the king and issued by this sovereign parliament was trash, while money created by a private bank was sound money. I should like to quote what Prime Minister Menzies said when he was asked about the war financing in Australia. He said:
We are raising what we consider the maximum amount by taxation and taxation is very liigh now. Then we raise money from *the savings of the community through loans. We supplement the two sources by using the central bank credit, subject to the checks imposed on the inflationary effect by use of the taxing powers and by a system of price regulations which we had in operation since three days after the war broke out.
I have heard members say, and quite rightly, that they were greatly inspired by the address of Mr. Menzies. According to this statement of Mr. Menzies-and I assume that he was correctly reported-in Australia the government are using the credit of the national bank of Australia. That is all that we propose to do here, and there is nothing revolutionary in our proposal. It would save an enormous piling-up of debt which posterity will have to pay.
The other day a speech was made by an hon. member which was later dealt with by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe), and to which I wish to refer indirectly. I have great regard for the hon. member who made that speech. I heard him speak in this house a few years ago in support of the textile workers of this country, and listening to his speech of the other evening and reading it afterwards, I came to the definite conclusion that what had inspired his speech was not a want of patriotism but rather fear-fear of financial disaster, fear of bankruptcy following this war. That is what we are threatened with and what we were threatened with even before the war started, and I believe that that fear has had a very bad effect upon our war effort. Because of it men have hesitated to enlarge
their operations as they otherwise might have done. As you go through the country people will tell you in a guarded way that they are frightened and nervous as to the consequences of this war because of the tremendous debt which will be piled up. I believe that that fear should be removed. Let me read a short extract from the address made by the president of one of our chartered banks at their annual meeting. He said:
Generations following us will labour under the burden of debt now being accumulated. There is but one remedy-drastic economy, a greater production, a greater foreign trade.
I notice that he does not mention greater consumption. He goes on:
We must reduce the number of governments and end the scandal of erecting luxurious public buildings. We must revise the franchise so that the unfit and unworthy do not have equal rights with those who work and produce and pay. We believe in liberty of press and speech, but licence to agitate cannot be tolerated. Let us hope the way to these reforms will be made clear at the coming dominion-provincial conference.
It is that sort of thing which has made people nervous, and one cannot wonder at it, when they are threatened with bankruptcy as a consequence of winning the war. I would ask members this question: If we lose the war, there will be no question of bankruptcy because Hitler will put his bailiff in and the country will be under his orders. But we are not going to lose the war. We are going to win the war. Everybody knows that. Then who is going to make the country bankrupt? Who has the power to make this country bankrupt except another and a greater power? An individual is made bankrupt by the court which orders the sale of his assets. The bailiff enters his home or place of business and his goods are sold. But who is to put a nation through that process? The idea presupposes a power which is greater than the sovereign government; and unless we lose the war, who can be superior to the sovereign power of this parliament-unless in the meantime we surrender our sovereignty?
Just in that connection let me say that there is a movement under way in Canada at the present time-groups are being formed all over the country and we hear the idea expounded over the radio and read it in pamphlets and literature distributed-which has for its object the surrender of the sovereignty of this country. I have brought this to the attention of the Minister of Justice before, and I wish to do so again because it seems to me a traitorous movement. At this time, during the confusion of
The Budget-Mr. Jagues

the war, when, people's minds are wholly taken up with fighting these German gangsters and going all-out to do so, here are these people, mostly from a country which so far has not taken any part in the fighting, spreading through fear the idea that the only thing to save the world is the destruction of nationhood, that the only way to avoid war is for every country to surrender its sovereignty to an international control which will have control over the armed forces, over finance, over fiscal policy and even over the judiciary. I should like to know what sovereignty would be left. That movement is known by some people as "federal union" and in this country as "union now". I believe it is the most subversive movement in the country to-day. It is based on the idea of the concentration of power, not in any one country, but a world concentration of power-the very thing we are fighting against. That is just what Hitler wants, and it is what he will have if he can get it. Yet there are people working night and day trying to persuade people that when we win the war we should surrender our sovereignty-that is, our ability and our power to control ourselves according to our own desires and wishes-to an international control over which we would have no say whatsoever.
So far as post-war conditions are concerned, unless finance takes over control as it did after the last war, there is no reason at all for any depression, and no reason-indeed, no possibility-of bankruptcy. I am the last to advocate that any individual should profit as a result of the war, but there is no question that as a result of the war our powers to produce will be immensely increased. Think of the hundreds of thousands of men who will have learned a skilled trade during the war. Think of the immense increase in machinery. There is no question that the powers of production in this country will be immensely increased. There is no question that, given a real financial system which works for the benefit of the country and not for the benefit of the financial system, we can be rewarded, as we should be, for winning the war, by a very great and general raising of the standard of living. Those Jeremiahs and croakers who say that as a result of winning the war we shall have to put on sackcloth and ashes, that we shall have to tighten our belts, are Hitler's best agents, the most dangerous fifth columnists we have. The man who gets up at the street corner on a soap-box and talks the old-time

red socialism and communism has little influence on the public; but when you threaten the living standards of the people, when their pockets are threatened, when the men who control the financial system of this country tell them that as a result of this war we shall be bankrupt and everybody will have to accept a much lower standard of living, we have a most dangerous brand of propaganda, and one which should be stopped at all costs.
I shall say only a few words with regard to agriculture, for the subject has been thoroughly aired in this house during the session. I agree with those who have said that agriculture has been badly used by this government, and I concur in the suggestion of various organizations that the price of seventy cents is totally inadequate and should be raised. That could be done quite easily by use of the Bank of Canada credit; and if the government cannot control inflation it is not a government, it is nothing but a tool of the financial interests. Inflation can be* controlled; and if it is not controlled, it is proof that the government is not a government.
In conclusion I want to renew my opposition to the proposal, of which we have heard much in certain quarters, for the surrendering of our sovereignty, or what amounts to the selling out of the British empire. Who is it that is fighting to save the world, or democracy, or freedom, and even Christianity? Who but the British empire? Is there anybody else doing it? Greece very gallantly did what she could, but now, beside the British empire-


Gordon Graydon: The Chinese.


Norman Jaques: Well, that may be so, but it could hardly be said that they are fighting for Christianity.


Gordon Graydon: Oh, yes; their leader is a Christian.


Norman Jaques: Yet it is suggested that the sovereignty of the British empire should be surrendered and the control transferred into the hands of those who so far have not risked a little finger to save the world from anything. One remark I read in a pamphlet devoted to this propaganda was to this effect, that "even if England is beaten, all is not lost; we shall then have the use of the British fleet". Let me tell the writer of that article that, so long as the British fleet is above the water, Great Britain can never be beaten, and that if England is beaten, her

The Budget-Mr. Wright
fleet will be at the bottom of the sea and not on this side of the Atlantic. I believe that the British empire, with all its faults, is the greatest hope for the freedom of the world.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The only hope.


Norman Jaques: Then, why tolerate a campaign which would sell it out? If another nation likes to come within this empire as a sovereign state, under the same conditions that Canada and Australia are in the commonwealth, owing a common allegiance to the crown, I am all for it. But when people demand that every state of the British empire should surrender its sovereignty and resign itself to an international control, I say that such an idea should be considered as traitorous and not tolerated in time of war.


Mr. P. E. WRIGHT (Melfort):: Mr. Speaker, in rising to speak at this time it is my intention to confine myself chiefly to two subjects: first, the interests of the men in the army and their dependents; and, second, the effect of the budget and the regulations which we have passed in this house upon agriculture in the country as a whole.
Before speaking on these subjects, however, I should like to say that I fully realize the tremendous task with which the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) was faced in bringing down the budget at this time; in particular, the tremendous expenditures which he has to find money to meet. I believe that he has conscientiously endeavoured to spread the taxation over as wide a field as possible, but I cannot agree with hon. members who have said he has done it on as equitable a basis as it could possibly have been done. For instance, the man with a $700 income, who under the old budget was paying $14, is paying, under this budget, $35, an increase of approximately 120 per cent; the man with a $50,000 income has also had his taxation increased, but to the extent of only fifteen or twenty per cent. I believe that current taxation should be based not so much upon the amount of income paid, as upon the amount which the man has left to spend after he has paid his taxes.
Many sections of the press and some members of the house have described this as a pay-as-you-go budget, but how many members *would consider themselves on a pay-as-you-go basis if they were spending approximately forty per cent more than their incomes and were compelled to raise that amount each year by borrowing? So far as I can see, we are financing this war on practically the same basis as we financed the last war; that is, we are taxing to the extent that we deem it 14873-174
politically expedient to do so, and we are raising the rest of the money by borrowing, on bonds bearing interest at whatever rate we think we can get them sold for. This is what was done during the last war and it is being done to-day. True, a larger proportion is being raised by way of taxation than in the last war. That is largely due to the fact that, after almost fifteen years of Liberal administration since the last war, the people of Canada have become more tax conscious than before. For their education in this line we must give the government credit.
We are going to be raising this year by taxation a sum larger than we raised during any two years in the last war. The interest we are going to pay is not as large as in the last war, but the amount of carrying charges will be larger, and it is this interest which we shall have to pay on all this debt that will be the greatest problem for us after the war is over.
It does not appear to me that it matters so much how much we owe if all this money we owe is owed to ourselves. If we owe it to ourselves as a result of borrowing it entirely within the country, we are borrowing it from ourselves, and after the war we shall be paying interest back to ourselves. If this money were borrowed from all sections and all classes of the people on an equal basis, it would not matter so much. But is that going to take place? I do not think so. How much of the loan that we shall raise during the coming summer will the farmers be able to subscribe to after ten years of depression and at present prices of agricultural products? And they constitute thirty per cent of the population-people just as loyal as any other section of the community. They will not have the money to subscribe to this loan. Then we have the men in our armed forces. At their rate of pay, and with their dependents, how much will they be able to subscribe? They are doing well if they can take a few wTar savings certificates. Then we have another large class of the population, unmarried men with a salary of $900 and less and married men with a salary of $1,500 and less. Just how much of the loan will they be able to subscribe? Not a very large amount. Already they are buying war savings certificates.
These three classes constitute seventy per cent of the population of Canada, and they will be unable, even if they wished to do so, to subscribe to any large extent to the loan that will be floated. This means that the other thirty per cent will have to subscribe approximately seventy per cent of the loan. After the war is over, how shall we pay the interest on the loan? All sections of the country, the farmers and the men from overseas, will be

The Budget-Mr. Wright

asked to pay their share of interest on it, and that is why we in the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation believe that these loans should be raised free of interest. Those classes who are unable to subscribe their share, no matter how much they may wish to do so, will be asked in future years to pay interest in perpetuity on this money. We are still paying interest on the money raised in the last war, and we shall be paying interest in perpetuity on the money raised for this war.
We believe that our chartered banks should be nationalized and that the Bank of Canada should be used to a far greater extent than it is to-day in the financing of this war. We might just as well try to stop a modern German panzer division with the machine guns and barbed wire used in the last war as try to finance this war, with its immense cost, by the same methods as were used at that time. If wre are to be successful, we must adopt some other method. I do not think that at this time we are using to the best advantage the financial, material or human resources of Canada.
The government is following the policy which it did in peace time; it is going only as fast as it is pushed by the people. That may have been a good enough peace-time policy; it may have been good enough political strategy, but it is a poor policy on which to fight and expect to win an all-out war. We should have conscription of the financial and material resources of the country for an allout war.
We know that there is on deposit in the savings banks one and a half billions, hundreds of these accounts consisting of $20,000 and more. Why should the government not have the use of this money for the duration of the war? If the farmers are asked to produce the necessities of life without profit, or even at a loss; if the working people are being asked to give their labour at a mere living wage, and sometimes not even that, then I say that these accumulations of unused capital, which is not being used to-day for some definite war purpose, capital accumulated out of the exploitation of the natural resources and labour of the common people of the country, should be taken advantage of.


John Ritchie MacNicol: May I ask the hon. member a question? He speaks of accounts of $20,000 which he says the government could easily levy upon. What would be the minimum account on which he suggests the government would be entitled to levy?


Percy Ellis Wright: Savings accounts of S20.000 or over, accumulations of capital which are not being used to-day for any definite war

purpose. There is probably close to one billion dollars of accounts in the banks. I forget the exact figures; they were given last year in the house. We are not making full use of the material resources of the country at this time. We are using for peace-time pursuits and pleasures many things that could be used for a fuller war effort. I have travelled over this country from one end to the other, and I see no one curtailment of pleasures; people are travelling as usual, buying as many cars as usual and doing the same as they did before, apparently without any idea that it is necessary for them to make sacrifices to win the war.
We have been told by many ministers that anything which is physically possible and desirable can be made financially possible for the winning of the war. We have in western Canada thousands of tons of scrap metal; we have unused rolling stock on our railways; we have railway men who are being employed part time; we have a department of wrar services, and yet they have not been able to devise any scheme to collect this metal and place it where it is needed in Canada. That is not using the material resources of the country as fully as they could be used.
We are not using the human resources of this country to the best advantage. We say that we need trained mechanics, yet in garages from one end of this dominion to the other we have thousands of trained mechanics who are servicing your car and mine so that we may go on a week-end trip, or play golf at our favourite golf club. It seems to me that these men should be used for a better purpose to-day.
The government has placed a small tax on gasoline. I suppose that is being done for several reasons: in order to secure revenue; to stop the use of gasoline for pleasure purposes, and, of course, to conserve the necessary foreign exchange. Strange to say, however, the same tax is placed on the gasoline used by a farmer to produce the food that we must have, that is placed on the gasoline used by a man driving out to his club for a game of golf. That does not seem fair, by any means. I believe that some distinction should have been made in this regard.
After having listened to discussions on agriculture in this house for the better part of two sessions; after having studied the legislation and regulations brought down with regard to agriculture, my advice to the Canadian farmer would be to join his local cooperative association, his local farm organization, and try to develop them into dominion-wide organizations that will do something for the farmers, because if they depend upon this

The Budget-Mr. Wright
government as it is presently constituted, certainly they will go to bed hungry. We must learn to do things for ourselves. Since the war started, whenever the price of an agricultural product has come anywhere near the cost of production, that price has been promptly pegged by the government. Long before the price of wool reached the cost of production, the government pegged that price. Last year, when the price of butter was getting somewhere near the cost of production, that price was pegged, with what result? Just the other day I was reading the statistics with regard to the exports of dairy cattle to the United States, which show that during the first three months of this year those exports increased by thirty-five per cent, and this at a time when we need all our dairy cattle to produce the cheese for which Britain is asking. That increased export of dairy cattle was due largely to the fact that butter prices were pegged last winter. The farmers came to the conclusion that, with wages rising and prices pegged, they could not afford to hire labour or buy machinery to milk their cows, and they disposed of their cattle while there was a good market for them in the United States. As a result, we shall have a shortage of butter in this country before another year is over, if we produce the amount of cheese that will be necessary in order to meet Britain's requirements.
I do not know whether it was the intention of the government, but in imposing a tax on gasoline used for agricultural purposes they are really handing a plum to the manufacturers and operators of certain types of engines used for agricultural purposes in Canada to-day. The man with a diesel tractor will not have to pay the tax, nor will the man who uses distillate. Who are the men using this type of fuel? They are the large operators, the mortgage companies, who own large tracts of land. They are the only people who can carry the overhead involved in the use of diesel machinery, but they will not be required to pay this tax. The man operating a smaller farm, using a high compression engine-and this will include the great majority of the farmers of western Canada-will have to pay this additional tax.
The other matter with which I wish to deal has to do with soldiers and their dependents. Just a short time ago there were brought to my attention several cases concerning soldiers' dependents who had the misfortunate to suffer serious illnesses which required their confinement in hospitals for considerable periods of time. The hospitals were unable to collect from these people; they had not the money with which to pay their bills. At this time I believe the government
14873-174J
should institute some health insurance scheme for soldiers' dependents, to take care of the cost of hospitalization and medical care. It is absolutely impossible for a soldier's wife with two children, receiving perhaps $79 a month, to build up a reserve to provide for any serious illness that may occur. The case of a soldier's mother, receiving $35 or $40 a month, is even worse. If these people suffer a serious illness, it means that they must go in debt. I know that the medical profession and the hospitals of this country will see that they are given the necessary care, but I do not believe these people should have to go in debt for the rest of their lives for this care. We should give our soldiers' dependents a better deal than that, and should institute some system of health insurance, which I believe should be contributory, to care for these people. I am sure they would be willing to contribute, in the case of a married man perhaps SI a month, and in the case of a single dependent, 50 cents a month. The government should assume responsibility for organizing this scheme and seeing that it is put into effect. It would give our soldiers a great deal more confidence if they knew their dependents would be looked after in case of serious illness.
This question of health insurance is something to which I believe we must pay more attention than we have done in the past. I know sixty per cent of the municipalities in my constituency have a municipal doctor employed to look after their people. Some of the .municipalities have free hospitalization, which is paid for by a general levy included in their taxes; and there is not one municipality that has had this system in force for any length of time that would want to return to the old method. The only trouble is that many of the municipalities cannot institute this scheme because they are not able to raise the necessary taxes. I know of one municipality that applied to the provincial government only last year for permission to develop a scheme of this kind, but the government replied that since the municipality had not been able to raise sufficient money to keep the schools open, the government could not see its way clear to grant the municipality permission to provide medical care. The reeve of that municipality in conversation with me said that in the municipality there were a great number of children who had defective eyesight and defective hearing, and who needed tonsil and adenoid operations and dental attention. It was his opinion that the municipality would be farther ahead if those children were given a sound body than if they were given only an education. He felt that if they could not have both, the building of a sound body should have precedence over the education.
The Budget-Mr. Wright

I say it is a disgrace to us in Canada to admit that there is a place in our country where we cannot give our children both a sound body and an education. I believe that, sooner or later, we must consider some form of medical health insurance. I am not going to enter into an argument to-night as to whether it should be municipally, provincially or federally controlled. In my opinion there is something to 'be said for each viewpoint. I believe, however, that if this government were to institute some scheme of health insurance for soldiers' dependents, it would give to us some valuable experience to follow after the war. We would learn something which would be invaluable to us later on in instituting a wider scheme.
I would urge the government, therefore, that it institute at this time some form of health insurance for soldiers' dependents. Speaking earlier in the house, I made reference to insurance for soldiers. In Canada, when the war broke out, the insurance companies inserted, in all new policies sold, a war clause whereby, in the event of an insured person being killed on active service, the beneficiary would receive only repayment of premiums paid. The companies also threatened to increase rates on policies, despite the big margin of safety provided by the present rates.
In contrast to this, when the selective service act in the United States was put into force in October, 1940, the trainees and all enlisted and commissioned officers in the United States army were offered insurance under a socialized scheme, known as national service insurance, at a rate far cheaper than it could be secured from private insurance companies. I should like to give hon. members an outline of that scheme in the United States, because I believe some such scheme might with good results be instituted in Canada.
No sales pressure was needed to put the idea across with the new recruits, who already have taken out more than S500,000,000 worth of new policies. The trainees are given four months to decide whether they want the insurance. They may take out policies to the amount of $10,000, which is the maximum under the scheme. The premiums may be deducted from the trainee's payroll, and after he leaves the service they are payable to the veterans administration in Washington. Rates are graduated according to the age at which the policy is taken out. At twenty-one years of age the monthly rate is sixty-five cents per. $1,000 of insurance; for a person thirty-four years of age the rate is seventy-five cents per $1,000.
Some conditions are attached to the policies. When first taken out, they are what is known
[Mr. Wright.l
as five-year term insurance. That is, the benefit is payable only in case of death within five years; and if the insured is still living at the end of that time, the policy expires automatically. But at the end of the first year the insured is given the option of converting this policy into one of the ordinary types of insurance policies; straight life, twenty-payment life, or thirty-payment life. Of course he pays a higher premium after conversion, because he is given much greater protection. But he has had from one to five years to think over whether he wants the insurance, and what kind he wants. If not, he has made only a few nominal payments, and so 'has not lost much. If he does want it he can obtain the type desired at a cheap rate and at the rate for the age at which he first subscribed. In other words, he has been able to take the insurance almost on approval.
This means a great deal to the lower-income groups. In the United States it has been found that about eighty-five per cent of the small policies paid for by weekly deductions from wages are either surrendered or allowed to lapse before a benefit is payable at either death or policy maturity. That is, a great many people buy insurance which gives them or their beneficiaries no benefit at all. Under the national service insurance there is no selling pressure, and so there should be less instances of persons buying insurance they do not w'ant. And the premiums are not weighted to provide a rake-off to build up assets and profits for a small management group of a private company.
We might very well institute in Canada some form of insurance for our soldiers which would give them some protection and give their dependents protection. It is said that we had soldiers' insurance during the last war, but I might point out that we did not have it during the war. After the war, a policy was made available to men who, because of injuries received in the war, could not qualify under regular insurance schemes.
Another thing which is taking place in the west-I do not know if it is taking place in the east-is that-


Mr. SLAGHT:: Before the hon. member leaves that point, might I inquire if it is estimated that the scheme is self-supporting?


Percy Ellis Wright: Yes.


Arthur Graeme Slaght: That is, the government will not have to carry any burden?


Percy Ellis Wright: The government is carrying all management charges, but is not making any profit out of the scheme.
Another matter I should like to bring to the attention of the house is connected with something which is occurring in Saskatchewan.

The Budget-Mr. Blackmore
The dependents of soldiers are being taken off relief when they are receiving the deferred pay of the soldiers. That is, they are not receiving any pension but get only the deferred pay. One case has been brought to my attention. This has reference to a man sixty-nine years of age living in southern Saskatchewan in the municipality of White Valley. This man has been on relief for a number of years. They have not had a crop down there, and last year his crops were eaten by grasshoppers. Last year his wife died, and his married daughter, whose husband is serving overseas, came to live with him. Because she came to live with him he was taken off relief, and the municipality told him that because she was receiving soldiers' deferred pay and allowance she should be able to provide for him.
In my opinion that condition should not be permitted to continue. When a soldier is sending his deferred pay to his parents, I say it should be placed in trust for the reestablishment of the soldier after the war. That is the least that should be done. Certainly it should not be used as an excuse to cut his family off relief, nor should the family be forced to live on that money. Yet I know that that is the practice in Saskatchewan to-day. That is one of the methods used to take men off relief. I have in my hand a copy of the recommendation by the director of relief recommending that this man be cut off relief because his daughter is in receipt of an allowance from her husband who is serving overseas. That is the way in which we are treating our men in our fighting forces. Certainly I think we must give them a better deal. We are now going out to recruit more men for our forces. We need more men, and will continue to need more. If we want to get those men, then we must give the men in our army a decent deal.
With regard to the transportation of soldiers, I do not know that I need to go into this matter because it has been dealt with fully by many speakers. I fully agree with them when they say that our soldiers should receive their transportation. During the last session many hon. members in all parts of the house expressed their desire that this should be done, yet we find the government in this budget not only ignoring these requests but adding a further tax of ten per cent on these fares. I have met men coming from Valcartier and Debert camps going to the west on ten days' leave. This gives them only three days to spend at home, and it costs them anywhere from $50 to $100, depending upon whether they eat decent meals on the train and take a berth. It costs them from $2 to $3 for every hour they are able to spend
at home. I contend that men on their yearly furlough and last leave should have their transportation paid.
Speaking this afternoon, the hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker) dealt with the three points I have mentioned; the financing of the war, the position of agriculture during the war, and the treatment accorded the men in the armed forces. We who are in the opposition can say as much as we like about these matters, but we cannot put the pressure upon the government that private members on the government side can exert. It is their responsibility to see that this legislation goes through. We on this side of the house are willing to support them if they will put the necessary pressure upon the government. It is their responsibility to see that the men in the armed forces get a square deal, that agriculture is treated fairly and that this war is financed in a way which will not leave this country buried in debt after the conflict is over. I leave that with them.


John Horne Blackmore: Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to speak in this debate, but the other day the hon. member for Athabaska (Mr. Dechene) rose in his place, launched into an ecstatic flight of partisan rapture, and spent half an hour sowing seeds of suspicion, distrust and disunity. I think I should make an answer. He slandered and maligned with base misrepresentation, Mr. Aberhart, a great public-spirited and noble statesman.
There were many other problems which needed his attention. There was the gasoline tax which will prove absolutely ruinous to the province of Alberta which the hon. member has the honour to represent. This tax will prove injurious to the farmers who, in the main, make up his constituents, and it will prove injurious to the truck drivers upon whom they depend in a large measure for transportation. There is the sugar tax, which is almost a disaster to Alberta. There is the abolishing of relief which will hurt thousands in the province before we are finished. There is the agricultural policy of this government which is a tragic farce. There is the mounting debt that no one can see how we can ever repay. There is our present unemployment which is a reflection upon the government, and there is the threatened unemployment after the war which is likely to overwhelm the country. There is the question of our disappearing markets.
There was plenty for the hon. member to spend his time upon; he did not need to go dragging in provincial politics. There are plenty of dominion problems here to take care of. If there had been an election in the offing, it would have been different, but since
The Budget-Mr. Blackmore

there is no election in the offing, the words of the Hon. member amounted practically to subversion of the government which is in power in Alberta. That government was returned by the people of Alberta after four years of successful operation, and that ought to entitle it to the respect of every person in the Dominion of Canada, no matter who he is or what he thinks.
An indication of the sort of thing we were going to have to listen to appeared early in his speech when the hon. member referred to the splendid young man who is the hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Shaw). I think this hon. member gave one of the most constructive, advantageous and profitable speeches heard in this house. During the course of his remarks he happened to refer to the pioneers, and at page 2653 of Hansard the hon. member for Athabaska broke forth with these words:
It amazes me to hear him speak of pioneering in the west and refer to the terrible treatment of the pioneers by this government. With reference to the hon. member's use of the word "pioneer", it is with pride that I say that fifty years ago last fall I had the honour, as a little boy, to become a settler of the great province of Alberta. I ask him, as a friend of Alberta, to leave this word alone in the future.
Upon what conceivable grounds can the hon. member ask the hon. member for Red Deer to leave the word "pioneer" alone? If the hon. member for Athabaska had taken the trouble to inform himself as he seems to think he is informed op everything, he would have learned that the father of the hon. member for Red Deer is a Nova Scotian who moved to southern Alberta near the United States boundary in 1885. He was employed by a Hudson's Bay Company trading post and ranched there for twenty-five years. He was in the Alberta provincial police for fifteen, years as a stock inspector and detective. I ask whether or not such a record does not give his son the right to speak of pioneers? His mother is of United Empire Loyalist stock, and she went to Alberta in 1899 to teach school. She is somewhat of a pioneer herself. The hon. member for Red Deer was born in Alberta in 1909. Although he did not come quite "as early as the hon. member for Athabaska, he did his very best to come as soon as possible. He is one of the seventh generation on his father's side and fifth generation on his mother's side born in Canada. He is related to two fathers of confederation, namely, Tilley and Tupper. He taught school in one of the oldest settled parts of Alberta for eleven years and lived right among the pioneers. During most of his speech he

advocated old age pensions, and the hon. member for Athabaska knew full well that he was unable to answer his arguments.


Arthur Graeme Slaght: Is the hon. member going
to leave it without dealing with the grandparents of the hon. member?


John Horne Blackmore: I could deal with
the grandparents if the hon. member wishes me to. If he knew what was coming, he might not want me to continue. The remarks of the hon. member for Athabaska about pioneers reminds me of a story about the Dey of Alexandria. It is said that the British sent a squadron to deal with the Dey of Alexandria for misdemeanours on the high seas, piracy toward British ships. It happened that the young man in charge of the British squadron was exceedingly youthful looking. When he appeared before the Dey of Alexandria, the latter said, "I am surprised at the Queen of England's audacity to send a beardless boy to deal with me." The young man said, "Had the Queen of England known that wisdom was measured by the length of the beard, she might have sent your deyship a he-goat." It would seem that the people of Athabaska measured wisdom by the length of the beard when they sent their present member to parliament. They got a man to represent them who was apparently unable or unwilling or indisposed to get the facts in several important directions.
I am going to quote, as evidence, from page 2655 of Hansard-.
I would like hon. members of the Social Credit party to tell the Premier of Alberta that he has not been pulling his weight in this war. The province of Alberta has not yet done one solitary thing to help this government in carrying on the war. So far as I have been able to ascertain it has not offered to the government a single building to be used for war purposes.


Mr. GERSHAW:: Mr. Speaker, might I
interject with your permission? The hon. member for Athabaska (Mr. Dechene) is not at present in the chamber. There was a mistake made. He either said or intended to say "with the exception of providing a building or buildings." He meant to make that correction to-day, and probably will make it to-morrow. He meant to say, not "So far as I have been able to ascertain it has not offered to the government a single building," but that the province had offered some buildings to the government.


John Horne Blackmore: I accept the explanation of the hon. member for Medicine Hat (Mr. Gershaw), and I appreciate it. I am anxious to give the hon. member for Athabaska all the benefit of the doubt, and so I

The Budget-Mr. Blackmore
accept my hon. friend's explanation. Personally I did not hear him. I assure the hon. member that it is rather spoiling the enjoyment I am getting out of making this speech to find that the hon. member for Athabaska is not in his seat. Again, may I assure the hon. membei for Medicine Hat that I accept his explanation?
May I now read' the statement issued by Premier Aberhart from Edmonton? Before I do so, may I draw to your attention, Mr. Speaker, the downright shame it is to make it necessary for the premier of a province of this dominion to defend himself against attacks which are uncalled for?


Mr. QUELCH:: And scurrilous?


John Horne Blackmore: They are scurrilous.
May I read Premier Aberhart's statement? He said:
I was astounded and very much disappointed to learn that Mr. Dechene, the representative for the Athabaska district, should be so disloyal to his own province as to make such untrue statements and create such a false impression in his unwarranted attack on Alberta during Thursday's debate.
I could not understand how ministers of the crown could allow his statements to go uncor-reeted when he said that we had given no buildings to the federal government for war purposes.


Georges Parent: Order. The hon. member is now reading a statement which, if the hon. member were to make it himself, would not be allowed in the house. Much less can statements that are contained in a communication from someone outside the house be read here. The hon. gentleman cannot quote a statement, from one outside the house as against a member of the house.


John Horne Blackmore: I bow to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, and I will simply summarize the facts, without using the actual words, which are contained in the statement. It is pointed out in this statement that the Edmonton normal school, the university dormitories and the Edmonton exhibition buildings have been placed at the disposal of the commonwealth air training plan. The Calgary normal school, the institute of technology and art, the Cam-rose normal school, and the Vermilion school of agriculture have also been given over gladly to the dominion government, and the public works department of the province has granted the dominion government the use of its machinery-a point with which I shall deal more fully a little later on. I am sorry that the whole statement cannot be read. It is unfortunate. Your ruling, Mr. Speaker, shows how helpless a man is, even one who occupies the position of premier of one of the provinces of this dominion, when a member of this house maliciously attacks him; for
your ruling makes it impossible for a member to defend the premier by reading his statement to the house.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Let him defend himself in Alberta.


John Horne Blackmore: It just shows how
careful a man ought to be before he attacks a man in the high position of premiership of one of the provinces of this dominion.
I have learned this, that there was $100,000 worth of machinery of the public works department of Alberta turned over to the dominion government without cost, without charge, voluntarily, to be used in the construction of airports, aerodromes, and other important public works in connection with the war effort. In Grande Prairie, the province of Alberta even sent its own personnel to work, I am told, crushing materials, surveying, and in various other ways contributing to the construction of the airport. I understand that there is a big Jaeger paver, worth S26,000 at work on various projects. Then there are huge machines, mixers, bulldozers and caterpillars, worth tens of thousands of dollars, which have been lent freely to the dominion government. There are 600,000 acres of land in the Tilley East district which, I am told, were offered to the dominion government at SI for ninety-nine years to be used in connection with war work.
It is difficult, Mr. Speaker, for a person to restrain himself under such circumstances as that. Are we to imagine for one minute that the hon. member for Athabaska could not learn that these things were true? Are we to suppose that he did not want to know? It is difficult to keep from suspecting that he did know and then disregarded the facts. What for? To sow the seeds of suspicion and distrust in this countiy in time of war simply because-well, what was the reason? Just because the people in charge in Alberta now do not call themselves Liberals, I suppose. But there are plenty of people in the government of Alberta now who were Liberals ten years ago.


John Ritchie MacNicol: They saw the errors of their ways and changed?


John Horne Blackmore: I do not know. I
am going to read two or three extracts from the last budget speech delivered in the legislative assembly of Alberta on March 10, 1941, and inasmuch as these quotations do not bear on this debate, Your Honour, I presume it is in order for me to read them. I read from a little pamphlet of the budget speech of the Hon. S. E. Low, delivered on March 10, 1941. At page 8, he says:
With respect to the advances made in the year 1937, under the guarantee of both the dominion government and the province, the arrangements provided that the banks would
The Budget-Mr. Blackmore

carry the loans for a period of three years from the date the loan was made. I am glad to say, Mr. Speaker, that the province was in a position to take up the unpaid balance which totalled $519,098.13, and thereby relieved the dominion government of any liability under its guarantee. The amount outstanding on these loans, you will note, was since reduced to $452,532.60 as at December 31, 1940.
All those familiar with public affairs will readily appreciate how great was the service done there by the province of Alberta.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Did they not just do what any honest man ought to do?


John Horne Blackmore: Exactly, but it
seemed to me that the hon. member for Athabaska was trying to convey that they were not honest men.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Oh, I do not think so.


John Horne Blackmore: I cannot tell, but it certainly looked that way. I read now from page 15 of Mr. Low's budget speech:
The figure shown for the dominion and provincial youth training programme ($78,975) is the net amount after deducting reimbursements from the dominion government. You will note that this activity has been extended to include a special course of training for war services. In Calgary the technical school has been turned over to the dominion authorities for training purposes, and other premises were secured by the province to carry on the technical schools. At Camrose, the normal school is being utilized by the military authorities and we are cooperating in every way

Note these words:
-and we are cooperating in every way possible with the dominion government in carrying on whatever training services they propose in this province.
I ask you. Mr. Speaker, how could the Alberta government do any more?
I turn now to page 17, and read:
Let me also add, Mr. Speaker, that this government is anxious and ready to cooperate with the dominion government and the other provinces of Canada in any undertaking which will render more effective and complete the Canadian war effort, to the end that the empire of which we form a part may be preserved and that man's free agency as embodied in democracy may not perish from the earth.
It is time that there was a secret understanding among the members of every party in this house that hereafter they will refrain from such malignant utterances as we listened to the other day, because they can do no possible good, and must do harm all over this country. I find myself disgusted with the whole situation. I cannot understand why it is that the mere fact that a man stops calling himself a Liberal or a Conservative

brands him as a disloyal member of the British commonwealth. I cannot see through that thing at all; it does not make sense, no matter how one looks at it.
I turn now to another matter on which the hon. member spent considerable time. As reported at page 2655 of Hansard, he referred to the textbooks of Alberta-as though the dominion legislature could have any conceivable interest in the textbooks that a province prescribes for its schools. The particular textbook under consideration was one used in grade nine in "social studies", a sort of history. It is a study of history, political economy and many other subjects which the people of our generation did not study in school, but which, I understand, they are studying all over Canada now; a good course, designed to give the young people some sort of understanding of the world in which they live. The textbook, according to the hon. member, was called "The World of To-day", which sounds like a sensible sort of textbook for young people to be studying. I have never been able to figure out why it was that the hon. member did not read from the text the passage upon which he based his remarks. He says:
In this book it is mentioned that there are three alternative systems of government to the present democratic system-communism as in Russia, C.C.F.-ism, and social credit.
I tried to get contact with the book so that I could read the passage into Hansard and hon. members themselves could study it. To me it is astonishing that the hon. member did not 'himself read it and allow hon. members to form their own opinions. But he made a statement concerning the passage, and allowed people all over the Dominion of Canada, who have no possible chance of gaining access to that text, to form a misconception of the things being done in the province of Alberta. I am sorry that the passage is not yet available. I asked the hon. member this afternoon, and he honestly tried to get it, but he had lent it to somebody and had not been able to get it back. That is too bad, is it not? I have a copy coming from Alberta which will be here to-morrow, but it is not here to-night, and the result is that the misrepresentation must continue.
He mentions that there are references to Russia, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and social credit. I would say that if the government had caused the book to be written, and if it had been anxious to promulgate the doctrines of social credit, it would have done what any ordinary group of men would have done-left Russia and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation out and dealt only with social credit. As I recall the passage in question, all the teacher does who

The Budget-Mr. Blackmore
wrote the textbook is to mention these three philosophies and ask the student if he can tell what each one stands for.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: It is the same text that was in Saskatchewan, where they have a Liberal government.


John Horne Blackmore: Is that right?


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: It has been used there.


John Horne Blackmore: That is most interesting. I did not know it, but the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Nicholson) says that it is the same text as that used in Saskatchewan, where there is a Liberal government.


Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: They will have to take it out of Saskatchewan now.


John Horne Blackmore: I cannot vouch for the fact, but I assume that the hon. member knows, because he is a teacher in Saskatchewan.


An hon. MEMBER:: A minister.


John Horne Blackmore: I gather that he knows. If it is true, how gross was the misconception conveyed to the people of Canada through that speech!


John Ritchie MacNicol: Does the hon. member say that social credit or the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation creed, or both of them, are philosophies?


John Horne Blackmore: It depends largely upon what one calls a philosophy. We have not time to examine the meaning of the term. I have myself studied philosophy a good deal, but I do not know that it could be defined in a short time.
As to the educational system of Alberta, I take it that it is very much like the educational systems of most of the provinces in this dominion. It seeks to give the boys and girls the truth about all matters, and I myself would certainly be very much disappointed if a child of mine, after going through the ten or twelve grades of school, did not know something about what Russian communism is, what nazism is, what are the proposals of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, what Social Credit proposals are, and what Liberalism is.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: What is it? What is Liberalism?


John Horne Blackmore: I will not undertake to say. So I contend that the teacher, in giving boys and girls an understanding of the meaning of various expressions they hear used every day, is by no means doing anything unsound.
Even if the book were as bad as it is represented to be, in what way was Premier Aberhart responsible for it? It will be noticed that, while the debate was going on, while the hon. member's speech was progressing,
I asked him who wrote the book, because it was an important matter to know who wrote that book.


An hon. MEMBER:: What book?


John Horne Blackmore: The book he was discussing.


Mr. DONNELLY:: Who was the minister of education in Alberta at that time?


John Horne Blackmore: I asked who wrote the book, and, no matter who the minister of education was, that would have an important bearing on the matter, would it not?


James J. Donnelly: Who was the minister of education in Alberta at that time?


John Horne Blackmore: We are coming to that in a minute or two. I asked who wrote the book, and there could be no reason why the hon. member should not tell me. He had the book in his hand.


James J. Donnelly: Is that any reason for not telling us who was the minister of education in Alberta?


John Horne Blackmore: I will very soon tell you. I presume you know.


James J. Donnelly: Yes, I know, and so do you. He is responsible, too.


John Horne Blackmore: You had better get your smartest questions, because I am ready for them. I asked who wrote the book, and the hon. member refused to tell. After I had asked four times, he said that my manners were bad. It would be a good thing if the hon. member who made that remark would turn back to Hansard of 1938; he will find there that I made a speech on March 8 during which I was interrupted ninety-nine times, and never once did I say anything offensive to anybody. The then Minister of Finance did me the honour that night to say that I was courteous that afternoon. Probably the hon. member could read that and take some-


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is that by actual count, ninety-nine times?


John Horne Blackmore: Yes, by actual count. You might make the count yourself; you would find it quite interesting.


Mr. GRANT:: That does not tell us who wrote the book.
The Budget-Mr. Blackmore


John Horne Blackmore: We will come to that in just a minute. I have a letter, Mr. Speaker, from Edmonton, dated May 10, bearing on this book. Of course we in this house could not be expected to know about it. How in the world can members of this house be expected to know everything about every textbook used in every course in the province of Alberta, who wrote it, and when, and who prescribed it, and when? It is impossible. If the hon. member for Athabaska did not know that, there is something seriously wrong with the hon. member. The letter is as follows:
Dear Mr. Blackmore:
I think you should have the facts with reference to our school text in social studies, authorized for use in grade IX.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Oh, he is quite in order.


John Horne Blackmore: Some hon. members on the Liberal side seem to have the word "order" memorized.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: That is the "new order".


John Horne Blackmore: There are some hon. members, from whom I never hear any other word with intelligence in it, who are always saying "order".
This book, entitled "The World of To-day" was prepared in 1936 by Gilbert Patterson, editor for the Ryerson Press, Toronto, and W. D. McDougall then principal of the normal practice school in Edmonton.
If that fact had come out in debate the other day, it would have avoided a whole lot of delusion.
The manuscript was submitted to the department's curriculum committee of which Doctor Newland is chairman. It was turned over to the sub-committee on social studies, composed of teachers and university men, and recommended for adoption. It was published in 1937 and used without criticism during the school years 1937-38 and 1938-39. After the outbreak of war it was felt that the book was too generous in its references to Germany and Russia. The minister thereupon appointed a special committee of persons entirely outside the department to examine the book and outline any revisions thought necessary. This committee submitted its report and the changes suggested were incorporated without alteration. The revised edition was then authorized to replace the original book and has been in use during the current school year.
It was not withdrawn in the way the hon. member said it was.
A copy of the revised book as now in use is going forward to you concurrently.
I trust this may give you the information you need to put Mr. Dechene straight.
Sincerely yours,
William Aberhart, Minister of Education.
The trouble is that there is just enough truth in the remarks made by the hon. member to make the statements dangerous falsehoods. The most dangerous lies in the world are half-truths. May I submit that in all probability the hon. member for Athabaska got himself elected by using just such propaganda as that throughout his constituency.


Georges Parent: Order. The hon. member is imputing motives to the hon. member for Athabaska, which he should not do.


John Horne Blackmore: I did not attribute motives, Mr. Speaker. I said that the hon. member probably got himself elected by the use of such propaganda.


Georges Parent: I am under the impression that prior to that the hon. member said something about deception, referring to the hon. member for Athabaska. I thought the word "deception" was used.


John Horne Blackmore: No, Mr. Speaker. I did not use that word. If there was anything wrong in what I said I will change it.
Next, the hon. member referred to the sabotaging or torpedoing of the Sirois report. He called my arguments rotten and suggested that I debate with him. He is not sufficiently experienced with me, or probably he would not have done that. I wonder whether he can debate. I wonder whether he ever stops talking long enough to let his opponent speak. I wonder whether he can really get the facts. I will undertake with the hon. member something most unusual; I will undertake to prove to him on any platform, if he will let me talk once in a while, that Mr. Aberhart did not torpedo the Sirois report; that Mr. Aberhart, Mr. Hepburn and Mr. Pattullo all objected to it, and that four other premiers definitely indicated that they would not be ready to accept the Sirois report as it stood.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


John Horne Blackmore: If I had time enough I could prove that to the hilt. I have all the proof here. To hon. members who are so sure about the matter, I commend this little volume called "The Dominion-Provincial Conference," which contains every word of it. Those three premiers definitely objected to the report, and four others showed strong disinclination to accept it. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), I am afraid, will have to assume a good deal of responsibility for whatever happened to the report, whether you call it sabotaging or torpedoing.
I will give the reasons upon which I base my statement, and it might be well for the hon. member for Athabaska to be thinking about this so as to prepare himself for the discussion when the time comes.

The Budget

Mr. Blackmore
In the first place, the Prime Minister called the conference inopportunely. It was a wrong time to call it, and he knew it and said so himself. Then, when he sent out the letters calling the premiers from the provinces, he specified that they were to talk about the Sirois report only. There was no necessity for doing that. That meant that the conference was sure to fail if they did not feel like accepting the report. In the third place, he refused to discuss any other proposal. He asked that other proposals be given, and three of the premiers, two particularly, pointed out a new proposal. But it was disregarded. Finally, in the fourth place, the Prime Minister declared the conference closed. There was no declaration on the part of any of the provincial premiers that the conference was closed. The Prime Minister of Canada declared it closed.
If I am wrong in what I am about to say, I beg pardon, but the hon. member for Athabaska, I thought, reflected on the loyalty of the social credit organization as an organization. At least, that is the impression I gathered. I wish to read into Hansard an editorial published in the Edmonton Journal of January 18, 1936, which was written before this group ever came to parliament at all. It indicates clearly the stand which this group took on the first occasion on which it got together when all its members were newly elected:
The statement issued by Mr. Blackmore, the *leader of the Social Credit federal members, at the close of their recent caucus, hardly justifies the conclusions reached in a letter that is published to-day. There is no fascism about the party's policies as they were defined. They recognize that the preservation of peace and the defence of national interests require the maintenance of armed forces.
Up to that time not a single member or leader in the Dominion of Canada had had the courage to come out and say that-not one, until this little group did it.
The caucus also held that Canada must be prepared to do her part in providing these. No one should be open to the charge of holding fascist ideas because of taking such a position.
The increase of armaments that is in prospect is a most disappointing development to all who want to see the reign of law established in international affairs and an end put to war. But where the responsibility lies is quite clear. No matter how peace-loving a nation may be, it has to consider the conditions that exist in the world to-day and act accordingly. Britain has been exceedingly anxious to avoid adding to her armament burdens but in its present situation has no alternative. Nor can Canada be content with merely expressing the desire for peace.
Mr. Blackmore stated that his group favoured "such steps on Canada's part as will render her powerful enough in all respects to plan an effective part in any world crisis with which
the League of Nations might be called upon to deal." That was why expenditures on military, air and naval forces were urged. "Is it right or just?" the Social Credit leader asked, "that we should depend on Great Britain to defend us or on the United States?" Surely there can be only one answer to his question.
While it was contended that there should be more unity with the British commonwealth of nations and that we should do our fair share in strengthening the hands of the league, the opinion was expressed that much could be done toward eliminating the factors that lead to war. The claims of Italy and Japan for more territory in which to expand were sympathetically viewed. The need of economy changes which "would mitigate and ultimately remove completely the causes of war" were stressed. There is no doubt that the league can accomplish a great deal toward that end. It will have to grapple with these problems. But it requires from each of its member nations more than well wishes. For backing it up adequately, in ease its authority is challenged, they have to be prepared.
As the leader of the group that issued that statement, I think I can challenge any other leader in the dominion at that time and declare that he had never issued a statement as progressive or as far-seeing. That was the stand taken by this group. Does it or does it not show vision, courage and leadership?
When we came here we took a position along with the right hon. Prime Minister in support of greater armaments. We had some difficulty with some of our members who had not learned to see things as they have learned since to see them; but all the leaders of the group stood solidly behind the Prime Minister on that occasion, showing that they knew what it was all about. At that very time, however, some of the wordy and allwise members on the Liberal side were talking against a more intense war effort.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: What do you mean by "all-wise"?


John Horne Blackmore: I will have to let
the hon. member work that out himself. Right after war was declared, I made a speech in which I announced our policy, advocating the conscription of finance, industry and manpower; and I must say that under the circumstances that existed at the time, with an election coming up, it took a great deal of courage to make that statement. I would wager that the hon. member for Athabaska got himself elected largely by misrepresenting that stand.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


John Horne Blackmore: All right; I will take it back. I will say he got elected largely by stressing that stand, which amounts to the same thing.
275S
The Budget-Mr. Blackmore

Now, Mr. Speaker, I think I have said enough. In conclusion, let me say that we came here this year and last year, with the country at war, firmly resolved that not a member of our group would say anything in the nature of low, cavilling political criticism. I challenge any hon. member on the government side to go through our speeches with a fine-tooth comb and find anything partaking of low, cavilling political talk. We believe in social credit; we believe in monetary reform. Like Mr. Aberhart at the conference on the Sirois report, we believe you will have to bring in monetary reform if you are going to bring the war to a successful conclusion. What contribution can we make in this house? Undoubtedly our best contribution is an advocacy of the principles of monetary reform ; and if we cease to advocate those principles, we cease to do the thing we were sent here to do. But the advocacy of the principle of monetary reform; the finding fault with the government's policy, as being an unwise policy, from a monetary point of view, certainly do not constitute cavilling criticism. We are simply putting our case squarely before the house in a straightforward manner.
It is not pleasant for me to- indulge in this sort of talk for forty minutes, Mr. Speaker, but I would point out that four or five hon. members on the government side have attacked us definitely in just this fashion; I thought it about time we showed we do not take things like that lying down.
Amendment to the amendment (Mr. Mac-Innis) negatived on division.
Amendment (Mr. Quelch) negatived on division.
Motion (Mr. Usley) agreed to on division.



WAYS AND MEANS

[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of ways and means, Mr. Fournier (Hull) in the chair.
excise act 1934
Resolved, that it is expedient to introduce a measure to amend the schedule to the Excise Act 1934 and to provide:-
1.	That sections 3, 4 and 5 of the schedule to the said act be . repealed and the following substituted therefor:-
"3. Beer.
Upon all beer or malt liquor:-
(a)	brewed in whole or in part from any substance other than malt, per gallon, thirty-five cents;
(b)	imported into Canada and entered for consumption, per gallon, twelve cents.

4.	Malt.
Upon all malt:-
(a)	manufactured or produced in Canada and screened (that is, malt from which the coomings have been removed) subject to the regulations of the governor in council with respect to absorption of moisture in warehouse, per pound, twelve cents;
(b)	imported into Canada and entered for consumption, per pound, twelve cents.
5.	Malt syrup.
Upon all malt syrup as defined by paragraph (c) of section six of the Excise Act, 1934: -
(a)	manufactured or produced in Canada, per pound, eighteen cents:
(b)	imported into Canada and entered for consumption, per pound, thirty cents."
2.	That any enactment founded on paragraph one of this resolution shall come into force on the thirtieth day of April, 1941.
Progress reported.
On motion of Mr. Mackenzie King the house adjourned at 10.10 p.m.
Tuesday, May 13, 1941.