1941-06-04

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE


Hon. R. B. HANSON (Leader of the Opposition):: Mr. Speaker, may I at this
moment ask the Prime Minister if he will tell the house definitely what new legislation is proposed at this session. On the order paper there is a bill standing in t'he name of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) and a government notice of motion in the name of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). Somewhere in Votes and Proceedings I think I saw notice of two bills of the Minister of Labour (Mr. McLarty). That makes four bills. Are there to be any more?


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister):: I think my hon. friend has mentioned all the bills that are intended to be brought down this session. May I say to him that I should be very much surprised if any of them proves the least contentious. They are quite short, and to meet situations that have developed.


Richard Burpee Hanson: If they
are not contentious we shall be glad to advance them.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I think my hon. friend will find that they are not. There may be one or two supplementary estimates, but they also will be small.



REPORTS OF COMMITTEES

[Stage Direction]
Fifth report of the standing committee on banking and commerce.-Mr. Moore.
Fourth report of the standing committee on miscellaneous private bills.-Mr. Donnelly.
Fourth and final report of the special committee on the defence of Canada regulations.- Mr. Michaud.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 95, to amend the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, 1939.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time. QUESTIONS
(Questions answered orally are indicated by an asterisk.)

Mr. POULIOT:: 1.	Since the repeal of chapter 70 of the revised statutes of Canada, 1927, by chapter 35 of 1934, are there any more securities upon the pledge of which dominion notes are issued?
2.	Are the dominion notes issued by the Bank of Canada?
3.	Did the Minister of Finance transfer the securities which are the pledge of dominion notes?
4.	If so, did he transfer them to the Bank of Canada, for what reason, when and by what authority ?
5.	Were they again transferred by the Bank of Canada to the foreign exchange control board?
6.	If so, why, when and by what authority?
7.	Who holds these securities now and what are they?
8.	Was there any issue of dominion notes by the "Bank of Canada since the securities above referred to -were transferred to the foreign exchange control board? If so, how many and for what total amount?
Questions


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	No.
2.	No.
3 and 4. As at the close of business on March 10, 1935, dominion notes were outstanding in the amount of $220,295,439.44, issued under the following authorities- Dominion Notes Act. .$159,455,439 44
Finance Act	 34,840,000 00
Chapter 4 of the statutes of 1915	 26,000,000 00

The Dominion Notes Act as amended by chapter 34 of the statutes of 1934 required that the Minister of Finance hold a reserve in gold of 25 per cent against the first $120,000,000 of dominion notes issued and a reserve in gold of 100 per cent against dominion notes issued in excess of $120,000,000. Chapter 34 of the statutes of 1934 also provided that as additional security for the redemption of dominion notes "the minister may hold silver to an amount to be purchased from time to time under the provisions of the International Agreement dated at London the twenty-second day of July, 1933 ..."
The Finance Act authorized the Minister of Finance to advance to any chartered bank or to any bank incorporated under the Quebec Savings Banks Act, dominion notes to any amount on the pledge of approved securities deposited with the Minister of Finance subject to regulations made by the treasury board. These advances bore interest and no gold was required to be held as security against dominion notes so advanced.
Chapter 4 of the statutes of 1915 ratified certain orders-in-council under which there had been issued dominion notes to the amount of $26,000,000, unsecured by gold but partly secured by the deposit of $16,000,000 of railway securities guaranteed by the government of Canada.
As at March 11, 1935, the date on which the Bank of Canada commenced operations, the advances obtained under the Finance Act by the chartered banks and the banks incorporated under the Quebec Savings Banks Act were repaid by these banks by the handing over of dominion notes to the Minister of Finance, and at the same time the securities pledged with the Minister of Finance by these banks as collateral for the advances were returned to them. With the repayment in this way of $34,840,000 in dominion notes, the amount of such notes outstanding was reduced to $185,455,439.44. Under the Bank of Canada Act, the Bank of Canada assumed responsibility for this amount of dominion notes outstanding. As consideration for the

assumption of this liability, the dominion transferred to the Bank of Canada, under the authority of section 25(3) of the Bank of Canada Act, gold in the amount of $69,455,439.44, silver bullion in the amount of $986,363.18, and Dominion of Canada 3 per cent bonds due March 1, 1940, in the amount of $115,013,636.82. These assets turned over to the Bank of Canada were not required to be specifically held against the liability for Bank of Canada notes issued. Section 26 of the Bank of Canada Act sets out the reserve required to be held by the Bank of Canada as security against its outstanding notes and deposit liabilities and section 41 provides that in the event of winding up, the notes of the bank shall be the first charge upon all the assets of the bank.
The railway securities held by the dominion as security for dominion notes issued under chapter 4 of the statutes of 1915 are still held by the Minister of Finance.
5 and 6. Under the authority of order in council P.C. 1735, dated April 30, 1940 (the foreign exchange acquisition order, 1940-9, resident holders of foreign exchange, including the Bank of Canada, were required to sell their holdings of foreign exchange to the foreign exchange control board. Under the authority of order in council P.C. 1734, dated April 30, 1940 (the exchange fund order, 1940), the foreign exchange control board purchased from the Bank of Canada all gold held in unrestricted ownership by the Bank of Canada at the current market price. In accordance with the terms of these two orders, the Bank of Canada sold to the foreign exchange control board on May 1, 1940, foreign exchange to the Canadian dollar value of $27,734,444 and 5,888,565 fine ounces of gold, the current market value of which in Canadian funds was $225,772,887. To enable the foreign exchange control board to purchase the gold and foreign exchange from the Bank of Canada and the foreign exchange from other Canadian residents, the exchange fund set up by the Exchange Fund Act, chapter 60 of the statutes of 1935 was increased in the amount of approximately $325,000,000 by the sale to the Bank of Canada of $250,000,000 principal amount of one-year 1 per cent notes and of $75,000,000 principal amount of treasury bills, the proceeds of which were credited to the exchange fund. The exchange fund order 1940 furthermore provided that the bank's gold and foreign exchange reserve against outstanding notes and liabilities should be discontinued. The effect of these two orders in council is that in place of gold the Bank of Canada holds dominion securities, and the total gold reserves of the. country are centralized in the foreign exchange control board, which under

Questions as Orders for Returns,
war-time conditions is responsible for transactions arising out of the balance of payments between Canada and other countries.
7.	In the answer to questions 3 and 4 it was pointed out that securities pledged by banks under the Finance Act had been returned to the banks in question, and that securities pledged under the orders in council ratified by chapter 4 of the statutes of 1915 are still held by the Minister of Finance. In the answer to questions 5 and 6 it was pointed out that no securities are specifically held by the Bank of Canada against notes outstanding but that such notes are a first charge on all the assets of the bank. It is also noted in the answer to questions 5 and 6 that the Bank of Canada has transferred all its former holdings of gold to the foreign exchange control board and holds in exchange therefor dominion government securities. Weekly and monthly statements of the Bank of Canada published in the Canada Gazette show as of the date of the statements the amount of the assets and liabilities of the bank under various classifications. In regard to the gold so transferred by the Bank of Canada to the foreign exchange control board, it is pointed out that the operations of the exchange fund are, in accordance with the provisions of the exchange fund, not made public but are subject to audit by the auditor general.
8.	No, but the Bank of Canada from time to time issues notes under the authority of the Bank of Canada Act. The weekly and monthly statements of assets and liabilities of the Bank of Canada, published in the Canada Gazette, show the amount of Bank of Canada notes outstanding as of the date of the statements.



ADDRESS OP FRENCH CONSUL-GENERAL IN MONTREAL ON TUNISIA

Mr. CHURCH:: Has the attention of the government been called to an address delivered at Montreal in March, 1941, by the consul-general of the French government, on Tunisia, and containing comments reflecting on the United Kingdom and her allies, and the conduct of the war?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: This question was answered on Monday last.



PURCHASE OF RIFLE RANGE SITE NEAR SYDNEY, N.S.

Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: 1.	From what person or persons did the government purchase property near Sydney, Nova Scotia, to be used for the purpose of a rifle range?
2.	What was the acreage purchased from eaeh person?
3.	What was the total purchase price paid to each such person?
4.	Was any agent employed in connection with such purchase, and, if so, what was his name?
5.	What commission, fee or other remuneration, if any, was paid to him?


Mr. RALSTON:: 1, 2 and 3.	Total
Area in amount		
From whom purchased	acres	paidCounty of Cape Breton	0-8	$ 6.00A. C. J. Drysdale	2-5	18.75M. Jane Shiers	0-9	7.50J. E. Gaudet	0-2	5.00Amidee Gaudet 	0-3	5.00Annie Gaudet 	0-04	1.00G. G. Cossitt, i interest	in 64-1 and right of	way 	131.00Dominion Steel & Coal	Corporation, \ interest	in 65-0 	243.75Henry Duffel! 	16-1	128.80Note.-The total acreage to	be acquiredis 450 acres. The above	shows	the areas towhich title has been obtained	to date.4. Mr. Colin Mackenzie,	K.C.,	Sydney, N.S.,
agent of the Department of Justice.
5. None to date. The remuneration will be fixed by the Department of Justice.



CANADIAN GUARANTEES OF UNITED STATES LOANS TO OTHER COUNTRIES

Mr. BLACKMORE:: 1.	Since the adoption of the ilease-lend bill in the United States, has the Dominion of Canada guaranteed any United States loan to (a) Great Britain; (b) Poland; (c) any other country?
2.	If so, when, and to what extent in each case?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	No.
2.	Answered by No. 1.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. NICHOLSON:: 1.	What salary is being paid to Victor T. Goggin, general manager, Wartime Housing Limited ?
2.	What is the cost of office equipment purchased by Wartime Housing Limited?
3.	What firm or firms of architects have been engaged by this concern?
4.	What are they being paid for services rendered ?
5.	How many housing units were completed up to May 1, 1941?
6.	How many housing units were under construction on the, above date?

Food for Britain
7.	In what cities are houses being built by Wartime Housing Limited?
8.	Are any members of the staff of the national housing department employed by Wartime Housing? If so, how many?
9.	Were members of the staff of national housing moved to Toronto and later brought back to Ottawa? If so, for what reason?
10.	What will be the cost, when completed, of the three staff houses being built in Hamilton?



PROVINCIAL PROPERTIES OFFERED TO FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR WAR PURPOSES

Thomas Langton Church: What provincial properties have been offered to the government, for use in this war, by the various provinces, (a) rent free; (b) paid for?



DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INFORMATION

Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	What is the estimated cost of the information and publicity bureau, who are its officials, what are their salaries and their place of work, (a) for the last year of record; (b) since the war started; (c) for the ensuing year?
2.	How many press liaison officers or officials including those attached to his majesty's forces, are there employed by the government, and
(a)	to what departments are they attached;
(b)	what are their salaries and other allowances; (e) what duties do they perform; (d) who instructs them; (e) under what parliamentary vote are they paid; (f) what were their previous occupations?
3.	Are there any such officials in the naval service ?
4.	If so, (a) who are they; (b) what press articles have they written; (c) what has been paid for such articles, and to whom; (d) what was the total cost?



YUKON ACT AMENDMENT


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. ERNEST LAPOINTE (Minister of Justice) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient 'to amend the Yukon Act to provide for the appointment of stipendiary magistrates in and for the Yukon Territory.
He said:	His Excellency the Governor
General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.

[Stage Direction]
PRESS REPORT AS TO APPEAL OF LORD WOOLTON TO UNITED STATES-VOLUNTARY CREAMLESS DAYS *

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. D. G. ROSS (St. Paul's):: I wish to ask a question of the Minister of Agriculture. 
In view of the appeal made by Lord Woolton, head of the British food control, to the housewives of the United States to inaugurate a "creamless day" in order that it may be made possible to use the milk thereby saved for the manufacture of milk powder which is urgently needed in Great Britain, and also in view of the item in the New York Daily Neivs with the heading "No Creamless Days in Canada", would the minister advise the house and the country if it is the government's intention to do anything with regard to this matter?


Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture):: The hon. member was kind
enough to give me an intimation of the fact that he intended to ask this question, and I have prepared the following answer:
We have had no information with regard to Lord Woolton's appeal to the American people other than what has appeared in the press.
It has been intimated' to us from Britain that they would like us to turn all the milk possible into cheese and supply it to Britain.
The price of 14-4 cents on boat at Montreal offered by Britain is all that they can be expected to pay, as it is on a parity with what they are paying New Zealand. The Canadian government is, therefore, paying 1-6 cents above that price in addition to one cent premium on 93 score cheese and two cents on 94 score cheese. The Ontario and Quebec governments are adding as much as two cents a pound. Under these provisions the Canadian people are paying from 4-6 to 5-6 cents a pound in addition to the 14-4 cents which Britain is paying on practically all the cheese going to Great Britain, or about one-quarter of the return to the producer. This is being done to assure that this year and next the highest possible production of cheese will be made available to the British people.
To make doubly sure that the additional production thus secured will go to Britain the daily board commandeered all cheese coming on the market from May 26 forward until further notice in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec where 93 per cent of all the cheese is made.
It will thus be seen that although we have not adopted the plan suggested in the United States we have met the appeal of Britain in the manner suggested. This fact has had the widest publicity and I am sure the method adopted is accepted by the British government as the best possible way of providing the greatest possible quantity of Canadian dairy products to Britain.

Diversion of Water


Hon. H. A. BRUCE (Parkdale):: May I ask the Minister of National War Services (Mr. Gardiner) whether he will supplement the statement he has just made as Minister of Agriculture in reply to the hon. member for St. Paul's (Mr. Ross) in reference to the article by Mr. Shapiro? Was it authorized by his department, and did it pass the censorship?


James Garfield Gardiner: The article was not
authorized by the department. As a matter of fact I had neither seen nor heard of it until it appeared in, I believe, the Montreal Gazette.



ATTACK AGAINST THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. LIGUORI LACOMBE (Laval-Two Mountains) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, I
direct the government's attention to a pamphlet distributed to our population through his majesty's mails. This brochure sheds ridicule, insult and contempt on Christianism, the defence and liberty of which constitute one of the war aims of the allies. The author of this tract reviles with impunity the religion revered by over four million Canadians. While the Vatican is the target of axis newspapers, here, in Canada, an enemy of national unity and of the Victory loan is vomiting insults on Christianism and the august person 6f His Holiness Pope Pius XII.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I understand that the hon. gentleman is drawing the attention of the house to something which has been published. He can do so without making any argument about it.


Liguori Lacombe: Mr. Speaker, the government may, under the National Defence Regulations and through the censorship services, prohibit and suppress this subversive publication entitled "Pourquoi je ne suis pas catholique romain", and written by Dr. T. T. Shields. I beg to lay on the table the pamphlet entitled "Pourquoi je ne suis pas catholique romain". I request that immediate, proper and decisive action be taken in the matter.


Georges Parent: I understand that the hon. gentleman desires to lay a paper on the table of the house. In my opinion, he cannot do so. He can call attention to the document for the purpose of drawing it to the notice of the house, but without any argument.



ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAY ADDITIONAL DIVERSIONS AT NIAGARA FALLS- PROCEDURE IN INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. J. R. MacNICOL (Davenport):: Mr. Speaker, I desire to ask the Prime Minister a question. In Votes and Proceedings of May 29 are recorded the notes of Canada and the United States with reference to the additional diversions of water at Niagara Falls. The last sentence of the United States note reads:
If the foregoing is acceptable to the government of Canada this note and your reply thereto, when approved by the senate, shall be regarded as placing on record the understanding arrived at between the two governments concerning this matter.
Apparently the United States senate will have something to say as to the acceptance of the notes. Now, here is one sentence from the Canadian note:
I have the honour to inform you that the government of Canada concurs in the arrangements set forth in your note. . . .
Are we to understand from the Canadian note that this parliament has no voice in this matter, which is so vital to Canada?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As my hon. friend knows, there is a somewhat different procedure followed in the United States from that which is followed in Canada, and for that matter in the United Kingdom, with respect to some international agreements. I assume that the reference to the senate in the United States note is due to that difference of procedure. This parliament remains a free parliament, and any matter which is of concern to its members can be discussed at any appropriate time.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Can be what?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: Can be discussed at any appropriate time.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I shall bring it up when we go into estimates, then.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What I think is intended by the hon. member is this. The government has agreed, by executive action and not by referring the matter to parliament, to a further diversion of the water of Niagara falls. If I understand him correctly, the hon. member objects to that proceeding, holding that before it becomes final, even for a limited period of time, the matter should be referred to parliament. I think he has taken a very proper stand.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: There may be something in what my hon. friend has said. I shall look into it carefully.
Alberta Natural Resources



ALBERTA NATURAL RESOURCES


[Stage Direction]
Hon. T. A. CRERAR (Minister of Mines and Resources). moved the second reading of Bill No. 60, to amend the Alberta Natural Resources Act.
Richard Burpee Hanson: Before this motion is carried I would ask the minister to make a more extended statement. Perhaps he will do it in committee and thus save time. Hon. members will recall that when the bill received its first reading on April 7 a brief explanation was given, not more than is contained in the explanatory note. Will the minister be good enough to give a review of the whole position? The matter is an important one.


Mr. CRERAR:: Mr. Speaker, when you put the question I was on my feet to make just the sort of statement which the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) has quite properly asked for.
It is quite true, as the leader of the opposition has remarked, that the provisions of this measure are somewhat unusual. I shall deal with that presently. It might be of interest to the house, however, if I gave a brief history of the development of the Banff national park and the condition's leading up to the proposals embodied in this bill.
The mineral springs that led to the setting aside of the Banff area were first discovered in 18S3. In 1885 the government of the day passed an order in council setting aside ten square miles around these mineral springs. In 1887 the Rocky Mountains Park Act was passed, and at the same time the area in what is now the Banff park was increased to 260 square miles. In 1902 the act was amended increasing the area to 4,400 square miles. By order in council, in July 1892, under the Dominion Lands Act-another act altogether-the lake Louise area of 51 square miles was set aside as a forest park. The Dominion Forest Reserves and Parks Act in 1911 repealed the Rocky Mountains Park Act. If hon. gentlemen will give their attention to this they will get the sequence of the story right through. The act passed in 1911 provided that "the governor in council may from time to time, by proclamation, designate such reserves or areas within forest reserves, as he sees fit, to be known as dominion parks.'' At the same time the park area was reduced to 1,800 square miles. In 1917 by order in council the area

was again increased to 2,751 square miles, and in 1929 a further 103 square miles were added to it.
In 1930 the natural resources of the prairie provinces were transferred to those provinces. Prior to that they had been held in the right of the crown in the federal government and administered by the federal government. In the same year the National Parks Act was passed by parliament, giving more direct control over park areas, and the name Rocky Mountains park, which up to that date had described what is now the Banff park, was changed to the Banff National Park. I might say in passing that the effect of the National Parks Act was to vest more authority in parliament than had theretofore been the case, in this particular, that no park could be created anywhere in Canada without an act of parliament, nor could the boundaries of a park be either increased or reduced without an act amending the act creating the park.
I wish now to deal briefly with the hydro power development in this particular area. About 1909 or a little earlier the Calgary Power Company was incorporated, and in 1909 it developed on the Bow river, at what was known as the Horseshoe falls, a hydro plant having a capacity of 20,000 horse-power.


John Ritchie MacNicol: How far is that from
the site from Banff?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am not sure, probably
thirty or forty miles. In 1912 the Kananaskis power plant at another point on the Bow river, was developed to a capacity of 12,000 horse-power.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Where is that?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is not very far from the Horseshoe falls. Again, in 1929, a further plant was developed, known as. the Ghost River power plant, with 36,000 horse-power capacity. All these power plants are some considerable distance outside the present park boundaries.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is the Ghost River plant east or south of the junction of the two branches of the Ghost river?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I cannot say at the moment, but I believe it is close to the junction of the Ghost river with the Bow river.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What is the
total combined development of all these plants?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: There is a development of 20,000 at the Horseshoe falls, 12,000 at Kananaskis and 36,000 estimated at the Ghost river.

Alberta Natural Resources
In 1912 the power company made an application to secure the right to create a storage reservoir in lake Minnewanka. Lake Minne-wanka lies up in the hills from the Banff townsite. I have no doubt that in the past many hon. members have visited that beautiful lake. In 1912 the company secured from the federal government the right to build a 12-foot dam which raised the level of the lake from a minimum of 4,763 feet above sea level to 4,775 feet, and by so doing gave 44,000 acre feet of storage. The lake level, under the agreement that resulted from the application, was to be maintained between the datum figures I have given-4,763 and 4,775.


John Ritchie MacNicol: If you are going to maintain a datum it would be the higher figure.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Well, between those two
levels, because the problem of the power company lay in the supply of water during the winter months. During the summer the flow down the Bow river was sufficient to enable the company to utilize its plants in a satisfactory way, but with the coming of winter the flow decreased and resulted in the company being unable to utilize its plants to their capacity.


John Ritchie MacNicol: From the outlet of the dam is there any power developed between lake Minnewanka and the juncture of the Cascade river with the Bow?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I shall Gome to that in a moment. I should prefer to answer questions in the committee stage.
Since 1912 the Calgary Power company have on several occasions made application to secure more water from within the park area. Applications for storage and power privileges have been steadily refused by all governments down to the present time. It will be recalled by some hon. members, at any rate those from western Canada who are familiar with the matter, that between 1922 and 1930 there was considerable agitation over an application that the company had made to secure the right to put certain works on what were known as the Spray lakes, which were within the park area. The view was generally held in western Canada, and indeed in eastern Canada as well, that since the national parks were created as national playgrounds no industrial development should be permitted within the parks which would detract from their beauty and the purpose for which they were created. At the same time it was recognized that the power company required additional water. As a result of the discussions that took place at the time the resources were
transferred to Alberta, the Spray lakes area was taken out of the park altogether. Then it became a matter for the Alberta government to deal with the power company in the disposition of the water from the Spray lakes. Nothing further was done, though I believe the company made application for and secured from the Alberta government the right to develop, but of that I am not sure at the moment. At any rate nothing further was done so far as the Spray lakes development was concerned. That is the history of the power development down to last autumn.
I come now to another phase of the story. Last November the Department of Munitions and Supply reached the conclusion, after a close study of the facts, that it was very necessary to set up an ammonium nitrate plant at Calgary. I am not familiar with the requirements of an ammonium nitrate plant, but natural gas, of which there is a large quantity in that particular area in Alberta, is a necessary material entering into the production of the nitrates that the plant is intended to produce.
There arose then the question of power. The Calgary Power company were approached and they stated that they were not in a position to guarantee the amount of power that would be required by the new plant. The amount was estimated by the engineers of the Department of Munitions and Supply, or of the government-created company, Allied War Supplies Corporation, at 23,000 horsepower. What was needed was a dependable supply of power to the amount of 23,000 horse-power. Consequently the Department of Mines and Resources was approached by the Department of Munitions and Supply, or rather by the company, first to inquire if we would agree to the erection of storage facilities at lake Minnewanka that would provide not only the necessary supply of water during the winter months but also for a new power plant to be built near Anthracite close to the lake which would produce the power required for the chemical plant.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Was that the only available source of supply, or was it just a question of convenience?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The question of alternative power was raised by me with the Department of Munitions and Supply. I pointed out that the company could develop the Spray lakes area.


John Ritchie MacNicol: And had not done it.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: And so far had not done so. Secondly, that failing the Spray lakes area there was the possibility of developing power
Alberta Natural Resources

for this new plant by steam turbine methods I urged the arguments that had been made previously many times against changing the park area. I received in reply a letter from the Minister of Munitions and Supply which I shall presently read. The suggestions I had made were, first, that the Spray lakes development might supply the necessary power, and second, that if that were not available, steam turbine methods should be examined.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is having regard to the presence of Alberta coal?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That point was urged, having regard to the abundance of Alberta coal. In the letter I received from the Minister of Munitions and Supply it was stated, and I am sure it is a fact, that the Spray lakes development would take at least two years to complete before the additional energy from such development would be available. On the question of urgency, after full consideration of the facts it was agreed that that argument was tenable and sound There was then the question of turbine development.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Did the minister have engineering reports on the other point?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No, I have not engineering reports, but as a matter of fact it would take at least two years to develop the Spray lakes, because there would be required not only the works in the way of dams but also a very considerable tunnel for the diversion of water.	*
In regard to steam turbine equipment, such equipment is not made in Canada. It would have to be secured either from Great Britain or from the United States. Inquiry was made by the officials of the Department of Mines and Resources as to the length of time which might be required to procure this equipment. It could have been procured from Great Britain in about twelve months, if everything had worked out favourably, but there was the possibility that the plants manufacturing steam turbine equipment might be bombed, with consequent delay in the delivery of the equipment, together with the even greater risk of the equipment being lost through enemy action while in transit from Britain to Canada. So far as United States sources of supply were concerned, it was ascertained that no guarantee could be obtained in that country that the equipment would be delivered within two years. Those are the points I wished to emphasize. On November 15 my colleague the Minister of Munitions and Supply wrote me in reply to my letter in which

I had set out the alternatives of steam turbine development and the Spray lakes development. The letter was as follows:
I have your letter of the 13th instant. The ammonia plant of the Alberta Nitrogen Company is scheduled to go into operation by the first of September next, and it is of the utmost importance to our war effort that the plant be assured of an adequate power supply from that date on. To be assured of power, a development must be made, and none of the possible alternatives to the lake Minnewanka development -would	afford this	assurance.	TheSpray Lakes site	is difficult of	access	and
involves the construction of a high dam and a two mile tunnel. It could not be built in less than two years. It is a much larger project than is required, and the company is not in a position to undertake it.
As regards a steam power station, the plants manufacturing steam turbines are congested with orders, and	deliveries	are	long	anduncertain. Even if priorities adequate for the purpose could be	obtained,	they	would	be
subject to the control of other governments, and, therefore, hazardous. Turbines from Britain would be subject to conditions in Britain and shipping risks. I am informed that in Edmonton, where coal is exceedingly cheap, the cost of steam power is far in excess of the price which the power company is quoting to the Allied War Supplies Corporation under the contract, and that the price of coal in Calgary would be substantially more than in Edmonton, with the consequent increased cost of power. As a result, and after investigation, the Allied War Supplies Corporation decided that the economic and feasible thing to do was to contract with the company. Furthermore, the power company is unwilling, under all the circumstances, to invest in a steam plant, and, if steam were selected, the dominion government would be faced with the financing of the construction and would have an uneconomical plant left on its hands after the war.
The lake Minnewanka development is simple to construct. No coffer damming or unwatering is required, and the site is accessible by good roads. The machinery would all be manufactured in Canada, and the promises of deliveries are such that the plant could be completed in time even without priorities, and, in any event, would be subject to our right to order priorities.
I am informed by the company that even at this late date, by putting temporary cribbing on the existing dam and by deepening the power canal, sufficient additional water can be made available to meet the requirements of the ammonia plant in the first season of operations.
With respect to the suggestion of scenery, there seems to be a difference of opinion as to whether or not the scenery would be improved.
With respect to the small government hydro plant, compensation will, of course, have to be paid for this.
With respect to the methods of granting the licence, it can, of course, be granted under the War Measures Act, but because of the amount of money involved the company has stipulated for an act of parliament. I see no reason why the licence cannot be granted under the War Measures Act and the necessary legislation passed at this session, but if for any reason this is considered objectionable, I have no doubt

Alberta Natural Resources
the company would be prepared to accept the assurance of the government that the act would be passed. Whichever method is adopted, it is essential that work be started immediately, and work cannot be started until the assurance of a licence is given to the company.
Yours faithfully,
C. D. Howe.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I assume the company want some permanency.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes, quite. I understand this involves an investment by the company of something like two and a quarter million dollars. The government of Alberta were consulted, because in a matter of this kind where water is stored and flows out of storage down a stream into areas that are under the control' of a provincial government, it was felt that this should be done by amending the transfer agreement. There was also the proposal by the company that an arrangement be made with the government of Alberta to divert some of the water from the Ghost river, which is not within the park area, through the park into lake Minnewanka, by means of a canal.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is part of the whole scheme, is it not?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: But Alberta had a proprietary interest.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: As a federal government we were not interested in that, of course; but the Alberta government were consulted, and in a telegram to myself as Minister of Mines and Resources, dated December 5, they said:
We received a copy of recent application of Calgary Power Company to develop lake Minnewanka in Banff national park. This province is anxious for development of power to aid industrializing our province and to do our utmost in contributing to the war effort. So far as may be required this government consent is hereby given to the granting of above application and to any modifications or alterations as may be agreed to be necessary or advisable.
So that the Alberta government placed itself squarely behind the proposal. By this time the adjournment of the house had taken place, and the problem arose as to how to proceed in order to get this done without delay. I should say that the question was very carefully considered by the government as a whole, and it was only the urgent necessity of securing a dependable supply of power which would enable this chemical plant to get into operation at the earliest possible day, and ensure its continuance in operation, that led the government to the decision that the storage reservoir at lake Minnewanka should be proceeded with.
Before proceeding with the matter we inquired of the Department of Justice, the government's legal advisers, as to the propriety of authorizing the company to proceed with this work by order in council under the War Measures Act. I should like to quote the opinion given by the Department of Justice on this point:
As the proposed project is, on the representations made by the Minister of Munitions and Supply, clearly required for war purposes, I am of opinion that it would be competent to the governor in council, under and by virtue of the powers conferred by the War Measures Act, to grant your minister authority to permit the company to commence the construction of the works contemplated by its application upon the terms and conditions proposed.
On that opinion an order in council was passed, but it contained a provision that it would be subject to ratification by parliament; and the bill we are now considering proposes to give that ratification.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is P.C. 1983?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes. Accordingly arrangements w

e made to grant the company interim permission under authority given by this order in council and, as I said a moment ago, with the provision that it had to be approved by parliament. The licence has all the safeguards provided for under the regulations of the general Dominion Water Power Act. That act is of long standing, and the regulations under it are those which have governed power development throughout the country for a great many years.
In addition the licence contains special provisions designed to protect the natural beauty of the park. In. 'the main these may be summarized as follows: In carrying out the proposal, the level of the lake will be raised from 4,775 feet, the present maximum, to a maximum of 4,840, or a total of 65 feet. It is estimated that not more than 30 feet of water will be drawn off the reservoir during the winter months at any time, to ensure the full supply of water necessary for the operation of these plants. So that the minimum low level is raised about 35 feet from its present maximum.
In doing that a very considerable area is bound to be flooded. The provisions of the licence, I believe, are ample to ensure that the work done by the company in clearing around the present shores of the lake shall be carried on in such a way as to detract as little as possible from the natural beauty of the lake. Consequently the licence contains definite provisions for clearing and close cutting of timber, and the taking out of the stumps on the part of the shore which might
Alberta Natural Resources

be subject to flooding or wave action. This is all being done to the satisfaction of the minister of the department.
In addition the company agrees to the release of sufficient water at any time the park authorities may require it for any purpose. It is anticipated that this will be required only for possible fire fighting purposes. In addition the company agrees to the construction at its cost of new roads, trails, wharves and so on, to replace those flooded or damaged, including a new road across the dam, and following the water conduit down to Anthracite, where the power plant will be established. The proposal is that a new power plant will be built. The licence provides that it has to be to a design satisfactory to the park authorities or to the minister.
The canal which will be made to carry the water to the new power plant will be constructed in a manner satisfactory to the parks authorities and to the minister, and in accordance with the dominion water power regulations. The dam itself will be of earthen construction. It will be very substantial, since, as I said a moment ago, the purpose is to raise the maximum level of the lake by at least 65 feet. The company agrees to provide a proper road across the top of the dam and down to Anthracite, perhaps a mile and a half or so, where it will connect with the road from Calgary to Banff, and to maintain these works in a way which will detract as little as possible from the scenic value-and if possible, in time, when trees and shrubs are planted, increase the scenic value.
To ensure that these works are carried out in accordance with the provisions of the licence the department has retained the services of Doctor Thomas Hogg, chairman of the Ontario hydro commission, to act in a consulting capacity. We have also retained the services of a landscape architect who is to study the effect of the proposed works on the scenic value. The company agrees to pay the expenses and remuneration of both these consultants.
If all the terms and conditions of the interim licence are complied with the company will be entitled to receive a final licence containing the following principal conditions: The right to raise the level of the lake to the points I mentioned a moment ago, that is, above mean sea level, and to store a maximum of 200,000 acre-feet of water, the level of storage to be the economic maximum as fixed by the minister; and the right to use all stored water, subject to the maintenance of the required flow in the Cascade river. The period of the licence is to be for fifty years from the date of completion of the authorized

works, the rental for storage and power rights during the twenty years following the date of completion of the works to be the same as under the interim licence. I shall give further details with respect to that in a moment.
This is subject to revision after twenty years, and every ten years thereafter. That is, for twenty years the rental for storage and water paid by the company is fixed. After that it comes up for reconsideration at the end of twenty years, and every ten years thereafter, until fifty years have expired. The rental for lands occupied is to be fixed for a period of fifty years. All rights held and obligations assumed by the company under the agreement of March 1, 1912, are to cease from the date of completion of the works.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What is the effect of that?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: All rights held and obligations assumed by the company under the agreement of March 1, 1912-that is, by which they got power from the government of the day to build the 12-foot dam-disappear.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It is
merged.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The minimum rental to
be charged for water is fixed at $5,750 per annum. They have to pay that whether or not they use water. This minimum will be increased by a rather complicated formula- which, quite frankly, I would not attempt to explain to the house-depending upon the amount of water used. The estimated rental the department will receive for water will average between $8,000 and $9,000 per year.
In addition the company pays annual rental for the lands used or occupied within the park -that is, the lands flooded, the land where their power plant is settled, and the land for the canal leading to the power plant.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is
very little. It is five per cent on the appraisal, is it not?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: They agree to pay five per cent by way of annual rental on the appraised value of all these lands.
Now I come to another aspect. Under the agreement made in 1912 the Calgary Power company was authorized to construct a dam at the outlet of lake Minnie wanka. The agreement also provided that if at any later time the federal government through the park authority decided to provide a power plant of its own for supplying the needs of Banff, the company would release 150 cubic feet per second when required by the minister so to do.

Alberta Natural Resources


John Ritchie MacNicol: What is the present flow in cubic feet per second at the outlet of lake Minnewanka, and what will it be under this new arrangement?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I cannot give that information at the moment, because the flow varies, depending on the amount of water. I come back to this provision of the agreement, which is one of the most important provisions. Under the agreement authorizing the company to build this 12-foot dam in 1912 as stated a moment ago the company agreed to release, upon request of the minister, at some future date, 150 cubic feet per second which might be utilized for power purposes within the park.
In 1924 the government took advantage of this clause in the agreement and erected within the park, to supply park needs and to give service to the residents of Banff, a power plant known as the Cascade river power development. It is some little distance below lake Minnewanka. Those who have visited the lake will recall where the plant is. The total cost of this plant to date, including the purchase of the distributing system in Banff, is approximately $240,000. Since completion of this plant in 1924 it has supplied power and light for the town of Banff and all requirements of light and energy for the park administration. The operating results for each of the last five years have been as follows:	If
we leave out of account the amount of light and power supplied for the park administration, making no charge for that, the operations in 1935-36 resulted in a deficit of $5,839.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The
results depend on the rates charged.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: These are the results based on the rates. There was a charge of 5 per cent interest on capital, also sinking fund charges. In 1936-37 the deficit was $3,829. In
1937- 38, there was a deficit of $2,387; in
1938-	39, because of the return of more prosperous conditions, shall I say, generally throughout the country, there was a surplus of $2,275. In the past year ending March 31, 1940, the surplus was $5,563.
Under the new arrangement provided for in the interim licence we abandon that power plant and the company agrees to purchase it.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is the new plant to be
at the same site?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No. We agree to sell to
the company this power plant, which, as I stated a moment ago, cost about $240,000, and the company will take over the whole system, including not only the power plant but the distribution system as well. They pay us the cost, less depreciation on a basis to be agreed
upon, plus $100,000 in cash. The surplus last year was roughly 51 per cent upon this amount. This result, I ask the 'house to bear in mind, was achieved without making any charge to the park administration buildings for light and power or for light and power required purely for park administration purposes throughout the whole park area.
Under the proposed arrangement the company also agrees to supply power and light to Banff and vicinity at rates not exceeding those at present in effect, and that is definitely embodied in the licence provisions.


Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: What is the rate now?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I could not say at the moment.


Charles Edward Johnston: I think it is five cents.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Up until a few years ago there was a cash deficit in operation, but that deficit has been converted into a surplus by the increased use of power.
The company also agrees to supply the department for its purposes up to 500,000 kilowatt hours a year free of charge. That corresponds to the present situation, as we are using from our own plant about 400,000 kilowatt hours for which no credit is given to the plant. In addition, as the park develops, more power will be required, and when that time arrives the company agrees to provide such energy as is required by the department over and above the 500,000 kilowatt hours at a rate of one-half cent per kilowatt hour.
Within the limits of the foregoing provisions the rates will be subject to control by the Alberta Public Utilities commission. In other words, the rates to the residents of Banff under the provisions of the licence cannot be increased at any future time, but they may be reduced through' application to the Alberta Public Utilities oommissioin if the facts warrant such reduction. Thus the residents of Banff are protected against any increase in rates, and the department is assured of a considerable block of power free of cost and its additional requirements at a reasonable rate.
There is one other point I should mention. There are on the shores of lake Minnewanka a number of summer cottages, with small wharves which have been built by the owners.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They are under lease, I suppose.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: They are under lease. The company agrees to remove them all to new sites free of cost to any of the owners, and
Alberta Natural Resources

to reimburse them for any loss they may sustain. The company also agrees to build new wharves where such may be necessary.
I think, Mr. Speaker, I have covered in a general way the main provisions of the agreement. Let me summarize, as follows:
The changes in the level of the lake are to be brought about in such fashion as will detract in the least degree possible from the scenic value. The works are to be built and landscaped on the suggestions of the land*-scape architect which the department has employed and which the company pays for, subject to this, that if there is a difference of opinion between the landscape architect and the company's engineers as to what work should be done, it will be referred to the minister, and his decision is to be final.
The power plant is to be built of a design satisfactory to the park authorities, and the dam and other works are to be treated in a similar way.
The government in its administration of Banff park is protected in the matter of electrical energy, in that it is to be maintained in its present position so far as the supply of power and electrical energy to the park is concerned.
I recognize, and I sympathize with, the very widely held view that our national parks should be kept as free as possible from industrialization of any kind; that they should be maintained as great natural beauty spots. This was the purpose of the parks act, and during the last fifteen or twenty years that purpose has been consistently carried out. As minister in charge of the administration of the parks-and in what I am about to say I speak for the government-I can say that these works would not have been agreed to had it not been that we were convinced of the urgency of a war need. The production of ammonium nitrates is vital to the manufacture of munitions of war. As I stated earlier, the plant was located at Calgary because the necessary quantities of natural gas were available.
We are in a desperate war. We do not know how many dreary, heavy months lie ahead. We do know this, that if we are to succeed, the implements and the equipment of war, the guns, the tanks, the aeroplanes and the munitions, must be supplied. The government felt that under the circumstances this plant should be brought into operation at the earliest possible day, and the importance of bringing it into operation as soon as possible is the justification for a departure from What has been the policy of all governments in this country for the last twenty years. It does not establish any precedent, because it is definitely tied up to war needs.
[Mr. Crcrar.l
No one can cite this particular case as an example to be followed with regard to the construction of works in the parks in the future.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Yes, but this is for all time.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: What my hon. friend says is quite true; it is for all time.


John Ritchie MacNicol: And not for war time.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It is true that after the war is over the Calgary Power company will retain the advantages which this additional supply of water ensures to it. But there was no way in which this development could be carried out for war purposes for the period of a year or two and then everything brought -back to where it was before the development started. We had to recognize that fact; the house will recognize it, and no one more quickly than my hon. friend the leader of the opposition. This being so, once the decision was made that the development should take place we proceeded along lines which will ensure as far as possible the maintenance of the scenic values of the park, which will give to the government what we regard as a fair return for the advantages the company secures, and also a guarantee to the people of Banff and to the government that they will get their light and power needs for all time at fair and reasonable rates.


Hon. GROTE STIRLING (Yale):: In this debate on the second reading I do not propose to do more than offer a few remarks with regard to the principle of the measure. In the committee stage we can obtain further information on details and express further opinions.
When this matter came before the house on the first reading of the bill, we had the advantage of the brief remarks which the minister made on that occasion, and I suppose the memories of others than myself went back to the controversial times of ten and twelve and fifteen years ago, when a matter akin to this was a very debatable question in this house.
It is unfortunate, in my opinion, that a matter of such importance in principle and theory as this is, should have been delayed until so close to the adjournment of the house. It is a pity also, I think, that it was not sent to a committee by which all the necessary plans and documents could have been studied. As an instance, I read in the explanatory note that there is to be the diversion of a branch of a certain river, and I have been at a little pains to clarify my mind with regard to what that amounts to, lest it be

Alberta Natural Resources
the diversion of a river from another watershed into this watershed-which is always a matter of very great controversy.
I find, however, that the Ghost river is one which has several branches-shall I call them- at the tips of the fingers, up in the watershed; that this is the diversion of but one of these many branches; that in freshet time it is not an undesirable thing to relieve that piece of the mountains from freshet water, because the main Ghost river is what we in the mountains call a wicked river. It is diverted, therefore, and the water which is carried into it is diverted into lake Minnewanka. The Ghost river itself enters the Bow river below the two present developments for hydro-electric power on the Bow river, but this quantity of water will in future pass through the works at Minnewanka and then enter the Bow river, so that it can again pass through the two developments on the Bow river-which is an advantage that is understandable when explained.
But the minister has laid a good deal of emphasis on the fact that the government's decision was arrived at because of the intrusion of war necessity. I can well understand the anxiety of the Department of Munitions and Supply and that portion of the government and its officials that are intensely interested in everything which can assist the war effort. We all are, to an extent. But we must not shut our eyes to the fact that the war part of this argument is an intrusion into the larger question: shall such developments as these in the national parks be permitted? It was round that question that the controversy arose twelve years ago, and it is still a question on which there can be very wide diversity of opinion.
I am one of those who consider that the parks having been set aside for the very proper purposes of entertainment and rest, nothing should be done to impair their uses for those purposes. The very fact that the minister has explained in such detail the safeguards he has hedged around this arrangement indicates that the government itself is persuaded that that is the serious decision which has to be made. If this national park in the Rocky mountains were the only park we had for the purposes for which parks have been set aside, it would be a different matter, but different only in degree. A considerable number of areas have been set aside in our mountains for the purposes of recreation and rest; and the matter has been hedged around with safeguards. There are arrangements for beautification, arrangements for the use of the park, arrangements whereby the cottages will be moved at the expense of the company to a safe place, and particularly arrangements
with regard to that dreadful strip all round this lake which lies between actual high water and what may be termed mean high water. Stumps have been removed and the clearing of debris leaves the strand, shall I call it, not unlike a sea beach.
Bearing in mind the fact that the government is making arrangements for that to be at least as little ugly as possible with these safeguards; that there are other areas which can be used for recreation and rest; that it is necessary in this case, as it will be in other cases, for a special bill to come before the house and be discussed in parliament, when there will be opportunities for protecting the public interest, and the further fact that these mountains on the eastward slopes of the Rockies are a natural watershed for the supply of power, which is now and will be increasingly required in the province of Alberta and, even perhaps in Saskatchewan, I do not object to the bill going through in its present form.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I do not rise to oppose the bill, but there are some aspects of it that give me a great deal of concern. In the first place, I dislike more than I can tell the implication of the bill that this is for war purposes. I am not opposed to development for the purpose of prosecuting the war, but I am opposed to this proposal coming in at this time and the attempt to impress us with the suggestion that it is for war purposes. I have a keen recollection of the same sort of argument having been presented when the successful effort was made to dam the south branch of the St. Lawrence river near Massena, New York, during the last war, in 1918, and the solemn undertaking then given, that, parliament having permitted the damming of the river, the dam would be removed after the war. That was not done; the weir still remains and the water is still being taken out of the St. Lawrence for power.into the state of New York.
I asked a question to-day on the orders of the day about a similar situation in connection with Niagara falls, also for war purposes; and now this bill is said to be for war purposes. If in each instance we could revert after the war to the condition which prevailed before the attack was made in the vicinities concerned, I for one would be one hundred per cent for it-and I am not opposing it now. I do say, however, that the public should know of these arrangements involving public resources, made under the guise of the prosecution of the war. We all want to prosecute the war, but I hope we are all opposed to the war being used as a means of raiding the public resources.
Alberta Natural Resources

What is the situation at Banff? I have been there and I know the area. I am not opposing this measure but I say that the public should know. There is a fine body of water, lake Minnewanka, in the park. The river running out of it is the Cascade. It flows out of the west end of the lake into the Bow, not far distant from Banff. To the east, some ten miles over the divide, there is another river called the Ghost, which has two main branches. There is a great number of small branches, but the two main branches are the south fork and the other known as the main fork, I presume. The Ghost river is dammed, I understand-that is, the main Ghost river after the junction, of the two branches. At least, that is the way I understood the minister. The hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Edwards) will know more about it. If the minister is wrong, however, then where is the dam that is producing the 36,000 horse-.power?


Mr. EDWARDS:: The dam is in the Bow river, immediately below the junction.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The minister said that the Ghost river itself was dammed. Was he wrong?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: When my hon. friend asked that question in the course of my remarks, I was not quite certain where it was. I thought it was on the Ghost river before its entry into the Bow, but the hon. member for Calgary West says that it is on the Bow just below where the Ghost enters into it. However, it is not a matter of much importance.


John Ritchie MacNicol: What I was going to say in that regard is that if the minister were correct and 36,000 horse-power were developed on the Ghost river itself, then the diversion of one branch would interfere with power development on the Ghost river itself. But as the hon. member for Calgary West says, the 36,000 horse-power development is on the Bow river at a second d'am, in addition to the first dam that develops 20,000 on the Bow. In other words, the company is now developing 56,000 on the Bow river. Is that right?


Manley Justin Edwards: AH the power now being developed by the company is generated from the dam in the Bow river.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Is there only one dam?


Manley Justin Edwards: There are three, starting west from Calgary-the Ghost, the Horseshoe and the Kananaskis.


John Ritchie MacNicol: So that all power at present developed is on the Bow river. Then the diversion of either of the other branches of the Ghost river would not lower the power

on the Bow. I am somewhat familiar with water-power production, and in my opinion the diversion on the Ghost river of one branch of that river into lake Minnewanka would not lessen production off power on the Bow, because once the water flowed out of the Ghost into lake Minnewanka it would pass through the Cascade back into the Bow and flow down the Bow and increase power development.


Manley Justin Edwards: Except this, that at the present time the water that is now flowing down the Ghost river that it is proposed to divert into lake Minnewanka only goes through the one power dam at Ghost river, whereas if it is diverted into lake Minnewanka it will then go through the Minnewanka plant, through the Horseshoe plant, and down through the Kananaskis plant and the Ghost plant, thus being used four times.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I thank the hon. member for the explanation, which is that two of the dams on the Bow river are west of the junction of the Ghost and the Bow.


Manley Justin Edwards: All the dams on the Bow river are west of Calgary. The first is at the junction of the Ghost river and the Bow, then the Kananaskis and then the Horseshoe.


John Ritchie MacNicol: In other words there is no loss of power on the Bow by diversion of the Ghost.


Mr. POULIOT:: Is the Ghost R.B.'s?


John Ritchie MacNicol: The minister was not certain where the new power development would be built on the Cascade. I should like to know what the head of water would be on the Cascade, or if the flume is going to run from the 77 foot dam at the outlet of lake Minnewanka to the power plant on the Cascade.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I think I stated that the new power plant would be developed near Anthracite, which is within the park boundary, and the flume or channel which conveys the water from the dam to the power plant is to be constructed-


John Ritchie MacNicol: From lake Minnewanka.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: From the lake level. I cannot say just what the head of water will be. I do not know that that is very material.


John Ritchie MacNicol: It is the essential item in connection with power development, together with the flow. I have been figuring out what the possible flow would be from the watershed of the Ghost. So far as I can see, about 600 cubic feet per second, the watershed being about 100 square miles, would flow into lake Minnewanka.

Alberta Natural Resources
I think that is all I wish to say about it at the moment. I did not like the raid on the St. Lawrence, which has never been rectified, said to be for war purposes, and now the raid on the Ghost also said to be for war purposes, because it will have some effect upon the park. A dam 77 feet high will raise the lake level away up the mountain side. The hon. member for Calgary West shakes his head; but how can you raise the water level 77 feet without going up the mountain side or flooding land? That means a pretty deep lake in the park.
If, however, the minister has given his consent and the work is now under construction, there is nothing we can do. But I point out to the public that this is just another example of the raid at Massena, and at Niagara Falls.


Thomas Langton Church: I place the onus in this matter squarely on the government. How does it come about that this bill, which was introduced and given first reading on April 7, now comes for second reading on June 4, a few hours before adjournment? The responsibility is on the government and not on the opposition if the session is prolonged a day beyond this week.
The Calgary Power company has been a menace to Canada. It is just as bad as or worse than Beauharnois. I will explain why. This company came into the central provinces of Ontario and Quebec and grabbed water power at Chats falls upon which the Ontario gov-erment had to take over power. The company started in 1912. It was incorporated not by act of parliament but by a charter under the laws of Alberta, and then came down here, and got a Quebec charter to develop on the Ottawa river at Chats falls in 1926.
Who are these people? They are some of the very same people, the Montreal people, some of them behind the Sun Life, behind the Beauharnois deal, part and parcel of the super power trust. Mr. Killam was one of them, the man who owned the Mail and Empire and sold it in a merger of two newspapers in Toronto. Where there used to be six Toronto newspapers reporting the proceedings of this house, to-day there is only one. Hardly anyone knows what happens in this chamber or what is being given away. How does it come about that this bill is introduced as a war measure in the dying days of the session? It is not a war measure. That nitrogen plant should never have been established there. They knew at the time that the Alberta government had no power and this government had no power to hand over all these great water powers to private greed for gain centred in Montreal, without this house amending the parks act.
Where are the headquarters of the Calgary Power company? According to "Houston's Financial Annual, 1940," they are at 244 St. James street west, Montreal, with an operating office in Calgary. The directors of the company are G. A. Gaherty, president; I. W. Killam, of blessed memory; R. B. Baxter; Fred C. Clarke; H. H. Parlee; S. B. Hammond, and-listen to this-H. J. Symington, K.C., the war-time power controller, if you please, who has saved only about 150,000 horsepower as a war measure by daylight saving all year and then in the morning from six to nine o'clock by domestic use of power. The saving in the result is little except for alloys for the Aluminum company. The regulation is not obeyed in some towns in new Ontario. This gentleman's name is also in another company, called Calgary power in Quebec. This is the company that started in 1926 at Chats falls on the Ottawa river, an interprovincial stream.
This same process is going on in Ontario and Quebec. The Calgary Power company went to Quebec and incorporated a company in 1926 after the notorious Sifton bills to grab all the waters of new Ontario were defeated here in the Ottawa and Georgian bay canal bills, which were talked out in this parliament by those who were then sitting in opposition. When this company found that the Sifton interests had lost these extension-grab franchises on the Ottawa river, the same people, known as the Ottawa end of the Calgary Power company deal, went to Quebec and got a charter under the name of the Ottawa Valley Power company, which was owned by the Calgary Power company exclusively. They secured incorporation under the laws of Quebec. They knew enough not to come to Queen's Park in Toronto, because by the British North America Act water powers and navigation rights, international and interprovincial, are under the control of this parliament. Having got the Ottawa Valley Power Quebec charter they also incorporated on August II, 1926, as the Chats Falls Power company under the laws of Quebec, with head office at 244 St. James street, Montreal, and the same directors as the Calgary Power company, except one. On October 22, 1930, the name was changed.
How does it come about that although we have a standing committee which deals with water powers, that private bills committee has never been called? Why is this bill made a government bill? I ask the government to withdraw this bill, to leave it over until the session is resumed, perhaps in connection with the St. Lawrence waterway. Not by the widest stretch of the imagination can this
Alberta Natural Resources

plant be opened by September 1 as the situation is at present; and if it is, they are going to sell power to private people in the district at fabulous prices and under no control whatever.
The agreement in the schedule of this bill is between the dominion government represented by the Minister of Mines and Resources and the government of Alberta. When the prairie provinces got back their natural resources in 1926 I opposed the giving over of these water powers which belong to the people of Canada unless restrictions were placed in the act, because, as I contended then on behalf of the people, these water powers should not be alienated for private greed and gain the way the central provinces were looted. There is some 42,000,000 horse-power of hydro-electric energy capable of development in this country, of which only one-seventh is developed, and part of that development is only seasonal. I want a national hydro policy for this country with power at cost. I contended then that some of these people who were grabbing water powers in the Ottawa valley and eastern Ontario and Quebec sooner or later would be rapping on the door of this parliament in a power grab, as well as in Alberta and Saskatchewan, seeking to get away from the protective provisions of the National Parks Act.
I do not believe we should part with these resources as a war measure, because this is not a war measure. The plant never should have been there. The power is to be granted in perpetuity. The huge cost of our war effort has been greatly enhanced by this way of doing business. Here a nitrogen plant has been located in the Calgary district; a string of air force training camps has been built across Canada, each requiring sewage and water services furnished at fabulous cost because of wrong locations. The same principle is being followed in this bill, and it all adds to the cost of the war. Where is the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) this morning? Why was this plant located where it is? Where is the cabinet minister representing the province of Alberta? Did these two hon. gentlemen recommend this bill, this parting with power rights forever, unregulated? I doubt it very much.
We must look into the history of this company to understand what is behind this application. This bill contains only two short clauses, one validating the agreement which is set out under the schedule "A" attached to the bill, and giving the minister authority to grant the licence referred to in the agreement, notwithstanding the provisions of the National Parks Act, which is chapter 33 of

the statutes of 1930. The explanatory note states:
In 1912 the Calgary Power Company was given the right to construct a dam at the outlet of lake Minnewanka in Banff national park with right to store 44,000 acre feet of water. Following the decision to erect a nitrogen plant at Calgary for war purposes the company in November, 1940-
Away back in November of last year the government knew legislation would be required in order to get around the parks act, yet not one word was said about it until the first reading on April 7, 1941. Paragraph (e) of the agreement in schedule "A" gives the company the right to sell electric power to residents of Banff and vicinity for commercial and domestic lighting. Why, the rates will be so high that the local people will not be able to buy power at all. We had an experience with these Calgary power people in the Chaits falls development, not far from this city, and that experience should make us think twice before we pass this bill in the dying hours of the session. The policy of hon. members of the New Democracy group, who are not here in very large numbers this morning, should be "no surrender." They and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation stand for the preservation of our water powers for the benefit of the people; they are in favour of public ownership, and I give them credit for that. I would ask them to study this bill, study the history of this company in Ontario and Quebec from 1912 on and of the power ring that had Ontario by the throat.
There is a forward move of aggression by not only this company, from 1926, on, in Alberta, and elsewhere, but we know the history of the Montreal Light, Heat and Power company, and we also know the record and history of the notorious Beauhamois company, and its subsidiaries, and interlocked directorate set-up. The great super power trust of north America never rests; it is ever on the march.
There is also, again, the Stormont Power company; I can tell hon. gentlemen that this is owned and connected1 with the Sun Life company, and that company's quasi power investments and the power campaigns, past and present, of that company in many deals at control. Recently in this house a question was asked by me in regard: to the Stormont power plant, and, as I say, it was revealed that this plant is completely owned by the Sun Life company, one of whose employees, Mr. Lawrence Jack of Montreal, now is writing articles for this wonderful publication Saturday Night to tax public utilities which operate at cost. I think it would be better on this power matter to change the name to Montreal Saturday Night for such Sun Life articles, if

Alberta Natural Resources
it is going to discuss the natural resources of this country and tax Ontario's light and power and transportation services. It is not hard to see what is being done in this connection by the old power people in Montreal. Here we have a forward movement in Alberta; there is a forward publicity movement by the Sun Life to destroy public ownership, and it is going on all across the country. No surrender, I say, to these people here. Then the explanatory note continues:
. . . the company . . . applied for permission to increase the water storage capacity to 200,000 acre feet and to construct and operate a hydroelectric plant in the park for the operation of the nitrogen plant.
As the plans of the power company to develop such additional storage involved the diversion of waters outside the park boundaries and as the park was situated within Alberta, the application was submitted to the provincial government who approved of it being granted. The national resources transfer agreement does not contemplate developments of this nature being permitted in national parks and it was deemed advisable to enter into the formal agreement referred to in the schedule hereto.
As it was planned to have the plant of the nitrogen company ready for operation on September 1, 1941, it was therefore of the utmost importance that an adequate supply of electric power be available as soon as possible. To prevent delay in completing the power expansion work, tentative permission was given to the power company under the War Measures Act to commence construction pending and subject to approval by parliament and the Alberta legislature.
You can see how the War Measures Act is sometimes twisted, broken in a racket and extended for the benefit of private greed and gain; but when it comes to erecting a small annex, needed so badly for real war work, to a technical school in Toronto, costing not more than $150,000, in order to train men for the air force and aircraft munitions, what a different story is told.
I am absolutely opposed to this proposal. I will give just one instance of what this company did in Ontario, in order that the people of Alberta may be warned, I am not responsible for taking up the time of the house; far from it. At this time blame the government. The government is to blame for trying to force this bill through the house in the dying hours of the session, without any plans or information or any regard to the opinions of those representing the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. We know these power people in Ontario; we have learned) something about their methods and how they go about getting things through this parliament, as they have for nearly thirty years in the past. Some of the millionaires who are at the head of this super power trust centred in Montreal know no politics; they are heard of at election time; they are millionaires first, last and all the time, grabbing the public domain. Now, under the War Measures Act, they are seeking to grab in perpetuity these natural resources which will be so badly needed after the war when unemployment again may have to be faced and high power rates will ruin Alberta as it will new Ontario. Then the price of coal will be so high that we shall not be able to buy any in this country. As a result industry will be starved and people will have to pay prohibitive prices for power.
What did this same company do in Ontario? I quote from page 304 of Houston's "Annual Financial Review" for 1940:
The Ottawa Valley Power Company, incorporated under the laws of Quebec, holds in part through ownership and in part by a lease from the government of the province of Quebec extending for seventy-five years from March 1, 1926, all the water power rights in the province of Quebec .at Chats Falls, on the Ottawa river.
The Ottawa river is an initerprovinoial stream, you see.
The Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario, through lease from the government of the province of Ontario, holds all the water power rights in the province of Ontario at the same site. The company and the commission have agreed that each is entitled to one-half of the water available for power, and, under a joint development agreement, there has been constructed a dam with capacity of 224,000 horse power-
That is about the same horse power involved in this bill.
[DOT]-consisting of eight units of 28,000 horse power each, four of which are owned by the company and four by the commission. One-half the total installation was completed and placed in commercial operation in 1931, and the balance in 1932. The dam and power house are owned or held on the Quebec side by the company, and on the Ontario side by the commission and, under the terms of the joint development agreement, which extends for seventy-five years from March 1, 1926, must be used jointly for the purposes of the development.
And then there was a contemplated power shortage in the province of Ontario. If you will look at the last financial statement of the Calgary Power company, which appears at page 301 of this same volume, you will see that the total assets in 1939 amounted to $25,638,014 as against $25,360,687 in 1938, and they had a large surplus as well. The consolidated income account shows gross earnings of $2,173,613 in 1939, with operating expenses of $705,108 and net operating earnings of $1,468,505. In 1938 the gross earnings were $2,114,021,. and the net operation earnings were $1,357,582. In 1937 the gross earnings were $1,998,058, and the net operation earnings $1,288,151.
It will be seen from the set-up of this company that it owns and operates three water power plants on the Bow river west of Calgary, of an aggregate capacity of
34S0
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Charles Edward Johnston: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) pointed to the representation in the house while he was speaking. It was interesting that he should have done so, because when he spoke sixty per cent of the New Democracy members were in their seats, and the others were serving on committees. Approximately fifty per cent of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation members were in their seats, and the others were on committees. Only eleven per cent of Liberals were in the house, and only about twenty-five per cent of Conservatives. It is obvious therefore that the representation was much greater in the New Democracy group than in any other. The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation were next in that regard.
I should like to say a few words about the principle of the bill. I shall not take much time in going into detail, because that can be done more advantageously when the bill is before the committee.
The minister spoke about the great emergency which exists. I am glad he is beginning to realize there is an emergency.


Mr. MacINNIS:: Who told him?

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Charles Edward Johnston: We have been in the war about two years, and the government is just beginning to realize there is an emergency. When we look at the results on the other side of the ocean we must decide that it is time the government realized it should be doing something.
He mentioned something about the scenic value of national parks. No doubt there is something in what he said. I believe there is good reason for guarding the scenic value of our parks, but when Canada is so greatly in need of electric power, in my opinion scenic value must have only secondary consideration. It is a subject which might well be handled after the war is over.
I find myself somewhat in agreement with the hon. member for Broadview when he states that the Calgary Power company has a monopoly of electrical power in Canada.
At one o'clock the house took recess.
The house resumed at three o'clock.


Charles Edward Johnston: When the house rose at one o'clock I had made reference to the control which the Calgary Power company was getting over electrical power resources all over Canada, and I think the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) was quite right in cautioning the house as to the dangers which might lie ahead. I have in mind the high rates for electrical power which are now being charged in the province of Alberta. In the city of Calgary, for instance, the consumer has to pay five cents per kilowatt hour. Out in the town in which I live we are paying eight cents per kilowatt hour, and in addition a seventy-cent meter charge. In the town in which I formerly lived the rate was ten cents per kilowatt hour and I believe still is, with an additional meter charge of 81.50. So that the hon. member for Broadview had reason to caution the house as to the control over the electric power generated in Canada which is being exercised by the Beauharnois company, of which company Calgary Power is a subsidiary. But I am not so much concerned about that just now, because if I understood the minister aright the province of Alberta will have control over the rates charged by Calgary Power through the public utilities commission.
What I am immediately concerned about now is making the power available because it is so urgently needed, and for that reason I am fully in accord with the step which the government has taken. I think that the Calgary Power company is to be commended for having decided to build this dam at lake Minnewanka, yet I feel it is going to be well-14873-220
paid for it. The fact remains that despite the great need in Canada, especially western Canada, for electric power, this government has consistently and persistently refused to do anything to increase the number of hydro plants to generate electricity, and the only way in which Canada could get this plant built to supply power in this great war emergency was by letting a private company do the work. The government absolutely refused to do anything about the matter itself, and it is to be condemned, I think, for that attitude, particularly when the need for power is so great. We need electric power in Alberta for the ammonium plant and for the rolling mills at Calgary. Yet the government absolutely refuses to do anything on its own behalf, advancing as its only reason, of course, that it did not have any money. The Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) not so long ago said that anything that was physically possible would be made financially possible in order to win the war, yet despite that declaration, the Minister of Mines and Resources (Mr. Crerar) consistently took the stand that there was no money and that no matter how great the need might be, the government had no intention of financing the building of any dams. He brought that out clearly a while ago when he referred to the Spring lake project. He said there was a possible chance of developing a dam there, but the company had no money, and because of the lack of money we did not get the plant built and our war effort was hindered to that extent. That is the stand which the government has been taking right along.
I come back to the reasons why this dam at lake Minnewanka is being built. The government did not start this thing by itself at all, as the minister would lead us to believe. There were two reasons why this project at lake Minnewanka was started. One of them was the proper operation of the ammonium nitrate plant which was being built at Calgary. When that ammonium plant was being started there was no thought of building a dam at lake Minnewanka; in fact, after it had got started, the capacity of the plant was cut down by almost one-third, I believe, because of lack of power.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: If my hon. friend will permit me, he is quite incorrect in his statement that when the decision was reached to have an ammonium nitrate plant at Calgary electric power considerations were not a factor.


Charles Edward Johnston: I did not say that electric power was not a factor but that there was no thought then of building a dam at lake Minnewanka.



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Thomas Alexander Crerar: My hon. friend is incorrect in that statement.


Charles Edward Johnston: When was it first thought of, then? When the Calgary rolling mills project came up, one of the main considerations was that there was not sufficient power to go ahead with the project. So that evidently plans could not have been properly laid by that time. I am not so sure that even yet the plant has been restored to its full capacity of 150 tons. I am open to correction on that, and I shall be glad if the minister will inform the house whether the plant is back to full capacity. I know its capacity was cut down, but it may have been restored.
One of the reasons why the Calgary rolling mills project was not proceeded with before was the shortage of power. A committee of all the Alberta members became interested in this project, and as a result the minister acted, and I think he did the proper thing when he decided to go ahead and build this project at l ike Minnewanka. But the fact is that now the power is there. It is not even necessary to wait for it to be developed at lake Minnewanka. Because of the Calgary Power company's plant on Ghost river, they could use immediately the reservoir of water they have there to increase their supply of electric power, because, as I am informed upon good authority, they would have this fall, when they need it, the extra supply coming from lake Minnewanka. The unfortunate part of it is that now that we are in a position to have abundance of electrical energy there, the Calgary rolling mill is being taken out of that district and removed to Vancouver. That is a very serious mistake, not because the mill was originally in Calgary, but because, in view of the fact that we are at war, it should be opened in Calgary immediately. There is going to be considerable delay in transferring the mill from Calgary to Vancouver, not to speak of the cost entailed in the shipment of the equipment. If we need the steel, steps should be taken to start operations right where the plant is. If we do not need steel, that is a different matter, but the government has not intimated that there is any overabundance of steel.
Is there any reason why that electric power should not be used in the Calgary rolling mill immediately? I am informed that the present freight rates on scrap iron, Whether moved east or west, are almost prohibitive-and freight rates are always going up instead of coming down. That should be a deciding factor in the production of this steel. Then comes the handling of this scrap iron. I am informed by reliable men in this

business that a tremendous amount of work is required to prepare scrap iron for shipment either west or east of the prairie provinces. The obvious and most sensible thing at this time is to have scrap iron sent into Calgary, worked over there into steel plates or rods, and shipped, if necessary, to Vancouver. The rate would be less, and fewer cars would be required. I am informed that there are immediately available in Calgary over 200,000 tons of scrap. We could start producing steel at once in Calgary; we would not have to wait for the company to move its plant to Vancouver, which will entail three or four or five months' delay.
There remains the problem of labour. The minister may say that insufficiency of labour is one of the chief reasons why this plant should be moved from Calgary to the coast. But there are in the prairie provinces hundreds of physically fit men, unemployed, who could immediately be put to this work. He may say that they are not trained, but training is a matter of only a week or so; as a matter of fact, many of these men are skilled in industry and are wondering why, during war time, they cannot get jobs. Well they might ask that question, when we are supposed to be engaged in an all-out war effort-that term Which is so much misused. There will come a time when these skilled men will drift to other places, and then the minister may have cause to complain that labour cannot be obtained. If we are serious in this matter, immediate action should be taken.
I have a letter from the Canadian Junk company, in which, referring to this very matter, they give three reasons, which seem to me sound, why this electric power should be used to open the Calgary rolling mill. They say:
Firstly, the expense of moving the mill would be avoided.
If I am not mistaken, the minister mentioned a while ago that there would be a certain amount of depreciation over a period of about two years, which this company would write off, relative to the cost of moving this equipment.
Secondly, there is the availability of cheap natural gas. Millions of dollars' worth of this gas is still being wasted, even with present regulations in Turner valley. Eastern steel mills obtain cheap fuel by using by-product coke oven gas. We are not aware that this method is possible at the coast.
Thirdly, scap steel can be landed at Calgary cheaper than at the coast. Fewer freight cars will be required,-
I think that is an essential point.

as the finished product is less bulky than scrap steel, and there is a certain amount of shrinkage, due to manufacture.

Alberta Natural Resources
The matter of shrinkage is important when one figures the excess freight rate which would have to be paid.
I cannot see any logical reason why the Calgary rolling mill should not be opened now and all the steel made which it is possible to make. That is one of the reasons why I believe it is high time that the project at lake Minnewanka Should be developed and power produced as cheaply as possible. I hope the government will reconsider allowing the Dominion Bridge company to move these rolling mills from Calgary to Vancouver, because it will cause long and unnecessary delay in the manufacture of the steel which is now so greatly needed.


Mr. A. M. NICHOLSON (Mackenzie):: Mr. Speaker, I feel that I must rise to add some support to the case made so well this morning by the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church). In my opinion he made it very clear that this bill is quite unnecessary. The government, under the War Measures Act, has all the powers necessary to develop all the power potential at any place in Canada. I want to protest against the passing of special legislation which will give to the Calgary Power company the benefits which this legislation will, in my opinion, confer.
According to "Poor's Financial Records, 1940," this is a company which already has a very large control of power in western Canada. It was incorporated in 1909, under the laws of the Dominion of Canada. I quote:
The company holds, in the province of Alberta, under licence from the government, all the water power of the Bow river at Horseshoe falls and Kananaskis falls, and the right to store water at lake Minnewanka, all for four periods of 21 years each, and all the water power at the Ghost-Radnor site, and the right to store water at Upper Kananaskis lake, both for a period of 50 years.
The company has, since 1911, been engaged in the production and sale of electricity in the province of Alberta. Three-quarters of the electricity generated in the province is produced by the company's water power plants. Its 2,500-mile transmission system extends over a large part of the more thickly settled area of the province, serving a quarter of a million people. From a point 40 miles north of Edmonton, it extends southward to within^ a few miles of the international boundary, with a main lateral branch reaching east to the Saskatchewan boundary,
In Alberta, serves 15,357 retail customers over its own distribution lines, and, in addition, supplies the entire power requirements of the municipal distribution systems of Calgary, Red Deer, Maeleod, Cardston and Ponoka, and also most of the power used in a number of towns and villages on the system of Canadian Utilities Limited. Power is sold direct to the Exshaw plant of Canada Cement Company Limited, to coal mines and to a number of other industries. Company's lines also serve the Turner valley oi,l fields. An interchange agreement is in effect with East Kootenay Power Company Limited.
During 1937, a new agreement was executed with the city of Calgary covering its power requirements for a further period of ten years from the expiration of the existing contract on July 31, 1940. The other wholesale agreements are for varying periods, and the distribution franchises are for the maximum periods allowed under the laws of the province.
Company controls, through a wholly-owned sub,. Prairie Power Company Limited, a modern system in Saskatchewan, comprising 180 miles of transmission lines, with distribution systems serving 2,810 retail customers. Power for operations of the systems of the Saskatchewan Power Commission and of Canadian Utilities Limited, is also transmitted over the lines of that company.
The explanatory note reads:
To prevent delay in completing the power expansion works, tentative permission was given to the power company under the War Measures Act to commence construction pending and subject to approval by parliament and the Alberta legislature.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It is quite true that under the War Measures Act this work could be undertaken, but any authority under the War Measures Act lapses with the end of war and the conclusion of peace; consequently it is necessary to have authority by parliament to make it permanent and continuous.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: That is the very point I am complaining about. This parliament under the stress of war, when everyone is anxious that war production should be carried on as efficiently as possible, should not hand over to the Calgary Power company for all time the privileges in question.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is not what you were saying.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: That is what I am protesting against. We can complete all the necessary power development at the present time and when the war is over make arrangements with the Calgary Power company for the disposition of this particular utility. I submit that the history of power companies in Canada is such that hon. members have reason to be suspicious of these corporations who come to parliament and ask for such consideration as the Calgary Power company is now seeking. As the hon. member for Broadview pointed out, one of the directors of the company, H. J. Symington, is one of the dollar-a-year men in Canada, as indicated in the latest list received from the Department of National War Services, and he is the power representative on the war-time industries control board. With one of the directors of this company occupying a key position on the war-time industries control board, it would be much better for this company to wait until the war is over before Coming to parliament and asking that consideration, which might be all right in peace time, be extended
Alberta Natural Resources

to the company to make available to them benefits which will undoubtedly accrue for all time.
In the Winnipeg Free Press of November 25 there was an article from which I quote:
The Calgary Power company has applied for the right to convert lake Minnewanka in Banff national park into a storage basin and to develop hydro electric power from it at a nearby point. The reason given for the application is that the company is being asked to supply power to a new war chemicals plant in southern Alberta and that the needs of this plant will impair the company's power reserve.
Hon. members are most anxious that Alberta should have chemical plants and rolling mills and that every able-bodied person in that province should be working during the war period; and if additional power is necessary it should by all means be granted under the War Measures Act. But the time of this parliament should not be occupied in dealing with legislation such as this bill in behalf of the Calgary Power company.
According to a brief presented by the Federation of Ontario Naturalists, in January, 1941, it is said that this is not the first time that the Calgary Power company has asked for consideration of this sort. I read:
Prior to 1923, the company, with powerful support from city councils and boards of trade in southern Alberta, put on a drive to convert lake Minnewanka into a storage basin. The water was to be fed into the Bow river and would pass through the company's power plants at Calgary. The application, pressed vigorously prior to 1923, failed to succeed for the reason that lake Minnewanka is one of the loveliest lakes in Banff national park and the government of the day refused to permit the beauty of the park to be defaced by concrete dams and muddy waterless shorelines. The haring of wide stretches of shoreline is inevitable in a power storage development; the very purpose of storage makes wide fluctuations in the water level essential.
I am not pressing the point put forward by the naturalists, who are concerned about the beauty spots in Banff national park. I agree with those who drafted the brief that the lake is one of the most beautiful anywhere in the Rocky mountains, or in the world for that matter; but in time of war those who prize these natural beauty spots must be prepared to see them sacrificed if power is necessary. Granting that, however, it does not follow that those who are interested financially in the Calgary Power company should take advantage of the present crisis to obtain in war time what they could not get in peace time. When the war is over, I repeat, when we finish with Hitler, it will be soon enough to determine the financial arrangements that will be necessary with the Calgary Power company as a result of the
IMr. Nicholson.1
developments they will find essential to supply the power needed in our war industries. This
brief states:
The government, under the War Measures Act, could authorize the development at Minnewanka by order in council-setting aside the National Parks Act-but it is understood this would be unsatisfactory to the company. When the war ends, the War Measures Act no longer operates, and the National Parks Act will at once come into play. Any development carried out under the War Measures Act, therefore, would be without statutory sanction in peace time. The company, it is believed, insists that special statute be enacted permanently authorizing the lake Minnewanka development.
I add my protest as forcibly as I can to the one made by the hon. member for Broadview. Taking into consideration the importance of the many other items that should be considered, and in view of the fact that not one single horse-power more of electricity will be developed by the passing of this measure, I ask the minister to reconsider the bill and let it stand until the war has been won.


Manley Justin Edwards: I should be remiss in my duty to my constituency and to the country if I did not say something in connection with this bill, inasmuch as the power project under discussion is wholly within the constituency which I represent, Calgary West.
At the outset I may say that no one should be more concerned about exploring all the considerations which have agitated the minds of hon. members than myself as the representative of those people. Certainly no people in any part of Canada are or should be more zealous to preserve the beauties of our national parks, because they not only enjoy the beauties of this locality but gain their livelihood from the visitors who come from all parts of the world to see the beauty spots of our Rockies. Yet it is a surprising thing that without exception I have received no word of protest in regard to this proposal from any of the people of Calgary West, which embraces Banff, Lake Louise and West Calgary. As a matter of fact the Banff advisory council, under date of November 27 last, wrote me a letter which I should like to read, showing what these people have to say with regard to this matter. The letter is addressed to me, signed by Mr. R. E. W. Edwards, secretary of the Banff advisory council, who by the way is in no way related to me. It reads:
Dear Sir:-
I am enclosing herewith a copy of a telegram sent last night to the hon. the Minister of National Defence.
The feeling in Banff is that no considerations should be allowed to interfere with the production of invaluable war material in the present crisis, especially as this project will enable production to be carried on at a minimum cost.

Alberta Natural Resources
Also the existence of a plant capable of supplying almost unlimited power at low cost will be undoubtedly a great factor in the establishment of many new industries in the province of Alberta on the conclusion of the war and will prove a tremendous asset to the wealth of the province.
The raising of the level of the lake will do away with certain unsightly features which at present exist in the neighbourhood of the lake and render it more attractive than ever to the travelling public, and, finally, this scheme will provide decent employment for a large number of men who otherwise will, with their dependents, suffer much hardship during the winter months owing to lack of suitable work.
For these and other reasons, equally potent, which will suggest themselves to you, the advisory council ask that you do everything in your power to aid in procuring authorization for the carrying out of the Calgary Power Company's project as there can be no doubt that, both now and in the years to come, it will prove of inestimable benefit to the national park and to Alberta as a whole.
I have received similar communications from the Banff board of trade, the Calgary board of trade and numerous other bodies. I can truthfully say that I have not received any letter of protest or opposition to this proposal from any resident of West Calgary.


Mr. ROSS (Calgary East):: And none
from East Calgary.


Manley Justin Edwards: And the hon. member
for Calgary East says the same thing so far as his constituency is concerned.
I think if hon. members were familiar with the situs of this lake and what is involved there would be little if any discussion in regard to preserving its natural beauty. Having visited the scene, having known this lake for the last thirty years, and having seen the operations as they are now in progress, I too am of the opinion that rather than being a detriment to or detracting from the attractiveness of lake Minnewanka this operation will in fact make it more attractive and more beautiful. Hon. members when they think of a dam ordinarily think of a high wall of concrete. But the dam which is being built at the west end of this lake contains no concrete at all. It is built of earth and gravel.


John Ritchie MacNicol: If I may interrupt, surely there will have to be concrete where the water flows over.


Manley Justin Edwards: There is a slight by-pass over which water runs down to the Cascade river, but the amount of concrete required will be very small. In this place the water does not go through the dam to a powerhouse below as in an ordinary power development. The power-house is off to the south, beyond the mountain. The water is led1 off
from the side of the lake down a flume to the power-house to be constructed at Anthracite.


Mr. HARRIS (Danforth):: If the hon. member will permit a question, why are our Canadians who are interested in the National Geographic society and other like organizations concerned with the preservation of the beauty of that area opposed to this bill?


Manley Justin Edwards: I have not received a communication from them.


Joseph Henry Harris: I have received four or five even from Ontario members of the association, who protest against the destruction of the beauty of this lake. I am not asserting that I have paid too much attention to that, but I ask the hon. member why they are opposing this development?


Manley Justin Edwards: I suggest that the hon. member direct that question to those who submit their protests to him. One of the things that bothers me is that protests come from people living thousands of miles away from this lake, people who perhaps have never seen it.


Joseph Henry Harris: Oh, yes; they have seen it, and they are Canadian citizens.


Richard Burpee Hanson: This is a national park.


Manley Justin Edwards: They are thousands of miles away, nevertheless. Let us be fair about this. I have talked with a number of people who object on principle to impounding water anywhere or making any economic use of the gifts of the Almighty. But after all we live in an industrial and power age; society must go on. I have not 'had the privilege of travelling on the continent of Europe, but when one thinks of an industrialized country, Switzerland is immediately suggested. Switzerland is world famous for its mountain beauty and also for its industrial development. I am informed1 that all the lakes and rivers in Switzerland have their waters impounded for power development, and the success of Switzerland as an industrial nation is dependent upon its water power. If it is true, as I believe it to be, that the waters of lake Minnewanka, which ordinarily in the spring run down into Bow river and off to the sea in a headlong rush, serving no useful purpose so far as power is concerned, can be stored so that they run down during the season when power is most needed, then I think that should be done.
Hon. members might think of the proposal now before the house not as a power development qua the national park but as an impounding of water, because the power that
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will be generated within the national park at Anthracite certainly would not begin to justify the capital expenditure entailed in the construction of this dam.


John Ritchie MacNicol: How many thousand horse-power will be developed by diverting the Ghost river? The hon. member said a moment ago that it would not amount to anything. Does he know how much power will be generated at the first plant on the Cascade river? It is approximately 22,000 horse-power, is it not?


Manley Justin Edwards: The power will be relatively expensive, but there is 60,000,000 kilowatt hours to be obtained from it and from additional stored water under present plans.


John Ritchie MacNicol: At $25 per horse-power, that means a large sum of money per year.


Manley Justin Edwards: The result of the construction of this dam will be to store water in lake Minnewanka where already, as the minister has pointed out, there is some storage of water. The dam will increase the amount of water stored there during the season when there is a heavy run-off, so that it may be used in the fall and winter when otherwise there would be a shortage of water for power purposes. It must be borne in mind that the water will be used at the Minnewanka plant; then it will go down the Bow river to the Kananaskis plant, where it will generate power; then it will go farther down the river to the Horseshoe plant, where it will generate more power, and then on down the river to the Ghost river plant, where it will generate still more power. In other words the waters stored by this dam will be used four times, and that is the fact that makes this a sound proposition. The last three plants named-the Ghost, Horseshoe and Kananaskis plants-are all outside the park area.
There is one other aspect of the matter to which I should like to refer. I became somewhat exercised when I learned that the government was considering the establishment of an ammonium nitrate or chemical plant in western Canada. I was told that the manufacture of ammonium nitrate under modern chemical practice required the compression of natural gas and air, and when I contemplate the millions of cubic feet of natural gas that have been going to waste in the Turner valley for at least twenty years, to my own knowledge, it seemed to me that there was only one logical and economical place where that plant should be erected, namely, at Calgary. But in addition to the gas, air and water, power is required. It is my understanding that the

operation of this plant will require some 23,000 horse-power, and that power will have to be supplied continuously, night and day. There will not be high peaks and low ebbs as is ordinarily the case in commercial plants; there will be a steady drain on the power resources of that district, and the question was how that power should be obtained. There were other alternatives, to which reference has been made; there were the Kananaskis proposition and the Spray lakes development, which would have involved expenditures many times greater than those contemplated under this project, with the further objection that the power would not have been so readily available. It is contemplated that this plant, which is now almost completed, will be in operation this fall, that this plant at Minnewanka, operated by the Calgary Bower company, will have power available for the operation of the plant at that time. Under this project power will be made available more cheaply than it could under any other scheme, and in addition no capital outlay is involved on the part of the Canadian people.
One other consideration which to me is cogent and convincing is that this project has the unanimous endorsation of the government of Alberta, who I am sure would be most jealous and zealous in protecting the rights of the people of that province. Certainly no one could accuse the government of Alberta of being unduly anxious to place themselves or the people of that province in the hands-or the maw, if you will-of the financial interests of St. James Street or anywhere else. Further, I am reliably informed that this company is in no way connected with or a subsidiary of the so-called Beauharnois Power Corporation. I am not concerned with that, however; I hope we may deal with this matter on its own merits. The province of Alberta, through its public utilities board, has absolute control over the rate structure of all public utilities in the province; and I am sure it will deal fairly but justly with the Calgary Power company should any attempt be made to take advantage of the people of Alberta in the matter of rates. I am not in the least agitated or exercised over the ability of the province of Alberta to look after itself so far as rates are concerned. Neither am I disturbed or alarmed as to the scenic beauties of lake Minnewanka. My personal opinion is that those scenic beauties will be enhanced, if anything, as a result of this improvement.
The other point about which I am concerned is the post-war value of this project, in common with that of all other war projects. This will entail no headache to the Canadian people; it is not an enterprise that will be pawned off

34S7
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for its salvage value. I see in this a stepping stone to the development of another economic centre for the Dominion of Canada. The province of Alberta is singularly blessed with natural resources such as coal, gas, oil, timber and other gifts of the Almighty, which are there to be developed. But, as the hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) has pointed out, we the people of Alberta realize that the corner stone of economic and industrial development is power-an abundance of power. The Minister of Munitions and Supply has emphasized that point. Here is a possibility of making available surplus power for industrial development following the war.	.
For these reasons I know my constituents are whole-heartedly behind the _ bill before the house, and are anxious that it should be proceeded with.


Joseph Henry Harris: Mr. Speaker, with a good deal of what the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Edwards) has said, I am in accord. All that part of his speech which has to do with the development of the natural resources of Alberta meets decidedly with my approval. But the organization of this particular project, from its financial side, is a matter to which hon. members sitting in this chamber should give careful thought and scrutiny. We should consider how it is made up. Or, to use the ordinary expression in the street, we should check and double check this particular legislation, then soak it in vinegar over night, and come back the next morning and read it over. That is with regard to the financial phase of the legislation.
A few moments ago interjections were made respecting the loss of scenic value. I was prompted to interrupt because of correspondence which had come to my desk from certain school teachers and others who were worried about losing the natural scenic or real tourist value of that area.


George Henry Ross: The scenic
value will not be impaired in the slightest.


Joseph Henry Harris: Let me be the first to wave those suggestions to one side, in the interests of Canada. When I think of Canada's interests in this connection I think of what was in the mind of the hon. member who said that Alberta was blessed with natural resources of a kind which perhaps are not found to the same degree in other parts of Canada. I am thinking now, while the war is on, of the ammonium salts of all kinds, of the nitrates and the ammonium nitrates which can be produced from the natural resources of Alberta, and which are so much required at
this time of war. I would waive all other considerations if I were sure that this legislation would increase the production of those vital necessities of war. I refer of course to ammonium salts and nitrates. We need them. Whether they come from the coal of Alberta, or from the nitrates and ammoniates reclaimed from the gases which come from the oil wells of the Turner valley-no matter whence they come, we need them. We in this chamber should address ourselves more and more to the task of accumulating in order to supply to our forces the chemical necessities of war. If this legislation is purely a war measure, as was intimated some months ago when the matter was first placed before us, and which has been again emphasized-then, yes, by all means let us support this legislation.
At the same time many of us are supporters of public ownership, and we are a little sceptical of what an hon. member has described as St. James street, Montreal, and Bay street, Toronto. We are public ownership men, but even if we have to put to one side our public ownership ideas and let private ownership come forward, with all its enterprise, intuition and forcefulness to develop this power, in order that through that power there may be developed more and more war supplies, then by all means let us go ahead with this legislation, and let the hon. member from the constituency affected, together with his associates, attend to their task of developing this power. Let them see to it that the power, in turn, is used to produce more and more war supplies.
I did not very much like the interruption to the effect that some of us live a thousand miles away from the scene where this development is taking place.


An hon. MEMBER:: The hon. member for Calgary West made that suggestion.


Joseph Henry Harris: It was suggested that that was one reason why we should not make interjections when a subject of this magnitude is under consideration. My answer is that we are Canadians, and as such we think of Canada' from Halifax to Vancouver. And, in greater particularity, we are thinking of war conditions. Possibly we are not thinking just enough about the fact that the empire is at war. These picayune interruptions might very well be left to one side when we are discussing a problem of the magnitude of the one now under consideration.
So I say, Mr. Speaker, that if this project, whether operated under private or public ownership, is going to help in any way whatsoever in our war effort, by all means let us get on with it. Let us produce the power, so that that power may produce more nitrates
Alberta Natural Resources

and. ammoniates from the gases, coal and oils of the Turner valley. Let us produce from the coal of Alberta. Let us help out in this war effort in every possible way.
When the war is over the prairie provinces will need more ammoniates; they will need more nitrates after the last two decades of mining the prairie provinces. Because that observation comes from Ontario some of my western friends may not like it, but they know in their own hearts that crop after crop was taken off and no return was made to the soil. Protein crops have been harvested in western Canada. Here is a project which, if developed, will produce and return to t'he soil the protein value which has been taken from it in the last two or three decades. The Consolidated Mining and Smelting company spent a couple of million dollars at Trail, British Columbia, to recover the fertilizing value of the gases escaping from their stacks. They had in mind not only the fact that they were disposing of a nuisance to municipalities south of the boundary line and in Canada, but also the fact that those same gases had fertilizer value. The gases were therefore trapped and transmuted into salts which could be used as fertilizers. I do not know how many millions of dollars were spent, but the company did tackle the problem of saving the ammoniates and nitrates from the stacks of its gigantic plant at Trail. The scientific research carried on at the Trail plant has rendered a great service to Canada. It may be that the company was thinking ahead to the time When they might sell the fertilizing product to the western farmers.
The project we are considering to-day will twin up, as it were, with the development at Trail, and help to reestablish in western Canada lands which will again produce bushel-age equal to that produced from those virgin soils twenty or thirty years ago. Let us keep in mind the fact that the Canadian people are public-ownership minded. We do mot like to hear mention of St. James street, Montreal; we do not like to hear about Bay street, Toronto, because in this chamber for twenty years their tactics ahd ways of conducting business have been denounced. This is or seems to be a child of organizations of that kind. My hon. friend Shakes his head. That makes me feel a little better about it, and if that should be the situation, I say to the hon. member for Calgary and those charged with the passage of this legislation, by all means let us give consideration to its passing. Let us have the power, let us have the nitrates, let us have the ammoniates and what-not. Let us one and all in this chamber address ourselves to the great task that is before us, namely, the winning of the war.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Mr. Speaker, the subject matter of this bill, I am sure, has been before the department for many months. It came to my knowledge at least six months ago, and as a result of the information which I had received I made some, shall I say, cursory investigations into the proposal. The minister has, I think, stated with a fair degree of accuracy and detail the proposal embodied in the bill. The only fault I have to find with him at the moment is that he did not have the bill considered at an earlier stage in the session. The bill was introduced in April, some two months ago, but long before that the arrangements which it is now proposed to validate were entered into. I think it is safe to say that if the war feature were not in this proposal the minister would have had the very greatest hesitation in bringing forward legislation of this kind.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I can say at once that
it would not have been brought forward under those circumstances.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I accept that statement without reserve. It is because of the war feature that I am disposed to give support to the measure. If it is represented to us in this house by those in a position of responsibility that this proposal, which is merely the extension of a principle which has already been adopted, namely, the harnessing of the powers of the Bow river, will in any measurable degree help win this war, I do not think we should hesitate very long about debating it. After all, let us be realistic; let us be honest with ourselves. We are always declaring that what matters most at the moment is the winning of the war. I myself have taken that attitude on many occasions. But I suggest to the minister that he should have brought this measure forward earlier in the session so that hon. members would have had more time to study it and know exactly its implications.
I think I should say a word about the sponsors of this power proposition. They are an old established power company in Canada, in the business for gain; there is no question about that. But they are engaged in a legitimate business, a business which has been recognized over a long period of years, and so far as I am aware-and I think I am aware of the facts-they are not in any way connected with the so-called Beauhamois interests-that is, Montreal Light, Heat and Power. It cannot be said, therefore, that they are in furtherance of a particular power monopoly in Canada. But even if they were connected with Montreal power interests I

Alberta Natural Resources
do not think that would be a factor in influencing me at the moment in connection with this measure or in weighing, pro and con, the arguments in favour of or against it. Suffice it to say that these interests have been in the Bow river valley and1 in that district now for a period approaching forty years.
I am not aware whether the proposal for this development was made to the power company by the officers of the crown, the department of munitions, or whether the position was the reverse, and I do not think it matters very much. I have no manner of doubt that the Calgary Bower company, taking the broad and long view of the situation, has wanted to get this storage over a long period of time. Perhaps it is true, as has been stated, that in 1923 offers were made by the company with a view to securing increased storage at this site, lake Minne-wanka. That I do not think is a vital question at the moment. The vital thing is this: is the government in concurring in this proposal helping the war effort? In so doing is it injuring, first of all, the national park at Banff, and, secondly, is it violating any great principle? If the whole power proposition in that region were being approached for the first time, other considerations might prevail. The doctrine of public ownership might prevail, although I do not know Whether it would or not. I cannot subscribe, with my colleague from Danforth (Mr. Harris), to the principle of public ownership. I am not a public ownership man. I want to preach the doctrine in this house, and I have preached it before, of private enterprise in ordinary times. I do not, therefore, base on either principle any remarks I may have to make in connection with this proposal.
If it is established' to the satisfaction of the government and of the minister and of the department that this development is necessary in connection with the war, then, whatever hesitation I may have from any other point of view, I think I should support the measure. The difficulty is just this. The capital cost of the proposed development is so great that no company would be justified in asking its shareholders or its creditors- and it must get the money from either of these two sources-to put up the necessary capital for an enterprise that was intended purely for the duration of the war. I am satisfied that the Calgary Power company or any other business concern would never consider this development purely as a war project and a war project only, and for the duration only. It just would not be business. In that event what would the company do? It would come to the government and say: 14873-221
"We will develop this power, but at your capital cost". That has been done on many occasions in this war. The government has done it very extensively, and I have often wondered whether it was justified in going as far as it has gone. I have not been able to investigate the different avenues in which they have taken that course, but I do know that the capital commitments of the country in that respect have been very great. But I have no doubt that the Minister of Munitions and Supply and members of the government charged with the responsibility will justify every capital expenditure on the building of government-owned plants on the ground of necessity for war purposes, although they are plants which would not be established by any private enterprise during the war unless it were fully compensated or had guarantees of compensation to absorb capital loss if in the meantime money was not made out of the operation of the plant.
This company asks as a condition precedent that, in consideration of putting up the two million odd dollars in capital for development of proposed storage, it be given this right for a long period of time, you might say in effect in perpetuity. Of course that must have created for the minister and for the department a substantial difficulty. It raises a question in my own mind of balancing the good resulting from the franchise, in the expenditure of money for this purpose during the war, against what is practically an extension of their franchise in perpetuity. I am not in a position, with the limited information at my hand, to judge as to whether the decision which the minister and the government have reached is a correct decision or not. If a matter of this sort were coming up early in the session I would want to have a bill of this character referred to some select committee to investigate, where they could hear the evidence pro and con, pass a judgment, and make a considered report to the house. That is not possible to-day. I think the minister has delayed too long proceeding with this measure.
However, in the final analysis he has decided this question in the affirmative. For that decision the minister and the ministry must take responsibility; and I assume that, by putting their imprimatur on this bill and making it a government measure, they are prepared to do so; and, because it is their responsibility, I propose to leave it there.
I would not want the house to understand that there are no implications on the other side. It is too late to turn back on this thing, even if the house were so disposed, because months ago the government gave an

Alberta Natural Resources

interim licence to this company, and I understand that the company have gone on with the work and expended already a very large sum of money on the basis of the undertaking given and of the order in council passed as long ago as December, 1940. I have no doubt that, through an informal undertaking made anterior to that, the company's work is near consummation; indeed it is stated some place, either in these papers or in the minister's statement, that the extra power which will be developed through this project will be available by September 1. If that is so it is all to the good as far as the war effort is concerned, because, make no mistake about it, the product of this plant in Calgary is needed, and will be needed more and more every day as the war progresses.
I am in no position to judge whether Calgary is the right place for the establishment of this plant. From what I have heard I should say it is admirably so adapted. If that is so, I am glad to see some government industrial establishment in the western provinces. It is something for which some of us from the smaller provinces have been contending in this house for months. We have argued that alL this new war industry should not be located in central Canada, as has been far too much the case. Only six-tenths of one per cent of all the capital expenditures made by this government on wrar industry have been allocated to New Brunswick, that little province down by the sea, where, in the last war, we made literally hundreds of thousands of shells and other war material. That is one of the causes of complaint against the government. I know the excuse is that there is lack of power; I am not quite sure that the excuse is a good one. But that is merely in passing.
Another argument against this proposal, advanced in certain quarters, is that which, if my information be correct, prompted the permanent officials of the minister's department in their first opposition to this proposal- if they did oppose it-has to do with the question of the destruction of the scenic beauties. Notwithstanding anything that the hon. member for Calgary West (Mr. Edwards) may have said, you cannot, generally speaking, disturb nature without some destruction of natural beauty. It is a question, then, of balance: which is the better thing to do. If you decide to disturb nature you should, so far as is humanly possible within the limits of engineering skill, minimize the destruction of natural scenic beauty. I have had the benefit of reading the draft of the proposed lease, the "interim licence" it is called, and I want to say that whoever drafted this licence took the utmost care to minimize as

far as possible the damage which will accrue to the scenic beauties of that wonderful lake which I have had the pleasure of seeing and which I hope to visit again before I die. I repeat that whoever drafted this licence took infinite pains to guard against that danger, so far as it can be guarded against by foresight, by experience and by vision. I am inclined to think that there will be very little destruction of scenic beauty, and therefore I do not believe any great body of opposition should on that ground be directed against this proposal.
I should like to point out the full extent of the rights to be conferred under the proposals now before the house. At the risk of detaining the house a few minutes I will place them on record as they appear in the form of the draft agreement between this government and the government of Alberta. The provincial government has to consent in a certain degree and with respect to certain factors before this project may become operative:
(a)	The right to raise lake Minnewanka to [DOT]a full supply level of elevation 4,840 feet above mean sea level (geodetic datum) or such lesser elevation as may subsequently be determined by the Minister of Mines and Resources as being the economic maximum with the right to store water up to said elevation and use 200,000 acre-feet of the storage so created or such lesser amount as may subsequently be determined by the said minister-
That is, the Minister of Mines and Resources.

as being the economic maximum by the construction of a dam across the Cascade River valley at or near the outlet of the said lake;
(b)	The right to divert, take and use the water so stored for power purposes by diverting the same through a canal and conduit down a lateral valley to a power station to be constructed on the Cascade River flat at or near Anthracite, and at that point to return the water by suitable works to the Cascade river:
(c)	The right to convey the waters of the Ghost river into lake Minnewanka

I assume that this is part of the scheme with which the province of Alberta is concerned:
-through a canal extending from the park boundary to lake Minnewanka;
(d)	The right to construct transmisison lines with the necessary rights-of-way connecting the proposed power station with the existing transmission system of the company outside the park and the system now supplying Banff;
(e)	The right to sell electric power to residents in Banff townsite and vicinity;
(f)	And generally the right to perform such acts in connection with said storage and power development scheme as may be approved from time to time by the Minister of Mines and Resources.
Be it borne in mind that this right is not for the duration of the war, or for to-day or to-morrow. When it is granted, when this

Alberta Natural Resources
legislation is passed, it is to be practically in perpetuity. All right. The thing is accepted; and because it is an accomplished fact, because it. is represented as being necessary in connection with the war, we should be careful about the degree of our opposition to it. I am inclined to agree with the minister that if it were not for the war aspect we ought to oppose it; yet I can see another point of view with respect to the industrial development, of that part of the province of Alberta.
War or no war, Alberta has the right, having regard to its great store of natural resources, to look forward to the day when it will be industrialized. What has been the whole effort of this country ever since I was a boy? It has been as far as possible to have an industrial life in Canada. I know there are people in this country who do not agree with that point of view. I have heard the minister himself in days gone by, right from these seats, declare that this country should encourage only those industries which are indigenous to the land. Well, we have gone a long way beyond that. If the people of Calgary have at their door great potent'nl water powers, even though they form part of the national park, even though in the natural state they constitute a great beauty, I am afraid that if I were a citizen of Calgary I would be all for the development of the natural power, whether by St. James street or by the government of Alberta. What we want is progress. Are we to be hewers of wood and drawers of water all our lives? Are the people of Alberta to be confined to the growing of wheat all their lives? Present day indications suggest that they had better try to change their whole economy. If this will have the effect of changing the economy of that part of Alberta, then I think we are justified in voting for this measure, even though we may be violating some other tenets which we hold with regard to national parks. I will vote for the measure, but I must say that I do so after a great deal of hesitation and some study of the whole situation.
Mr. JEAN-FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata); Since it is impossible to take advantage of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act to develop the water power described in the schedule to Bill No. 60, an act to amend the Alberta Natural Resources Act, I do not share the views of the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson). I do not say this because he has expressed them; I have other reasons. Of course everything we do, we are told, has something to do with the war. If a member blows his nose in this house we are to believe it has something to do with the war. We cannot move a step without having this said.
14873-221J
I am opposed to this legislation and perhaps the house will sit ten days longer because of contentious bills that are brought in at the last minute. This is not the way to set an example to the provincial legislatures with regard to the passing of legislation.
It will be said, in reply, that it is the will of the province of Alberta, and that is all right. But there is something deeper than that. There was drum-beating when the natural resources were transferred to the prairie provinces eleven years ago, but it was a mistake, and the mistake was made before that. The mistake was in the creation of the western provinces. It was a great mistake. They should have remained northwest territories and everyone would have been better off. But as matters stand, the three prairie provinces having been created thirty-seven years ago, the natural resources have been handed over to them, depriving the dominion government of all guarantees it had for the loans made to the provinces. An agreement was signed between the dominion government and the government of Alberta and therefore it is pretty hard now to oppose this legislation successfully. I suggest, however, that legislation should be considered objectively, and with regard to every piece of legislation brought forward every member should ask himself this question: Is it good or bad legislation? Every member should ask himself that question without considering whether it pleases Mr. So-and-So or the Hon. Mr. So-and-So, or the Hon. the Premier of Such and Such a province, et cetera, et cetera.
Here w'e are in the presence of an accomplished fact, namely, that the government will disburse $240,000 on this project. Have we the means to do it? The answer is no, and we cannot decently ask the taxpayers of Canada to pay taxes for such schemes. It is all right for a man who has money in the bank to dispose of it as he pleases, but no government has the right to deprive the taxpayers of Canada of their money in order to encourage schemes like this to favour millionaires such as those in that company. It is bad legislation. No one can argue to my satisfaction that it is good legislation. How is it that the unemployed in my county cannot receive a cent from this government? It has been cut. Yet there are millionaires who own a big power corporation at Calgary and who can get $240,000. And we say it is a war measure. That is a great excuse; it is the general excuse.
The leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) laughs. Well, he is a laughing example of self-contradiction. Every time he rises he says, "I am against this or that," and then, "I am all for it." He has only to scratch the
Alberta Natural Resources

inside of his hand with one or two fingers and he is all for it. I should like him to be more serious, and instead of being so contradictory he should have the wisdom to remain silent and not say black and then say white, and not say white and then say black.
I regret that at this time of the session, the closing days of the session, legislation such as this should be brought forward. It will have a bad effect. If Liberal members had been asked beforehand about it they would have been wiser than the government of Alberta and would have said, "No, we cannot do it." I wonder if it is not a reminder of the last provincial election in Alberta, and if there was not an agreement between the government and the Calgary Power company at that time. And is it not on account of that promise that the provincial government was bound to sign "yes" to the exorbitant request of the power company? One has only to open his eyes to see and to look and read between the lines. It is easy to understand. It is no secret; it is on paper, and it is not only on paper but on official paper, on the official record. Are we to spend money now to refund to the Calgary Power company any election subscriptions made to the government of Alberta? That is the question.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I shall detain the house only a very few minutes. The suggestion or claim has been made in the course of the debate that this is not a war measure, that there is something almost sinister behind the business of granting to the Calgary Power company the right to store water in lake Minne-wanka. Let me make it unequivocally clear that this is a war measure. If I had not been convinced that it is necessary to provide continuous power for the development of an ammonium nitrate industry very much needed for the production of munitions, I would not have made the recommendation to my colleagues that this measure be proceeded with. And I am quite sure that the government would not have approved the measure. Let there be no misunderstanding about that.
The hon. member for Bow River (Mr. Johnston) seemed to argue on both sides of the question. I rather gathered from the remarks of the hon. member for Mackenzie (Mr. Nicholson) that he was in a somewhat similar position. The hon. member for Bow River stated that the Calgary Power company was a subsidiary of the Beauharnois company. It is not my business here to deal with either the virtues or the iniquities of power companies, but I can assure the hon. member for Bow River that there is no connection whatever between the Calgary Power company and the Beauharnois company. As

a matter of fact in their own fields in other parts of Canada I understand that there is a good deal of rivalry between them.
The hon. member for Mackenzie also made the suggestion that we should let the matter stand, that we should not proceed with this measure until the war is over. That as a practical matter is quite impossible. The outlay by the company for these works will be almost $2,400,000. Even in these days that is a considerable sum of money, and if a company asked the public or its shareholders to supply this amount of money for a development of this kind on the assumption that after the war they would get some authority to continue it, it would be impossible for them to get the money. There can be no question about that in the mind of any reasonable person who is aware of the facts. The matter is one of war emergency, and I repeat, that is the only reason it is before the house.
The hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) is I think under a misapprehension, if I understood his remarks correctly. There is no proposal in this measure to pay $240,000 to the Calgary Power company or anyone associated with it. The government sells its present power plant and distribution system in the town of Banff to the Calgary Power company. That distribution system and the power plant cost $240,000, and we get from the Calgary Power company the depreciated value of the plant. The basis of arriving at the amount of depreciation has to be agreed upon between the government and the company. In addition the company pays to the government $100,000 over and above what it pays for the depreciated value of the plant, and on top of that, as I have stated, the government is assured of 500,000 kilowatt hours of electrical energy free of cost, its additional, requirements at half a cent a kilowatt hour, and the citizens of Banff are assured of their light and power requirements at rates no greater than they are paying at the present time and under conditions subject bo review by the public utilities board of Alberta when they wish to have them reviewed. In that respect I think we have effectively protected the people of the town of Banff.


Richard Burpee Hanson: In addition there is an annual rental.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes. There is only one other matter with whioh I wish to deal. It is the criticism of the leader of the opposition that this bill should have been introduced earlier, or more time afforded for its consideration. Before the bill was introduced an agreement had to be reached with the prov-

Alberta Natural Resources
ince of Alberta, because under the terms of the transfer agreement under which the resources went to the province that was necessary. There were some delays in getting to the point where we were in agreement, and that agreement, as my hon. friend will know, was not signed until March 28, 1941. It will be recalled that parliament adjourned a few days after that for a long Easter recess. The bill was introduced before the adjournment, but there was not an opportunity then to proceed with it. Following the adjournment we got into the budget debate and a protracted consideration of the budget resolutions. I tell the house quite frankly that I had hoped to have the measure before the house weeks ago, but I did not have an opportunity to do so until yesterday, and then I made way for my colleague the Minister of Agriculture. Therefore we reached the measure to-day.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee thereon, Mr. Vien in the chair.
On section 1-Short title.
Richard Burpee Hanson: How far has the development of the storage proceeded, and when will it be available? Will the nitrogen plant be ready for operation by September 1?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I cannot at the moment say what progress has been made on the nitrogen plant. I think work was started on it immediately the decision was rendered in this matter.
So far as the storage works at the lake are concerned, that work has been going on for several months. I understand that the clearing has been nearly all done on the shores and a substantial start made on the dam. I have received information to-day that the level of the lake has already been raised, as at May 24 last, four feet above the maximum level under the agreement of 1912.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It must have been more than six months ago that the decision to erect the plant was made; it says so in the explanatory note. The company made the application in November, 1940, following the decision to erect a plant.


Manley Justin Edwards: I happened to be in
Calgary at Easter, and I know that according to present plans and expectations, not only will the ammonium nitrate plant be operating in September or October, but the power company expect to be able to deliver power in November at the latest, and everything is working according to schedule.


Grote Stirling: What type of construction will be followed in building the dam?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It will be an earthen dam.


Grote Stirling: No core?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am not familiar with the manner in which earthen dams are constructed. As a matter of fact, I had some doubt about that point and consulted Doctor Hogg who, as I stated in my remarks this morning, has been retained at the expense of the company to advise the department. He tells me that an earthen dam is quite practicable and, indeed, is becoming one of the ordinarily accepted methods of creating these reservoirs.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Would
there be any danger to the life and property of the population if the dam should go out?
I do not know the location of it.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That was the very point I raised with Doctor Hogg, and he assured me that the plan under which the dam would be built would effectively safeguard it against any such contingency.
Mr. MaoNICOL: Every dam has a core. The dams built by the hydro do not have concrete cores; they use either stone or an impervious kind of clay as a base. If a dam is properly constructed, the fact that it is made of earth does not make it any weaker. Many large dams in Ohio, some of which . are a mile wide, are made in the same way. Part of the dam, however, must be of concrete in order to take care of the overflow. When the hon. member for Calgary West was speaking, it came out that there would be a concrete portion of the dam of sufficient width to permit the natural overflow to pass through when the water might not be required.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2-Agreement confirmed.
Mr. COLD WELL:: I should like to preface my remarks by saying that this morning I understand the hon. member for Bow River offered some criticism because many hon. members were absent from the house when this matter was under discussion. I think the hon. gentleman failed to realize that many hon. members are on committees which have been sitting almost continuously while the house has been sitting. Since his criticism was put on record, perhaps this statement might also be noted.
I have read the agreement, and it seems to give a great deal of power to the Calgary Power company in connection with the water in that part of the Rocky mountains, not only in the lake itself but in areas adjacent to the lake. The company is given the right to raise the level of lake Minnewanka; "the right to divert, take and use the water so
Alberta Natural Resources

stored for the power purposes by diverting the same through a canal and conduit," and so forth; "the right to convey the waters of the Ghost river into lake Minnewanka"; "the right to construct transmission lines," and then the company is given a power franchise. I do not know whether this provision is new, but the company is given "the right to sell electric power to residents in Banff townsite and vicinity, and generally the right to perform such acts in connection with said storage and power development as may be approved from time to time by the Minister of Mines and Resources." These are wide powers, and I am wondering whether the diversion of these waters and the construction of these conduits will interfere with the natural beauty of this lake and of the national park. After all, this is a national asset which was deliberately kept for the nation when the natural resources agreement was concluded between the dominion government and the province of Alberta. I know veiy little about the Calgary Power 'Company except that from time to time in past years it has been the subject of some public criticism on account of its rates and the wide powers that it enjoys. I also recollect that in 1929 or 1930-I have forgotten the year-when in the city of Regina we were considering a franchise for gas, the Nesbitt Thomson company, which I believe is the organization largely interested in the Calgary Power company-


Richard Burpee Hanson: The hon. member is quite wrong about that.


Mr. COLDWELL:: If I am wrong I should
be glad to be corrected, but that was my recollection, and I am not so sure that it was wrong. I know the Calgary Power company has affiliations with other power organizations across this dominion.


Richard Burpee Hanson: This is a Royal Securities promotion.


Major James William Coldwell: Then I am glad to be corrected to that extent; I was relying on my memory. In any event, before an agreement of this sort is approved by this House of Commons, every alternative suggestion should be canvassed. I am a bit surprised that in Alberta, where they have a government which likes to make people believe it is progressive, they are still allowing the alienation of public resources and encouraging the dominion government further to alienate power resources; for, after all, water power is one of the most important assets we have in this country.
I am never in favour of alienating those resources, even during war time. As the iMr. Cold well.]
leader of the opposition pointed out during the course of his remarks, we are undertaking the construction of government-owned plants of various types, and it seems to me that if we need to produce war material and must expand our power resources in order to do so, the better policy would be for the governments concerned to expropriate some of these private organizations and restore the resources concerned to the general public of the country.
Because I hold that point of view I do not like an agreement of this kind. In any event, I do not like an agreement which gives the wide powers it contains. It seems to me that they are wider than necessary to do the thing the bill purports to desire to do. Therefore I take this opportunity of criticizing this agreement, and I would ask the minister if he can throw any light upon the several points I have tried to make, particularly with regard to any interference with the beauty of this lovely national park, and the alienation of an additional resource by the diversion of more water.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The extent to which the natural beauty of the area surrounding the lake, and of the lake itself, will be lessened by these works is a matter concerning which there is some difference of opinion. All I can say to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar is that we have taken every possible precaution to ensure that the scenic beauty will be disturbed as little as possible.
My hon. friend, the member for Calgary West, thinks that on the whole the beauty of the area may be enhanced by these works. There are those in the town of Banff who are familiar with the whole matter, and who hold the same view. I pass no opinion on the subject. After all, I suppose one's judgment respecting the beauty of surroundings of that kind depends to some extent upon his aesthetic tastes, or his sense of beauty. In any event, I can assure the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar that every possible precaution is being taken to detract as little as possible from the natural beauty of the lake.
He seems to argue that in the agreement we are giving wide powers to the company. Possibly the hon. member has not read the agreement very closely. For instance, in paragraph (a) to which he referred, all we do is to give the right to raise the lake level above the point to which permission was given in the agreement of 1912. We permit the company to store up to but not exceeding
200,000	acre-feet of water.
Quite obviously, if a storage reservoir were to be created by the company under these conditions, it was necessary to give it power to create the conditions which would make

Alberta Natural Resources
such storage effective. Paragraph (b) confers the right to divert, take and use the water so stored for the purpose of developing this power at or near Anthracite. That is, in the first place we give the power to store the water, and in the second place we give power to divert from storage to the power plant.
I do not think there is anything extraordinary about that.
Then under paragraph (c) there is the right to convey the waters of the Ghost river into lake Minnewanka through a canal extending from the park boundary to lake Minnewanka. The diversion of the water of the Ghost river is wholly a matter for the Alberta government. If that government says, "No, we will not permit diversion of water from the Ghost river," then of course the water from the Ghost river does not go into Minnewanka. It was necessary for us to give the company power to take water into the park from outside, into lake Minnewanka within the park. In doing so, it has to build a canal in order that the water may come from the Ghost river into lake Minnewanka for storage purposes. Again I submit there is nothing extraordinary in that paragraph.
Paragraph (d) conveys the right to construct transmission lines, with the necessary rights-of-way connecting the proposed power station with the existing transmission system. Quite obviously, if the company were going to develop power, it would require transmission lines to convey that power from the point of development to the point of use.


Major James William Coldwell: Could those lines not be placed underground?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That has not been customary in Canada, except in large cities. I understand that the transmission lines will be placed back from the road, where they will be scarcely visible from the travelled highway. Again there is nothing extraordinary in the paragraph.


Richard Burpee Hanson: One follows from the other.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Paragraph (e) confers the right to sell electric power to residents in Banff townsite and vicinity. Arrangements were made, as I have already said to-day-


Major James William Coldwell: I was not here.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: -which protect the residents of Banff in respect of the price they have to pay for power and energy, and under conditions which we believe very fairly reimburse the government for the outlay it had made in the past. We are then relieved of the task of collecting meter rentals from the residents of Banff. In all matters where
government operations of utilities of this kind are concerned, one runs into difficulties of that kind. Conditions arise where people cannot pay their power bills, and I have known instances where the good offices of the local member were invoked in an effort to obtain relief.


Major James William Coldwell: That is a wrong principle.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: We relieve ourselves of all that. At the same time we protect fully the residents of Banff with regard- to charges which may be made for light and energy used. That, again, I submit, is an ordinary provision.
Paragraph (f) is general in scope. There may be other operations the power company would have to carry out. It is given power to perform such acts in connection with said storage and power development scheme as may be approved from time to time by the -Minister of Mines and Resources. In other words, the company is not given carte blanche to go ahead and do as it wishes. Every proposal it makes in that connection must have the approval of that member of the government who for the time being happens to be Minister of Mines and Resources.


John Ritchie MacNicol: The company's plans will have to be accepted by the government's engineers.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I believe on reflection the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar will agree that the powers given here are not as unusual or extraordinary as he indicated in his remarks a few minutes ago.


Major James William Coldwell: The purpose of my remarks was, very largely, to bring out some of the points the minister has now made. He has cleared up several of them. At the same time I still believe the powers given are wide, although many of the explanations given by the minister have cleared up doubts which formerly existed. I hope that in another year committees will not be sitting coincidentally with the house, and that we shall not be placed in a position where we have to come into the house and ask questions which have already been answered. I understand that many of these questions were answered to-day.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Does the agreement hold any reference to what Alberta will receive for the water from the Ghost river?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Or is the water given by Alberta without charge, or without any consideration?
Alberta Natural Resources


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I cannot say as to that. That was not a matter with which this government had to deal. I presume the Alberta government has made what it considers a fair and equitable arrangement for the use 'of the water.


John Ritchie MacNicol: As I said before, I am not opposed to the bill, but I believe certain facts should be recorded so that the public will know what is being given away. I calculated this morning that the Ghost river would have a flow of about 600 c.f.s., but at the noon recess someone better qualified than I am to make the computation told me that the flow is 750 c.f.s. That is a substantial volume.


Manley Justin Edwards: At what point?


John Ritchie MacNicol: If the hon. member knows, it is all right to interrupt; but if he does not know, I do not wish to have interruptions.


Manley Justin Edwards: I am asking only for information. At what point in the river is the computation made?


John Ritchie MacNicol: At the point of diversion. My estimation was made on the assumption that the lake, being about twelve miles long and about three-quarters of a mile wide, would have an area of about nine to ten square miles. Upon looking at the map, I would judge that the Ghost river watershed covers about 100 square miles. I am told that it is a little more than that. It is well known that the water yield from the lake Superior watershed is [DOT]94 ci.s. per square mile; Lake Huron, -82 c.f.s.; Grand River at Galt, has an average flow of -4 c.f.s. per square mile of watershed; and therefore I estimated this morning that 600 ci.s might be the flow from the Ghost river, but someone better informed than I am told me that the actual flow is 750 c.f.s. I am informed that the head of water from Minne-wanka to the power house on the Cascade is 320 feet. Now 750 cubic feet a second flow, with a head of 320 feet, means about what the bill says, a minimum of 20,000 horsepower. That is a substantial gift to somebody. At $25 per horse-power it would be $500,000 a year.
We learned this morning that after the water passed through the new power-house into the Cascade river and from there into the Bow river and on down the Bow river, it passes through three more power-houses. I should like to know the head at each one of these power-houses so that I can estimate the increased amount of power at each powerhouse and see just what the total value of this gift will be. If it means a gift of $500,000 a year at the new power-house, where the water pours into the Cascade, what would it mean at the three other power-houses? We 
have not been informed as to the head of water at any of these three power-houses. If there should be another $500,000 a year at these, it would mean a gift of $1,000,000 a year.
I am not opposed to this project as a war measure. I endorse all that has been said as to the necessity for Alberta having industries because that is important. But I have been opposed from the beginning to legislation of this kind being brought into parliament at the last minute and the argument being used to get the legislation passed that it is necessary for war purposes. I am bitterly opposed to that procedure. The same kind of thing was done in 1918 in connection with the Massena diversion. If the minister is perfectly satisfied, as he seems to be, that this project is necessary on account of the war, I shall not oppose it. I wish to say that I have every confidence in the minister. I listened to him carefully this morning, and I accepted his statement that he personally would not for one minute tolerate any such agreement as this at any other time than the present, but that it was necessary for it to go through as a part of our war effort. It must go through in that event; indeed, I believe construction is almost completed, and consequently all that we are now saying here can be of little benefit so far as this project is concerned. I hope, however, that what has been said here to-day will be a safeguard for the future and that if and when any other raid is made on the natural resources of this country, there will be a full and open inquiry publicly made, and that the parliament of Canada will be perfectly free to discuss it before any conclusion is reached. I realize that the minister's hands were tied in this case because, before the matter came to him, the Alberta government had already passed it and thrown it on his doorstep.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No; that is not correct.


John Ritchie MacNicol: In any event, the Alberta government had endorsed the project. I was trying to get the minister out of a hole, and he would not let me do it. The Alberta government had, however, endorsed the project, and to a certain extent the minister's hands were then tied.


George Henry Ross: The location of the dam in question is not one of the beauty spots of the national park. It is by no means a spot of beauty. I wish to compliment the minister upon the precautions he has taken to improve the appearance of the park at this point. When this work is completed it will, in my opinion, be a much more beautiful spot than it is at present.

Prairie Farm Rehabilitation
Like the hon. member for Davenport and the leader of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation group in this house, I am strongly in favour of public ownership of public utilities. All public utilities should under normal conditions be owned and controlled by the government. At the present time, however, this ammonium plant is needed for war purposes; it is essential for war purposes, and the power does not exist for the development of the project. It could be developed, true enough, from Spray river, or the power could be developed from coal. But either of these ways would occasion a delay of almost a year or more, and we cannot afford to delay at this time. We are in a war, and that work must be proceeded with quickly. For that reason it should be done by a private concern. We cannot wait to expropriate plants which are already carrying on and run them as a government-owned project.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Are there, or are there likely to be, any bridges erected over the canal from the Ghost river to Minnewanka lake? If any bridges are likely to be built, who is to erect them even if it should be at some considerable time in the future?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I do not anticipate that * there will be any bridges erected in that section of the park to which my hon. friend refers, but if any bridge should be erected1 as a result of the development, it would be erected under the direction of the park authority in the area within the park.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Yet, if these bridges were constructed, they would be running over a canal that is dug through the park?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: There would be no difficulty about that.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Why should the public pay for them? They are not required now.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I do not conceive that they will be built. It is a part of the park that can be reached by a boat on the lake, but the approach to it is wholly impassable for motor traffic unless a road1 is tunneled out of the side of the mountain.


John Ritchie MacNicol: Inasmuch as the diversion naturally destroys the river for power purposes to a point on the Ghost river where it joins with the Bow, are there any existing rights that someone will have to pay for on the Ghost river?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I could not say as to that, but as I have stated on two or three occasions, that is outside the park boundary.


John Ritchie MacNicol: And therefore Alberta
would take care of it?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is wholly within the control of the province of Alberta.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Section 3 agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of Agriculture) moved the second reading of Bill No. 92, to amend the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act.
Motion agreed to, bill read the second time, and the house went into committee, thereon, Mr. Vien in the chair.
On section 1-Minister may undertake projects and schemes and enter into agreements.
James Garfield Gardiner: I wish to propose an
amendment to section 1, relative to section 10 (a).


Mr. MULOCK:: I move:
That section one be amended by adding after the word "scheme" in the third line of section 10 (a) the words "under and by virtue of this act."


Mr. PERLEY:: Would the minister explain?


James Garfield Gardiner: That covers the point
discussed yesterday by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker). It was suggested that the minister was not obligated to keep within the terms of the act in relation to the vote of $2,500,000 for this year or whatever the amount may be for any other year; and this simply states:
(a) subject to section four of this act, undertake the development, construction, promotion, operation and maintenance of any project or scheme under and by virtue of this act.


Ernest Edward Perley: Is it under this measure
that the minister proposes to carry on the operations with reference to summer-fallow? Or is it under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act?


James Garfield Gardiner: It is under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.


Ernest Edward Perley: I do not think that there
is very much more to be said with reference to this bill. We went into it pretty fully yesterday. The minister might give the committee some information with reference to the number of outstanding contracts at the present time, not completed before operations were
Prairie Farm Rehabilitation

started under this act. Are there any outstanding projects for contracts for delivery of materials or anything of that kind?


James Garfield Gardiner: Everything for which
the department was obligated down to the end of the financial year, that is March 31, has been paid. It seems to me that matters of this kind might be discussed much better under the estimates for the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, which will probably be under discussion this evening. At that time I can have all the information here with regard to that matter.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Section as amended agreed to.
Bill reported, read the third time and passed.
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Vien in the chair.'

[Stage Direction]
22. Marketing service. Marketing service administration, $95,252.
Mr. MARTIN:: We have heard in the house during this session, from those who represent ag>
'cultural communities or communities which tre composed of industrial and agricultural see i ons, a great deal about wheat, coarse grains and the like. While at this late date one is possibly open to censure for discussing a matter which has not already been discussed, let alone questions which have been, I propose to speak on a matter which is of concern not only to my own constituency but to the whole area known as the southwestern Ontario peninsula, and better known, having in mind the matter which I wish to discuss, as the corn belt of Canada.
The counties vitally interested in this matter in southwestern Ontario are those of Essex- my own county-Kent, Lambton, Elgin and West Middlesex. Eighty-five per cent of the corn production of Canada is in that area, and the counties of Essex and Kent are responsible for 65 per cent of the total com production of this country. It is, of course, grown as a cash crop and is a vital factor in the income of the agricultural community in that area.
The recent agricultural policy of the government has affected that group and the ensuing farmers' income considerably. I do not propose to attack that policy but simply to indicate the effect which it has had upon this section of the agricultural community and to urge that a proposal which I brought before the house two or three sessions ago should be considered more fully and completely than it has been.

There is a similarity between agriculture as it is carried on in western Canada and in these counties, in contrast with the rest of Ontario, when one considers that the cash crops of these two latter find markets in central and eastern Ontario and not solely within the section where the corn crop itself is grown. The difference between agriculture in the counties in southwestern Ontario that I have mentioned and the rest of Ontario is illustrated by an analysis of the statistics of western feed grain shipped into Ontario recently from Fort William and Port Arthur under a freight subsidy plan jointly engaged in by the provincial and the federal governments. Under this plan, 1,900 carloads of feed grain were shipped into Ontario. The freight subsidy amounted to $338,000. Not a single car of this grain came into my own county of Essex or into the county of Lambton. Kent had four care, and the county of Elgin, two. Therefore only six cars out of 1,900 under this scheme were shipped into the corn-belt area, and the reason is that we are a surplus grain area in contrast with the rest of Ontario. The fact is, however, that the $330,000 paid by both governments, provincial and federal, was of no direct monetary value to the farmers in this area. Moreover, the com growers, being in possession of several million bushels of corn had to compete with western grains, and consequently their product was made cheaper on account of the favourable position in which western coarse grains found themselves as a result of the subsidy plan. This had a great effect on the price of com.
On December 16, 1940, the Minister of Agriculture announced that the government was considering a subsidy plan. Immediately the price of corn was depressed. The minister will recall that I then pointed out to him by telegram and in person the difficulty that would arise from a scheme which, although it is true it had been asked for by the province of Ontario, had not been considered in its full aspects and was bound to be disturbing to the farmers in the whole area of southwestern Ontario. The policy became effective in February, 1941, and the price of corn had fallen to ten cents. The committee will realize that a price of ten cents, having in mind that the tariff on corn is only ten cents, and having in mind also the difficulties which farmers in that part of the country must face in common with farmers in other parts of Canada, was a serious matter; so much so that the largest agency buying com in western Ontario announced on February 8, 1941, that, owing to the subsidy being granted by the government on feed grains from western Canada, prices for Ontario corn and other

Supply-Agriculture
grains were temporarily withdrawn. Not only that, but many of the farmers who sold during the first three months of this year lost ten cents a bushel as a direct result of the feed grain subsidy scheme and were put in a definitely discriminatory position.
I am not unaware of the difficulty of the Minister of Agriculture, and I will not go so far as to say that this freight subsidy plan, having in mind the demands of eastern agriculture, cannot possibly provoke a justifiable argument. What I am saying, however, is this, that if the scheme has the effect of embarrassing one section of the community, the onus is surely on the administration to consider ways and means of mitigating that. Before coming to what I have specifically in mind, I should point out that the recent plan of the administration to increase production of coarse grains in western Canada by paying subsidies for land taken out of wheat production will also be a detriment to the com growers of southwestern Ontario by reason of the added competition which these coarse grains will provide in the feed markets of eastern Ontario.
In March, 1938, I introduced in this house a resolution which was fully debated on all sides. The preamble indicated that there was a corn belt in Canada, that there was an area which produced at one time the entire corn consumptive needs of the country, and that every encouragement should be given to that area. The fact is that to-day we grow about
9.000.	000 bushels of corn and consume about
15.000.	000 bushels, and consequently we are compelled to import, mainly now from south Africa and the Argentine. The supplying of these importations under a definite policy on the part of the government, and greater encouragement to agriculture in that area, would bring about an increased acreage of corn production with subsequent benefit to the farmers from a financial point of view.
Having pointed out the problem generally in the preamble to that resolution, I urged upon the government two matters, and I urge them again. The first is that the government, in view of what I have just stated, should consider the necessity for improved marketing facilities and, second, the need for providing adequate storage, drying, government grading and inspection facilities in order that the quality of corn may be improved and the production increased. That resolution was adopted by the government of the day. The then Minister of Trade and Commerce, speaking in this house in the face of opposition from some quarters, accepted it; and his acceptance, to me, could only mean that he
fully approved. Not having made any reservations, he could only have been assumed to concur in what the resolution sought to indicate. I regret to say, however, that while some interest has been displayed in this problem, no answer commensurate with what would seem to have been undertaken by the then Minister of Trade and Commerce has followed.
What did happen was that a member of the board of grain commissioners for the first time officially visited western Ontario, although western Ontario, from an agricultural point of view, is the most thickly populated area in Canada. As a result of the visit of this member of the board, Mr. Hamilton, it was decided to put in motion the operations of the wheat board. Consequently, with the setting up of this wheat board office went compulsory grading and inspection of wheat. Unfortunately, that compulsory feature was not applied to corn; and the figures, laborious as they may seem, nevertheless, even in the summarized form in which I propose to submit them, will indicate that if we could apply to agriculture, particularly to corn in southwestern Ontario, the same marketing principles that we have established with reference to wheat in western Canada, we would find occasion for considerable improvement.
I have here a table which, with the permission of the committee, I should like to place on Hansard and which I shall summarize.
Twelve months ending July 31 Bushels
Kind of grain 1938	1939	1940Wheat	
982,429	1,695,005	3,252,738Oats	
289,980	79,410	89,685Barley	
260,612	95,210	64,180Rye	
36,131	3.000	5,000Corn	
116.000	508,360	860,538Mixed gr-ain	51,250	3,050	1,250Buckwheat	276,643	247,619	109,962Total	
2,013,045 2,631,654 4,383,353
This table indicates the amount of inspection for the years 1938, 1939 and 1940. The figures are given in the Canadian Weekly Grain Statistics, August 4, 1939, and July 31, 1940, published by the dominion bureau of statistics. They show with regard to wheat, oats, barley, rye, com, mixed grain, buckwheat, an original disposition on the part of farmers not accustomed to a compulsory, let alone a voluntary, scheme of inspection and grading. They show for 1938, covering inspections that were made in that year in Toronto and Montreal, a tremendous improvement over the preceding year. The figures for 1939 cover the first year in the Chatham office,

Supply-Agriculture
Chatham being a town, in western Ontario, the centre of the agricultural community. After the Chatham office was established, there was an increase of 618,600 bushels inspected over the figure of the previous year, or an increase of 30 per cent. The following year, 1940, shows a still greater increase over 1938, of 2,370,308 bushels, or 118 per cent.
Most of the increase had to do with wheat. This was, I think, due in large part to the fact that during the crop year ended July 1, 1940, Ontario wheat was handled by the. Canadian wheat board. The board made inspection and grading compulsory in connection with all wheat which it accepted. That this system of compulsory inspection of wheat was advantageous to the producers is evidenced by the fact that of 3,252,738 bushels inspected during the year, the grading was as follows:
Bushels
No. 1 Canadian eastern	 2,681,069
No. 2 Canadian eastern	 445,126
Lower than No. 2 Canadian eastern 126,543
The importance of the counties of Essex and Kent, and the surrounding district in a slighter degree, as a grain producing and marketing area may be understood from a study of the grain inspections of the three inspection offices in the eastern division, which are located at Chatham, Toronto and Montreal. The board of grain commissioners, and I say with great respect the Department of Agriculture, have operated as though the Canada Grain Act and the board of grain commissioners were intended to have jurisdiction in one section of the country and not in another. Hon. members who recall the deliberations before the last revision of the Canada Grain Act will see of what importance this minor attempt on the part of the board of grain commissioners and the operation of the wheat board has really been. For the twelve month period from August 1, 1939, to July 31, 1940, inspections of all grains were as follows:
Chatham-2,066 cars, 4 cargoes, 26 bins and 23 trucks.
Toronto-1,207 oars, one cargo.
Montreal-203 cars, 20 cargoes, one bin.
With regard to that general survey itself, it indicates that where emphasis was placed in respect of Toronto and Montreal, that emphasis should now be shifted to southwestern Ontario. On the basis of cars inspected the percentages were as follows:
Chatham-59 per cent.
Chatham being southwestern Ontario.
Toronto-35 per cent.
Montreal-6 per cent.
I do not want to labour these figures too much, but before I come to my main argu-

ment I wish to place one more set before hon. members. I urged in this resolution that we should have better drying facilities to remove the large amount of moisture so that the corn would be able to compete satisfactorily even in the home market with corn from south Africa, the Argentine and the United States. As a result, a voluntary system of inspection was set up. The committee may be interested in the quantities of corn that were voluntarily inspected during 1938, 1939 and 1940. They show, in spite of what was said in this house, namely, that farmers would not subject themselves even to a voluntary system of inspection, that was not true. The amounts inspected were as follows:
Year ended-	Bushels
July	1,	1938	
116,000July	1,	1939	
508,360July	1,	1940	
860,538
This indicates clearly that where an attempt at inspection was made for the first time on a voluntary basis to try to assist in the marketing of this important commodity to the farmers of southwestern Ontario, the claim made by those who supported my resolution was more than justified. These figures show that the quantity of corn inspected during the last of the three crop years was nearly eight times the quantity of two years before and about 70 per cent greater than the quantity one year before.
Hon. members may ask, "Why this insistence on inspection?" The fact is that the com grown in that area has very often a moisture content of over 20 per cent. It should not be over 13 per cent in order to compete satisfactorily with corn grown in the Argentine, south Africa and even that which before the wTar was imported from the United States under a tariff of 10 per cent. Obviously the cornstarch people are not disposed to buy this product unless it is in a satisfactory state, and there is a great industrial market for it. I have urged the setting up of drying facilities to remove the excess moisture, and the establishment by the government of compulsory grading and inspection by government inspectors, so that, just as with regard to western wheat the trade throughout the world knows its quality by the official certificate attached, the farmers of southwestern Ontario might be placed in the same favourable position of being able, under the system I propose, to have their commodity, once it has been properly certified, stand on its merits as does western wheat.
After Mr. Hamilton visited southwestern Ontario, he made a report, which is available to anyone who wishes to see it. It was made

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to the Minister of Trade and Commerce, not the present minister who I am glad to see in his seat to-day, following my discussion I hope with great diligence and proper profit to himself. This report states:
Before investigating the matter on the ground

I presume meaning western Ontario.
*-I proceeded to Ottawa and interviewed the Minister of Trade and Commerce. It was decided that the investigation should be limited to the grading of corn; that the question of providing storage and drying facilities did not come under the board of grain commissioners.
That statement indicates that the question has not been approached in the comprehensive way in which it should be approached, because there have been subsequent reports made by the officials of the government, the last being by the agricultural supplies board together with a private survey that has been made, and reported in a valuable compilation entitled "A Survey of Canadian Research on the Utilization of Farm Products" issued by the national chemurgic committee of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. At page 12 of that report will be found substantiation of what I have argued before in this house and of my argument now, and of what government reports themselves indicate to be the only solution of this problem. I wish to quote one or two excerpts, removed perhaps from their context, but nevertheless not unfairly. Under the head of "corn starch" the report states:
This is the principal starch produced in this country and is made almost exclusively from imported corn, which at the present time is mainly of South African origin.
Then it goes on to say:
Starch factories have little fault to find with the quality of Ontario corn except that it is generally very high in moisture when offered. . . .
And here is a significant statement:
If particular emphasis was being placed on what is now imported that we could produce ourselves, it would be difficult to justify the importation of starch or any of its products, or of corn for their manufacture. The requirements of starch and cereal manufacturers could be largely met by Canadian corn, even if it may not be quite as satisfactory as corn grown in more torrid zones, provided an adequate marketing scheme could be worked out. Manufacturers claim that, in the past, they have experienced great difficulty in getting orders filled on the domestic market. Shipping facilities have been poor, all of the corn having to be moved by rail since no elevator is available on the St. Clair river or on the lake front.
There, succinctly stated, is the answer. There is no quarrel with the commodity itself; the difficulty is with regard to the moisture content and particularly the inability of the trade to
get the corn in large quantities on account of the absence of storage facilities and also because the trade has not faith in the commodity grown here since it does not bear the certification of a government-inspected and government-created scheme.
Another aspect of the matter was brought to my attention, and to the attention of others in western Ontario, after the present war began. It was pointed out that since we grew only half the com consumed in Canada, and since the farmers were not disposed to increase their acreage by reason of the difficulties I have enumerated, in the absence of a proper marketing scheme on the part of the government we were compelled to import almost half our total requirements.
This importation of com from south Africa, the United States, and particularly the Argentine, was brought to the attention of the agricultural supplies board headed by Doctor E. S. Archibald, who has made an analysis of this problem, which analysis is, I presume, available to the Minister of Agriculture and to the Minister of Trade and Commerce. Doctor Archibald points out that approximately four million bushels of imported corn is now being used for industrial purposes, and this at a time when we have set up embargoes against the importation of many other commodities. He goes on to say that a considerable quantity of the imported corn used for feed also can be classed as used for industrial purposes, since it is used by manufacturers of mixed feed for poultry, hogs and other live stock. In order that industries such as those mentioned can be properly served, Doctor Archibald points out that the four requirements which I have discussed in another way must be fulfilled. Those requirements are: continuity of supply, the necessity of having the corn properly dried, grading and inspection, and facilities for shipping by either water or rail.
I am not quarrelling with what the administration has done under the freight subsidy plan in respect of coarse grains. Nor do I quarrel with its policy with regard to the reduction of wheat acreage. I do point out, however, the unfair position in which the Ontario farmer is placed. If this government is sincere in trying to meet this problem, surely we can no longer delay in providing suitable facilities for storing this corn in bulk, having it properly inspected and graded on a compulsory basis in order to satisfy the demands of the trade, and assisting in setting up those agencies by which the corn can be satisfactorily dried. Doctor Archibald concludes his report by suggesting a solution, which Mr. Hamilton was not permitted to do under the terms of his reference. Doctor Archibald says:
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Before it (Ontario corn) could be used on a large scale for industrial purposes, it is probable that facilities for storing and drying would have to be made available.
I have given this matter a good deal of study and attention. There have been conferences galore with departmental officials. There has been a disposition to consider that the farmers in those areas where there is a large measure of industrialization are thereby provided with a market not open to their fellow farmers in the rest of the country, at least during the war. While I do not deny that, the fact is that in southwestern Ontario agricultural costs are higher, and upon close analysis the benefit of heavy industrialization is not as great as it may seem. I have attended the meetings of this house assiduously, day after day; I do not think anyone will accuse me of shirking my responsibility in that regard. I have followed the arguments advanced by hon. members who come from western Canada, and I know something of western Canada myself, having visited that section of the country frequently. In comparing the lot of the farmer whom I represent, or of the farmers throughout the so-called rich area of southwestern Ontario, I doubt very much if the difference in the standard of living as between the farmer of the east and the farmer of the west would be as great over the long pull as many imagine.
The government has met the wheat problem, at least so far as an approach to it is concerned; the government has met the problem of the dairy farmer, but it has not met the problem of that area in which most of the Ontario wheat and 85 per cent of the corn of this country are grown. If we go on in the haphazard way that has been followed in the past there will be only one thing for the farmers in that area to do, namely, go out of corn production. That would mean heavier importations. That would mean that the starch companies, instead of buying their corn from us, would continue to buy it from the United States, and this at a time when we are at war and when we are concerned with the conservation of exchange. Surely we cannot postpone dealing with this problem any longer. If the Minister of Agriculture or the Minister of Trade and Commerce do me the honour of replying, I hope the Minister of Agriculture will not say that this is not his problem. Following that, I certainly hope the Minister of Trade and Commerce will not say that it is not his problem either, because that is the way in which this matter has been shifted round. This is a marketing problem. Surely the policy to be laid down is a matter for the Minister of Agriculture. The setting up of a storage plant under private or public auspices, 
following the suggestions that have been advanced, may be a matter for the Department of Trade and Commerce or perhaps for the Department of Transport. Nevertheless this is a problem which the government cannot shirk any longer. We wish to improve the position of the farmers in that area so far as corn is concerned; and I am sure every hon. member from western Ontario will agree that the time has come when, first, we must put our commodity in exactly the same position with regard to moisture as corn coming from other countries; and, second, that having done this, we must set up a satisfactory marketing scheme which will take account of the matters of compulsory grading and inspection that I have indicated.
I have just one further word. Latterly the province of Ontario and the federal government have been engaged in a survey of this matter. Since I hav.e been a member of this house, there have been no less than six surveys of this whole problem. One would be almost inclined to think that the resistance to the sort of barrage I am putting up to-day is a survey. However, perhaps this time something is contemplated, because an effort has been made on behalf of the farmers of that area to institute a marketing scheme on a compulsory basis. The dominion government argued that it did not have the constitutional authority to deal with that matter, but now I understand that the two governments are dealing with the problem or at least propose to deal with it after the survey has been made. I am not a farmer; I simply represent a district in which this problem is acute, but I do urge that we should have a definite policy so that year after year we shall not be dealing with this matter in a haphazard, unscientific manner which indicates a clear lack of planning. There is a real marketing problem here. Officers of the crown have supported the contentions I am making, and all that remains now is for the government to carry out the recommendations that have been made. I am sure that if this is done and a compulsory scheme instituted, with proper drying and storage facilities provided, the result will be a great improvement in this branch of agriculture. I earnestly urge that the Department of Agriculture, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade and Commerce take hold of this problem in a way that will call forth our everlasting gratitude.


James Garfield Gardiner: I understand that it
is the desire of the chairman of the committee investigating war expenditures to bring in his report at this time. If the hon. member would permit me to make my reply after

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the evening recess, I would move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again this day.
Progress reported.



WAR EXPENDITURES


Mr. J. T. THORSON (Selkirk):: Mr. Speaker, I would ask leave to revert to the order of proceedings for the presentation of reports by standing and select committees.


Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER:: With the
imanimous consent of the house, we will revert to the order for the presentation of reports by standing and select committees.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: Mr. Speaker, I wish to
present the second and third reports of the special committee on war expenditures.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They
should be printed in Votes and Proceedings.


Joseph Thorarinn Thorson: They will be.



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

[Stage Direction]
The house resumed in committee of supply, Mr. Vien in the chair.
22. Marketing service. Marketing service administration, $95,252.
James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, I would
ask that you call it six o'clock.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


James Garfield Gardiner: Just before the dinner recess the hon. member for Essex East (Mr. Martin) was reviewing the position in relation to corn, particularly that obtaining in the southwestern part of Ontario where the greater volume of corn is produced. The figures for Ontario for 1939 show a production of a little over 8,000,000 bushels, and in 1940, almost
7.000.	000 bushels. Over a period of six years there has been an average production of
9.000.	000 bushels. There is very little information with regard to the production in other parts of Canada prior to 1939. Manitoba had a production of 1,600,000 bushels in 1940. In previous years prices have been running from 55 cents up to 65 cents for Ontario producers. I think on May 20 of this year the price was
75 cents a bushel at the farm in Ontario, with trucking to elevator costing approximately two cents a bushel, making the price at the elevator 77 cents a bushel. The day before this memorandum was made up, which was within the last few days, the United States price was 71 cents a bushel for No. 1 corn at Chicago. Those are some of the facts with regard to the situation.
The hon. member for Essex East referred to the fact that corn produced in Canada, particularly that produced in the southwestern part of Ontario, has a fairly high moisture content. On account of this high moisture content and the fact that we have no proper facilities for drying com, the product sometimes arrives in poor shape for feeding purposes in Ontario or other parts of eastern Canada. Different departments of government in recent years have been faced with the problem of providing driers at some particular points or an elevator or elevators with driers attached, in order that the corn may be handled more efficiently and in better condition. The report which was read before the dinner recess was prepared by the chambers of commerce, and it states that Canadian corn is suitable for commercial as well as feeding purposes, the main difficulty being that which was outlined to the committee by the hon. member for Essex East, namely, the high moisture content.
As was stated, consideration has been given to this problem on a number of occasions. I think that each time those who have investigated the matter have agreed on the methods which ought to be followed in order to handle the corn properly. Most of those who have investigated and dealt with the matter from the point of view of providing suitable feed for live stock have maintained that the cheapest way to dry this corn is in cribs upon the farms. It was stated that it takes from two to four months to dry com, depending upon its condition and the time of year in which it is being dried. In order, however, to provide for shipments in the early months of the shipping season, it is necessary to have some artificial means of drying, if the corn is to arrive in good condition. So far as the preparation of com for commercial purposes is concerned, it seems that it is essential that artificial driers should be established at one or more points.
The question is one which brings up the old difficulty that arises quite often in connection with different problems associated with agriculture and other industries in Canada, namely, that of provincial responsibility as against federal responsibility. Something was . said about that by the hon. member for Essex East, and at this time I would only say that
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we would not care to carry that argument further than to say that where the greater part of a product is produced in the same province in which it is consumed, we would be desirous of at least having the advice and consent of the provincial authorities in connection with anything that we might undertake to do. We would prefer to have representations made to us from the provincial governments to the effect that they desire to have something done to putting pressure on provincial governments in connection with products of that kind. I think that inquiries which are being made as between the provincial and the federal government may result in something being done which will be helpful.
In connection with the construction of an elevator, it was stated by the hon. member for Essex East that we had been more or less passing the buck between departments in years gone by. He suggested that the Department of Agriculture was inclined to say that this was the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Commerce, and he now sug-gets that the opinion is passed on that it is really the responsibility of the Department of Transport. I have made some inquiries into the matter, and I am convinced that the responsibility in so far as the construction of elevators east of Fort William is concerned, belongs to the Department of Transport. At the same time I am not going to shirk the responsibility of dealing with the matter as an agricultural problem. I am quite prepared to say to the hon. member that the department is quite anxious to give consideration to any representations that may be made to us or that have been made to us from the counties concerned, namely, the four or five counties in the southwestern part of Ontario. I would only suggest that we shall consider them subject to discussions which we may have with the provincial government.
I admit at once that some improved shipping facilities are necessary. I admit that some method of drying grain is essential to the proper handling of com. I admit also that the government should take an interest in both these problems and try to find a solution of the problem confronting the people in that section of the province, more particularly in this period when we are interested in the production of corn, not only for commercial purposes but as a feed, and a good feed, especially in connection with the production of hogs which is so necessary at the present time. I think this is all that I can say at the moment until the matter has been fully discussed with the members of the governments concerned and with the government itself.
(Mr. Gardiner.)


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I did not plan on pursuing the interesting argument advanced by the hon. member for Essex East, but in passing I should like to say that the apparent consideration which he has given to this subject and the interesting maimer in which he has presented it should satisfy all hon. members that it is not necessary to be a farmer from one of the back concessions of Ontario in order to be able to discuss important agricultural problems. At eleven o'clock last night I was discussing the stamp plan in the United States, and the Minister of Agriculture mentioned that the Canadian government had distributed large quantities of butter, cheese, fish and other commodities. I am aware that the government have done a good deal in this field, but I contend that they have not gone nearly far enough, nor have they undertaken the problem in the systematic way which characterizes the stamp plan in the United States. On a former occasion I made reference to a book prepared by the Canadian Medical association, "Food1 for Health". A paragraph I did not quote before is found on the front page:
By eating the proper kind and amount of food, you and your family are protecting yourselves against the diseases which go along with war and which spread in the period immediately following. In addition, good health enables wage-earners to stay on the job. Working time lost through sickness usually means a smaller pay envelope. We have a war to win. We must be fit for -whatever task is required of us. Every housewife can do her bit-and help others do theirs by keeping her family's health at a high level.
On the fifth page, in heavy print:
The Canadian farmer produces all the foods necessary for good health. Canadian grown vegetables such as tomatoes, turnips, cabbage, and fruits in season (apples, berries, cherries, plums, peaches, pears) can replace the more expensive imported fruits.
I am sure that hon. members were ashamed last night to hear what I read from a newspaper, to the effect that literally thousands of boxes of apples in British Columbia had been dumped. Other surplus foods are going to waste in Canada, and yet in this dominion there are people who are not getting enough to satisfy a decent standard of living. I am not able to say what number of people in this country are not getting enough to eat, but the last report submitted by the Department of Labour in connection with the Unemployment and Agricultural Assistance Act sets forth, on page 34, that in March, 1941, there were in Canada 325,000 individuals on direct relief. If the people on direct relief in other parts of this country are in the same position as those on direct relief in my con-

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stituency, there are in this dominion a great many people who are not getting enough to eat.
I am not going to discuss all the foods which are available in Canada, but I shall refer briefly to one important food, namely, wheat or flour. Last evening I made reference to a school attendance officer in my constituency who reported that three families in his district are unable to send their children to school because they do not have flour in the house; and the information I have from my constituency is that notices have gone out to people on relief that there will be no more relief. I feel confident that the department at Regina will reconsider this decision, and that cases where it is impossible for them to manage without assistance will receive further aid. In the meantime, I feel sure, a great many families found themselves at the end of last month with no money, no credit at the store, and no way of securing flour except by imposing upon the good graces of the storekeeper.
In another vote the minister has asked us for $35,000,000 for the purpose of not growing wheat. Surely his department should be able, in conjunction with the Department of Trade and Commerce, to find means of providing that some of the surplus wheat in Canada is made available under a plan similar to the stamp plan in the United States, so that every householder in the nation shall have all the flour necessary to supply bread to his table three times a day. The minister should explain, when he is asking this parliament for $1,735,590.64 in connection with his marketing services, why he is not in a position to find ways and means of providing that all the wheat necessary shall be available to make bread for hungry children in this country.
The article in the pamphlet to which I have referred, stressing the importance of guarding the health of Canada, cannot be overemphasized. The minister would do well to give careful consideration to the carrying out of the principles of some plan like the stamp plan, or evolve a plan of his own, so that not a single family in this dominion will be denied the right to all the wheat products which they can possibly use.


Mr. MacKENZIE (Lambton-Kent):: About a week or ten days ago, I believe, the hon. member for Fraser Valley made inquiry of the Prime Minister when the house would be prorogued or adjourned. Of course, the Prime Minister could not very well answer that question, because, while it is a well-known fact that the party in power summons parliament and sets the date when it will be opened, the opposition always decides when it will be prorogued or adjourned.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Not this time.


Hugh Alexander MacKenzie: That opposition may come from the official opposition or from hon. members of the various opposition groups, but that is the quarter where the opposition must come from, or the item would pass. Therefore the logic of the situation is, probably, why talk about an item concerning something which is already in force or in operation? You cannot change it anyway.
In order to clarify my position, may I recall to hon. members that, just before the Easter recess, when we were passing legislation embodying the wheat policy for the west, I endeavoured to make a few remarks around six o'clock and I was ruled out of order, but I was assured that I would have an opportunity to make those observations at a later date. It makes quite a difference whether a policy which is being discussed is or is not actually in effect. In any event, I wish to make a few casual remarks.
The Minister of Agriculture inserted in the estimates an item which has to do with his wheat policy. May I say that if the minister believed he had a policy which would be acceptable to all the agricultural interests from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island, he must now be the most disillusioned man in the house. As a matter of fact, the thing is impossible, and I believe that the minister realizes it.
I have followed since 1938 the policy of the Minister of Agriculture with regard to wheat legislation, and I believe that any one who has done so cannot but admit that from that time up to the present he has certainly been a "sugar-daddy" to western Canada. If the people in the west are not satisfied with his wheat legislation, I do not believe it is possible to satisfy them.
A good many objections were raised by hon. members, some from western Canada, to the effect that his policy was one of regimentation, that the farmers were told they had to do this and they had to do that. As an actual fact, that was not the situation; there was nothing compulsory about the matter, as was evidenced by the statement of the hon. member for Moose Jaw that he intended to do just as he had always done-go on and grow wheat. I have, however, no doubt that the Minister of Agriculture wanted to make and did make a policy so attractive to western agriculturists in general that they would accept it. In my opinion he made a very good job of it. For instance, he offered $4 an acre for summer-fallow, up to a certain percentage anyway, which was taken out of wheat
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cultivation. I would say that $4 an acre is very attractive. I well remember that the hon. member who occupies the seat beside me-he is not here to-night-has some property in the west. I was witness to his signature on some leases which he was sending out west, and the sum he was paying for land summer-fallowing was $2.50 an acre. He mentioned that he had been getting the same work done in previous years for $2 an acre. I well remember, too, that the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, who is, I believe he will admit, a big wheat farmer, claimed that he was getting summer-fallowing done at $1.50 an acre, and that he could have hundreds and perhaps thousands of acres summer-fallowed at that price. The policy adopted by the Minister of Agriculture must have been quite attractive. I remember, when we were discussing certain property in the vicinity of an experimental farm at Rosthern, the hon. member for Wood Mountain, I believe, said that land there could be bought for as low as ten dollars an acre. Therefore, if one summer-fallowed land there for two and a half years, he would have the land for nothing anyway.
I agree with the hon. member for Essex East. I am not going to belabour this question, because he went into it fully, and I am in accord with what he said. Coarse grains were quite a problem, and the Minister of Agriculture declared that in his opinion it would not influence or affect the eastern farmer, but he said it so often that I rather think he believed it himself. I am quite satisfied that it is discriminating against the coarse-grain growers of the east. Barley is a good substitute for corn; and if you bonus it in the west and pay the freight on it to the east, it is decidedly in competition with corn produced in southwestern Ontario. I do not think the policy is quite fair to the corn growers of the country.
When the question was brought up before, I said that we grew all the grain we required, even last year under abnormal conditions. That is not quite true, although the southwestern counties did not import any western grain. I wish to make it quite clear that I am not opposed to western agriculture. I should like to see the western farmers get as much as they can; I should like to see them get a dollar a bushel for their wheat. But what I did object to, and what I object to now under that policy, is that eastern agriculture cannot afford to pay for a bonusing policy for the west. That is what I objected to, and I still object to it.
I was also opposed, and naturally so, to the way in which the measure was brought

down. The government used their powers under the War Measures Act to frame a policy and to deal with the matter in supply where there was no opportunity to move amendments or to change the regulations. The whole question should have been discussed in the committee on agriculture before it was brought into the house, and, if necessary, there should have been appropriate amendments which would have made the legislation workable and agreeable to all parts of the country.
I agree that on the whole agriculture has been getting a rather better deal of late; things are looking up a little. We must admit, however, tliat agricultural prices should be placed on a parity with prices of other commodities if we are ever to be on a sound economic basis in Canada. No party has, however, offered any policy or solution or panacea for this problem. They all say that something should be done, but they do not come forward with a concrete plan to put agriculture on a sound economic basis. The old law of supply and demand no longer operates; at least it does not function to the extent that it did before. That is true not only now but of the pre-war period. We must look for some solution if we are ever to put agriculture on a sound basis. When the war is over and we get back to a sound trading policy, the situation will probably clear up; but I have my doubts, because throughout the world we find no common standard of living, no common standard of wages, no common standard of money. I could mention several instances. I could discuss at some length the question of beet sugar. Cane sugar can be bought cheaper than beet sugar because the labour employed in harvesting the cane receives forty cents a day; but one cannot procure labour in our fields at less than $2.50 or $3 a day. The same is true of other commodities, and we are exporting only a small proportion of our agricultural products. There is no market for butter outside the dominion, and we have no large exports with the possible exception of wheat. We should, therefore, devise some plan of controlling prices and, to some extent, production. If the government could bring in some sort of national marketing act and work out a system of our own to place agriculture on a sound and safe economic basis, it would be a great boon to the farmers.


Mr. HATFIELD:: I wish to commend the argument put forward by the hon. member for Essex East with regard to the growing of corn in Canada to supply our corn starch manufacturing plants. I have had some experience with com starch, and I believe

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there are two plants in Ontario, one at Cardinal and the other at Port Credit. Those plants have large storage facilities, and all that would be necessary would :be to install drying apparatus. The corn could be taken from the fields and dried in those plants. At present they import com in the fall from south Africa and south America, bringing it -here before navigation closes.


Paul Joseph James Martin: And the United States.


Heber Harold Hatfield: There must be large storage facilities at those plants. Manitoba can grow good corn. Why, then, send out foreign exchange for com at the present time? Most of it is coming from the United States to-day to supply the factories, and there is a large export demand for com starch. The United States is shipping millions of tons of com starch to Europe and all the other countries of the world.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: I am not going to make a speech to-night. I was told that I was on the wrong item when I tried to discuss certain questions before, but I believe I am in order to-night. I wish to make one correction. The hon. member for Lambton-Kent made reference to western Canada. Let me inform the committee that, geographically speaking, British Columbia is in the west, although apparently the committee does not know this. We do not grow wheat, but we are in the west nevertheless.
Although I do not agree that the minister is a "sugar-daddy" to anybody-knowing his record in the past, I do not think he would not be a "sugar-daddy" according to my definition of that term-I am particularly interested in what will happen to eggs and poultry. Last night, it seems, I was in the wrong section, but I should like to have some explanation from the minister. I was informed that he did not have the right bodyguard or officials round him to give him the information on marketing. May I ask him what is to happen to that other war casualty in my riding, the small fruit grower. In British Columbia we depend upon our export surplus.
Unfortunately, owing to the war and shipping conditions, we have not been able to dispose of our extra berries, our processed berries, to Great Britain. I give the minister full credit that last year he was able to dispose of them, but I should like to know what provision is being made this year. The growers in my constituency must know now, because they are now starting to can those berries, probably with such a fine climate as British Columbia has, they are already canned, and we must know where we are going to dispose of
them. Before this session closes-and I do not wish to have to talk for three days-I think we should know whether we are or are not going to get the same treatment for eggs as is given for butter, honey, maple sugar, lobster, apples and wheat. I repeat that word "wheat." It is a commodity grown in a couple of the provinces. We should like to know if we are going to get a minimum guaranteed price that will at least return the cost of production. Under this item of marketing services administration, I think the minister should be in a position, in view of his statement of last year, that the same treatment would be accorded to all producers in every part of Canada, to give us some assurance.


Joseph Henry Harris: I should like
to add a word or two, not altogether along the same lines but along one vital line, namely, the matter of getting fruit through to the British isles. I have in my files three or four letters from those now overseas who find themselves unable to satisfy their requirements with regard to fruit and fruit juices. They ask for more apples from Canada, if necessary dried apples in order to save the freight, and they particularly ask whether it is possible to get apple juice. The condition which at present obtains is that companies such as Eaton's, Simpson's and other large department stores in Canada have arranged to pack for shipment overseas parcels of fruit juices such as tomato, apple and some orange juice which their friends here send to the boys overseas. One of my constituents writes me that there is a shortage over there of vitamins;
I think it is vitamin C. It seems uneconomical for interested people in Canada to have to mail cans of apple juice overseas, the cost of mailing being four or five or six times the cost of the product itself. Yet people do so in order to satisfy the needs of their loved ones who are serving in the forces overseas. What I had in mind is that this marketing service * might take hold of this matter in a rather big way and send overseas our tomato juice which contains this required vitamin, and our apple juice, dried apples and fruits of all kinds. So much for the local situation mentioned by the hon. member for Fraser Valley.
Passing now to the world situation, we find that our markets on the European continent are very much disrupted. We have been taught by the exponents of the policy of the Liberal party that overseas trade, and more particularly trade with Europe, is the lifeblood of this country. That trade has been demoralized by the present conflict. I am wondering what policy the Minister of Agriculture has in mind to improve Canada's position in view of our being cut off from that market, the result being, as we all know
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that in Canada we have a surplus of agricultural products. That surplus causes prices of these products to fall to a low level. Subsidize as much as you will; assist as much as you will by bonuses and subsidies of the kind that have been enunciated here, namely, $4 per acre if you make the ground black and in the way of becoming a desert again, or $2 per acre if you put it into coarse grain.
The spending of these odd millions, $35,000,000 in that instance, will not help the situation in the long run. In fact I am greatly concerned about the position we are getting into through these grants and allowances for having land black in July. I am concerned about the state it will be in by July of next year. It may be a desert. If it is, then we shall not be in a position to produce, even though, on account of the lack of a market for that extra 10 or 15 or 20 per cent in Europe, we have at present a depressed level of agricultural prices. Let us not be too much concerned about that, even though in Europe they have a false or pseudo-prosperity. Analyse that situation, due to the fact that a bushel of wheat in Germany to-day may buy $2 worth of goods and services, whereas in Canada a bushel of wheat will buy only fifty cents worth; in the matter of a decade that will prove only a false or pseudo-prosperity. On account of that false prosperity, goods and services are coming back to the producers of wheat, bacon and other consumable commodities to an amount out of proportion to what those goods and sendees are really worth.
In our land of prosperity and abundance the reverse obtains. Therefore I say to my hon. friends who concern themselves about the low price of agricultural and other products and materials which by nature we are able to produce, that this condition is probably just temporary and the world equation will soon balance itself. The world equation may balance itself, and even though the present situation is difficult; even though the economic pressure we have exerted against the totalitarian states has not worked to the extent that we had hoped, the day will come when they will want our goods. Therefore I say to the Canadian producer of primary commodities, "Stay with us in farm production and in the long run we shall win through." That prosperity wjiich obtains in the totalitarian countries, due to a shortage of the goods they would like to consume, in the final analysis will bring about their defeat. When the men rescued from the Bismarck had their first meal on board a British ship they were amazed when they were served a full-course dinner. They were not accustomed to a full stomach on which to work. That is the very thing that will pull us through. Therefore I say to the

minister, and to all those who are looking to him to save agriculture in Canada to-day, that they should have patience, because in the long run we in Canada, together with the other members of the British commonwealth that have large supplies of these commodities, will get these commodities through to Britain.
That is the job of the minister; he must see that Britain gets these goods. We are all glad and willing to help in any way possible that this may be done, whether it is eggs from British Columbia, wheat from the prairie provinces, fruit from the land of Evangeline, or pork from the eight million hogs throughout Canada; let us get these products through to Britain. It is said that armies travel on their stomachs. Let us make sure that the Englishmen, the Canadians and all those fighting in our behalf have full stomachs on which to fight, even though prices are low here. The people of the totalitarian states are almost starving for those commodities of which we have an abundance; and when this conflict is over-pray God that may be fairly soon-they will want those products and we shall be able to reestablish our channels of trade. Then, once more Canada will return to her place as one of the greatest exporters of primary products. Consequently I hope the minister will tell us what the marketing service has in mind with regard to securing those commodities of which the United Kingdom is short, and, beyond that, supplying an abundance of all commodities, without regard to cost, so that the armed forces of the United Kingdom may give a good account of themselves and, at the same time, we may escape the difficult situation in which we find ourselves to-day.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Might I have an answer to my question? I have to attend a committee meeting, and I do not wish to have to listen to all this oratory.


James Garfield Gardiner: The hon. member for Fraser Valley has asked for information with regard to the possibility of marketing certain fruits which have to be disposed of in British Columbia each fall. Last year we made an arrangement with Great Britain whereby they agreed to take delivery of 1,700 tons of the type of berry products in which the hon. member is interested. We found that we were able to deliver only 1,300 tons, for the reason that this was all we were able to obtain at that time by way of surplus. This year the marketing branch of the department is negotiating with the same authorities in Britain for an arrangement under which they will take somewhere between 1,700 and 2,500 tons.

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Mr. NEILL:: The minister is referring to processed fruit, is he?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, processed berries. The negotiations have not been completed, but we expect that an arrangement similar to that of last year will be arrived at, and we hope it will take care of any surplus that may be available this fall.
With regard to eggs, we have had some little difficulty until very recently. During last month, I understand that we completed the shipment of 180,000 cases of fresh eggs to Britain, and we are making arrangements to deliver more than 230,000 cases this fall; we are storing them now for delivery at that time. I quite appreciate that this is a very small proportion of the eggs produced in Canada, but I think I am correct in saying that we were shipping only a very small proportion of our eggs to Britain before the war. Then, again, it is just possible that we have a greater production at the present time on account of a general stepping up of production of all farm products throughout the country, and it may be necessary for us to dispose of a larger quantity than we have in mind at the present time. In any event, negotiations are going forward looking to the disposal of that surplus.
With reference to the other questions raised by the hon. member for Danforth, I do not think the situation is exactly as his remarks might lead one to believe. We are disposing of more farm products of every kind1-


Joseph Henry Harris: Would the minister address himself to apple juice and tomato juice?


James Garfield Gardiner: I will come to those. We are disposing of more of the stable farm products generally exported from Canada, with the exception of wheat, than was the situation before the war.


Joseph Henry Harris: We quite agree with that.


James Garfield Gardiner: We have had some difficulty with regard to apples. Before the war we exported to Britain fifty per cent of the apples grown in Canada, while in the Annapolis valley of Nova Scotia the export figure reached approximately 80 per cent. During the first fall of the war, at some inconvenience to herself Britain did take a certain proportion of our fresh apples from the maritime provinces and British Columbia, but during the second year they did not desire to take delivery of fresh apples. One reason for that was that apples are bulky in relation to their food value and take considerable shipping space which is of greater importance to Britain at the present time in connection with other foods.


Joseph Henry Harris: I asked particularly about dried apples.


James Garfield Gardiner: I am coming to those. In the first fall of the war not only did we deliver a certain percentage of our apples to Great Britain; the government itself took over the remainder of the apples, which were canned or dehydrated. I think we still have some of those apples which were grown in 1939, and canned in the winter of 1939-40. We have given away some of them. We have sold some of them. We gaT_e some to some people who told us afterwards that they would just as soon we had not shipped them.


Grote Stirling: Nova Scotia apples?


James Garfield Gardiner: They were dehydrated apples. That statement was made, not because the apples were not good enough, but because they took up shipping space at a time when other foods of greater importance had not enough shipping space. Under those conditions, of course we are not pressing our apple crop upon the British people.
I may say that when I was in England last fall I did discover some apples in a market in Liverpool. I made some inquiries as to how they got there, knowing that we were not shipping any apples from Canada. I did not understand how apples might have been received from some other countries. When I made inquiries I found out that the apples were some Which had been taken off a captured boat, and were being disposed of simply because they had been landed in Great Britain.


Joseph Henry Harris: Distress apples.


James Garfield Gardiner: I state this in order to indicate that the British people are not taking apples at the present time in anything like the quantities they were taken before. They are not taking fresh apples at all, so far as I know and, from what I can learn, they are not anxious to receive even dehydrated apples, and certainly not in the quantities we could supply. In other words, we have some difficulty in disposing of our apple crop. It is costing the government about $2,000,000 a year to take off the market apples which cannot be disposed of and which, had there been no war, would have been disposed of in Great Britain.
I believe that the same observations would apply to a greater or lesser degree to apple and other fruit juices. Perhaps it applies to a lesser degree on account of the fact that the juices may be canned and shipped in a form which is not as objectionable as fresh apples would be. At the present time, however, there is not any considerable demand; as a matter of fact, there is no demand at all for them.
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Joseph Henry Harris: Do I understand the minister to say that there is no demand for fruit juices?


James Garfield Gardiner: We have no request for fruit juices up to the present time; but for tomato juice there is a demand.


Joseph Henry Harris: With all due
deference to the minister, there is a great demand for orange, apple and tomato juices.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Who is making the speech?


Joseph Henry Harris: The minister is, but I am correcting him.


James Garfield Gardiner: I can only answer the questions I have been asked from the information we have in the department. If the hon. member for Danforth has other information, I should be very glad to have it.


Joseph Henry Harris: There is a
shortage of apple and tomato juices.


James Garfield Gardiner: It is scarcely correct to imply that agriculture is not doing as well in the matter of volume shipped from this country, or in the matter of price received-


Joseph Henry Harris: No such inference can be drawn from what I have said.


James Garfield Gardiner: -at the present time, as it did before the war. In other words, Great Britain is taking from Canada to-day very much greater quantities of pork products than we sold to all countries to which we delivered pork products before the war.


Joseph Henry Harris: I agree.


James Garfield Gardiner: In other words, we are not shipping less; we are shipping very much more.


Joseph Henry Harris: I agree with that. The minister has no right to draw the inference that I said anything different.


James Garfield Gardiner: I believe I had better try to answer the inference-


Joseph Henry Harris: There was no inference at all.


James Garfield Gardiner: -and have the information complete. My memory is that in the last complete year before the war we shipped about 160,000,000 pounds of Wiltshire sides to Great Britain. This year we shall ship
450,000,000 pounds, or almost three times as much. While the actual market price as it would prevail upon the market if nothing were done about it, other than to accept the terms of the agreement, is approximately the same as the market price in that earlier year, the government of Great Britain raised that price

a short time ago in order to assist in bringing the price up to the level of the United States price. That was done by increasing the price allowed us under the agreement from 80 shillings to 85 shillings. Since that time, the government of Canada has added an additional 75 cents per hundred pounds of Wiltshire sides, in order that Canada might do her part in increasing the price up to the level which has been produced in the United States market.
This has been done for a twofold purpose: first, for the purpose of giving the best return we can arrange at the present time. Whether it is satisfactory to agriculture all the way across Canada, I am not going to try to argue. It has, however, been for the purpose of securing the best price which we consider we could arrange. That price is a little bit higher now than was the price in the year of the first agreement. I think farmers across Canada have expressed themselves as being fairly well satisfied with the price * we obtained in the first year of the agreement. The price prevailing now is better.


Mr. TUSTIN:: That 75 cents is included?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. It was a little better even before we added the 75 cents.


Joseph Henry Harris: Would the minister permit a question?


James Garfield Gardiner: Would the hon. member permit me to finish my answer to his speech? The second purpose is to encourage the farmers to produce still more next year. The present position is that Great Britain is taking all the surplus pork products, and particularly Wiltshire sides, that we have available to ship to her. We are shipping it- all, in so far as bottoms can be secured. I believe she will be prepared to take all the Wiltshire sides we can produce, or that we are likely to produce-I shall .put it in that way-within the next twelve months.
We want the farmers to understand that the government of Canada, along with the government of Great Britain, is and will be prepared to see to it that in view of the circumstances a reasonable price is maintained, to the end that we may get the highest possible production.
That brings me to the reference made a few minutes ago to the policy which has been followed in connection with wheat. It has been suggested that we simply bonused the farmers to the extent of 14 an acre, in order to have them keep their land idle. That is not what we did. We asked the farmers to reduce their wheat acreage, and we gave our reasons for doing so. We said, "We have now

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enough wheat in storage in Canada to supply all Great Britain's needs, all our own needs and all the needs of any other countries to which we have any reason to believe we shall be supplying wheat within the next two years." We have enough wheat in storage now to supply purchasers for two years. We said, further, "It is costing the government of Canada a certain amount of money to take delivery of that wheat, in order to make it possible for the people who grow it to live." The amount that we have been paying out is 70 cents a bushel Fort William for every bushel of wheat delivered. Then we would add to that about ten cents a bushel a year in storage and carrying charges for each year the wheat is going to be carried. If we carry it into the third year, having two years' supply already on hand, it will cost the government about one dollar a bushel to take delivery of that wheat and carry it until such time as there is a demand for it.
We have said to the people of western Canada; we have said to the people of all Canada that, on that basis, for every bushel of wheat that they keep out of production, that is, every bushel of wheat that they do not produce this year, they will be making available from the amount of money that the government of Canada has to raise one dollar to be expended during the next three years in prosecuting the war. It was on that basis that the pamphlets, which were quoted here last evening and which were referred to again to-day, were put out in western Canada. Those pamphlets were to the effect that to grow less wheat in 1941-not grow less wheat in 1942 or in 1943-would help in the prosecution of the war. I say that to reduce the bushelage by a million bushels which the government would have had to take delivery of will help in the prosecution of the war financially to the extent of one dollar a bushel for the three years; to the extent of $1,000,000 for every 1,000,000 bushels
It was upon that basis that we asked the farmers of western Canada to reduce their acreage this year. We said, "We are not coming to the people of western Canada at the present time and saying that you should not grow wheat; we are not coming to the people of western Canada and saying that at some future time you should not grow wheat; we are coming to them and we are saying two things, first, that there are certain products that ought to be produced this year in greater volume than you have been producing them before. We want more butter; we want more hogs; we want more cattle, and if we are going to be able to produce these products in Canada we must have more feed grain."
We said, "In addition to helping us out in financing the war by not asking the government to take delivery of the same amount of wheat this year that they have in the last two years, if you grow more coarse grains, either you will make it possible to produce these other products on the farms where you are growing the crops or by shipping them to some other part of Canada you will be making possible the production of these other products in other parts of Canada."
Up to date the reports indicate that the farmers of western Canada followed our advice in the matter, and advices up to the present indicate that they have reduced their acreage by close to 7,000,000 acres. That is, out of a total acreage of somewhere around 27,000,000 acres, they have cut off about 7,000,000 acres. Some of that land is being put into summer-fallow, and to the extent that they have reduced wheat acreage they will be paid $4 an acre for having done so. My hon. friend says that he fears a desert next year. I do not fear a desert as a result of summerfallowing in western Canada, but I would say there is a possibility that we may have more wheat next year because we summer-fallowed this year.


Joseph Henry Harris: That would be
all right.


James Garfield Gardiner: This summer-fallowing
may amount to three or four million acres this year. The hon. member for Danforth says, "That w'ould be all right." I think it will be all right from the point of view of having a greater production next year. I am not one of those who think it is a good thing over a period of time to reduce the production of food. In the long fun I think it is probably a good thing to increase the production of food.	While it may be
necessary this year to cut down the production of wheat on account of the position in which we find ourselves in relation to the whole problem, in the long run I do not think any harm is going to come from having three or four million acres of land in a better condition to produce more grain next year, whether it be wheat if we want it, or whether it be more coarse grains in order that we may produce more of other products.
The remainder of the six, seven, or eight million acres, whatever it may turn out to be, which has been taken out of wheat will be put into coarse grains and grasses. From the coarse grains we shall produce largely pork products, and from the grasses, in the summer months, we shall produce dairy products. We have had some experience already in connection with dairy products as related to the policy which has been followed. This
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is the policy which my hon. friend said a few moments ago brought forth considerable criticism two or three months ago, but it is not bringing forth so much criticism now. Since the beginning of the war we have followed the policy of keeping a close check on agriculture right across this country, and of not going out in advance of the time when it is necessary and calling upon everybody to produce something which we could not get rid of. We have had one experience of that kind, although we did not have to ask to have it produced; it was produced in the natural course of events. We have more wheat than we are able to get rid of for the time being, but we are fortunate in the fact that wheat is a product which will keep for a long term of years. After we hold our wheat, it will be just as good as a food product three or four years from now as it was when it was grown. That being the situation, it is fortunate that that is the product which we have in greater quantity than it can be disposed of at present, because I have no doubt that it will be used in due course to feed those people who will be requiring it.
In the meantime people must live; in the meantime people across the seas must have meat products which they cannot get elsewhere, and in the meantime we can get better returns by producing those meat products than we have been able to get for the last ten years. At the same time we shall be serving the purpose we are trying to serve in relation to the war itself. I have said that we have increased deliveries of pork products from 160,000,000 pounds in the last complete year before the war to 450,000,000 pounds this year, and we hope that the increase will be greater next year. We are fairly well assured that with the war proceeding toward a successful conclusion we shall be able to dispose of those products in a way which will be as favourable as possible under the circumstances for those who produce them.
In so far as cheese is concerned, if I remember the figures correctly, in the last year before the war we delivered about 72,000,000 pounds. Last year we delivered a little over 103,000,000 pounds, and this year we have contracted to deliver 112,000,000 pounds. Only two or three weeks ago certain newspapers in Canada were saying that we had failed entirely in our policy because we had allowed farmers to get rid of their cows, and they were not going to have the milk with which to produce cheese. I have here on my desk to-night an article written yesterday by one of the same newspapers to the effect that we have thrown away a million and a quarter dollars by putting another cent on cheese which we did not need to put on because the farmers were

going to produce the cheese anyway. I cannot understand that kind of argument, where people with one breath argue one way, and with the other breath argue another way. Nevertheless, three or four weeks ago the farmers took milk to the cheese factories in volume which produced 31 per cent less than was produced in the same week a year ago. The gradings for this last week show that in the last week for which we have a record, they took in sufficient milk to produce approximately 47 per cent more than they produced in the same week a year ago.
I quite agree with the writer of the article in this particular paper when he says that the farmers of Canada would have produced that cheese even if we had not put an extra cent on the price. I would, however, call attention to this. Britain places cheese right at the top of the list of her food necessities. She wants cheese; it has a food value, and it takes as little shipping space as any of the more important foods. It is a product which the British people are accustomed to placing in their ration of food. Our Canadian cheese is a good product. We knew, when we put an extra cent to the fifteen cents on ship at Montreal plus the one cent premium on 93 score, plus the two cents on 94 score, plus the subsidies which are provided by the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, that the farmers were getting a better price for their cheese than they had had over a long period of years extending back before the beginning of this war. We knew that they turned out within this last year more than 140,000,000 pounds of cheese, as against 100,000,000 a few years ago; that they exported to Britain
103,000,000 pounds, as against 72,000,000 pounds in the year before the war; that this year they will deliver not merely 112,000,000 pounds but probably 120,000,000 pounds or even more. Whether they do or they do not, we believe that the price which is now established will have the effect of keeping farmers delivering milk to cheese factories, as against taking it to creameries, where we have guaranteed the minimum price for the summer at a level of 30 cents in June, 30J cents in July, 31 cents in August, 31i cents in September, and 32 cents in October. With these two levels of prices established, we believe that the Canadian farmer will raise next year his production of cheese to the level it reached in the last years of the last war, and we shall be exporting, not 72,000,000 pounds as we were doing at the beginning of the war, but twice as much cheese, to Britain alone, as we sent at that time.
That is the objective we have in mind. That is our policy. We have brought the farmers through the last two years-it is

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true, with some dissatisfaction as regards price-without encouraging the production of great surpluses which we could not get rid of for the time being, but in a condition of mind in which, as a newspaper says that was criticizing us three or four weeks ago they would have produced the product even though we had not raised the price. With the increased price level, however, they will go on next year beyond our fondest hopes in connection with the production of food.
All this is connected with the prosecution of the war. I was told the other day, by a man prominent in matters having to do with Britain's policies, that Great Britain will win this war. He did not say "if", he said that "Britain will win this war because we are going to feed the British people." When he said "we", he did not mean Canada alone; he meant all the people in the world who are associated with Britain in fighting this battle. "We are going to maintain the sea lanes. We are going to see that food gets over. As food is destroyed we are going to produce more. And," he said, "the people are going to maintain the morale which is necessary to the winning of a victory, on account of the fact that they are assured that they are going to be fed; and the battle is going to be fought through to the final conclusion."
We in Canada can play our part, and our farmers are playing their part. The government is not able, as we all agree, to pay all that the farmers ought to have, but in conjunction with Great Britain and with the United States to the south, we are trying to supply all the food we can send from this continent to Great Britain. We have done it not only by maintaining prices as high as we possibly can, and by encouraging production, but by keeping a check on the consumption of the important products, and we have tried to maintain that consumption at not a higher level than was maintained under the favourable conditions of last year.
To my hon. friend here who was talking about the circumstances of those on relief, I wish to say only this. We in Canada have passed through a very difficult period. Everyone iri this chamber knows that. He knows how we used to argue about it ten years ago; he knows that, we argued about it five years ago, and that we argued about it even two years ago.


Mr. HOMUTH:: And you are still arguing.


James Garfield Gardiner: We have not been arguing about it very much since September, 1939. Some of us said ten years ago, five years ago, and three years ago, that the reason for the unnatural condition which existed in connection with food products, of 14873-222
which we are large producers, was that certain people were getting ready for war. There were those who scoffed at that idea, but to-day we are all convinced that they were getting ready, and they got ready to such good advantage that it is taking us from two to three years to catch up with them. We know now that preparations were being made not only in the matter of munitions, but in the matter of food. I believe every hon. member will agree with me when I say that the farmer, being a producer of food which is necessary in the same quantities per man in time of peace as in time of war, is about the only producer in Canada who was ready to supply his product in much greater quantities than could be used in this country when the war did come. He did not stop when the war broke out. He went right on producing no matter what the price was, and increased the amounts, hoping, no doubt, for some increase in prices as a result of the fact that we were at war.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: He was encouraged to do so.


James Garfield Gardiner: He was encouraged, and he should have been encouraged to do so.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: You encouraged him.


James Garfield Gardiner: My hon. friend says that I encouraged him. I am afraid that if the production had not been adequate at the present time he would have said that I should have encouraged him. But I accept what he has said as a compliment. We encouraged the farmers, and the products which we asked them to produce they have available and will have available in greater quantities as the months go by. What I wish, however, to point out in this connection is, that while there may have been in Canada some few months ago about 300,000 unemployed, there was a time not very long ago when we had over 1,000,000. In other words, our unemployment rolls have been cut down considerably, and to that extent we are presumably better off than we were before.
In connection with the problem of relief, the hon. member for Mackenzie knows that it is not one which is dealt with under the Department of Agriculture. I am not trying to shirk a responsibility when I say that. Agricultural relief in western Canada was taken care of for a period of time under this department. But urban relief was never a matter which was under our charge. We did, through this department, take farm products off the market at a time when we had surpluses, and we distributed them to people who were on relief. We went even further than that. We realized that in a country such as

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Canada people do not easily go on relief; they go on suffering a great deal of inconvenience and underfeeding in their families. Only then do they go on relief.
I think I said, on the occasion when we first took butter off the markets and gave it away, that the first thing a poor family does is to quit eating butter on account of its price and to start eating some cheap jam. Eventually they go down the list until they get to blackstrap molasses, finally giving that up, having nothing on their bread and eating it dry. That is the process they go through. We gave away butter, cheese and other products. We did not follow the stamp practice which prevails in the United States, but we did the thing that we thought was suitable to this country; and I may say what I said in reply to the question with regard to the notice that had already gone out in the province of Saskatchewan from the provincial government to the effect that there will be no relief in certain areas this year. That notice has gone out ever since we passed the peak of our unemployment condition. It is necessary from year to year to take persons off the unemployed list and off the lists of relief as conditions improve in their areas; and just as that order went out last year and relief was given later on where it was absolutely essential, so the order has gone out this year; all of which means that every person who was on the list is cut off and must make a new application again to reestablish himself as being in a position warranting the receipt of relief. I have no doubt that where it is absolutely essential it will be given.
In relation to the matter of distributing wheat or Hour, or making it possible to get it, these relief lists do make tha+ possible. I can understand, knowing conditions as I know them in the northern part of Saskatchewan, that some people have not been able to get all that they need. But knowing more particularly the frame of mind of many people in that province, I know that fathers and mothers will get along without flour for quite a while before asking for it from anyone, whether the municipal council or the government or anybody else. I know Saskatchewan well enough, however, to realize that if their neighbours know the situation, these people will not have to go without flour very long. I realize also that they should not be left in that condition and that governments should do something about the matter. But again, I have sufficient confidence in the governments of the three prairie provinces to believe that where these conditions do prevail, those governments, as soon as the facts are made known to them, will see to it that food is
fMr. Gardiner.]
got to these people. I do not wish to say anything more with regard to this particular item.


Joseph Henry Harris: I am hopeful
that the hon. member for Fraser Valley will feel now that at least the minister has answered the question he raised with regard to eggs. In an agile manner, the minister slipped from eggs into pork, and it was quite interesting. He knows, as this committee knows, that the reason why we are able to supply more pork products to the United Kingdom, the greatest market in the world for pork products, is that Denmark is unable to ship now to the British isles. Poland, which took second place, is now unable to ship to that market, and the same is true of the Netherlands. For the last decade they have found it difficult to get their products into the United Kingdom. It was my privilege to be in Rotterdam less than a decade ago, and when I went to the steamship office and asked them to change some pounds, shillings and pence into guilders, speaking perfectly good English the man in the exchange office complained to me most bitterly, when he found that I was a Canadian, that we had stolen their market in the United Kingdom for the dairy products of the Netherlands. That was what he complained about while he was making change for me. There is the answer, and I cannot understand just why the minister should give us again one of those Napoleonic orations, slipping from eggs over to pork, picking out the choicest morsel, and discussing our exports of these commodities. I do not know why he should feel disposed to address us in the way he did- those of us who have asked questions in this house or made suggestions which we have felt to be constructive. Why should he put upon those questions or suggestions the construction he does, implying that hon. members who do this are not doing all that they can. He is wrong in that regard, Mr. Chairman. We, too, with him and with all the farmers of Canada, are trying to do a job not only on our own behalf but on behalf of our empire in seeing that they have more and more supplies. How they will get more and more supplies by our spending $35,000,000 more for the purpose of making land black on the first of July, I do not know. I know it is not to our advantage to make the lands in the west less productive. On my own farm, which has been producing fruit and vegetables, I found last Sunday that the land was entirely seeded down in mixed grain, and I found four able-bodied citizens, ordinarily resident on that farm, working in munitions plants at fifty cents an hour. That is taking up the

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slack that is produced out west. In the long run the policy there will not make for greater supplies, not only to Great Britain but to the whole civilized world when the conflict ceases. I say to the minister: Use your $35,000,000 to pile up more and more of the gold, the gold being wheat. The minister says that wheat will keep; I say that it will keep. I must sit down now, because my hon. friend the member for Comox-Alberni (Mr. Neill) kindly gave me just three minutes. He wishes. to speak, and I shall have to stop, but I hope that when the minister rises again we shall have a reply to the observations that have been made with regard to eggs and fruit and more particularly the observations of the fruit man from Fraser Valley, the hon. member representing that constituency.


Alan Webster Neill: It gives me great pain to have to differ with my hon. friend who sits next to me (Mr. Harris). I differ with him in his estimation of the minister's speech, and I am afraid I am compelled to state that in my opinion he was a little off with regard to the demands of the hon. member for Fraser Valley (Mr. Cruickshank). That hon. member did riot mention fruit; he mentioned eggs. I would explain to the committee the advantage of the trade that has been built up, started some years ago-by the present government I think-in the processing of fruit for shipment to the old country. There was a large surplus of small fruit, such as raspberries and loganberries, which would have been a dead loss but for the discovery of this method of processing it. They do it in sugar and it will keep a long time; they can ship it to the old country more or less in bulk. I hope that trade will be encouraged and supported by the government. What I was going to begin my remarks with, however, was to say that although this is late in the session and I know that language is unwelcome and words are a weariness to the house, I should like to thank the minister for his dissertation, as my hon. friend called it, or statement. I thought it was a very fine statement. Few men in this house are equal and none is superior to the minister in ability to make a statement of that kind. There was no claptrap about it, and above all, although he mentioned the war and talked about our responsibility in connection therewith and the duties that rest upon us in that connection, there was no suggestion either inferentially or directly, such as we have too often had, that if we ventured to disagree with or criticize the methods he was proposing we thereby showed ourselves disloyal or were guilty, of holding up the war effort. I am tired of these suggestions, whether implied or 14873-2224
direct. I was glad to hear the minister give his capable explanation, covering the whole ground for which his department is responsible from east to west and giving us what I thought was a clear and useful exposition.
Coming back to the hon. member for Fraser Valley, I came into the chamber last night just as he was finishing or was interrupted, being told that he was making his remarks on the wrong item and would have an opportunity to-day. It was in my mind to support him by what local knowledge I have of the matter; but when I came to look up in Hansard what he said, as reported at page 3451, I found he had made an excellent statement, so that I need do no more than say "them's my sentiments". He was dealing with eggs and the condition of poultry-keepers in his district. I, too, am familiar with the subject because I used to be in the feed business in a district where many people went in for chicken raising. They nearly all went broke, and a proportion of them, I am sorry to say, left an unpaid feed bill. When we talk about going into eggs in British Columbia, we do not mean keeping fifty or 100 hens round the back door, fed largely on table scraps, which is the best of all feed, but which we cannot obtain in quantities. Keeping hens in that way is always profitable; any one can show a profit on fifty hens; but when you try to do it on 5,000, when everything has to be bought, it is a different matter. The big egg people in British Columbia almost invariably find it a failure for that reason. You can go along road after road and see places that have been abandoned.
The hon. member for Fraser Valley spoke about the price of eggs; I presume he knew what he was talking about when he quoted figures. He said that the average price last year was 16| cents a dozen. If that was the average price, it means that the low price was very much less, and that eggs could not be produced in that province, where all the feed has to be hauled in from the prairies at a very high rate, an improperly high rate, and the eggs shipped back to the eastern market at another very high rate, at anything like that price. The hon. member for Fraser Valley said:
I should like to know whether any provision is made therein to see that the poultry producer in British Columbia, who must be guided in his prices by the export market, will be protected in exactly the same way as the .apple grower and the butter and cheese producer.
That is, will he have a guaranteed minimum price? That is what he would like to know and what I should like to know. They have done it for the munitions factories, guaranteed not only wages but a fair profit. Nearly the whole lobster catch was taken over by the
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Minister of Fisheries, and he did well with it, almost made it pay, a remarkable thing for a government department. Wheat has been treated generously; a minimum price has been fixed for butter, the same for cheese and the same for apples. Why is it that this one industry, outstanding among all the rest, is left without any protection of that kind? We are aware that the British market is in great need of eggs. As the hon. member pointed out last night, the ten per cent or so sold in outside markets governs the domestic price. As he pointed out, we say to the Ford Motor *company and these big munition makers, "We will guarantee you not only expenses but a fair profit." Is it not fair to say to the egg producer, "We will guarantee you a fair return on the commodities you produce," which are so badly needed?
The minister spoke at some length and with great clarity as to what he or the government had been able to do in the disposal of eggs last season. He evidently did the best possible under the circumstances. But what we should like to know is, what price are we going to get for them? They have been disposed of, yes; but what is the use of raising them to sell at a price below the cost of production? As I said, you can keep two or three score hens and make them profitable; but when you get into the larger numbers, you have to have the money coming in to pay for the feed, which has to be brought in from the prairies at a rate about half as much again as it should be and half as much again as is charged for export to China or the British empire. The export rate is much lower than the domestic rate. It does not seem fair or just that when the railway hauls a carload of No. 1 wheat from Calgary to Vancouver for export at a certain rate, I think it is twenty cents a hundred pounds, yet it is entitled to charge forty cents, now cut in some instances to thirty cents, for identically the same wheat for the use of British Columbia industry. It does not make sense.
I should like to have an answer to the question. Why is it impossible to peg the price of eggs? Is it lack of money? No; we are dealing in millions; it cannot be that. Is it lack of interest? No; it cannot be that; the minister has taken an interest in the disposal of eggs. Is it lack of unity among the farmers? Is it the age-old antipathy of farmers to cooperation? If they were to form a union, perhaps they would be listened to, but we are foolish enough to divide our influence between Liberals, Tories, C.C.F.'s and so forth. If the egg producers would get together and demand their rights, they would probably be listened to with greater attention.

We want, do we not, to preserve this industry to produce this greatly needed food for Britain; we want to keep up an industry by which numbers of our people can live; but if something is not done, they will be put out of business. It seems to me an unanswerable proposition. The government have taken care of all these other people, the lobster fishers, the producers of cheese, butter, apples, all except the egg producers who are left to sink or swim, and I am afraid they are going to sink.
Let us give to the government the credit that is coming to them. A few months ago they did use their influence to get the railways to put in a considerabe reduction in the rate on No. 3 wheat and better. We were running short of the lower grades and were not allowed to ship the higher grades under the lower rate. The government did help us there, and for the moment we are allowed to put in higher grade wheat at this medium rate which, however, is still much too high. But that is not sufficient. They made an offer to the eastern provinces to pay half the freight rate on the lower grades if the province would pay the other half, but the British Columbia government did not have the gumption to follow that up. Instead, they got this temporary and rather illusive advantage of having Nos. 1, 2 and 3 grade wheat included in the lower rate. There is plenty of No. 4 wheat still on the prairies, and therefore this rate really does not do us much good. Is the minister going to help us? I do not speak for myself because I do not own a hen, I would not if I had the opportunity; I speak on behalf of the people who are trying to make a living raising chickens, in the constituency of the hon. member for Fraser Valley, New Westminster and some other ridings on the lower mainland and also parts of Vancouver island. I would just say this. If the minister does not do something for the British Columbia poultryman, he is going to have to go out of business.


James Garfield Gardiner: Just in case I forget this later on, I should say that in addition to securing a reduced rate on feed, the government took up with the railways the question of getting a reduced rate on export eggs, and some reduction has been made. I am not able to give the reduction at the moment, but I just wish to make that statement now.
Under the arrangements now being made, the price paid for eggs varies from about sixteen cents to twenty cents a dozen. I quite agree that this is not a sufficiently high price to satisfy those who are producing eggs, but that is the price being paid under the arrangements I mentioned earlier this evening.

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Alan Webster Neill: What was the price?


James Garfield Gardiner: From sixteen to twenty cents, depending upon the part of Canada in which the producer lives. As to why eggs have not been dealt with as some other products have, I would remind hon. members that only a very small percentage of our eggs, either before the war began or since, have gone to Britain. I should think that percentage would not be more than one per cent before the war, and perhaps a little more than that since. On the other hand, we have sent 70 per cent of our cheese to Britain and 64 per cent of our pork products; about 70 per cent of our wheat has been going for export, although not all to Britain, and about 50 per cent of our apples went to Britain before the war.
In the beginning we tried to deal with those products which had been most affected by the war; and, as I stated on a previous occasion, we tried to deal with the products the market for which had been destroyed by the war. The first two products were tobacco and apples. We did nothing with regard to tobacco, except to induce Britain to take some of it. We did something with regard to apples and other similar products. Then we tried to increase the return to the growers. One hon. member said to-night that I had dealt with the wheat problem in a fine way, from the point of view of the wheat growers. The wheat growers do not have that opinion. They believe, as a matter of fact, that since 1938 we have lowered the price of wheat, and that is so. In 1938 the' price of wheat was eighty cents; it is now pegged at seventy cents. In 1937 the pegged price was 87J cents. We have not pegged the price of wheat at that height since the beginning of the war, and since 1938 we have been asking the wheat grower to put up with conditions more difficult than those which existed before the beginning of the war.


Mr. FAIR:: Why?


James Garfield Gardiner: Largely because of the great surplus of wheat I mentioned in the beginning, which makes it impossible for the government to do otherwise at the moment, not because that is our desire but on account of the great surpluses which have been piling up.
To come back to the question of eggs, there is still only a very small proportion of our egg production going to Britain. We have not been letting this matter go without giving any thought to it, but I really believe eggs are in a different class from that of some of the other products. Particularly is
that so for this reason, that probably we should find some way of basing the price of eggs in Canada upon the consumption of eggs in Canada rather than upon the consumption of eggs in Britain. It appears to me that the price of our eggs up to the present time has been pretty well fixed by what we could get for the small surplus that we have been sending out of this country.
I am sure the hon. member for Comox-Alberni will agree that it would not be the easiest possible thing to fix egg prices in this dominion, where distances are so great and conditions vary so much. In British Columbia they feed and house their chickens as they should be fed and housed. On the prairies we let them run wild and feed them not only on what is left from the table but very often on grasshoppers, which do not make the flavour of the eggs very enticing. People are not inclined to eat a second "grasshopper" egg if they can avoid doing so. In Ontario there is not the same care taken in the feeding and housing of chickens as in British Columbia. I travel in Ontario quite often, and I find that most of the chicken flocks in this province still have the run of the farms, and one cannot produce good eggs with the hens running all around, picking up anything they can find to eat. In the maritimes there is probably a little more care taken in connection with poultry. Therefore it is not the easiest thing to regulate the price of eggs in a country like Canada. We might be able to handle the situation as it exists in British Columbia and in the extreme east; but the man in the middle west, who just lets his hens run wild and regards whatever he gets for the eggs as something extra, presents a greater problem, and it is difficult to control the prices of eggs under these conditions. We have, however, given the matter considerable thought, and we hope to arrive at some conclusion which will be of greater help than anything we have been able to do up to the present.


Mr. BLACK (Cumberland):: I am somewhat at a disadvantage in taking part in this discussion because I have been attending a meeting of the war expenditures committee. I am glad some concession has been given the poultry raisers of British Columbia with regard to the freight on feed grain, but I should like to ask the minister why nothing has been done along the same line for the people of the maritime provinces. The government and agricultural societies of Nova Scotia have been appealing to the federal government for a considerable time for some concession which would enable the surplus feed grains of the
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prairie provinces to be delivered to the stock feeders and poultry raisers of the maritime provinces. Up to the present time, as I understand it, the department has been unable to grant this concession, but we are still hoping that something may be done.


Thomas Miller Bell: 
Heber Harold Hatfield: I wish to protest against the importation of small new potatoes from the United States. Hundreds of cars of Alabama and California new potatoes came in during May when our potato growers were selling their potatoes at less than half the cost of production. These United States potatoes are of a grade and size which our growers are not allowed to market in Canada.
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Foreign exchange is being used to bring in these potatoes. An order in council was put through on March 25 which was supposed to cure this condition, but it did not. They changed the grade from U.S. grade 1, size B, to U.S. grade 1, size A, but a proviso was included that until August 31 inclusive in each calendar year a minimum diameter of If inches was the only size requirement for new potatoes. The United States have new potatoes all the year round, and therefore small potatoes can be shipped in here any month of the year.


Mr. TRIPP:: I am sorry the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar has left the chamber. When he was talking about vitamins or the sources of vitamins, I should have liked to suggest to him that he would better have considered the fish on our eastern coast. Ten times the amount of the proper vitamins can be obtained from ten cents worth of cod-liver oil as can be obtained from ten cents worth of fruit juices.


Percy Chapman Black: I have not received an answer from the minister to my question as to why the maritime provinces have not been given the same concessions as have been granted to the poultry raisers of British Columbia in connection with freight rates on grain for poultry feeding.


James Garfield Gardiner: In all the discussion I forgot the hon. member's question. Last winter the eastern provinces, particularly the maritimes, asked us to give some assistance in the bringing of feed grains from Fort William. A little later on, the provinces of Quebec and Ontario became involved in the discussion. In the first instance we did agree to pay half the freight on feed grain from Montreal to the maritime provinces, but that was not considered satisfactory. The other two provinces were brought into the discussion, and we finally offered to pay the freight on feed grain from Fort William to all the five eastern provinces. After we had made that offer, much to our surprise the only province that took it up was Ontario, which perhaps needed it the least. They took 3,200,000 bushels and an additional sixty carloads. Before they could stop buying, they had another sixty carloads, and since no one else had come in we extended the offer to those sixty carloads. The other provinces came to the conclusion that it would be better policy for them not to take advantage of the offer. Probably, if we had agreed to pay all the freight, or if we had agreed to enter into an arrangement by which they could charge half the freight to the farmer, they would have accepted. We took the position that the intention was to give the farmer cheaper feed and to make feed available to him on the same basis as 
it was available in the other provinces. We thought that anything which was allowed should be paid by the governments and that the farmers should get the full benefit of the price, less the freight. It was left in that way, but the other provinces did not take advantage of it.


Percy Chapman Black: What about
the concessions on grain for poultry purposes to British Columbia?


James Garfield Gardiner: That rate aplies only
to British Columbia. Freight rates generally are dealt with by the transport board, and I understand that the position always taken by that board, as it was taken by the old board of railway commissioners, is that they will not set up any rates for any particular section of Canada which discriminate against any other section. When rates were established as between the prairies and British Columbia, the fact as to whether there was discrimination was taken into consideration. In connection with the shipment of grain from the prairies to the maritimes we went first to the transport board, and they took the position that they could not give a special rate for the maritimes without discriminating against the provinces in between. They finally took the position that they would not give a special rate even when all five provinces were being considered, because there would be some discrimination. After that decision had been given, we agreed to pay half the freight. We said to the provinces that we were quite prepared to pay half the freight provided they could get the railways to take part of the other half and then they take what was left. They again went to the railways, and the same position was taken, that there would be discrimination and, therefore, they would not reduce the rates.


Robert Fair: A short time before I left old
Ireland to come to Canada, one of my neighbours who was a farmer thought he would wean his dog off eating, and he succeeded in doing that, but the dog died a few days afterwards. I think all will admit that that is a mean trick for anyone to try. Having listened, however, to the hon. member for Danforth, and also to statements of the policies of ministers of agriculture for the last number of years, not alone in the Liberal government, but in the Conservative government as well, I feel that they have been trying to wean the dog off eating, because the policy pursued by both those parties has been to starve out the farmer. I do not know whether in their opinion it is sound or sane business, but to my mind it is insane business. No country can survive unless its farmers are prosperous;

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and I might suggest that they should do what has been practised by a number of other industries in Canada for years past. If farmers were organized as they should be, they would be able to demand and obtain their costs of production plus a reasonable profit. If they did not get that cost and profit, they would do what the industrialists did in August, 1939, shortly before the war started; they would go to the government and demand certain things, and they would have their demands granted, as the industrialists did when they had their profit restrictions removed by orders in council which were imposed by parliament only that spring.
I am not going to suggest for a moment that the farmers go on strike at this time, but I would assert that, if they did so, they would be doing only what other interests in Canada have done in years past, and, perhaps, would do yet if their requests were not met.
The Minister of Agriculture has admitted on several occasions that we as farmers are entitled to better prices for our products, and says that the reason why we are not getting better prices for those products is that there is a surplus. If industry had a surplus of aeroplanes, Bren guns, ships or anything else, I wonder whether they would give them away at half the cost of production. They would not; they are too well organized and have too much control over governments to-day to do anything of that kind. But because farmers are unorganized, and, many of them, underfed, they are easy to control. For the past number of years, as far back as I can remember-thirty years at least-we have been controlled because we are underfed and are not able, owing to conditions which have been imposed on us and which we are not organized to fight, to demand the rights which properly belong to us.
Time after time in this house I have heard the Prime Minister and other hon. members plead for Canadian unity. They have declared that we must have equality of sacrifice. I ask the Minister of Agriculture and other ministers who are on the front benches tonight, is there an equality of sacrifice, and are all the industries in Canada treated alike? Inevitably the answer must be, no, the farming industry is being sabotaged and sooner or later must go down.
Since I came to the house we have presented arguments supported by figures issued under the authority of the government, to establish the truth of what I have said. I have no doubt that the government has sufficient evidence from every comer of this chamber to prove that we are not getting a square deal. The other day I quoted figures of wheat prices ',4873-223
between 1926 and 1929. Upon the basis of that period, labour and industry alike are living under conditions equal to those which prevailed at that time. I quoted figures to show that if the farmers were paid on the basis of the average obtained for wheat at that time, we would be getting $1.35 a bushel. Instead of that, we receive 70 cents basis No. 1 northern at Fort William.
Advantage is also taken of the farmer in the matter of grades. I know of instances where wheat which graded No. 1 northern when threshing commenced was later brought down to No. 3. Nothing was done about the matter; the farmer had to take the rap. Such conditions should be remedied. Perhaps part of the poor success of our recruiting is due to some of the deals which have been handed out to the farmer.
To keep people underfed is to keep them under control. Something will have to be done. We must have forward-thinking people at the head of the government, men of progressive minds who will figure things out from the long-range point of view. The government travels just as fast' as it is pushed.


Thomas Vien: Order. I would draw the attention of the hon. member to the fact that the item before the committee is marketing. The policies of the government on wheat aire not involved. The item before the committee is marketing, and the particulars in connection with it are to be found on page 68 of the estimates. The hon. member is in order when speaking on that subject, but not in reviewing statements which, to use his own words, he has already made.


Robert Fair: I am discussing conditions in connection with marketing.


James Garfield Gardiner: Might I further call
attention to the fact that the marketing of wheat is not under the Department of Agriculture at all; it is under the Department of Trade and Commerce, and the proper place to discuss it is on the estimates of that department.


Robert Fair: Mr. Chairman, that is just a side-line. We shall have a chance to discuss it later on. But-


Thomas Vien: The hon. member is out of order.


Robert Fair: I say that the marketing of wheat has been discussed by other hon. members, and not a word was said against it. That is not fair.


Thomas Vien: I thought it was Fair.


Robert Fair: Yes; Fair is speaking, but he is not getting fair treatment, because on

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different occasions I have been ruled out of order when I tried to answer questions raised by other speakers. I do not think that is fair.


Mr. FULFORD:: Are you Fair?


Robert Fair: Yes, I am Fair. I am not to be kidded, anjuvay.


Thomas Vien: This should bring to the attention of hon. members the difficulties into which the chairman falls when he gives latitude and the rule is not strictly adhered to. It appears that when I was away from the committee the discussion was broadened, and when I came back I noticed that hon. members were not talking to the item. But we must draw the line somewhere.


Robert Fair: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your position, and I know that hon. members, including myself, have got out of bounds, but it is not fair that I should be singled out rather than anyone else.


Thomas Vien: The hon. member is the last one to whom I would not be fair.


Robert Fair: I should have the same rights as other members.
I have here a statement of the United States programme in connection with the production of foodstuffs. Perhaps I had better read this. This is production, not marketing, but I come to the marketing part in the same article:
Under the expanded programme, and . . . assuming continuation of existing price relationships and taking seasonal price variations into account, the department will make purchases in the open market to support long term prices (Chicago basis) at levels approximately as follows: Hogs, cwt., $9; dairy products (basis of butter, lb.), 31 cents; chickens, lb., 15 cents; eggs, doz., 22 cents. It was pointed out that these prices would be subjected to the customary commercial differentials for market grades and qualities.
As regards eggs, somebody has raised the question, and it may be in order to make one brief protest. I understand that the grades are not what they should be. The price per dozen is raised, but the grades are being changed sufficiently to keep the price down. Possibly more will be heard on that point when the question of egg production comes up on a later item.
I do not know that there is much use in saying any more. The government has got a programme, and apparently it is going to follow it out, with the result that it will sabotage to a considerable degree, as it has done in the past, the industry of agriculture.


Ernest Edward Perley: I did not intend to speak on this item. I have been waiting to discuss another subject, but I thought I would point out that this whole discussion has been out

of order for an hour and a half, although I have been ruled out of order on two or three occasions recently. Even to-day, when I undertook to discuss a certain question on a bill, the minister suggested that it would be better for me to leave the matter until we came to item 29. Yesterday I was ruled out of order on the question of production. This discussion on marketing has been out of order to-night. Last night one or two hon. members switched to a discussion which they thought they could carry on, but they were ruled out. The minister has been the chief transgressor. He gave a careful and interesting outline of the situation with regard to markets in Britain, and he covered everything. He covered item 26 and item 24; he spoke about the bonusing bill; he referred to summerfallowing; he discussed the advertisements discouraging the growing of more wheat; he mentioned butter, cattle, cheese, hogs and feed grain-and all this under the question of production. He might have told us what will be done with feed grains this year, because the Minister of Trade and Commerce has tabled an order in council which practically makes it impossible for the farmer to do anything this year except under the most drastic conditions. The minister covered a great range of subjects.


Mr. McNIVEN:: He did it satisfactorily.


Ernest Edward Perley: Yes; I do not deny that he did. No one is better able to do it than the minister. He said that the one industry which was in a position when the war broke out to produce the materials necessary to assist in large measure in winning the war was agriculture. I suggest that it would be well if he would do something to make it possible for the farmer to receive for his products a price bearing some favourable comparison with prices paid for other commodities. I am not going to take up more time now. I agree with what the hon. member for Danforth said. The condition in Great Britain with regard to bacon and dairy products is attributable largely to the war, although the minister has boasted about increasing our exports of these products to that market. Of course, it is a splendid thing that we are able to supply these products, and the farmer will do his part to produce the necessary commodities from time to time and to continue producing, even at a loss, for the purpose of winning the war. I rose at this stage merely to lodge a protest, because, as I say, I have been ruled out of order several times in the last week, and to-night this whole discussion, for at least an hour and a half, has been altogether out of order.

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James Garfield Gardiner: All hon. members will recall that some weeks ago we gave an undertaking to certain hon. gentlemen that in view of the fact that we wanted to wind up the discussion on the wheat acreage reduction, we would permit, under this item, the discussion of the question which the hon. member for Lambton-Kent raised to-night. The discussion was out of order, but that undertaking was given. That is one reason for the discussion that took place to-night.


Mr. PBRLEY:: Do I understand that any one of us who wished to ask questions about wheat acreage reduction should have done so on this item?


James Garfield Gardiner: No. I would suggest 'that there is an opportunity for discussing the administration of it under the estimate having to do with prairie farm assistance. However, we said that we would give an opportunity to those particular members to discuss the question on one of the administration items in agriculture, and the only administration item was this one under marketing.


Ernest Edward Perley: I myself was waiting to speak on item 30.


James Garfield Gardiner: The discussion on corn was carried on for the same reason.


Mr. RICKARD:: When the committee rose last night we were discussing apples, and I wanted to say a few words on the situation in that regard. I congratulate the minister and the department upon what they have done for the apple growers of Canada. The attitude they have taken towards marketing and control of apples in the dominion has been a wonderful thing for the producers. Without that assistance it would have been difficult if not impossible to market our apples owing to the loss of the export market. The government have spent many thousands of dollars in advertising. In fact, not only governments but cooperative fruit growers associations have done so. I hold in my hand one advertisement in the form of the picture of an apple. It is a good apple too. We are told to eat more apples, that apples are good for the health, and so forth. During the past few weeks I have visited some of the camps throughout the country, and I must say that the apples used there are a long way from the sort of apple depicted in this advertisement. I understand that these apples are domestic grade. There is a great difference in domestic grades, and if we are simply to accept anything as domestic grade, we are going to get down to rather poor apples. When two and a quarter inch apples are allowed to go into 14873-2231
domestic grades, and the apple has spots or fungus the size of a five cent piece, although it complies with the law as a domestic apple, we are a long way from the sort of thing we are advertising. My contention is that if we advertise apples in this way we should try to give the people a product that more closely resembles the thing we advertise. In our county there is a difference in the grading of domestics.


Thomas Vien: Order. I am sorry, but I cannot see the relationship between the item under discussion and the question of grading apples, unless there is something which has escaped me. I am afraid that the discussion is out of order.


Wilbert Franklin (Frank) Rickard: I understood that we could discuss these matters on item 20.


Thomas Vien: We are on item 22. and apples would come under fruit and vegetables.


Wilbert Franklin (Frank) Rickard: I suggest that it might be just as well to dispose of the question now. What I was saying was that if we are going to advertise our apples in this way we should give the people what we are advertising or something near it. In our' county a great many growers sell their apples as domestic. There might be forty or fifty per cent No. 1 in them, and the people who buy a hamper or a barrel of those domestic apples get a good grade. But when we grade them as the law says down to a fair domestic and take all the good ones out, which they are doing and selling them to these camps, I think we are getting down where we shall not be advertising our apples in the right way. There seems to be a lack of inspection on the part of someone in allowing this grade of apples to be sold. I saw in some of those camps apples that were not No. 3s by any means. I had one inspector go and look at some-


Thomas Vien: Order. Unless the
committee is willing to take items 26 and 22 together, I shall be in trouble with my own ruling if I allow the discussion to go on along these lines. Is it the pleasure of the committee to take at the same time items 22 and 26?


James Garfield Gardiner: Agreed.


Thomas Vien: Carried. All right, carry on.


Wilbert Franklin (Frank) Rickard: I was speaking about the grading of apples. If we are going to sell our apples we should sell them in accordance with our advertising. I was at some of those camps and saiw apples that were not No. 3, and the inspection must have been very poor to allow those apples to be sold. We are
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paying inspectors; we have quite an inspection service; we have a fruit branch that is supposed to look after these matters. But as an apple grower I do not think we are doing justice to the business in allowing this kind of apples to be sold. I pass this information on to the minister, for I know I would not be allowed to send them out of my orchard. I understand that these apples are put in oold storage, bought from some cooperative concern, and I cannot understand why they were allowed to go into that cold storage plant, or allowed to get into the camp. We have inspectors; they are well paid; if we have not enough, let us get more, and control this thing.
I also want to congratulate the department upon what they have done for the apple grower.


Mr. FRASER (Peterborough West):: The minister mentioned dehydrated apples. What is the surplus of dehydrated apples now?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have not the exact figures as to what we have left, but the amount is getting very low. We have no great quantity left.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: I do not believe there is one woman in twenty-five throughout Canada who really knows what can be done with dehydrated apples. Some different advertising should be done in regard to the matter, because dehydrated apples will make much better apple pie or apple sauce than fresh apples.


Wilbert Franklin (Frank) Rickard: I do not agree.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: The apples which the hon. member mentioned are put in storage for some months and then they have not the flavour. I agree, however, with the hon. member with regard to the grading of apples. In Peterborough county I do not think one can get a decent apple at less than sixty cents a peck after October 1, and they are not properly graded at that. That is why people are starting to use dehydrated apples.


Manley Justin Edwards: In the details given on page 68 of the estimates under "marketing service", I see two home economists and one assistant demonstrator and lecturer. What are the duties of these persons, and how do they contribute to the marketing service?


James Garfield Gardiner: Their work is to provide recipes and so forth, to overcome the very difficulty mentioned by the hon. member for Peterborough West, namely, to teach women how to use dehydrated apples. We could use half a dozen more of them to good advantage but did not think it wise to spend the money at the present time.


Manley Justin Edwards: That raises a question which I think is of vital importance. We are dealing now with one of the primary industries and primary products of Canada. If secondary industry finds it expedient and advisable to have a merchandising service and actually goes out and demonstrates the value and usefulness of its products, then it seems to me that this department might very well adopt those methods which have been found efficient in the promotion of the use of the natural products of Canada in their natural state. We are all familiar with the methods adopted even by manufacturers of chewing gum in demonstrating the uses of the article. Nearly every successful manufacturing industry in Canada has found it profitable and expedient to increase the consumption of the product or service which it is purveying by actually getting out and selling or merchandising that product or service. We had one example two years ago of what this department can accomplish in "selling" to the Canadian people, our own home people, the value of the Canadian apple in its raw state. We are all familiar with the satisfactory and gratifying result of that in increasing the use of our apple crop.
What disturbs me-I referred to it once before-is that there seems to be a tendency to do the very opposite of what successful industry and commerce do when faced with a similar situation; that is, instead of expanding our appropriation for advertising and demonstrating the value and usefulness of the commodity, the department is spending less money. The minister has said that we could profitably use half a dozen more demonstrators. If, by the employment of six or eight or ten or twenty home economists-


Thomas Vien: Is the hon. gentleman speaking to item 28 now?


Manley Justin Edwards: No; I am speaking to item 22.


Thomas Vien: There is no decrease in that item.


Manley Justin Edwards: The minister has just
stated that the department could use six or eight more home economists and demonstrators in connection with the marketing services, and it is my suggestion that instead of contracting our expenditures in connection with the merchandising and marketing of agricultural products in Canada, we could and should increase our appropriation for that purpose.


Donald Alexander McNiven: I was surprised a few
moments ago to hear the hon. member for

Supply-Agriculture
Qu'Appelle state that during the last couple of days he had been called to order on more than one occasion. I can scarcely credit that statement, for in the course of his remarks during the last few days I have heard him express greater approval of the policies of the government, and a greater degree of confidence in the Minister of Agriculture, than in the last five years. So eulogistic were those references that I quite anticipate that during the summer months the hon. member for Qu'Appelle will be going through the constituencies of Saskatchewan expressing sentiments similar to those which were expressed to me by a former confrere of the hon. gentleman, the late member for Parkdale, whom we all respected and admired, who told me that he thought the present minister was the best Minister of Agriculture Canada ever had.


Ernest Edward Perley: To what item is the hon. member referring?


Donald Alexander McNiven: I am marketing the
Minister of Agriculture. Under this item of marketing I should like to bring one matter to the attention of the minister. In British Columbia, under the provincial marketing act which has been declared intra vires by the courts, they have set up either one or two companies which control the fruit industry of that province. There is a monopoly, which is subsidized by the dominion government, particularly in connection with apples, to the extent of 81,750,000. That monopoly is further protected by the difference in freight rates; by the usual rates of duty that obtain; by the dumping duties that apply during certain seasons of the year, concerning which we are receiving notices every other day; by the 10 per cent general duty, put into effect last fall, and finally by the 10 per cent foreign exchange rate. Therefore the fruit industry of British Columbia is to-day the most highly protected industry anywhere in this country, and by reason of that protection they have set up a monopoly with regard to the sale of fruit on the prairies.
I am not going to detract from the quality of the fruit produced in British Columbia, but they are exercising the monopoly they enjoy in this way. Dealers on the prairies [DOT] who have been in business for years are denied the right to purchase fruit from this monopoly. They have the cash; they are willing to live up to every condition imposed by the monopoly; yet they cannot buy the fruit. The monopoly takes to itself the right to select its own dealers and designate the terms upon which its products shall be sold. I protest most emphatically against any monopoly, subsidized and protected as this one is, selecting
its dealers here and there and driving out of business other individuals who have been in the business for a period of years.
We have a great many monopolies in this country, and it seems to me that we who live on the prairies are the victims of all of them. We have the fruit and lumber monopolies of the Pacific coast. We have the industrial monopoly of eastern Canada. We in Saskatchewan, in the centre of Canada, a million people, sit there battered and bruised, pillaged and plundered, raped and robbed, sucked and squeezed, the ready victims of the voracious. I wish to raise an emphatic protest against the continued operation of this monopoly, and to ask the minister to exercise his usual ability in coping with this situation. I ask that he require this monopoly at least to extend its privileges to all those who have been in this line of business for many years.


Grote Stirling: The hon. member has
just delivered a carefully phrased and rather severe stricture on the fruit industry of British Columbia, which I do not think it would be possible to answer completely in ten minutes. It does occur to me, however, that if conditions are one-tenth as bad as he has described them, he has a ready opportunity at hand to gain redress, about which as a lawyer he must know a good deal. He can make use of the machinery under the Combines Investigation Act to lay bare the wickedness of this combine.


Donald Alexander McNiven: That has been attempted already, but they have no jurisdiction because this is a provincial company, authorized and approved under provincial legislation.


Grote Stirling: I suggest that a provincial statute cannot give that company rights within the province of Saskatchewan, because that is outside the jurisdiction of that act. I therefore repeat that if the situation is as bad as he has described it-and I am not ready to subscribe to all the points he made in his rapidly painted picture-he has at his disposal an opportunity to make use of the provisions of the Combines Investigation Act. I do not accept his statement that this has been tried and is not efficacious for the reason he gave.


Mr. BLACKMORE:: The question raised
by the hon. member for Fraser Valley with regard to the price of eggs either was not answered satisfactorily by the minister, or I failed to hear it.


James Garfield Gardiner: Apparently it was
answered to the satisfaction of the hon. member who asked it, because he left the chamber immediately after I gave my answer.
Supply-Agriculture


John Horne Blackmore: I am interested in this matter of the price of eggs. It seems to me that the minister should be in a position to give us some specific statement regarding Canada's proposals in respect of eggs.


James Garfield Gardiner: If we are to keep to the item, then the hon. member is really discussing item No. 27.


Thomas Vien: When a question has been raised and the minister has answered, if any hon. member is not satisfied with his answer, then the hon. member's remedy lies in voting against the item. But it is against the rules of the committee to repeat an argument or to repeat a question. The question has been developed respecting remedies to be applied in connection with the price of eggs. The minister has given a lengthy answer as to the reasons why the price of eggs has not been regulated to a greater extent by the department. I repeat the same questions over and over again is against the rules of the committee.


John Horne Blackmore: I am not entirely sure that I know what this is all about. I have been trying to learn ever since I came into the chamber to-night. It would seem that we are discussing a question of marketing; surely the price of eggs is connected with marketing?


Thomas Vien: Yes, but it has been discussed already. The very same question was put to the minister, and he answered it. There is a rule against repetition of the same question. That is the point I am drawing to the attention of hon. members.


John Horne Blackmore: Surely that does not prevent me from commenting upon what the minister has said?


Thomas Vien: It is quite permissible for the hon. member to comment upon the minister's answer, but he must not repeat the question to which an answer has already been given. That would entail tedious repetition, and it is clearly prohibited by the rules.


John Horne Blackmore: It seems to me
strange that Canada cannot give any sort of commitment as to what the price of eggs will be. I am not asking the question. It was pointed out, however, that the United States is offering to buy eggs at twenty-two cents a dozen, and that the price will remain at that figure until June 30, 1943. My general comment is that the price of eggs throughout Canada is very uncertain. No man can have any assurance whatsoever, if he buys a number of baby chicks this spring, develops them and goes into the production of eggs, as to what the price will be.

If we want to have egg production in Canada, then, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Comox-Alberni, the one way to get egg production is to guarantee the price at which producers of eggs will be able to carry on. No such price has been guaranteed, and it is my contention that the minister and the Department of Agriculture should be prepared to make that guarantee. If the United States can guarantee a price of twenty-two cents a dozen, then we should be able to come somewhere near that. The objection I had was that the minister had not given us any clear or definite statement.


James Garfield Gardiner: If I might again draw attention to the fact, I would point out that this discussion should be under item 27. I have already answered the question twice, and I would be out of order in answering it again. Everything connected with the sale of eggs com es under the item for live stock and live stock products. I should like to have one or two of these items passed to-night, even if it is almost eleven o'clock. We have been discussing about eight items at one time.


John Horne Blackmore: I grant that all that may be true. I have been sitting quietly, listening to other hon. members talk, and I had gathered that the matters to which I have referred were under discussion.


James Garfield Gardiner: When we reach item 27 I shall be prepared to answer the hon. member.


John Horne Blackmore: That is just fine. I am concerned about learning what we are discussing. All I wish to say can be said under item 27, and if I am permitted to do so I shall be satisfied. I do not wish to be out of order.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
2b. Marketing service. Dairy products, $357,082.
George James Tustin: Would the minister give
some further information as to the price of cheese? In what he said earlier, it would appear the government intended to put on another cent bonus, and make the price sixteen cents f.o.b. boat, Montreal. He said that we are going to make more cheese this year and next year. I thought he left the impression or the inference, that sixteen cents would be the price for both years.


James Garfield Gardiner: At the present time the return to the farmer is from eighteen cents to twenty cents a pound.


George James Tustin: I understand that.


James Garfield Gardiner: I believe that is a sufficient return to induce production for the remainder of this year, and probably well into next year.

Questions


George James Tustin: That was not the point I was trying to make. I understand that there was a bonus of one cent for cheese that grades 93, and two cents for cheese grading 94, besides the provincial bonus of two cents. To-night, however, the minister said that the government of Canada had increased the bonus so that it would bring the farmer sixteen cents f.o.b. Montreal. He said that we were going to produce more this year and next year, and I thought he left the inference that that price would prevail for the two years.


James Garfield Gardiner: I would say that at the moment I do not see any reason why the price should go below that. Only events in the war for which we are not looking would cause that.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
25. Marketing service. Subsidies for cold storage warehouses under the Cold Storage Act, and grants, in the amounts detailed in the estimates, $114,864.64.
Gordon Knapman Fraser: How are the subsidies to these cold storage plants computed?


James Garfield Gardiner: These are only instalments on existing subsidies. They are spread over five years, and in this vote only enough money is provided to make payment to meet commitments made some years ago. There are no new ones this year.


Gordon Knapman Fraser: These are to help build plants?


James Garfield Gardiner: The provision is that we pay 30 per cent of the cost, spread over a five-year period. We are cold storage warehouses this year. These are payments due under commitments made two, three or four years ago.


[Stage Direction]
Item agreed to.
Progress reported.
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Thursday, June 5, 1941.