1941-03-27

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. E. MICHAUD (Minister of Fisheries) presented the first report of the special committee on the defence of Canada regulations, as follows:
Your committee recommends that an official stenographic report of the proceedings be taken and transcribed from day to day as the committee may decide, for the confidential use of the committee, and that seventeen copies thereof be made.
Mr. MICHAUD moved that the report be concurred in.
Motion agreed to.


Hon. P. J. A. CARDIN (Minister of Transport) :: Mr. Speaker, I desire to lay on the table 'the following annual reports in English and French for the year ended December 31, 1940: The annual report of the Canadian National Railways; the annual report of the Canadian National (West Indies) Steamships Limited; and the annual report to parliament of George A. Touche and Company, auditors, of the accounts of the Canadian National Railway system.


Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved:: That standing order 63 of the House of Commons, relating to the appointment of standing committees of the house, be amended by adding to the standing committees of the house for the present session a standing committee on railways and shipping owned, operated and controlled by the government, to which will be referred accounts and estimates and bills relating thereto of the Canadian National Railways, the Canadian National (West Indies) Steamships, and Trans-Canada Air Lines for the present session, for consideration and report to the house; provided however that nothing in the resolution shall be construed to curtail in any way the full right of discussion in committee of supply; and that the said committee consist of Messrs. Bercovitch, Black (Cumberland), Bradette, Diefenbaker, Donnelly, Dubuc, Emmerson, Ferland, Gray, Hansell, Hanson (Skeena), Harris (Danforth), Howden, Howe, Lockhart, Maclnnis. McCulloch, Maybank, Parent, Pouliot, Ross (Middlesex East), Sanderson, Sissons.


Hon. R. B. HANSON (Leader of the Opposition):: Is the personnel of this committee the same as last year?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I am informed
that it is.


Mr. HANSON (York-Suhbury):: I have no objection to the passage of this motion, but I should like to observe that we have not been consulted about this. It is a very good rule that has grown up, and I think it ought to be observed.


Mr. HARRIS (Danforth):: I should like to see the name of the hon. member for Rose-dale (Mr. Jackman), who was on the committee last year, included in its membership again this year.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: If it is desired by the leader of the opposition to change the personnel, that might be arranged at the convenience of hon. gentlemen opposite.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the situation in Yugoslavia, the government has received official word that a successful coup d'etat took place in that country early this morning. While we are at the moment without further official report, the news received from abroad is to the effect that the government which signed the axis agreement at Vienna has been overthrown, the regency dissolved, and a new government formed under the young King, Peter II. The new government is reported to include representatives of all parties in the kingdom, and to have the support of the army.
According to the news reports from overseas, Mr. Churchill stated in London to-day that it is reasonable to expect that the new government will repudiate the pact signed with the axis powers. Mr. Churchill has undertaken, if the pact is repudiated, that Britain will recognize the new government, and if Yugoslavia is attacked, that the British will give all the aid possible.
Defence of Newfoundland



DEFENCE OF NEWFOUNDLAND


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
William Lyon Mackenzie King: Mr. Speaker, I have referred from time to time to the fact that since the outbreak of the war Canada has been contributing to the defence of Newfoundland. This has been done' in consultation and cooperation with the United Kingdom and Newfoundland. Its purpose has been that of assistance in the common cause, and our own immediate and direct protection.
The defence of Newfoundland has also been a subject of consideration by the permanent joint board on defence, which has made certain specific recommendations to the governments of Canada and the United States following meetings in which representatives of the government of Newfoundland participated.
It will be recalled that under the terms of the agreement reached between the United Kingdom and the United States, and announced on September 3 last, the United States was given the right to establish defence facilities in Newfoundland.
During recent weeks, representatives of these two governments have been meeting in London for the purpose of preparing a formal agreement setting forth the conditions upon which the United States is to enjoy possession for ninety-nine years of certain leased areas in Newfoundland and in certain British colonial possessions in this hemisphere. Except as they affect the situation in Newfoundland, the Canadian government has not a direct interest in the terms of this agreement. In view, however, of the responsibilities which Canada has accepted in Newfoundland, we have kept closely in touch with the London discussions. At Canada's suggestion the general agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States has been supplemented by a protocol of which Canada is also a signatory, and which clarifies the rather complicated situation in Newfoundland.
The genera! agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States was made public to-day. In the supplementary protocol to which I have referred the signatories recognize that the defence of Newfoundland is an integral feature of the Canadian scheme of
(Mr. Mackenzie Kine.]
defence, and as such is a matter of special concern to the Canadian government, which has, in fact, already assumed certain responsibilities for such defence.
In view of this fact it has been agreed that in all powers which may be exercised and in such actions as may be taken under the leased bases agreement in respect of Newfoundland, Canadian interests in regard to defence will be fully respected.
The protocol also provides that nothing in the agreement shall affect arrangements relative to the defence of Newfoundland already made by the governments of Canada and the United States in pursuance of recommendations submitted to those governments by the Canada-United States permanent joint board on defence; and that in all consultations concerning Newfoundland arising out of the agreement, the Canadian government as well as the government of Newfoundland will have the right to participate.
At a later stage I shall be in a position to table copies of the agreement and also of the protocol.



INDIAN ACT AMENDMENT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. T. A. CRERAR (Minister of Mines and Resources) moved for leave to introduce Bill No. 24, to amend the Indian Act
Richard Burpee Hanson: Explain.


Air. CRERAR:: The house may be interested to know that probably one-third of the Indians at present in Canada live in the northern parts of the various provinces and in the northwest territories. They live mainly by the chase. This bill is to enable the Indian administration to give them further protection in the sale of their fur catch. It has become the practice-indeed it might almost be described as an evil-of irresponsible traders to go back into the more remote regions, by aeroplane or by other means of transport, and offer absurdly low prices to the Indians for their furs, thus reaping from the transaction a very large profit for themselves. As the Indians are thereby deprived of the full revenue which they should receive, they tend to become more and more a charge upon public funds. The purpose of the bill is to authorize the Indian administration to require, where necessary, permits or licences

Questions
on the part of traders so that their responsibility may be fixed and their operations kept under control.


Mr. NEILL:: Might I ask the minister
if it is his intention to open up a general revision of the act?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is not the intention
at the present time. Considerable work has been done on a general revision of the act, but it is not intended to introduce that revision at this session.


Alan Webster Neill: I think the minister will
recognize that that revision is badly needed.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I agree with my hon.
friend that probably there are some places where the act could be strengthened.
Motion agreed to and bill read the first time.



QUESTIONS

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

Mr. FERLAND:: 1.	How many farmers of St. Paul l'Ermite, Quebec, had their lands expropriated by the government in 1940 for war industrial purposes?
2.	Upon what date were these farmers dispossessed of their lands?
3.	How many of them have still to be paid by the government for the lands so expropriated?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	The number of proprietors whose lands have been expropriated for this project is 23.
2.	The date of the expropriation of the main plant site was June 10, 1940. A small lot was subsequently expropriated on November 2, 1940, for a pump house.
3.	19.


OIL CONTROL-CLARKSON, ONT., REFINERY
Mr. HOBLITZELL:: Has the oil controller given permission for the erection of a refinery at Clarkson, Ontario? If so, why has such permission been given?


Mr. HOWE:: The oil controller approved the British American Oil Company Limited building a lubricating refinery. No mention was made as to location. The location of the refinery is a matter for municipal authorities who may grant or refuse a building permit and whose duty it is to protect any rights or interests which may be prejudic:all>
affected.


SOLDIERS HITCH-HIKING ON HIGHWAYS
Mr. CHURCH:: 1.	How many soldiers were arrested at Camp Borden, and tried on the 21st instant at Barrie police court, by Magistrate Jeffs, for using forged railway tickets while on furlough from camp ?
2.	(a) Who laid the complaints; (b) what was the sentence; (c) how many witnesses were called?
3.	Were the soldiers charged represented by counsel? If so, by whom?
4.	(a) Did the attorney general's department of Ontario or (b) the Department of National Defence or camp authorities refuse to provide counsel for these men?
5.	Who authorized an edict on hitch-hiking at Camp Borden?
6.	What right or authority have the authorities at Camp Borden to declare this a military offence?
7.	Did the Minister of Highways for Ontario announce that on no occasion before this trial had they prohibited hitch-hiking by soldiers?
8.	Will executive clemency be immediately considered in these and other cases?
9.	Was the order from the government to stop hitch-hiking issued after a request by the Canadian Passenger Association or the two railways?


Mr. RALSTON:: Mr. Speaker, I will make a verbal answer to these questions, or some of them.
1.	Three.
2.	(a) C.P.R. police; (b) Three months determinate and three indeterminate; (c) One.
3.	No. Their company commander attended and gave evidence as to character.
4.	(a) No information; (b) No request was made to Department of National Defence or camp authorities to provide counsel. It is not the practice for counsel to be provided at public expense in such cases.
5.	Camp orders, Borden, issued by Brigadier-General McCuaig, which recited sub-section (2) of section 44 of the Highway Traffic Act as it appeared in chapter 288, Revised Statutes of Ontario, 1937, reading as follows:-
"No person shall, while on the travelled portion of a highway, solicit a ride from the driver or operator of a motor vehicle other than a public vehicle."
The order then proceeded to state as follows:-
"In accordance with the above, the practice of personnel of Camp Borden soliciting rides will cease immediately."
6.	This is a question of law, on which it is not the practice to express opinions in answer to questions.

Questions

7.	I know of no such announcement. The hon. member sent me a copy of a letter which he personally had received from the minister of highways which was generally to this effect, but I did not feel that that letter had taken full account of the provisions of the Ontario statute to which I have referred. I wrote the minister of highways, and have as yet received no reply.
8.	This is a matter for the appropriate authorities.
9.	The order referred to is presumably the one mentioned in answer to question No. 5. No request therefor was made to the Department of National Defence by the Canadian Passenger Association or the railways.


Mr. CHURCH:: Would the minister please look at paragraph 8 of my question, and would he be willing to aid executive clemency to these three men, since all of them are first offenders? The whole of the tickets were not worth more than $20. Their commanding officer said at their trial that they were good men and that he wanted them back. Why not let them out?


James Layton Ralston: I have replied to that in answer to No. 8.


Thomas Langton Church: Thank you.


TRADE COMMISSIONERS IN EIRE
Thomas Langton Church: What trade commissioners or other Canadian officials are in Eire, where are they located, at what cost, and is there duplication of services?


Mr. MacKINNON (Edmonton West):: James Cormack, 66 Upper O'Connell Street, Dublin, is the trade commissioner. The cost of the office during the eleven months ending February 28, was $9,808.60. There is no duplication of services.


AMOUNT OF BRITISH AND CANADIAN ADVANCES
[Stage Direction]
Mr. LaCROIX (Quebec-Montmorency):
Of the amount totalling $268,499,894, advanced for industrial purposes by the Canadian and British governments, why was only $15,337,520, equivalent to 5-7 per cent, allocated to French Canadian industries?
Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker, this question refers to "French-Canadian industries". It first makes a statement which I believe is incorrect, but I may say that I do not know which industries are French-Canadian and which are Canadian. I am afraid that the question cannot be answered.


UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE COMMISSION- FRENCH-CANADIAN REPRESENTATION
[Stage Direction]
Mr. LaCROIX (Quebec-Montmorency):
1.	Is the unemployment insurance commission actually engaged in appointing its staff and completing its organization?
2.	If so, has a representative French-Canadian been appointed a member of the commission?
Mr. McLARTY:: 1.	Organization work is being carried on by the unemployment insurance commission, and appointments to the staff are being made by the civil service commission.
2.	Dr. Joseph Sirois was appointed chief commissioner in October, 1940, and, due to illness, was unable to carry on the organization work; accordingly, Mr. Arthur Mac-Namara, associate deputy minister of labour, was appointed acting chief commissioner. Regretfully Dr. Joseph Sirois died on January 17, 1941. The orderly continuation of the organization work can best be carried on by continuing existing arrangement for the present.
h. w. NICOLL


Mr. HOMUTH:: 1.	Is H. W. Nicoll employed by any department of the government?
2.	If so, in what capacity, and what salary does he receive?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	Mr. Hermes William Nicoll was appointed to the Department of Munitions and Supply on the 13th of February, 1941.
2.	Resident technical officer for munitions division of Department of Munitions and Supply at plant of Electric Steels Limited, Cap de la Madeleine, P.Q. Salary, $3,600 per annum.


*EDMUNDSTON, N.B., AIRPORT
Mr. HATFIELD:: 1.	Has an appropriation been made to build an airport at or near Edmundston, New Brunswick?
2.	If so, what site or sites have been or are
being considered?	.
3.	Who was or is the owner of the land?
4.	When will the project get under way?
5.	What is the acreage?


Mr. POWER:: I will answer this verbally. The answer to No. 1 is, no. The other questions are therefore not applicable.


ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAY-QUEBEC PROVINCE TRADE AND INDUSTRY
Mr. LACOMBE:: 1. Why does the St. Lawrence waterways agreement make no provision for a reduction in the rates for electric current sold to the private consumer and to Quebec industries?

St. Lawrence Waterway
2. Why does this agreement make no provision for the protection of the maritime trade which the port of Montreal enjoys, and also for the protection of existing industries?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As regards the first part of the question, I am afraid that if I were to attempt to answer it, my hon. friend might be the first to say that I was invading provincial rights. Certainly the matter is not one which comes within the purview of this parliament.
As regards the latter part of the question, I am not aware that there is anything in the agreement which interferes in any way with the maritime trade of the port of Montreal, or with existing industries.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN
Mr. COLDWELL:: 1.	Under whose authority are civil protection committees established?
2.	Under whose authority did the Verdun civil protection committee, on Saturday afternoon, March 1, 1941, stop cars and demand registration certificates or licences?
3.	Is it the policy of the department to allow local organizations to arrange check-ups of this nature?


Mr. CASGRAIN:: Return tabled.


ST. LAWRENCE WATERWAY QUESTION AS TO AGREEMENT FOR EXPORT OF POWER TO BE DEVELOPED
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Richard Burpee Hanson: May I direct a question to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) with respect to the St. Lawrence waterway project, and specifically on the subject of the export of power to the United States?
It will be recalled that the Canadian national advisory committee reported on January 11th, 1928: "that we are in complete accord with the feeling throughout Canada that export of power should not be permitted."
In neither the Canada-United States agreement entered into on the 19th of March, 1941, nor in the Dominion-Ontario agreement of the same date-both tabled on the 21st instant-is there any reference to this vital question of the export of power. I do not think anyone expected that there would be any specific clause covering this important phase. But the question is of such paramount importance that I am impelled to ask the Prime Minister if there is any agreement,
undertaking, or understanding, express or implied, that the province of Ontario or the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, or any other governing body, Shall have any right, licence or authority to export to the United States any portion of the power to be generated at the Canadian power development, and if so, how much, and for what period. Generally, I would ask what the whole position is with respect to the export of power to be developed from this project.
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING
(Prime Minister): The agreements as tabled cover everything in the nature of undertakings given by the government. I cannot say what requests may be made of the government under the general laws of the country, but if any such requests are made they will be considered in the light of the remarks which I made to this house in speaking on the waterways question on a previous occasion.


USE OF IRISH PORTS AND BASES
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Thomas Langton Church: I would like to ask the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) a question, of which I have given him a copy. Would he care to clarify further to-day his answer to the question which I asked yesterday? I do not want him to utter one word which would injure the cause of the empire, but I believe that I represent a large body of public opinion which is alarmed, and I am merely seeking information.
I gladly gave up the other night my right to speak on the third reading of the war appropriation bill so as not to delay it one minute further, and let it pass on Tuesday night; and I desire now to ask the Prime Minister if he will kindly table all correspondence, so far as may be possible, with the government of southern Ireland or of Britain, with regard to the use of these ports. The country has a right to this information, which has already been given in the British House of Commons by Mr. Churchill in reply to a similar question asked by Sir William Davison, a prominent supporter of the government.
As I said a year ago, these ports belong to the empire, and Canada should take a stand on the matter before it is too late to protect our trade and commerce, our shipping and food and aid to Britain of all kinds.
The only reason I am asking is that I believe the fate of the battle of Britain, and of freedom and civilization, depends on the free use of these inlets, ports and bays, as
14873-121J
Use of Irish Ports and Bases

in the last war; and I do not want to see Canada or its government wrongly charged- as she is by some-with being a party to seeing Britain's hands being tied behind her back by failure to give the empire proper shipping protection.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Thomas Langton Church: The list of tonnage sunk, as already announced by the admiralty, is appalling, and in my opinion calls for some further announcement by the government by way of clarification.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Thomas Langton Church: I believe I am quite in order, Mr. Speaker.


Mr. SPEAKER:: As I understand it, the hon. gentleman is asking a question which he is entitled to ask. On account of the noise in the house I cannot hear clearly.


William Lyon Mackenzie King: As I understood my hon. friend's question-he was good enough to give me a copy of it in advance-it is more than a question; it is considerable of a speech as well.
The hon. member says that the country has a right to certain information which has already been given in the British House of Commons by Mr. Churchill, in answer to Sir William Davison, a prominent government member there. I have not the information which Mr. Churchill gave to Sir William Davison in the British house but I shall be glad to have it looked up and, if possible, given to my hon. friend. What he asks for is information which has already been given elsewhere. He goes a step further, however, and asks whether I would table any of the correspondence that might relate to the subject matter of his question. Such correspondence as there has been is wholly confidential and could not be given without the agreement of the governments concerned, and I am therefore afraid I cannot table any correspondence in the matter.


Thomas Langton Church: May I take it from the Prime Minister's statement that he assures the house that he has taken all adequate steps with the other two governments to look after our interests?


William Lyon Mackenzie King: I can say quite positively to the house that in this matter, which the hon. member recognizes is a very delicate and difficult one, the government has taken the action which it believes to have been the most prudent to take in all the circumstances.
'Mr. Church.]


WAR CHARITIES
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. J. G. GARDINER (Minister of National War Services):: In view of the fact that an answer which I gave to a question asked by the leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) a few days ago has raised some discussion, I wish to make a further comment upon that answer.
When I was dealing with the estimates of the war services department in the house o>n March 7 last, as recorded at page 1331 of Hansard, the leader of the opposition questioned me regarding the relationship of the Red Cross to the united drive put on for funds for auxiliary services on March 24.
The hon. member asked:
Has it been found that the Red Cross object to this collective drive? There was a good deal of discussion in the press about this at the time it was started. I understand that some officials of the Red Cross have taken the view that they cannot be bound within the limitations or circumscription of one drive because of the peculiar necessities that may arise in connection with their work. Are they in agreement with the principle or are they standing out? I think in justice to them that ought to be made clear.
I replied as follows:
Three or four conferences were held and the discussions that took place were similar to those that take place at any conference of the kind. In the earlier stages you will find some persons putting forth certain arguments and taking a certain position very strongly, and you will find these same persons later on, in a subsequent conference, turning around and taking a position which perhaps those opposed to them at the earlier stage had adopted. It is true that certain arguments were advanced to the effect stated, but I may say that as a result of the conferences held all of the organizations that are going into the drive on March 24 are going in under an agreement finally reached among themselves, and in entering into that agreement they have one hundred per cent support and cooperation of the Red Cross. As the house knows, the Red Cross is an organization that has been built up right across Canada, having a very good reputation and a long period of service, and it is thought wise to allow that organization at least to consider the matter in their own national meetings before making any announcement as to what they think, or anyone else thinks, with respect to what they ought to do. It is considered better to leave it that way. There has been the greatest degree of cooperation among these people in meeting from time to time and discussing one another's problems and trying to come to a common conclusion.
Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury): Will this drive on March 24 cover a definite period of time?
Mr. Gardiner:	It is the only drive to be
made in 1941.
Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury): That answers the question.

War Charities-United Appeal
Mr. Gardiner:	The Red Cross have agreed
that they will not put on another drive in 1941, so that there will be no further drive by that society or any one of the other organizations during the year 1941. The question what is to happen in 1942 will be finally settled among them before the end of the year.
The statement I wish to make with regard to that answer is this.
Some controversy has arisen as to whether this was a correct statement of the facts. I had reason to believe it was a correct statement at the time it was made but it has been brought to my attention that the Red Cross when they held their executive meeting did not agree that another appeal would not be necessary in 1941 but were referring the matter to the annual meeting of the central council.
The government however has thought it wise to arrange that national drives for auxiliary war services be put on in the spring of the year and that any drive put on in the fall months be for home services and that the remainder of the year be reserved for governmental financial appeals for funds necessary to the direct prosecution of the war.
We are sorry that Mr. W. M. Marshall, Saskatchewan provincial commissioner of the Canadian Red Cross, according to a Canadian press report dated Winnipeg, March 26, 1941, has stated that notification had been sent 900 local secretaries in Saskatchewan that although no date is set it is expected that the 1941 Red Cross campaign will be held in the fall. The decision of the government that no permit for a further national drive for auxiliary services would be issued during 1941 outside of the present drive was conveyed to the central executive of the Red Cross with the suggestion that if they required more funds they should join in the drive now under way and ask the public for the amount which they required.
If there is a shortage of funds to do necessary work of the Red Cross it will require to be raised in some way other than in a national appeal to the people. The only national appeal for which a permit will be issued in 1941 is now under way.
I am sorry if I was mistaken in saying that the Red Cross had agreed.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The statement which the Minister of National War Services has just made, and the reason therefor, have caused' me some perturbation. I have always had a high opinion of the Red Cross society and have at intervals contributed of my substance to its support.
When I first heard of the united drive it was a matter of regret to me that the
officials of the Red Cross could not see their way clear to go into the combined appeal, but I quite understood the reasons for it.
As the minister has correctly stated, I did interrogate him with regard to this matter earlier this month, and I concluded that he had made a correct statement of the position, namely, that the Red Cross had agreed that they would not put on another drive in 1941. It was therefore a matter of considerable surprise to me when I heard it announced in the Canadian press from Winnipeg that notification had been sent to the Red Cross organizations in Saskatchewan that a 1941 Red Cross campaign would be held in the fall.
In view of what is taking place this week, the efforts that are being made in the united drive, I suggest that this announcement was entirely out of place at the moment, especially when so many of our best citizens are contributing of their time and substance to the present drive.
I agree that the position that has arisen is unfortunate. If the Red Cross requires funds, it should be done in some other way than by a national appeal to the people. The government, if necessary, must supply such additional funds as may be required.
Mr. KARL K. HOMUTH (Waterloo South): In this connection, I also had spoken to the Minister of National War Services, and I trust the house will bear with me for a moment, though I may be out of order in discussing the matter. In our district, in the town of Preston and in the city of Galt, we put on united drives. Perhaps we were the first town to put on a drive for all the services, and out of the funds raised we paid our contributions that were allotted to the various organizations-the Red Cross and so on. The present drive is on and we are not putting on a drive in my riding because all our municipalities have already put on their drive and made their contribution. We put on one drive a year, which is made in the fall, and our employees and others who contribute pay so much per month over the year.
The minister has stated that the drive should be put on in the spring. It will cause considerable trouble if there is a drive in the spring, when certain municipalities put it on in the fall. We should be very careful; people are willing to contribute, but if we have two or three drives there will be difficulty in raising funds. When another drive is put on it should be done in such a national way that there will be only one appeal for all the purposes for which funds are required.
*1910	COMMONS
Royal Canadian Navy-H.M.C.S. Otter


ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY
[Stage Direction]
Otter WHILE ON PATROL
On the orders of the day:
Hon. ANGUS L. MACDONALD (Minister of National Defence for Naval Services): Hon. members may expect from me some statement as to the loss of one of the ships of the Canadian naval force yesterday with the loss of some nineteen men serving on board that ship.
The ship, as hon. members know from the newspapers, is the Otter. His Majesty's Canadian Ship Otter, was one of fourteen yachts purchased from private owners for conversion into anti-submarine patrol vessels. The conversion of these vessels was an emergency policy designed to provide some measure of protection against submarine raids on the Canadian coast, and to serve as a substitute while Canadian-built corvettes were being completed.
The Otter was built in 1921 as a twin-screw diesel steel yacht. She was 160 feet long, 25 feet beam, with a draft of ten feet. She was built in the United States. Subsequently she was acquired by Mr. P. S. Ross, a Canadian citizen. In June 1940 she was requisitioned by the Royal Canadian Navy. She was converted into a patrol vessel in a Canadian shipyard. The work of conversion included alteration to her accommodation, general overhaul of engines, and installation of armament.
Since October 10, 1940, she has been in service as a patrol vessel on the eastern Canadian coast. In this function she has given entire satisfaction. She has from time to time developed minor defects, as any ship is apt to do, but these have been dealt with as they occurred, and there has never been any suggestion at any time that there were any serious defects in the vessel or in her machinery.
Her complement was 4 officers and 37 ratings. Her commanding officer was Lieutenant Denis A. Mossman, R.C.N.R., a native of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. Lieutenant Mossman is forty-three years of age, and his experience at sea has been extensive. He holds a master's foreign-going certificate of competency. He was employed by the Canadian National Steamships prior to the war and served in their passenger and cargo steamers in various capacities, from third officer to first officer. His service in the Royal Canadian Navy since entry on January 19, 1940, includes time spent at the Royal Canadian naval barracks in training, and time spent on the Canadina ships Venosta and Arleux (mine-sweepers). He was appointed to 
H.M.C.S. Otter in June, 1940, and given command of that ship, standing by the ship during her conversion and from the date of her commissioning in the service.
Coming to the tragedy itself, the ship left Halifax on March 21 on patrol work. There was no indication of any defect in the ehip or her machinery at that time. At eight o'clock on March 26 when off Sambro near the mouth of Halifax harbour the ship caught fire. Apparently this fire started in the engine room, and spread so rapidly that there never was at any time a chance of effectively fighting it. The ship had to be abandoned, and this was successfully carried out into boats and rafts. The casualties, nineteen in number, are understood to have been chiefly caused by exposure and also by the capsizing of one of the boats alongside one of the rescue vessels. The weather at the time was very rough and cold.
A full inquiry into the causes of this accident would have been undertaken to-day except for the fact that some of the survivors are not yet sufficiently recovered to give evidence. None of the survivors it is hoped will suffer any permanent ill effects from their experience. It is hoped that the inquiry will get under way to-morrow, certainly it will be undertaken at the earliest possible day. Until the report of the board of inquiry is in hand it will not be possible for me to make a more explicit statement than this regarding the cause of the fire and the subsequent loss of life.
There remains for me, Mr. Speaker, the melancholy duty of expressing to the relatives of the deceased officers and men the heartfelt sympathy of the Prime Minister, my colleagues in the government, and myself and, I am sure, as well the very deep and real regret of every hon. member of this house.

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Hon. H. A. BRUCE (Parkdale):: In view of the statement of the Minister of Trade and Commerce yesterday that the census would be conducted on a non-partisan basis, will the minister tell the house who is the commissioner for Parkdale; is he the defeated candidate; if not, was the commissioner appointed on the recommendation of the defeated candidate?


James Angus MacKinnon: The hon. member sent over to me since I came to the chamber a copy of this question. Ordinarily I would have no idea who the census commissioner is for

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any constituency in Canada outside of my own constituency of Edmonton West. It so happens however, that I have some information which I can give to the hon. member; it comes from a letter received from the hon. member himself, in which he asked me that the president of the Conservative association of his own riding be appointed as assistant census commissioner. In that letter the hon. member stated that the man named as census commissioner was a Mr. Travers. Whether he was the Liberal candidate in that constituency or not I do not know.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: Would the minister read my letter?


James Angus MacKinnon: I haven't it here, but I shall be glad to bring it into the house.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: Will the minister then table it?


James Angus MacKinnon: Yes. The hon. member asks whether the commissioner was appointed on the recommendation of the defeated candidate. As I said yesterday, the commissioner has been appointed in exactly the same way as have the commissioners at the taking of every census since 1871. I believe that in all the years since 1871 only once at the time of the decennial census has a Liberal government been in office, and that on every other occasion all appointments in connection with the census have been on a strictly partisan basis.


Mr. HOMUTH:: And what did the Liberals say about it?


James Angus MacKinnon: In this war year the government intends to see that partisanship is not indulged in in the appointment of the enumerators taking the census.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: Does the minister not recollect that in my letter I asked if this census could not be conducted on the same basis as the national registration was conducted?


James Angus MacKinnon: My recollection is that it was on that point that the hon. member asked for the appointment of the president of the association.


Herbert Alexander Bruce: Yes.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: That is different.


Mr. BRADETTE:: Little shadows of 1931.


Mr. GRAYDON:: Yes, but there is a war on.


RADIO BROADCASTING
[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. EDWARDS (Calgary West):: Mr. Speaker, I should like to ask the Minister of Munitions and Supply what regulations or restrictions, if any, are in effect with respect to the use of national, provincial or private radio stations for political broadcasting purposes at the present time. Are there any regulations or restrictions?


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Just restrictions.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker, this question has come to me without notice. I do not like to quote regulations from memory; but I shall be glad to obtain the information. Of course any regulations in existence are made by the governors of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I shall be glad to get the information and answer the hon. member to-morrow.


Richard Burpee Hanson: This is an important matter, and I think we might take two or three minutes to discuss it. Would the minister be good enough to state when he will bring these regulations down, and will the government facilitate an opportunity for discussion? The present position is wholly unsatisfactory. It is to us, and I am quite sure it would be to hon. members opposite.


Clarence Decatur Howe: In turning over the responsibility for broadcasting to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation the government divested itself of any authority to interfere in the matter of regulations for broadcasting. I see no purpose therefore in debating here what is being done by the broadcasting corporation.


Gordon Graydon: Is it-


Georges Parent: May I point out that these questions, in the form in which they are being asked, are most provocative. They raise discussions, whereas they might well be put on the order paper. I suggest that hon. members look into that rule of procedure.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: The answers are just as provocative.


Gordon Graydon: May
I suggest, along the lines suggested by your honour that-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Order.


Gordon Graydon: I am only bringing this
to the attention of the minister. There is a question standing on the order paper in my name with reference to this very matter. I believe if the minister would answer that question he would clear up the whole matter.
Precious Metals Marking Act



PRECIOUS METALS MARKING ACT


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. A. MacKINNON (Minister of Trade and Commerce) moved the second reading of Bill No. 12, to amend the Precious Metals Marking Act.
Richard Burpee Hanson: This is a somewhat technical bill;
in fact the Precious Metals Marking Act is a technical act from first to last. I do not recall any explanation having been made heretofore by the minister. We ought to have something beyond the explanatory note on the page opposite 1 of the bill. In particular we should know the reason for introducing the bill. Who has asked for it, and what would be the effect of this legislation? If the minister gave the house that information on first reading, I could not have been present, because I did not hear it.


James Angus MacKinnon: Mr. Speaker, in presenting the bill I explained that it contained some technical amendments to the act, and that they had been suggested for the protection of the consuming public. I believe it is safe to say that generally speaking the buying public knows less about articles over which the Precious Metals Marking Act has jurisdiction than it does about anything else purchased. Hence there is necessity for protection and guidance. These amendments offer that protection.
The first amendment affects bracelet watch cases, and only to the extent that the necessity for soldering a sheet of gold on the inside of the back of a gold-filled bracelet watch case is removed. I do not think there is any necessity of going further into that amendment.
The second amendment deals with the establishment of a new standard for gold-filled eyeglass wares, and protection for the public as to the quality of the content of the article.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is it only in respect to gold-filled articles?


James Angus MacKinnon: Yes, gold-filled articles.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Probably we should discuss the bill in committee.


[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-Watches.
Richard Burpee Hanson: Specifically, what is the extension in the provisions of the act over the present section 7 (a)?


James Angus MacKinnon: The present subsection lays down some specifications as to thickness and quality of gold, also the manner of application of this gold in a gold-filled watch case. I believe the explanation given on this page is quite complete. In the proposed amendment these remain the same, and are not disturbed, except that it is not necessary to solder a sheet of gold on the inside of the back of a gold-filled bracelet watch case. In this style of case the movement fits in the back of the case and the inside of the back is not seen nor is it subject to any wear.
This amendment also provides that if "gold filled" or "G.F." is stamped on the outer surface of that part of a bracelet watch case that is of that quality, then "base metal" shall be applied to that part of this case that is not gold-filled quality.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: The explanatory notes explain the object of the amendments. What is the purpose? Are they for the purpose of protecting the public?


James Angus MacKinnon: Yes, the amendments are wholly for the purpose of protecting the buying public. I believe they have been brought to our attention by the Canadian Jewellers' association, an association with a membership of approximately one thousand jewellers across Canada. Eighty-two per cent of the wholesalers and manufacturers in Canada are members of the association.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: And they
approve these changes?


James Angus MacKinnon: Yes, these are their suggestions.


Mr. STIRLING:: Do these provisions apply only to goods of Canadian manufacture?


James Angus MacKinnon: My understanding is that they apply to all articles offered for sale in Canada.


Grote Stirling: So that there must be some jurisdiction of the department over imports.


James Angus MacKinnon: The department would do that through its inspection staff.


Grote Stirling: At the border?


James Angus MacKinnon: No, where the merchandise is offered for sale.

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages


Richard Burpee Hanson: Do the
provisions of section 7(a) apply to imported watches as well as to watches of Canadian manufacture?


James Angus MacKinnon: Yes.


Grote Stirling: Where is the supervision undertaken? Is it done when the goods are displayed in retail stores, at the wholesalers or at the importers?


James Angus MacKinnon: In connection with imported goods it is done at the customs, at the port of entry.


Grote Stirling: Does that mean that the customs officer must be an expert in connection with these things?


James Angus MacKinnon: The department has inspectors at the larger ports of entry and instructions are given to the customs officials.


Grote Stirling: They are not admitted until they have the acquiescence of the minister's department?


James Angus MacKinnon: That is correct.


Richard Burpee Hanson: The customs supervise the importations for the department?


James Angus MacKinnon: Yes, with the assistance of our inspectors. It is our responsibility.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On section 2

Gold-filled articles other than watch cases.
Richard Burpee Hanson: This is an extension, is it not, of the principle that applies now to spectacles or eyeglasses manufactured in or imported into Canada. Does this apply to anything else but eyeglasses?


James Angus MacKinnon: I am informed that this applies only to spectacles and eyeglasses.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Then the marginal note would seem to be misleading. It refers to "gold filled articles other than watch cases," but this is confined to spectacles and eyeglasses.


James Angus MacKinnon: Yes.


Richard Burpee Hanson: If the principle is good why should it not be extended to other gold-filled articles?


James Angus MacKinnon: That protection is given by another section, 6 (a).


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
Bill reported.
[Stage Direction]
The house in committee of supply, Mr. Sanderson in the chair.

[Stage Direction]
422. Special. To provide for payments on reductions in wheat acreages, under conditions prescribed by the governor in council, for administration expenses in connection therewith, and for temporary appointments that may be required notwithstanding anything contained in the Civil Service Act, $35,000,000.
James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, when this item was brought before the committee some days ago a question was raised as to why it should be brought down in this form, rather than by means of a bill. I think at this time the committee will expect me to state -the reason for adopting the method we have in introducing this matter to the house.
I think it will be admitted by members of the committee that -the details of this vote set out in general terms what would be required to be placed in any bill that might be introduced for a similar purpose. Legislation in the form of a bill could contain only general sections providing, first, for acreage payments on the reduced wheat acreage; second, for the power to pass regulations by order in council to regulate the expenditure of the moneys, and, third, for the employment of those necessary to administer -the plan.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Does the minister suggest that that is as far as the legislation could go?


James Garfield Gardiner: That is about as far as legislation providing for similar things in the past has gone. Legislation in relation to matters of this kind in the past has been very similar. But that is not the reason I want to give to the committee for maintaining this principle in connection with the bringing down of this particular vote. Two objections of considerable strength might be advanced to the procedure -being followed, and there are also objections which might be raised to the bringing down of legislation.
One of the objections is the time element. It is now thirteen days since the policy for which this vote is to provide the money was first announced to -the house. It is regrettable that we were required to discuss other matters, probably of more importance, during the intervening time, but the fact remains that thirteen days have gone by. Those thirteen days were most important in relation to the question which has to be discussed, in that crops must be sown within the next two months.
1914	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
Seeding would be well under way before we could have passed the necessary legislation and the regulations to be based thereon.
In the second place, legislation would have a tendency to perpetuate what is only intended to be a temporary expedient. It has never been contended by the government that the proposals making necessary the expenditure of this amount of money represent a permanent policy. It has never been suggested by those who advocate dealing with the matter as we are that what is necessary is something in the nature of a permanent policy. While it might be possible to stipulate a time limit in any legislation that might be brought down, it would be difficult to estimate how long the legislation would be required. Even with a time limit, the legislation itself would give a greater degree of permanency to the policy than an item in the estimates, with a further vote a year hence if it should be proposed to take the same action again.
The main reasons for proceeding as we are can be stated as follows:
Immediately the funds are voted and the method of administration explained to and accepted by the house, we can proceed to set up the administrative organization which will be necessary to putting the proposal into effect. This is essential to getting the proposal before the farmers in time to permit of their planning their summer's work.
Immediately this vote is passed it will be accompanied by the usual bill accompanying votes which are put through by way of estimates, and later it will be submitted to the senate and be passed and made effective. In addition to that, the regulations to be made under the vote can be drafted by the government.
I noted that the hon. member for Qu'Appelle yesterday suggested that before anything was done in connection with this matter it should first be considered by a special committee of the house. It is not impossible, if the house desires that that should be done, that the regulations, which after all embody the greater part, practically all of what will be done, could be dealt with by a committee. But whether dealt with by a committee or as proposed in this vote, the greater part of the procedure that is to be followed will in any case be set out in the regulations, and the regulations could be fully discussed either in the manner proposed or in committee of the whole house. A discussion of the regulations themselves in a committee would ensure the widest possible dissemination of the information which the farmers desire to have at this time when they are preparing for seeding operations. But I suggest that because of time limitations, and the fact that this is not a permanent policy

but only a temporary measure to see us through this present year in view of the difficulties confronting us, we should proceed in the manner in which we are now proceeding, and just as soon as possible we should make known to the public just what the regulations are, and then have the administration set up for the purpose of putting them into effect.


Mr. PERLEY:: It has been announced that Mr. J. J. McGurran has already set up the machinery. Will he not know what the regulations are likely to be? What is he doing in that regard?


James Garfield Gardiner: I was just proceeding to give the committee that very information. I believe that before assenting to this procedure the house will desire to know the form of administration we intend to establish.
It is our intention to set up a central office at Regina which will take charge of the administration both of prairie farm assistance and wheat acreage reduction activities. It is our intention also to open suboffices at both Winnipeg and Edmonton. The administration in Saskatchewan will be directed from the Regina office, the administration in Manitoba from the Winnipeg office, and the administration in Alberta from the Edmonton office.
It is also our intention to ask the provincial municipal associations to take charge of the actual work of receiving applications from farmers before June 1, on forms indicating their 1939 and 1940 acreage of each crop and of summer fallow, and indicating their plans for bringing about a reduction in wheat acreage in 1941 by otherwise cropping or summer fallowing acreage which grew wheat in 1940.
We have already been in conference with the presidents and secretaries of the three provincial municipal organizations, and it is planned that they will use the municipal secretaries where there are organized municipalities, and the provincial officials in unorganized areas, to do the actual work of receiving applications and certifying the statements of applicants. It is our intention to make payments for these services, to the association for central services, and to the municipal councils for local services or to the provincial governments with respect to unorganized areas.
We have already consulted with the different organizations concerned, including representatives of the provincial governments, and have been assured that every service possible will be rendered by them in working out the administration. We intend to provide for the necessary inspection by municipal secretary-treasurers where that is thought necessary. By that type of inspection I mean that if a

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
secretary-treasurer finds it necessary, for instance, to make a check on certain information that he has received, provision will be made for that being done.
We intend to provide that the information secured and the applications made shall be turned over to the offices at Regina, Winnipeg and Edmonton and be checked with the acreage returns made to the prairie farm assistance offices over the past two years. Where there is any reason for a check being made upon the information received, that check will be made under the direction of our office. That, I may say, is being done at the request of the municipal associations.
The finance department will set up the necessary organization to audit and make payments at the earliest date possible following proof of claim. When and if the vote and proposal with regard to administration is accepted by the house, it is our intention to have the regulations drafted and they will be made available for consideration in some method which will be satisfactory to the house. A general discussion can take place freely on this estimate; a general discussion can take place freely on the regulations themselves, and from such discussion it is hoped that the farmers who are interested in the putting into effect of the policy will gain considerable information upon which to proceed with their seeding operations.
I think members of the committee will agree that it is most important that the matter be proceeded with as rapidly as possible in order that the information may be made available as soon as possible and the farmers enabled to plan their work accordingly. In saying that, I have no desire unduly to speed up any discussion which the members may wish to carry on in the house. I only wish to suggest that the more rapidly we can get to the point where we are discussing the actual regulations, the sooner it will be possible for the farmers to get, as they will desire to get, the information on which they will base their programme for the ooming year.
Last evening in discussing the amendment which is before the house I concluded my remarks by saying:
The position taken since the beginning of the war is to the effect that before any branch of agriculture receives assistance because we are at war it must be shown (1) that the market which existed for the product of that branch of agriculture has been seriously curtailed by the war; (2) that those engaged in that branch of the industry cannot readily change to any other without lapse of time and unreasonable expense, and (3) that those engaged in that branch of agriculture cannot maintain themselves in agriculture without government assistance.
Earlier in the session, I think it was when my estimates were under discussion previously, the suggestion was made in regard to dealing with certain farm products that the provinces could deal with them to better advantage than the federal government. The question was asked-I believe by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle-whether that statement applied to wheat. On that occasion I indicated that to my mind it did not. I Should like to explain to the committee the meaning of the statement which I made at that time. It is associated with the reasons which I put forward last night for giving assistance to agriculture in various parts of Canada.
For example, it cannot be said that the market for Canadian bacon has been reduced by the war. As a matter of fact, we are now shipping more than twice as much bacon weekly to Britain as we shipped before the war began. We cannot, therefore, give a reduction of the market for bacon as a result of the war as a reason for the federal government giving assistance in connection with the marketing of bacon.
So far as the second requirement is concerned, that those engaged in that branch of the industry cannot readily change to any other, of course under the circumstances there would be no necessity for change. Since more than twice the volume of bacon is required that was required at the beginning of the war, there is reason for farmers going into that production rather than going out of it, and farmers have been going in rather than going out.
Then, that those engaged in that branch of agriculture cannot maintain themselves in agriculture without government assistance. There may be some question whether farmers who are producing bacon in certain parts of Canada are able to produce it at a profit. There may be some question whether in any part of Canada farmers are obtaining sufficient at the present time for their hogs to be able to purchase some of the commodities which they have to buy at the prices they have to pay for them. But it seems to me that some proof would have to be shown with regard to this third matter before the federal government would be justified in giving blanket assistance to the bacon industry across Canada.
With regard to dairy products a somewhat similar condition prevails. So far as cheese is concerned, we sent more cheese last year to the British market than we have sent in many years. This year we have contracted to send to Britain double the amount of cheese we were sending five years ago. It cannot be said, therefore, that the coming

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
of the war has reduced the market for cheese outside Canada, nor can it be said that the coming of the war has reduced the market for
cheese inside Canada.
There are two reasons why we have seen fit to give some assistance to cheese production in spite of the fact that the market has not been restricted. Britain herself desires to have a much greater volume of the product than we are able to give her at the present time. Also, if we are to keep cheese in its proper price relationship to butter without calling on Britain to help, some assistance has to be given to cheese, which is marketed outside of Canada in large volume, whereas butter for the most part is consumed within the country. We have therefore given assistance in connection with cheese to the extent of three-fifths of a cent a pound. In the coming year practically the whole market for butter will be within Canada. When the market for butter ceases to be a domestic one. we have difficulties in marketing it at a price which will cover the cost of production to our farmers. It is only when butter can be marketed within Canada itself in practically the whole volume of its production that we have been able to obtain a price which makes it possible for our farmers to produce it, and in many districts even under those circumstances they are not able to do so.
So far as tobacco is concerned, perhaps it meets the first condition which is laid down. There is not in Britain to-day as great a market for tobacco as there was when the war started, but it would probably be more difficult to meet the other conditions which were laid down as to when products should obtain government assistance.
Coming to apples, which is the last product I wish to compare with wheat, and which compares more nearly with wheat, I draw attention to this fact, that before the war fifty per cent of Canadian apples were going to Great Britain. Of these exports Nova Scotia produced eighty per cent, British Columbia about fifty per cent, and Ontario only a small percentage. It became very evident early in the war that the growers would experience difficulties as regards both their costs of production and their markets. Britain stated immediately she went into the war that she did not desire to take apples. This announcement at once put the problem before producers all across Canada. I wish only to say in this regard that the government of Canada grappled with the problem in September, the very first month of the war. They met the apple growers of Nova Scotia and entered into an agreement with them; they did the same as regards the growers of British Columbia, and they set up conditions across Canada 
which made it difficult for apple growers from other parts of the dominion to compete in certain seasons with the producers in central Canada.
In view of these facts I believe there will be no question in the minds of hon. members, when they take into consideration what I have just said with regard to wheat and other products, as to whether wheat falls into the category outlined by the conditions set last evening.
In the first place, has the market been reduced? The market which existed for the product of that branch of agriculture has been seriously curtailed by the war. I need do no more than state the facts in order to convince this committee that so far as wheat is concerned the market has been greatly curtailed since the coming of the war, and that there is not much possibility, during the next twelve months at least, of a greater market being found for wheat than we have had since the beginning of the war.
The second condition is that those engaged in one branch of the industry cannot readily change to any other without lapse of time and unreasonable expense. I doubt if anyone in the committee would even question that wheat complies with that condition. It is not only difficult for farmers in the wheat-growing area of Canada to change from wheat growing to any other occupation, but in many of those areas it is almost impossible for them to do anything else to advantage but grow wheat. That being so, I do not believe anyone will question that as regards the greatest section of the three western provinces it is most difficult for the farmers to Change from the form of agriculture which they have been following to any other form of agriculture.
Then there is the question whether those engaged in that branch of agriculture can maintain themselves in it without government assistance. It might be a little more difficult to establish the case under that condition; but it is not so difficult as it might seem, when one has before him all the statistics with regard to the matter and at the same time has been listening to the discussions which have been taking place in this house and outside it, relating to agriculture. I believe there is general agreement right across Canada that agriculture is the one national industry which, more than any other, has suffered because of the fact that we are at war.
That goes for every branch of agriculture and not merely for the wheat growing section. It is admitted, as was stated last evening in the house, by publications put out by an organization known as the manufacturers association which, apart from the fact that

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
they can do business with agriculturists across Canada, has no reason for taking up the case at the present time. I believe that every organization, every governmental body, everyone in Canada is agreed that agriculture as an industry has been suffering as greatly as any other industry in Canada as a result of the war.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: More so.


James Garfield Gardiner: More so, my hon. friend says. I will not give the figures again but I would ask hon. members to review those which I put on Hansard last evening with reference to the gross agricultural cash income of farmers right across Canada.


An hon. MEMBER:: They were not
comparative.


James Garfield Gardiner: They were not comparative as to provinces but I will make them comparative as between wheat and other commodities. The last year which was given prior to the time that there was a very rapid reduction in the amount of cash obtained from farm products throughout Canada was 1929, and the gross returns were $922,000,000.


Mr. CASTLEDEN:: Are those figures the
cash returns to the farmers or to those who sold the commodities?


James Garfield Gardiner: Those are gross cash
returns for the commodities, to the farmers. The next year, 1930, the amount was $630,000,000. I will not read all the figures, but in 1932 it was $377,000,000. I would point out that nearly all, and certainly by far the greater proportion, of that reduction was due to the fall in the price of wheat. It was due at the same time to the decrease in the volume of wheat which was produced. Practically the whole reduction in the returns to agriculture across Canada can be accounted for by reduction in wheat and in the price of wheat, and where there is a variation from that it is comparatively small. In 1933 the return was a little better, $390,000,000; in 1934 it was $481,000,000 and in 1935 it was $509,000,000. If hon. members will examine the records they will find that again by far the greater part, almost all, of the increase in return to farmers in Canada was due to increases in the production of wheat or to improved prices in wheat. In 1936 the return was $569.000,000; in 1937, $640,000,000; in 1938, $647,000,000; in 1939, $702,000,000 and in 1940, $714,000,000.
While not such a great proportion of the difference in income is due to wheat and wheat prices, yet the greater part of the increased income, more particularly in the years 1936 and 1938, is due to wheat and wheat prices, when prices were comparatively
better and when crops were not as poor as they had been in some of the preceding years. All I wish to establish at the moment is this-


Mr. TUSTIN:: Has the minister the comparative figures of increases and decreases for wheat and other commodities?


James Garfield Gardiner: It would take so long
to give them that I cannot indicate them at this stage, but later if they are required I will put them on Hansard. This statement has been obtained from the statistics branch of the Department of Trade and Commerce and I have comparisons with regard to all the provinces. All I need to do to convince hon. members that the wheat growing areas have suffered to a greater degree than other agricultural areas is to read the index price for receipts from sale of farm products for 1940 as compared with the returns from 1926 to 1929, taking the average over the period 1926-29 as 100. What were the figures for 1940 in the different provinces? The index return for each of the provinces was:
Prince Edward	Island	 64-8
Nova Scotia	 98-6
New Brunswick	 86 [DOT] 3
Quebec	 99-8
Ontario	 85-8
Manitoba	 74-9
Saskatchewan	 50 [DOT] 9
Alberta	 69-7
British Columbia	 112-9
I only need to call attention to the fact that outside the province of Prince Edward Island the three lowest provinces are Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. The index figure for Saskatchewan for receipts from farm products is lower than that of any other province, and Saskatchewan depends more upon wheat for its returns from agriculture than any other province.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: Has the minister the average for the last ten year period?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have it from 1926
to the present time. I do not wish to give the figures with regard to the index all through, but I will deal with enough of them to illustrate the point. The point in the hon. member's mind is, what it has been in recent years and what it might have been in the years from 1926 to 1929 in some of the provinces. In Nova Scotia in 1928, which is the middle year of that period, it was 107-9, and for the last three years it has been 114-9, 114 and 110-4. This last year it was 98-6, the obvious reason being that apples have been greatly affected by the war.
In New Brunswick in the middle year 1928 it was 96-1, and for the last few years it has been 81, 71, 81, and 86. There has been an improvement over any other year in 1940.
1918	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture

Wheat Acreages
In Quebec, in the middle year 1928, it was 107, and during the last four years it has been 84, 84-5, 88-4 and 99-8. There has been a very marked increase in the last year.
In Ontario in the middle year 1928 it was 103-5, and for the last four years it has been 82-6, 83, 81-4 and 85-8. While there has been an increase in Ontario it has not been as great as in the last three provinces for which I read the figures. But it is still approximately the same as New Brunswick's return.
The figures for other provinces are as follows: Province 1928	1937	1938	1939	1940Man	
101-8	91-7	77-9	80-5	74-9Sask	
114-0	29-6	32-2	55-0	50-9Alta	
118-8	68-3	74-5	66-3	69-7B.C	
109-1	104-1	107-2	113-7	112-9
The average across Canada, or the total for all provinces for 1940 is 74.
I think those figures will emphasize to the committee the fact that the wheat-growing areas are suffering more as a result of the coming of the war than any other agricultural section in Canada. In fact I do not think it was necessary to quote figures to prove that statement.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Would the minister place the whole table on the record?


James Garfield Gardiner: I have no objection if the committee would like to have it on the record. The table is as follows:
RECEIPTS FROM SALE OF FARM PRODUCTS BY PROVINCES* 1926-1940
(Gross Agricultural Cash Income)
-	P.E.I.	N.S.	N.B.	Que.	Ont.	Man.	Sask.	Alta.	B.C.	Total
					(million	dollars)				
1926	9-84	13-86	16-13	96-80	253-90	89-4	289-2	161-0	22-1	952-21927	10-41	14-99	14-08	96-70	252-10	78-5	269-8	168-7	24-3	929-61928	9-89	16-51	13-98	108-60	269-00	82-1	319-5	210-8	28-5	1,058-81929	9-56	15-84	14-00	103-70	264-90	72-5	242-9	109-5	29-6	922-31930	8-47	16-50	13-45	83-70	216-80	47-6	123-7	93-5	27-0	630-81931	5-16	12-91	9-53	62-80	163-40	30-7	70-0	69-7	18-5	442-81932	3-50	10-52	7-12	48-40	123-20	28-4	73-4	67-2	15-5	377-41933	4-02	12-92	7-49	48-50	129-40	32-2	73-4	66-4	16-0	390-41934	5-02	13-44	9-51	61-30	145-30	44-1	91-8	92-8	18-3	481-71935	4-85	14-20	9-54	65-70	155-00	36-1	108-2	96-6	19-1	509-21936	6-29	14-73	11-32	73-50	186-30	45-9	119-0	91-5	21-1	589-71937	5-96	17-58	11 -82	85-24	214-84	73-95	82-85	121-26	27-2	640-71938	5-10	17-44	10-45	85-77	215-68	62-82	90-24	132-26	28-0	647-81939	6-30	16-89	11-79	89-66	211-65	64-95	154-21	117-70	29-7	702-81940	6-43	15-09	12-55	101-27	223-09	60-38	142-67	123-74	29-5	714-7Index Numbers	Receipts	from Sale of Farm Products 1926-29 =100	1926	99-1	90-6	110-9	95-4	97-7	110-8	103-2	90-7	84-6	98-61927	104-9	98-0	96-8	95-3	96-6	97-4	96-2	95-0	93-0	97-31928	99-6	107-9	96-1	107-0	103-5	101-8	114-0	118-8	109-1	109-61929	96-3	103-5	96-2	102-2	101-9	90-0	86-6	95-5	113-3	95-51930	86-3	107-8	92-4	82-5	83-4	59-0	44-1	52-7	103-4	65-31931	520	84-4	65-5	61-9	62-8	38-1	25-0	39-3	70-8	45-81932	35-3	68-8	48-9	47-7	47-4	35-2	26-2	37-8	59-3	39-11933	40-5	84-4	51-5	47-8	49-8	39-9	26-2	37-4	61-2	40-41934	50-6	87-8	65-4	60-4	55-9	54-7	32-7	52-3	70-0	49-91935	48-9	92-8	65-6	64-8	59-6	44-8	38-6	54-4	73-1	52-71936	63-4	96-3	77-8	72-4	71-7	56-9	42-4	51-5	80-8	59-01937	60-0	114-9	81-2	84-0	82-6	91-7	29-6	68-3	104-1	66-11938	51 -4	114-0	71-8	84-5	83-0	77-9	32-2	74-5	107-2	67-31939	63-5	110-4	81 -0	88-4	81-4	80-5	55-0	66-3	113-7	72-81940	64-8	98-6	86-3	99-8	85-8	74-9	50-9	69-7	112-9	74-0
* Source: Report of the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations. Date Supplied by Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Agricultural Branch.
TMr. Gardiner.]

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages


Mr. ROWE:: Haw could the minister say it was due to the war when 1937 and 1938 were still lower?


James Garfield Gardiner: What I say is that when you take it across the country, in 1940, starting in Prince Edward Island and going all the way across, you find Saskatchewan is at the very bottom and had a decrease in 1940 as compared with the previous year. In order to prove the point I have been making with these figures, the statement which is borne out by 1937 and 1938 would have to be true. As a matter of fact, only 35 million bushels of wheat were grown in Saskatchewan in 1937, which accounts for the fact that the figure is down to 29-6, and that accounts for a considerable part of the low return in 1937 for agricultural products. To go back to other years, in 1932 the figure was lower than any of these. It was 26-2, the reason being that the crop was very small and, at the same time, prices were very low.


William Earl Rowe: The wheat problem existed before the war.


James Garfield Gardiner: If we take it either way, the people growing wheat are, because of low returns, suffering to a greater extent at the present time than farmers in any other part of Canada.


Mr. KINLEY:: In the minister's computation by provinces, does he take into account the wheat on hand in the west that has been practically sold to the government at seventy cents a bushel?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; that has all been transferred to the government and the money has gone to the farmers.


Grote Stirling: Will the minister repeat the figures with regard to 1940, which I understand to be percentages of the average of 1926-29.


James Garfield Gardiner: They are the index figures as compared with 100 for 1926-29.


Grote Stirling: Returns to the farmers?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; index number of receipts from farm products. It is the gross return from agricultural products. It does not all remain with the farmer; it is what his economy area is based on, and it is the economy area with which we are at present concerned. All I am trying to place before the committee is this: We all agree that agriculture is in a difficult position at the present time; we can, by taking the actual figures, prove that by the test I suggested yesterday for different branches of the agricultural industry if they are asking for assistance from the government, the wheat-growing
area can make at least as good a case as any other part of Canada, and to my mind a better case than any other part of Canada or of the agricultural industry.


Richard Burpee Hanson: What the minister is telling us is that they have suffered more than any other part of Canada by reason of drought and low prices. But I protest against the matter being put on the basis of the war. It began long before the war came.


James Garfield Gardiner: If the leader of the opposition insists upon it, it may interest him to know that the largest two consecutive crops western Canada ever raised were grown in 1939 and 1940, the year the war started and last year. Practically all that wheat is still in Canada. In other words, the war has made it impossible to market more than about half of the amount of wheat which we previously sold in the world's market through Great Britain and the shipping that went to Great Britain.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That was not the beginning.


James Garfield Gardiner: Well, that is one of the reasons for our present difficulty. I think it is fairly well known to the committee and to the people of Canada generally that wheat growing is a peculiar part of the agricultural industry. Wheat is a cereal crop which can be successfully grown in its best form only in dry areas. Wheat is the staple food of hundreds of millions of people in the world because of the fact that it can be stored for long periods of time without any great expense. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle thinks the expense of storing it in this country is too high, and I may agree with him in that. But it can be stored more cheaply than any other commodity produced on the farm and for a longer period of time. For that reason it is one of the most useful and serviceable food products in the world, and one that, in war time, can be used to better advantage than any other. Therefore, all other things being equal, war should help it in the long run. In the early stages of this war, however, as in the early stages of the last, wheat is suffering under some handicap on account of the manner in which the war has been conducted and has developed. If France had not been overcome in 1940, it is agreed by all statisticians that anywhere from 100 million to 150 million bushels of wheat would have gone into France.


Grote Stirling: Not necessarily Canadian wheat.


James Garfield Gardiner: Not necessarily all Canadian wheat, but a very considerable part would
1920	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
have been Canadian, by reason of our nearness to western Europe and the shortage of shipping.


Richard Burpee Hanson: We will agree that it would have helped at any rate.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, by far the greater part. But only a very small amount of wheat has gone to Europe since the fall of France; through the assistance of Great Britain, some went to Spain. Communications were immediately carried on with Canada in order to secure that wheat. It is natural that the wheat required in Europe during time of war will be obtained from the closest possible sources of supply, other things being equal.


Grote Stirling: The minister will agree that the wheat problem would have been confronting Canada, had the war never taken place?


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, I will
agree that with a large production of wheat such as we have had during the last two years, and had we been faced with ten years of preparation for the war, had there not been a war last year the wheat problem would have confronted us. If, however, there had been no ten years of preparation for the war, I am just as certain there would not have been any wheat problem last year. There was no wheat problem in this country in 1937 and 1938.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Will the minister not agree with me that the problem dates back to the failure to sell the 1938-39 crop, upon which this country lost 861,000,000, before there was any war?


James Garfield Gardiner: Mr. Chairman, I will
say that it dates back much farther than that.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That was the beginning of it.


James Garfield Gardiner: I do not wish to begin a discussion respecting years, because there are some inferences I do not desire to introduce into this discussion, at least at this particular stage. There are, however, some years to which I could refer which were much more difficult than 1937 and 1938.


William Earl Rowe: What about 1929 and 1930?


James Garfield Gardiner: As a matter of fact, on July 31, 1938, we had 23,000,000 bushels of wheat in Canada.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Very little.


James Garfield Gardiner: And we had all this discussion as to the wheat problem being one not capable of solution, years before that. Yet the wheat disappeared. Wheat went up to $1.36 a bushel-even up to $1.50 at. cne time

during that year. Therefore, to say that the problem began in 1938-39 is scarcely going back far enough. We have gone over that problem time and again. I will admit this, that so long as we are growing wheat in Canada, or so long as it is being grown anywhere else in the world, in those dry areas suited to the production of high quality wheat there will always be a problem in connection with it. There will always be difficulties associated with the growing and marketing of wheat in those particular areas, in the first place because of the difficulty of growing it when there is not enough moisture, and the further problem which confronts us when there is a little too much moisture. Then there is the further difficulty of marketing the wheat when there are excessively large crops. But the possibility of storing wheat is what makes it an important food product and an important farm product, in spite of the difficulties I have named.


William Earl Rowe: Has the minister any estimate as to the possibility of increased output or increased markets in the event of the war ending in a year or two?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am not going to
attempt to discuss that question at this time, because it is far away from the problem with which we are now confronted. We are confronted at this time only with the problem of 1941, and we are attempting to deal only with that problem of 1941. We are attempting to deal with it in a manner which will provide not quite so much wheat to be marketed when the time comes, or when the market will be available for any wheat we may have to offer. We are attempting to create a situation where the difficulties will not be quite so great as they might be if something were not done in the matter.


Mr. DONNELLY:: Was it not because of the collapse of France that our wheat price dropped down to about 70 cents, thereby showing that it was a war condition?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. It was with the collapse of France that the wheat price dropped to a very low figure, and then we pegged wheat at 72 cents in order to prevent it from going still lower.


Ernest Edward Perley: But that peg was long
before the collapse of France.


James Garfield Gardiner: No; it was after wheat had gone down to 68 cents, and that was after the collapse of the countries through which the German troops were passing.


Mr. SENN:: I hesitate to interrupt the minister, but there is a question I should like to ask. He is basing his comparison of

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
revenues from agricultural production on the different prices obtained between the years 1926 and 1929. Is it not true that in those years the wheat growing areas in the west enjoyed large crops and high prices, and that their revenues at that time were greater than in other places throughout the dominion? Is it not true that although their revenues have dropped by a greater percentage than the revenues in other provinces, the comparison is still hardly justifiable?


James Garfield Gardiner: The index prices for Saskatchewan for those five years were 103, 96, 114, 86 and 44. The figures for Ontario are 97, 96, 103, 102 and 83-a considerably higher average. The figures for Quebec are 95, 95, 107, 102 and 82; and for Nova Scotia, 90, 98, 107, 103, 107. It is clear, therefore, that they are not so different. In fact, they are somewhat close.


James J. Donnelly: Has this been the
second largest wheat production year we ever had?


James Garfield Gardiner: Not only is it the second largest, but in the last two years we have had the two largest consecutive crops we have ever grown in western Canada. Therefore the whole problem at the present time is not one arising from the fact that we have had low yields. The average yields in the last four years I would say would compare favourably with those of any four years in the history of western Canada.
I gave those figures to indicate to the committee the reasons for coming to the conclusion to which I believe we have all come, no matter on which side of the house we may sit or to which group we may belong, namely, that the wheat growing areas have suffered greatly, both before the war and since the war began. The war itself has had a great deal to do with the present position of the wheat grower in western Canada, and for that reason we have considered it wise to do something concerning his position. There is the further reason that I wanted to indicate to the committee, namely, the fact that farmers who have gone through the conditions indicated by these index figures must require some assistance-if we are to consider the representations which have been made from other parts of Canada concerning agriculture in those areas.
Having done that, if the committee would permit me I should like for a few minutes to deal with the wheat policy itself. I would place on record some of the requests which have been made, particularly from farm organizations and those who are presumed to be representative of fanners in all sections of
Canada. As a matter of fact, two of them are representative of farmers right across Canada.
It will be recalled that two years ago one of the questions before the house was as to whether or not we should appoint an advisory committee to advise the wheat board. After discussion in the house, an advisory committee was set up. I believe I ought to give the committee the advice which was given the government and the wheat board by that advisory committee. They advise:
1.	That the stocks of wheat owned by the Canadian wheat board as at July 31, 1941 (and which will amount to approximately 500 million bushels) be viewed as a war-time reserve.
2.	That the dominion government continue a price guarantee for 1941-42 but that this guarantee be limited to the volume of wheat which can be marketed within the 1941-42 crop year. Marketable quantities are estimated as follows:
Domestic consumption. . 50 million bushels
Sold to export	180	million	bushelsTotal	230	million	bushels
The advisory committee recommends that such a fixed price for 1941-42 be established by the dominion government as it may deem advisable, having in minil the restricted deliveries, and that it is in the national interest to maintain an adequate farm income.
3.	That the fixing of minimum prices for wheat futures on the Winnipeg grain exchange be continued during the crop year 1941-42.
4.	That the powers of the Canadian wheat board be enlarged to enable the board to control all sales of wheat by producers and others, having in mind that any excess production in 1941 must, of necessity, be retained on farms for an indefinite period.
5.	That the processing levy now in effect be increased as from July 31, 1941, or sooner, to such an amount as when added to minimum prices above-mentioned shall equal a figure deemed to give the producer a remunerative return on that portion of his production as is:
(a)	Consumed as flour in Canada for any purnose whatsoever;
(b)	Utilized in all other wheat products used in Canada for any purpose whatsoever except for the feeding of live stock and poultry.
6.	That the net proceeds of the increased processing levy be paid to producers in the form of a "domestic premium" on a per busliel basis on deliveries of 230 million bushels in 1941-42. The "domestic premium" will be in addition to the fixed price provided for under the Canadian Wheat Board Act.
I should like to say, by way of note, that the Canadian Wheat Board Act does not provide a fixed price for wheat; it provides for an advance to farmers.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: From what is the minister quoting?


James Garfield Gardiner: From a copy of the
recommendations made by the advisory committee.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Will that
memorandum be tabled?
1922	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages


James Garfield Gardiner: It will all be in Hansard when I get through reading it. I am reading every word as I go along.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: All the recommendations?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. The recommendations continue:
7.	That quotas be established upon the equitable distribution among producers of the amount of wheat which will be sold in the domestic and export markets during 1941-42.
8.	That agriculture join with all other industries in Canada in effecting savings wherever possible as a war-time measure. In the case of agriculture, this can best be done by diversifying production and making the farm home as self-supporting as possible in respect to such commodities as eggs, milk, butter, vegetables, etc.
9.	That the dominion government be requested to enlarge its research facilities in respect to finding edible and inedible uses for wheat and other farm products.
10.	That an effort be made by the dominion government and the provincial departments of agriculture to fully explain the facts of the present wheat situation to the farmers of the prairie provinces.
The farmers of the prairie provinces know the wheat problem about as well as anyone in Canada, and I doubt if they need it explained to them. Those are the ten recommendations which have been made. It is not my intention to discuss these recommendations, except in so far as they affect the policy or the proposals which I am now outlining. Before proceeding to discuss these proposals in the light of these recommendations, I should like to place on Hansard a recommendation which was published in the press in December, 1940; I think it appeared in issues of different newspapers about December 12 or 13. This gave expression to the views of the wheat pool board which had met in Regina in the week of December 9, 1940. The one recommendation which refers to the matters I am going to discuss is in these terms:
Amendment by the federal government of the Canadian Wheat Board Act to raise substantially the minimum price guaranteed for wheat produced in the current crop year and for 1941.
I should like to call attention, in passing, to the fact that in neither the recommendations of the wheat board committee nor in this particular recommendation is any price for wheat mentioned. I have before me the recommendations of the Canadian federation of agriculture. May I say that the recommendation which I have just read is part of a set of recommendations which were passed, I think first in Regina, reconsidered in Winnipeg and then finally considered in Toronto. The recommendations which I am about to read are, I believe, the final expression of opinion of agriculture in Canada upon the wheat question.

Following the Toronto meeting, a delegation came to Ottawa, reported to the government of Canada and placed its recommendations before them.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Has the minister the date?


James Garfield Gardiner: No; but I can get it later.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I think it was January 27.


James Garfield Gardiner: Some time in January. The recommendations read:
Wheat. In the days that lie ahead, it may be that a measure of adjustment of agricultural production may be found necessary in the great wheat growing areas of the prairie provinces, which may involve the re-appraisal of western agricultural resources so that a balance in agricultural production may be established.
In the meantime, the problem created by heavy surpluses is a very real one for the western wheat grower.
The Canadian federation of agriculture recommends :
(1)	That while an adjustment programme may be found necessary in the future, it is not advisable at the present time to introduce compulsory restriction of acreage seeded to wheat.
(2)	For the coming crop year, we believe that the dominion government, through the wheat board, should undertake to announce the total amount of wheat of which it is prepared to accept delivery. We believe that the amount of wheat which may be delivered by the grower in the crop season of 1941-42 should be based on the estimated amount which the wheat board may he reasonably expected to market during the 1941-42 crop year, including both export and domestic sales. Having established the maximum amount which may be delivered, we recommend that the individual grower's delivery quota should be based on a policy which will preserve to each farm unit an equitable share of such maximum amount in proportion to the past production of the crop district in which it is located.
That is as near as one can get to a word description of what was read into the policy the other day by the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon).
(3)	That because of the restricted deliveries and in order to maintain the income of the western farm home, steps should be taken to increase the initial payment for wheat delivered in the crop year of 1941.
Again, there is no definite amount stated; it is an increase in the initial payment and not an increase in price which is asked for.
(4)	That until such time as the price of wheat reaches and is maintained at a level commensurate with the price of those things that enter into the cost of producing wheat, a
Erocessing tax of not less than 50 cents per ushel be placed on all wheat milled for domestic consumption. The revenue from such

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
tax to be added to the aggregate price received for the wheat marketed and be available for the purpose of increasing the initial payment to the farmer.
I would point out that while the other recommendation did not state the amount to which the processing tax should be increased, this recommends that it be not less than 50 cents a bushel.
(5)	It is anticipated that at the end of the current crop year, all existing grain storage facilities will be filled. We believe that these surpluses of bread grains may become an important factor in our war effort and that in the meantime they should be regarded as a reserve which will ensure a constant supply of wheat to Great Britain in the event of possible crop failure in the course of the war, and also be available to meet the needs of the people of Europe when the war is won.
(6)	In view of the foregoing, and because we believe that the maintenance of reserve stocks of grain on the farm provides an effective form of crop insurance under existing conditions, we recommend that the dominion government be asked to provide financial assistance to farmers for the construction of adequate farm storage facilities to enable the farmer to adjust his deliveries in accordance with the" system outlined above.
I would say now, so that I may not have to say it later, that in our opinion the time has not yet arrived when we should come to a final conclusion as to whether this proposal should be adopted. The suggestion is that we should encourage the storage of grain upon farms by financing the creation of adequate farm storage. Hon. members will agree with me that if we had a crop like that of 1937, or possibly 1934 or 1933 or 1932 or 1931, we would not be very much concerned about farm storage in western Canada, and particularly if we had a crop like that of 1937. Again, there would be certain areas in which we would not be concerned about farm storage if we had in those areas a crop failure like some of the failures we have had in the last two years, even with a big crop for the whole of Canada. We feel the time has not yet come to give a final decision on the question whether there should be farm storage; that it can better be left until later in the crop year.
Then (7):
It is recommended that the practice inaugurated during the present crop year, of paying farm storage, be continued through the coming crop season, and that the amount of the farm storage accruing due to individual farmers be used to repay any advances made to them which may be made for the purpose of providing additional storage facilities.
The Minister of Trade and Commerce announced the other day that there would be a continuance of the policy of payment for storage upon the farms.


George Hugh Castleden: Within the quota?


James Garfield Gardiner: Within the quota.
Then (8):
Since it is anticipated that practically no elevator storage space will be available at the time of the 1941 harvest, we recommend that the dominion government authorize the Canadian wheat board to make cash advances against that portion of the 1941 crop which the farmer can deliver under the arrangement outlined above during the crop year 1941-42.
Those are the recommendations which were made by the organization which represents farmers across Canada. Alongside those recommendations I have placed the recommendations which were made by the official body which was set up to advise the wheat board and the government on matters of this kind.
I think that with the exception of the definite suggestion that a processing tax be levied and that the initial payment be increased-with nothing definite as to the amount-and with the possible exception of the proposal made in one other section of these recommendations, we have already embodied in the policy which is before the house the greater part of what has been asked for in the resolutions of both bodies.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weybum):: There is not much left.


James Garfield Gardiner: There is a good deal left, perhaps much more than the hon. member thinks there is at the moment.
The fact that neither the Saskatchewan pool in its recommendations, nor the advisory committee in its recommendations, nor the Canadian agricultural federation in its recommendations, was able to insert a price, I think clearly indicates that, while there may have been some sentiment in these organizations in favour of changing the advance provided for in the wheat board act, there was considerable sentiment against it. I venture to say that if we had been able to take delivery of all the wheat, there would have been little, if any, sentiment in favour of a change in the advance payment. I think that applies to western farmers as well as to other people throughout Canada, namely, that if it had been possible to take delivery of all the wheat this coming year there would have been very little agitation anywhere in Canada in favour of an increase in the advance payment.
I should like to point out to the committee, before going on to discuss further the proposals which we have to make in relation to this question, just two things. One of them is that the government's policy has set a maximum delivery of 230 million bushels of wheat for all Canada. That means approximately 222 million bushels of wheat for the three prairie provinces, and at 70 cents a bushel Fort William it means 52 cents a bushel for the average farmer in western
1924	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
Canada for No. 1 northern wheat. The amount of wheat which is to be delivered, multiplied by the sum which can be obtained out of the advance per bushel, gives approximately $115,000,000 for wheat.


Mr. JOHNSTON (Bow River):: But No. 1 northern would not be the average grade, would it?


James Garfield Gardiner: No. I am saying that is the top amount which could be secured by the delivery of 230 million bushels of wheat.


Ernest Edward Perley: No. 3 would be the average grade.


James Garfield Gardiner: Last year I think it was between No. 2 and No. 1. Sometimes it is very high and sometimes very low.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is the minister saying that 8115.000.000 is the most that can be looked for by the farmers from the sale of wheat?


James Garfield Gardiner: That is the maximum, it would appear, which the farmers will be able to get out of wheat in western Canada in the coming season.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Has the minister the average price for 1939?


James Garfield Gardiner: The average would be the same. The advance in 1939 was 70 cents, and the average for the whole year was 49 cents, which is a little below grade 2.
I have stated the position to the committee in order to indicate that as compared even with last year the farmers are asked to make a cut from a gross return of 8176,000,000 to a net return to the farmers of not more than $115,000,000.


Mr. BENCE:: Where does the minister get the 8176,000,000?


James Garfield Gardiner: That is the figure in the reports of the statistics branch.


Alfred Henry Bence: The Minister of Trade and Commerce in his statement indicated that
472.000.000 bushels of wheat would be sold by the end of the crop year.


James Garfield Gardiner: Sold?


Alfred Henry Bence: Delivered to the elevator at the end of the crop year ending July 31, 1941. If the minister is going to make a comparison, he should take that figure.


James Garfield Gardiner: I find on consulting the report that I am out by 82,000,000, because the report shows that the receipts for the prairie provinces from the sale of "farm products, wheat", was 8178,900,000.


Alfred Henry Bence: I do not wrant to interrupt the minister, but the Minister of Trade and Commerce on March 12, 1941, stated in the house that approximately 472,000,000 bushels would be delivered this crop year; and if the Minister of Agriculture is going to take the figure of 230 million bushels of wheat as the maximum delivery during the crop year ending July 31, 1942, he should take comparative figures based on the 472 million bushels, which would bring in well over S200,000,000.


James Garfield Gardiner: The figure I am taking is the figure of the statistics branch, and I do not want to change that figure. The situation is this, that we are asking this year that the farmer be satisfied with 8115,000,000 from wheat, and we are providing him with sufficient money to make up at least some of the difference between what he would have obtained had he marketed all his wheat and what he is asked to take now.


Charles Edward Johnston: What percentage would that be?


James Garfield Gardiner: I stated the other day, $36,000,000 from wheat.


Charles Edward Johnston: That is the amount you would have to make up?


James Garfield Gardiner: No; that is the amount we estimate will probably be made up under the proposals I have placed before the house. There are other ways, which do not come under this policy, in which the money can be made up.


Ernest Edward Perley: The maximum?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, the maximum.
At page 1464 of Hansard of March 12, I placed before the house the agricultural part of the programme which the government desires to have put into effect this year, and associated with that, four proposals for the distribution of funds in the western provinces; and I wish this afternoon to deal with those four sections in order to indicate to the committee some of the things which may be done on the western farms as a result of the proposals made.


Ernest Edward Perley: Would the minister mind putting on record all the proposals or recommendations which have been made? I believe he has gone as far as the pool. Did the Saskatchewan government not make recommendations? It would be well to have them on the record.


James Garfield Gardiner: I will probably put
them on, a little later. That introduces some other questions which we may all want to discuss. But they are approximately the same -with this difference, that they do set a price of 85 cents.

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages


Ernest Edward Perley: I think it would be a good thing to have it on Hansard right at this point.


James Garfield Gardiner: I think it will get on Hansard. Just at the moment, however, I should like to get along.
The first proposal made was this:
It is our intention, therefore, to make payments of certain sums per acre on all reductions made in wheat sowings in the prairie provinces in 1941 as compared with 1940, provided the farmer does certain specified things with the land.
Since making that proposal to the house, as well as before making it, we have naturally been giving the widest possible study to the whole matter. But since those proposals were made we have had in Ottawa representatives of the three western governments and of the organized municipalities, and I have received from farmers in western Canada a great many letters citing their own situation and asking what effect these regulations would have upon their own farm operations.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Has the
minister had any from Abernethy?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, a resolution from Abernethy and one from Balcarres. As a result of the information gathered, certain facts have been found to exist; probably the farmer members of this house knew before this proposal was made that they existed. There are some instances where farmers last year came to the conclusion, "We are in a war; therefore we should seed very large acreages"; and they did so. Other farmers came to the conclusion, "We are in a war, and therefore we should not seed large acreages" ; and so they seeded last year lower acreages than usual. It just so happens that we have on record acreages of about 85 per cent, 75 per cent complete for two years, and about 85 per cent, 10 per cent of which is not quite complete for the two years, of the farms in the three western provinces. Those records were made up in connection with the administration of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act; so we are proposing that, when regulations are drafted, they include a provision that the forms which are sent out shall provide for the farmer making a statement as to what he did in both years, 1939 and 1940. I am sure that some hon. members will have proposals to make which will bear upon the same matter. We feel that this will have a tendency to average the two sets of individuals, one of whom increased his acreage in 1940 and the other of whom decreased it in 1940.
Then there is another group of individuals who started farming this year for the first time.


William Earl Rowe: I don't know why!


James Garfield Gardiner: They have broken up new land, and some provision will have to be made for that type of individual. I will not take the time of the committee in reciting other categories; no doubt hon. members will refer to some of them as we go along.
Then we say this:
1. If he summer-fallows the reduced wheat acreage or part of it, the government will pay him $4 an acre for the reduced wheat acreage which is black July 1, 1941; payments to be made as soon as possible after July 1, 1941.
Now, "black" is a term which we in western Canada have been accustomed to use from very early days in relation to summer-fallow, but probably it is not a technical way to describe summer-fallow as we know it over a considerable part of western Canada to-day. The proposals and the regulations will be to the effect that the land is being summer-fallowed in a manner which is acknowledged by our various experimental farms in the different sections as being a reasonable kind of agriculture to pursue.


Ernest Edward Perley: Will inspectors have latitude to say what is summer-fallow and what is not?


James Garfield Gardiner: No; I do not think the inspectors will determine much of that. I think it will be according to the way the regulations are drafted.


Ernest Edward Perley: They had a lot of latitude last year.


Mr. DIEFENBAKER:: Suppose that this year there is a reduction of ten million acres by way of summer-fallow over and above the normal summer-fallow, what arrangements will be made in that event for payments on such reduction?


James Garfield Gardiner: In that event we would have to make arrangements for payments in the same way we always do under such circumstances. Probably we wTould have to get a warrant. The matter would be provided for; the payments would be made under the regulations, and if additional amounts were required, we would have to get a warrant and bring the matter back to the house.


John George Diefenbaker: Have the regulations been drawn yet?


James Garfield Gardiner: They are in process of being drawn.


John George Diefenbaker: Will they be placed before this house?


James Garfield Gardiner: I said in the early part of the discussion that it was my intention to place them before this house in some form which would be satisfactory to the house.
. . . payments to be made as soon as possible after July 1, 1941.

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
This morning I had a recommendation from the government of Alberta to the effect that that date should be August 1 instead of July 1. Consideration will be given, of course, to the recommendation.
2. If he sows the reduced wheat acreage or part of it to coarse grains in the spring or, in the case of rye, in the fall of 1941 on lands not summer-fallowed, the government will pay him $2 an acre in 1941 as soon as possible after proof of sowing is established.


Mr. WRIGHT:: Will flax and peas be
considered as "coarse grains" within the meaning of the act?


James Garfield Gardiner: We have not yet determined what will be included. We are examining into the position of flax at the present time, and will give an opinion on that later. I believe that, technically speaking, flax is not a "coarse grain." Peas, I think, would be.


James Lester Douglas: Would alfalfa be considered a legume or a coarse grain?


James Garfield Gardiner: No. Provision is made for sowing alfalfa, though, later. But the explanation I wish to make is to this effect:
If he sows the reduced wheat acreage or part of it to coarse grains in the spring or, in the case of rye, in the fall of 1941 on lands not summer-fallowed. . . .
It will be known by those who farm on lands in western Cnaada that there are some who sow their rye on summer-fallow and there are others who sow their rye on stubble land. There are some who do not believe in summerfallowing in certain areas, and they let their land lie fallow without cultivation during the early part of the summer. They may sow that land to rye in the fall and collect $2 as a result. That, I think, covers pretty well the explanation in connection with that section.
The next, No. 3, provides:
If he sows a reduced wheat acreage or part of it to grass or clover during 1941, provided the land has not also been sown to coarse grain, or summer-fallowed, the government will pay him $2 an acre as soon as possible after proof of sowing has been established, and an additional $2 an acre if the same land is still seeded down to grass on July 1, 1942.
The intention of that section is to get land seeded to grass in the first place and, in the second place, to keep it seeded to grass for the second year, which is the only reason for seeding it to begin with. This would tend to prevent it from being ploughed up again and put back into wheat the second year.


Mr. LEADER:: Suppose a farmer had a volunteer crop of sweet clover. Many of us in Manitoba have been sowing sweet clover for years and the land is practically full of that seed. Suppose a farmer should wish to
	*
let that land produce a sweet clover crop this summer; would that be classed as falling within that section?


James Garfield Gardiner: I am afraid not, although I should not like to express a definite opinion on the point at this stage. It would not come under this particular section or any section that I have read so far.


Harry Leader: A good deal of it will be done in Manitoba. It is done to a certain extent every year.


Percy Ellis Wright: Why is a distinction made between the man who seeds down with a coarse grain crop and the man who seeds down without? In our section we seed down to clover along with a coarse grain crop, according to the regulation. We do not receive $2 an acre if we seed down with the use of coarse grain.


James Garfield Gardiner: There is no difference in the position so far as this year is concerned. That is to say, the man will get $2 if he seeds coarse grain in the spring, and he will get $2 if he seeds grass on stubble in the spring. In certain sections of the west where it is dry, it would be wise to put it in with a nurse crop. In the section in which my hon. friend farms it would not be wise to put it in the nurse crop, so that we do not desire to provide for seed in the nurse crop in that case, because we consider that a good deal would be wasted in certain sections. But in a section where it is the proper thing to seed in the nurse crop, $2 is paid for the nurse and $2 the following year for the grass.


William Earl Rowe: If he sows two crops he gets two returns, provided he has summer-fallowed?


James Garfield Gardiner: Through the two years, yes. By July, 1942, he would be almost ready to cut a wheat crop on the other land.
The next section, No. 4, provides:
If he sows a reduced wheat acreage or part of it, which is also sown to coarse grain or which is summer-fallowed in 1941 to grass or and clover, or to rye in 1941, the government will pay $2 an acre as soon as possible after July 1, 1942, provided the same land is in grass or and clover or rye on that date.
It will be noted that under that a man can take a summer-fallow on which he drew $4 an acre in the spring and sow it to grass in the fall, as many farmers do. They sow crested wheat grass in the fall. On the other hand, he can sow it to rye, as many farmers do. He will get nothing for sowing rye or crested wheat grass on summer-fallow in the fall of 1941; but if he leaves the rye or crested wheat grass on the land until July 1, 1942, he will

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
receive $2 an acre for having sown it. This means that if it were summer-fallowed this year, and there were still grass or rye crop on it on July 1 next, in the two years he would have collected by that method, $6.


William Earl Rowe: If he summer-fallowed one year and got $4 and seeded it in the spring as a nurse crop, he would get 84 more; and if he summer-fallowed the next year, would he still get more?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is no provision for seeding anything in the second year. That is why I said that I did not wish to place these regulations on the statute books in the form of legislation. It is simply a provision for this season for the carryover of grass or rye into the succeeding year.


George Hugh Castleden: Is that only on reduced
wheat acreage?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, only on reduced wheat acreage. If a man had 100 acres of wheat and reduced his wheat acreage by 40 acres, that is, if he had 100 acres in wheat last year and this year seeded only sixty acres of wheat, and summer-fallowed twenty acres, sowing the other twenty acres to grass or coarse grains, then he would receive 84 an acre on twenty acres and $2 an acre on the other twenty. I think that is all it is necessary for me to say to explain the intentions of the government in making payments to farmers.


Harry Leader: Suppose a man did not have any wheat in, last year-and there are several [DOT]-would he come into the picture at all?


James Garfield Gardiner: If he had wheat in 1939. We intend to take the two years.


Harry Leader: But he loses 1940.


James Garfield Gardiner: We intend to take two years and average them, and he would probably have some recognition because of what he had done in 1939. I should not say that we intend to take two years and average them; we are getting information now on which to base the regulations so that they will be fair to all farmers throughout the west. We may decide to take 1939 instead of 1940 because of the fact that the war had not entered into the picture in 1939 when the crop was sown, but we wish to look into all the facts before deciding finally what should be done. Something will be done to take care of such cases.
Mr. "WEIR: Has the point been considered with reference to grass that may have been seeded last fall? On certain lands in Manitoba grass is seeded the fall before, which ordinarily would be seeded in the spring of 1941. That is one class of farmers I have in mind. There is another class of farmers
who are to a large extent using corn as a summer-fallow substitute. They are using larger acreages for summer-fallowing, sowing corn wider apart. They regard it as a method of summer-fallowing rather than as the production of a corn crop. Is consideration being given to that?


James Garfield Gardiner: I would rather wait until we have the regulations in front of us before discussing too many details. So far as the first case is concerned, the person who farms in that way is taken care of in the proposals. If the proper method of sowing grass seed in that particular area is to sow it in the fall, the farmer will get the advantage of the provision which states that if he does sow it in the fall of this year he will receive $2. We are not paying anything for anything done last year.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: In view of the statement the minister has made, taking into account the years 1939 and 1940, the basis would have reference to acreage rather than to the operator? That would be based on the acreage, irrespective of the operator? For instance, there are many tenants who change each year.


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes, it would have to be based on the land and what was done with the land the year before, taken into consideration. There will be a great many variations; that is the reason we have to do it by regulation. There might be a father whose son gets married this year and who divides his farm; or a man who sells part of his farm, and it may be found that all the wheat was on the part now in possession of another. There are scores of cases, and the matter must be dealt with by regulation.


Mr. GERSHAW:: Will alfalfa be classed as grass?


James Garfield Gardiner: There is no doubt about that. It says "grass or clover."


Mr. HANSELL:: Would ths minister
amplify what is likely to be the regulation concerning tenants on land? Will the amount be paid to the tenant or the owner?


James Garfield Gardiner: The present intention, and I think it will be carried into the regulations, is that this proposal will follow a different principle from that of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. Under that act the purpose is to give assistance to people who, because they have a poor crop in a particular year, require help. That is for the purpose of maintaining on the land the people who are on the land. This legislation is for the purpose of giving a larger return to people who are being denied the right to sell their wheat this year.
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Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
Therefore the view held is that the division of the money should follow the contract; that is, where there is a crop payment contract which provides for a two and one division of the money, two-thirds to the renter and one-third, it may be to the mortgagor, or to some other person who is merely renting, the payment will be made on the basis of the contract.


Mr. QUELCH:: Will there be provision for dealing with new land, taken in 1939, broken in 1940?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes; there will have to be provision made for that land. It will have to be taken on an average basis or some other such basis.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I desire to say a few words, not on the principle of the proposal but on the procedure proposed to be adopted. I had intended to make my protest with regard to this matter before the minister made his general statement. I shall, however, do so now.
I suggest to the minister that the reason which he gave for bringing down the wheat policy as an estimate is totally inadequate and is not in accordance with the precedents heretofore followed in this house. It is a denial of the principle of responsible government. We are asked to vote money but are not to have any say at all with respect to the manner in which it is to be expended. This house is not a mere debating society. It is the supreme legislative body of the nation, and it is the right and the duty of this house and of parliament to pass in legislative form the policy to be followed and to prescribe the conditions under which that policy shall be placed in effect; not merely to order the issue of a blank cheque to the Department of Agriculture.
Apart from the situation in this chamber, the proposed procedure of merely tacking a policy on to a supplementary estimate or money bill will, under our rules and practice in parliament, preclude the other chamber from dealing with this matter, one of the most important, if not the most important of our domestic problems.
I do not understand why the Prime Minister, who throughout his public life has so frequently declared his belief in the supremacy of parliament, should insist upon this procedure. With all the emphasis and sincerity at my command I appeal to him to turn back to our established and time-tried procedure and to allow this parliament, not the governor in council, to take the necessary legislative action.
What is proposed to be done is not sound policy and procedure. I have said on many 
occasions that, since the war began, we in this house have abdicated our function. This course should not be pursued any further. In a domestic problem like this, parliament should regain some of its supremacy and authority. On a purely domestic issue such as wheat, surely the minister will not deal with it by a mere vote in the estimates.
May I remind the minister and the committee that in 1931 when the crop yield was low, prices low and farm income low, the then government undertook to help the wheat producers by a bonus of five cents a bushel. This was done by way of a bill, not an estimate. Such a course as the latter was not even suggested. The bill as introduced was passed and became chapter 60 of 21-22 George V. 1931. The principle was embodied in the bill, and the supremacy of parliament was recognized.
I turn now to that legislation. It was temporary in its nature, just as this is. It was not a policy that was to continue. This is what it provided for, after the preamble;
1. The governor in council may authorize the payment, out of the consolidated revenue fund, of the sum of five cents for every bushel of wheat grown in the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba in the year 1931, and delivered to any licenced elevator in the western inspection division, commission merchant, track buyer or grain dealer, as defined by the Canada Grain Act.
The governor in council did take authority to make regulations, but I call attention to this very important fact, especially from a legal point of view, that those regulations were confined to regulations of certain specific character. They were to make regulations for:
(a)	the kind, form and terms of the document to be issued on the delivery of wheat to any elevator or over a loading platform;
(b)	determining the person to whom the said sum of five cents per bushel shall be paid and the method of the payment thereof;
(c)	making such arrangements as may be necessary with the Board of Grain Commissioners for Canada or other statutory body for payment of the said sum;
(d)	the keeping of proper books and records by the operator or manager of any country elevator or other person receiving such grain, and the examination and audit of the same;
(e)	preventing fraud, misrepresentation or illegal or improper conduct on the part of any person or persons in any way concerned in the carrying out of the provisions of this act or any regulations made thereunder;
(f)	prescribing penalties to be imposed for breach of the provisions of this act or the regulations made thereunder.
Finally, the act was to expire on July 31, 1932, namely, the end of the then crop year.
To say that this is a temporary measure and, therefore, should be given effect to by a supplementary estimate is, I submit, an absolute non sequitur and is against the pro-

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
cedure heretofore adopted in temporary measures of this kind in this house. I suggest to the minister that if he is determined to persist in the policy or procedure now before the committee, this estimate should not be passed until the regulations are brought down and we may know what they are.
I appeal to the private members of this house to insist that this be done, because they are giving to the minister-to this minister-a blank cheque to say how
S35.000.000 may be distributed among the farmers of the three western provinces; and from what we have heard to-day, let me say it is not limited to $35,000,000; it may be double that sum. And it will be paid under a governor general's warrant. If hon. gentlemen did not understand the implication of the minister's language, I suggest that they read it carefully. That $35,000,000, the amount mentioned in the estimate itself, is not the limit of the final bill which the taxpayers of Canada will have to pay, whether or not one approves the principle of this resolution.
Finally, I suggest to the minister that the whole matter should be sent to a special committee, where every party and interest may have an opportunity to be heard and to present their views. There is a wide division of opinion in this country as to the adequacy or otherwise of this policy. Why is it that opportunity is given to only a few to present their views to the government of the day concerning the policy to be adopted? Many others who have not access to the ministry do not have that opportunity.
I remember the time when the principle of setting up a wheat board was discussed-and I shall have something to say about that at a later stage in these proceedings. A new principle was being adopted, a principle which might or might not become permanent government policy. Time has shown that it was the only correct policy; it has come down from that day to this, and is operative to-day. Hon. gentlemen opposite, who were then sitting on this side of the house demanded that the principle of the bill be submitted to a special committee, and that was done. They were opposed to the principle of the bill, but they were afraid to strike. The bill went to a committee, and when it emerged it was greatly improved because it had been so submitted. The principle was sustained, and the democratic method of legislating in respect of the people's money was also sustained.
I say to the minister, to hon. members and to the people of Canada that the method here suggested is wrong. This method is wrong.


Mr. McNEVIN:: What about the committee on agriculture?


Richard Burpee Hanson: There may
be some difference of opinion. I never sat on the committee on agriculture, and I do not know whether it would be the proper body.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: It is a much larger
committee.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Probably it is too large; that would probably be an argument against it. I suggest there ought to be a special committee, carefully selected from among the membership in this house, and consisting of hon. members who know most about wheat. They would be the best judges of what Should be done in the circumstances, and what policy should be followed. They would have power to deal particularly with the details of such a policy, and especially they would have information respecting methods of procedure and methods of payment.
What have wre here? Just read the estimate:
To provide for payments on reductions in wheat acreages, under conditions prescribed by the governor in council-
And then it continues:

for administration expenses in connection therewith, and for temporary appointments that may be required notwithstanding anything contained in the Civil Service Act.
In other words, on a purely domestic problem we are being asked to delegate to the governor in council the whole task of legislating on this important proposition. All we are asked to do is to supply the money. That is a direct negation of the principle of responsible government. I appeal to the minister, if he is bound to. proceed in this way, that the whole question be submitted to a special, select committee of the house. I make the further appeal that the procedure he is adopting is not the right one. It is not the way in which parliament has handled this sort of thing before.
I suggest that the method adopted in 1931 was the correct one, and that both branches of parliament should have something to say about this. This is a clever method of preventing hon. gentlemen in the other chamber, gentlemen who know as much about the wheat problem as hon. members in this house know, and who have had a long experience in the business, from having anything to say about how this money shall be expended.
I suggest to the minister that it is not too late to reverse his position. This matter should come to us in the form of a bill; it should be placed in a statute, and the framing of regulations which may be changed at will should not be left to the governor in council. Those regulations may be changed, not once or twice, but from time to time, to

1930	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
suit the situation as the minister thinks it may arise. That, I suggest, is a terrible principle. Such procedure may be necessary under the War Measures Act; but with respect to a purely domestic problem such as this, in my opinion it is indefensible in principle, and should not be considered by hon. members. I appeal to private members, to members supporting the government-to the farmer members from Ontario who will be adversely affected by this bill-whose constituents will be adversely affected by this bill


An hon. MEMBER:: How will they be adversely affected?


Richard Burpee Hanson: I propose to prove that later on, when I am dealing with the whole problem. I am now dealing only with the question of procedure. However, just to answer my hon. friend, in a word; if the whole of agriculture of the western farmers is turned toward the raising of coarse grains and feeds, and toward a development of the hog raising business, how can it help but affect the farmers of eastern Canada? That is the answer.


An hon. MEMBER:: It will come.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It will come, but do not let it come in this form. That is the principle for which I am contending at this time. I am contending for the method which should be adopted. The one which has been suggested is arbitrary, and is a negation of the principles of responsible government. And we, whose duty it is to sit in this chamber and to judge and pass upon matters placed before us are not to have anything to say about it-except to vote the money for it. I protest against that procedure.


James Garfield Gardiner: On the point raised as to there being no precedent, I would refer the leader of the opposition to vote 174 in this year's estimates-and a similar vote will be found in the estimates for other years:
Payments in connection with the movements of coal under conditions prescribed by the governor in council, $4,500,000.
The estimates are full of items like that, and they have been ever since confederation. This item is not anything new in the estimates, so far as that point is concerned.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It certainly is in the matter of magnitude.


James Garfield Gardiner: With respect to the bill passed in 1931, may I point out that it was passed for the purpose of making terms with respect to wheat which was to be delivered in the fall of 1931. At the present time we are

preparing for what has to be done within the next month-not in the fall of this year. The matters to be dealt with will have to be dealt with much more expeditiously than could be done by any other method.
On Tuesday, while the war appropriation bill was in committee, on an item for some
87,000,000 the leader of the opposition rose in his place and asked me to put in that item a minor provision respecting an expenditure on potatoes. That item contained provision for expenditures on apples, and on coarse grains in eastern Canada.


Richard Burpee Hanson: That is a war measure.


James Garfield Gardiner: "That is a war measure," my hon. friend says. The regulations under this will have to be under the War Measures Act, as well as the regulations with regard to that vote. .


Richard Burpee Hanson: This vote will give the authority.


James Garfield Gardiner: It will give the authority to spend the money, but it will not give the authority to do other things which have to be done. Regulations will have to be set up under both the War Measures Act and under this vote.
At six o'clock the committee took recess.
After Recess
The committee resumed at eight o'clock.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: Mr. Chairman, in rising
to make a few remarks in connection with the wheat policy, I desire to refer briefly to some of the statements made yesterday by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) when he suggested that there would be full opportunity on the discussion of this vote to deal with the agricultural problem of the west. It is not my intention to deal at any length with what might be termed the general agricultural problem. I feel quite confident that in connection with the government's record and agricultural policy I can find much for which to commend them and also some things for which they could be criticized. The minister made a further statement with reference to the matter under discussion and left the inference that the matter had not been closed entirely, that after full discussion had been had, the government might decide to make any adjustments or changes which were deemed advisable. I noticed a statement in the press to the effect that the municipal representatives from western Canada had left for their homes yesterday or the day before to prepare

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreagei
to put this policy into operation. I was much concerned when I read that statement, but I was pleased to note the remarks made yesterday by the minister.
There are two or three matters which came up in the general discussion and which, I believe, have a direct bearing upon this question. It has been said that the production of munitions in Canada has been centred largely in the central provinces. Of course, that is a matter for the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe), and I think it is in good hands. I do not know which province has the largest per capita expenditure on munitions, but the point I wish to make is that this vastly increased programme for the production of munitions has to a certain extent assisted the farmers from one end of Canada to the other. It has created larger markets for beef, pork, butter and poultry products, and all farmers have benefited similarly from this production. In Ontario, however, I do not think we can say that the production of munitions is of great advantage to the farming population, particularly in the areas where the production is taking place. In some instances this production has increased rather than decreased farm problems. It has taken much labour away from the farm and has increased the cost of what labour is still available for that type of work.
A further statement was made with respect to the pay and allowances of our troops being centred in certain portions of Canada. It would be a foolish question to ask, but we could inquire the extent of the pay and allowances being paid to our forces in England. I contend that our forces must be centred where they can do the most effective work, and the matter of pay and allowances is an unimportant item. The country is at war, and our forces are not protecting just the wheat grower or the hog producer; they are protecting the vital interests of all the people in all the provinces across Canada.
During the discussion this afternoon it was said that the wheat question was a war casualty. I do not contend that the wheat problem has not been affected by the war, that is up to a certain point, but it has been affected to a far greater extent by the weather. It is a weather casualty rather than a war casualty. I think I can prove this statement by giving the wheat production for the three-year periods 1935 to 1937 and 1938 to 1940. The production figures are as follows:
Year	Bushels
1935		 264,096,000
1936		 202,000,000
1937		 156,800,000
1938		 336,000.000
1939		 494,000,000
1940		 525,000,000
The total production for the first three-year period was 622,896,000 bushels, and for the second three-year period 1,355,000,000 bushels. If we want to get a true picture of the situation, we should reverse these production figures, putting the production in the latter period into the first. Dealing with this matter, the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) said recently that as of July 31, 1941, he expected that we would have a wheat carryover of 575,000,000 bushels. If the production figures were reversed, instead or having a carryover of 23,000,000 bushels on July 31, 1938, we would have had a carryover of
758,000,000 bushels, or 175,000,000 bushels more than we expect to have as of July 31, 1941. I think I am within the bounds of reason when I say that our wheat problem is to a far greater extent affected by weather than it is by war.
I believe that the new wheat policy can be divided into three main divisions. First, there is the proposal to pay $4 an acre for summer-fallow; second, $2 an acre is to be paid for seeding for grass or clover; and, third, $2 an acre is to be paid as a bonus for the production of coarse grains. I shall deal with these in the order in which I have listed them. I do not think I can be accused of ever having been unsympathetic to the problems or needs of western Canada. During the discussions which have occurred previously in this chamber with regard to wheat policies, I contended as vigorously as I could that a limit of 5,000 bushels should be placed upon the amount of grain that any one farmer could deliver to the government at a set price. I have had no reason to retract from that stand. Had we adopted that policy, even as late as the spring of 1940, I contend that our problem to-day would not be as great as it is.
This brings me to the summer-fallow question. I believe that this principle should be applied here. If that is done, then I think we can reach a compromise in which I would agree fully. In order further to illustrate this point, I would refer to the fact that in connection with old age pensions we have placed a limit upon the amount of money that may be taken out of the treasury. An old age pensioner, with a wife to support, can draw the full amount of S20 a month and still have an earning capacity of $250 a year. But the minute his earning capacity increases beyond that $250 the pension is reduced by the amount of that increase. We have adopted here a principle that there must be a limit to the amount of money which can be taken out of the treasury by a single individual. I might enlarge upon that and say that the same principle is applied to those people in receipt of blind pensions.
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Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
I go further and state that the same principle is followed in the payment of dependent's allowance. I know of a woman whose husband is an old age pensioner getting $20 a month, and who had an earning capacity of SI a day in the summer time. She had a son in the army who turned over his assigned pay and dependent's allowance to her, and immediately the pension of the husband was cut to $5 a month.
The point I want to make is this, that if we apply this principle to our aged and unfortunate people, and still more to the blind, and apply it to the dependents of the men in our armed forces, of restricting the amount that can be taken from the treasury, am I going too far in suggesting that the same principle should be applied where large sums of money are paid from the public treasury for other specific purposes? I have not the time in this debate to develop what I think would be a fair limit on the number of acres of summer-fallow on which a bonus is to be paid under the government's proposals, but there will be time for that later on.
I pass on to deal with the bonus of S2 an acre for seeding wheat acreage to grass. I am happy - to say that I am in full accord with that proposal. I think the members of the committee will agree with me that a vast number of acres, hundreds of thousands, yes, millions of acres in western Canada which should have been left in grass have been put under the plough. I realize also that, because of the wide acreage to be sown, the cost is great and, in addition, there is a greater weather hazard there than in other parts of Canada. Therefore we can afford to pay something out of the public treasury in an endeavour to get large areas of that country back into grass, and if we succeeded in doing that, the best thing to do would be to leave it in grass for the future.
This brings me to the third item, the proposal to pay a bonus of $2 an acre on wheat acreage that is sown to coarse grains. Of course the principle is this. It is estimated that under these proposals there will be a reduction of 9,000,000 acres in the acreage sown to wheat this year. Perhaps it is only fair that there should be some recompense for that reduction in acreage, and the bonuses that are to be paid for summer-fallowing, for sowing to grass and for sowing coarse grains, are all closely related to the 35 per cent reduction in wheat acreage.
Before ' I go further into that, in order to emphasize one point in connection with the wheat situation, I should like to refer briefly to two or three phases of the wheat marketing business in western Canada. I wish to take hon. gentlemen back to the time when

there were two joint-stock companies efficiently marketing large quantities of western grain. Those companies were in a strong financial position and accumulated large reserves, one of them, the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator company, building up a reserve of
811,000,000. Then some men, I am sure with an honest purpose, went through the prairies and said to the farmers, "Look at that $11,000,000 of reserves! That money should not belong to the company; it is yours, and you should have received a higher price for your wheat." Rightly or wrongly, very large numbers of farmers believed in that theory, and in that way the pool idea developed. Along with that, the idea developed that it was not necessary to have very much money to market wheat, that all one had to do was to have the wheat, pay an initial payment, and borrow money from the bank, and then when they sold the entire crop of wheat later on, they could repay any instalments still due. That was a false idea, and I am sure that western Canada has paid dearly for its experiences in that connection.
Then we come to the pool period; to the time when this organization developed a worldwide crop intelligence service which furnished not only crop reports but carefully tabulated statements of the possibilities of wheat consumption in various countries of the world. That developed in western Canada in one year the attitude of mind that wheat was worth $1.75 to $2 a bushel. Buyers came along; and when the pool and grain trade had the chance to sell large quantities of wheat at $1.40 to $1.50 a bushel, they let the opportunity pass and these world buyers went elsewhere and bought their wheat requirements at a lower price. I do not say that this was the fault of the pool or of the companies in the grain trade. Perhaps they were all equally to blame. The market in western Canada went down steadily until it fell below the initial price paid, and the banks asked, "Whose wheat is this? We have advanced more money upon it than it can be sold for", and so they stepped in and took over the wheat. That was when the wheat business began to be a real problem for the people of Canada at large.
We emerged from that period with a wheat board; and if there is any question that has been largely discussed in this chamber on previous occasions, it is the operations of the Canadian wheat board. I might recall to the committee many figures, running into $60,000,000 one year, $57,000,000 another year, and so many millions another year, but I think the committee has heard enough of that. I wish to make just this one remark. I do not

Su-p-ply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
like to utter any word of criticism of those who were engaged in the various phases of marketing grain in western Canada. I am serious when I say this, that I believe their efforts were only those of honest men seeking for something better which they did not always find. I go one step further and say that when the Saskatchewan Elevator company was sold out to the pool, the guardian angel of western Canada must have been sound asleep.


George Hugh Castleden: There never was one.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: I now come to discuss what, to my mind, is by all odds the most far-reaching item in this wheat policy. I refer to the proposal to pay a bonus of $2 an acre for the production of coarse grains. We all know that production costs of coarse grains in western Canada are less than they are in eastern Canada and other parts of the dominion. In the west they farm larger areas and produce grain cheaper; their taxes are lower, and therefore they can produce these grains for less money.


An hon. MEMBER:: And mortgages are heavier.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: 
Charles Edward Johnston: What about the bonus he is getting for cheese?


Thomas Bruce McNevin: I had forgotten all about that; I am glad the hon. member mentioned it. I say to hon. members: You are suggesting giving the cheese producer perhaps two, or two and a half or even three millions, if you like; I do not care. But what I want to

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
point out is that the cheese producers are among the largest hog producers in Ontario. If, therefore, you carry out that policy, you would put one hand in the treasury, take out money and give it to him, and then put the other hand in his pocket and take the money out again. The question of the western farmer has been brought up, and, as I said at the outset, I have great sympathy for the western Canadian farmer. Let me add that when the Minister of Trade and Commerce brings down his wheat legislation, if he will increase the 70 cents a bushel to 75 cents-[DOT]


Harry Leader: Eighty-five.


Thomas Bruce McNevin: We will discuss that suggestion later, but for the purposes of this illustration I will say 75 cents. I say, if he increases the 70 cents to 75 cents, I will rise in my place and back him up and vote for it. I say that because I think the western farmer has a problem and he must have assistance in solving it. But I do not think the solution should be to drive the farmers of Ontario and Quebec and of other parts of the dominion out of one of their strong lines of business. Most fair-minded men, I believe, will agree with me in that regard.
I may be asked, "What will the Ontario farmer do under these circumstances?" I will tell you. He will do just as he did in the last war. This nation is at war. The farmers of Ontario are as loyal as the farmers in any other part of Canada; the farmers are all loyal citizens. The farmers of Ontario, therefore, no matter what the conditions may be, will go ahead and try to the best of their ability to feed our armies at the front, the armies of our allies, and our munitions workers, and to feed all the rest of the people, they *null not lie down on the job.
My time is up and I must conclude. I maintain that if we are going to include in the agricultural policy of Canada the principle of bonusing the production of hog feed in Canada, then it must not be limited to any single area in Canada. It must be made applicable universally throughout the country. It must apply in like degree to the little farmer in the maritime provinces. The other day we saw a picture showing him ploughing the ground with a pair of horses. It must apply in like degree to the farmers in Quebec, the compatriots of the Minister of Justice (Mr. Lapointe). In that province there are farmers with large hearts and larger families, and they must have a chance to live. It must apply in like degree to the farmers in Ontario, and in British Columbia where hog production is limited; and I would
say to the rest of the farmers that this legislation, as it is at present, will not help in western Canada.


James Lester Douglas: No person can discuss this $35,000,000 vote to bonus wheat acreage reduction without discussing the 1941 wheat policy announced by the government on March 12, because in the final analysis this vote of $35,000,000 is compensation to make up for what the minister himself termed this afternoon the denial to the farmer of the right to sell a certain amount of his wheat.
I want first of all to commend the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) for the statement he gave to the house on March 12.	It was a realistic statement.
It compares favourably with the statement given to the house on November 14 last by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) when he spoke of a five-year programme in which we will dispose of two billion bushels of wheat and find ourselves at the end of that time fifty million bushels short of actual demand. I think the statement made by the Minister of Trade and Commerce the other day brought most of the people interested in the wheat problem down to earth. The statement was to the effect that on July 31 of this year we shall have a visible surplus of 575 million bushels; and if ail the storage facilities which are planned are finally built, we shall have only 582 million bushels of storage capacity iD Canada. In other words, by the time the wheat board has taken delivery of the 1940 crop, we shall be able this year to take into storage or take delivery of scarcely any of the 1941 wheat crop.
Any person who suggests to the government that this is an easy problem to solve is not fair either to himself or to the government. It is a tremendous problem, and we must all approach it with sympathy for the men who are charged with the responsibility of finding a solution. We must all realize that the government cannot continue to take unlimited quantities of wheat. We should realize that there must be restricted deliveries. We all realize that the farmer should not be encouraged to continue to increase his wheat acreage, but rather encouraged to curtail it. The farmers themselves have realized that; the different producers' organizations have made representations to the government. I need not review them; they were reviewed this afternoon by the Minister of Agriculture. Representations were made by the advisory committee to the wheat board, and are now on the record. Representations were made
1936	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
to the dominion cabinet on January 27, and are now on the record. In Saskaf ihewan a six-point wheat policy was drawn up by the wheat pools and the United Farmers of Canada, Saskatchewan section. It finally found expression in a motion brought into the Saskatchewan legislature on February 28, moved by Hon. Mr. Patterson, premier of that province, seconded by Hon. Mr. Taggart, minister of agriculture of that province. The motion read:
That this assembly request the federal government to adopt the following policy in respect to the 1941 wheat crop:
1.	That the minimum price for the 1941 wheat crop be set at 85 cents per bushel, basis No. 1 at Fort William;
2.	That a processing tax of 50 cents a bushel be levied on all wheat processed for consumption in Canada,_ the proceeds of such tax to be added to the minimum price of 85 cents a bushel;
3.	That the delivery of the 1941 crop be made on an acreage quota, such quota to be determined by the storage space available during the crop year of 1941;
4.	That the government of Canada make advances to farmers for the purpose of providing funds with which to build essential farm storage;
5.	That the government of Canada make provision for advances to farmers on the credit of the quota to be delivered;
G. That the government of Canada maintain and carry the wheat surplus as an essential part of its war policy.
This was finally passed unanimously by the entire Saskatchewan legislature. I do not for a moment suggest that this six-point wheat policy is all that I should like to see in a wheat policy, nor do I think it is all that a government could do in formulating a wheat policy. I suggest, however, that it is the irreducible minimum which western Canada can accept if western agriculture is not to receive irreparable damage.
It seems to me passing strange that, representations having been made by these different organizations, including the government of Saskatchewan, there should be brought down by this government a policy which scarcely resembles in the slightest detail the policies that have been suggested by producers' organizations. The best proof of that is that on March 14, Mr. H. H. Hannam, president for Ontario of the federation of agriculture, whose representation to the government was made on January 27, labeled it a two-barrel shotgun which would destroy both eastern and western agriculture. The wheat pools of the three prairie provinces on March 13 registered their strong disapproval of the wheat policy as announced.
What does this policy which the government has outlined mean? First of all, it does

both the things which the Minister of Agriculture suggested it did not intend to do. It brings about compulsory wheat acreage reduction. It is all very well to say that the farmer is not compelled to reduce his acreage; but, to use the minister's own words this afternoon, the farmer is denied the right to sell, and if the farmer is denied the right to sell his product, that is the most effective kind of compulsory acreage reduction. A policy of drastic acreage reduction is entirely incompatible with the rosy and optimistic picture given by the Minister of Agriculture to this house on November 14 last.
The second thing this policy does is, it pays the farmer not to grow wheat, because it does not pay him to summer-fallow, or to grow coarse grain unless the land on which he grows it is land on which he used to grow wheat. In other words, he is being paid not to grow wheat but to do something else with his land.
As I said, we realize that curtailment is necessary, that restricted delivery is necessary. But we say that the means by which the government is seeking to attain its ends are unsound and inequitable. I propose on behalf of the group with which I am associated to outline in skeleton form the six outstanding weaknesses of the government's wheat proposals, and to suggest six alternative proposals.
Our first objection is that reduction in wheat acreage is only of value if it is done in conjunction with other wheat-growing countries. Individual reduction by Canada can only help other wheat-growing countries to our detriment. If there must be acreage reduction, there should be an attempt to have the other wheat-growing nations of the world join in a concerted effort along this line. Otherwise, if this war lasts long enough, wc are simply going to push ourselves out of the wheat-growing business to the benefit of Argentina and the United States.
Our second objection is that this reduction is too drastic. While curtailment may be necessary, reduction by one-third will entail dislocation of the entire western agricultural economy. There are thousands of farmers with large investments in wheat-producing equipment which cannot overnight be adapted to other types of farming. I think every lion, member will realize that not only will there be dislocation of western agriculture but that, of necessity, there must be a dislocation of eastern agriculture. If the western farmer is to be forced to turn at least three million acres of land into the growing of coarse grains, what will happen to prices of coarse grains? Western members in this house will remember 1932, when we were selling barley

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
for as little as nine cents a bushel; yes, and someone says even seven cents. If prices of coarse grains drop, farmers will not sell coarse grains; they will feed them. Then next year we shall have a steady stream of hogs coming from western Canada. Previous speakers have shown already, I think, that in the last few years the hog production of Canada has trebled, and I understand that at the present moment we are shipping to Great Britain one million pounds a week over and above what is called for under our bacon agreement with the United Kingdom.
No person in this house is going to get me into a quarrel between eastern and western agriculture. I do not propose to indulge in that sort of thing. Although I represent a western constituency I, together with every other member of this house, want to look at this picture from the point of view of Canada and Canadian agricultural economy as a whole. The balance is so fine that unless we tiy to solve our western problems in a sane way, we may be only robbing Peter to pay Paul, without paying Paul very much at that. The drastic nature of this acreage reduction is shown by what will happen to the western agricultural income. I was surprised this afternoon to hear the minister speak of the wheat income for western Canada as being $178,000,000, I think he said.


James Garfield Gardiner: That was for the
calendar year.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Quite so. I
find that according. to the figures of the bureau of statistics, issued by the Department of Trade and Commerce, the total amount of wheat produced in western Canada last year was 525,000,000 bushels, valued at $283,269,000. Of course some of that wheat is kept for seed, but I notice that the Searle Grain company's estimate of the cash value of last year's wheat crop to the farmers was $260,000,000. The Searle company goes on to point out, in its bulletin of March 19, that under this proposed legislation the farmers will sell
242.000.	000 bushels less than they were allowed to market last year, which will mean a decrease of $133,000,000 in their income. If we set off against that the $35,000,000 provided by this bonus, there is left a deficit of 898,000,000. But of course all that land will not go into summer-fallow. Let us assume, as the Minister of Agriculture suggested the other day, that summer-fallow will account for
6.000. 000 acres and that of the remaining
3.000. 000 acres, half will go to barley and half to oats,


James Garfield Gardiner: Perhaps I might correct a figure which was mentioned this afternoon. There is about 887,000,000 represented in wheat which will come in between January 1 and July 31, which should be added to that figure.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: I believe
that is correct. If we assume 6,000,000 acres in summer-fallow and the other 3,000,000 acres divided between oats and barley, we have a bonus of $30,000,000 and an income of $22,000,000 from oats and barley, assuming that these prices remain where they were last year, which is doubtful. That gives a total of $52,000,000, which means that the income of western agriculture will still be $81,000,000 less than it was last year.
The minister suggested that we must plan so that the agricultural income for western Canada will not drop below $325,000,000, but the same Searle report points out that the agricultural income of western Canada last j^ear was $408,000,000. Therefore, even if we are able to keep the agricultural income of the west at $325,000,000, there will still be $83,000,000 less in the pockets of the prairie farmers this year as compared with last year. I wish to point out that it has been estimated by the Minister of Finance (Mr. Usley) that this year the national income of Canada will amount to about five and a half billion dollars. If the agricultural economy of western Canada is to receive only $325,000,000 out of that total, then western Canada is faced with some of the blackest days in its history.
The third objection to this scheme is that the price of 70 cents, basis Fort William, is altogether too low. Last year in this house the Minister of Agriculture said that 70 cents was most certainly below cost of production because, as he said this afternoon, it means only about 51 or 52 cents to the farmer, perhaps only about 49 cents on an average grade. If 70 cents was too low last year, it is much too low this year; and when we take into consideration the fact that in all probability the farmers will be selling this wheat in the spring of 1942, if the cost of living continues to rise the price will be even more inadequate next year than this year. I have before me an article from the magazine Canadian Business, which is hardly likely to be biased in favour of the farmer. In the issue of March, 1941, I find this statement:
Official records compiled in the Searle index reveal that the hourly rates of wages averaged 91 per cent higher in 1939 than in 1913-14. Thus if agriculture is to be treated the same as industry with cost of living bonuses-and the farmer sees no reason why an approximate balance should not be maintained between these two factors in regard to income and sacrifice- the current price of wheat would be $1.39 per bushel instead of around 75 cents, bacon hogs should be around $10.50 per hundred pounds instead of $8.30, and butter would be 49 cents instead of the pegged price of 37 cents a pound,

1938	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
The Minister of Agriculture has, pointed out frequently in this house that wheat can be produced most economically by farmers with two section farms, with high-powered machinery. They can produce more economically because they are on a mass-production basis; but if we reduce their acreage by one-third, their overhead will not be reduced proportionately, and their cost per unit will be proportionately higher. If these farmers could not produce wheat for 70 cents a bushel previously, certainly they cannot produce it now, with their overhead remaining stationary and the per-bushel cost increasing.
Our fourth objection to this policy is that, as it now stands, it will spell the doom of the small farmer, since the reduced acreage will increase the per-bushel cost; and no provision has been made in the proposed legislation for a maximum delivery on the first quarter-section.
Our fifth objection is that there is no provision for a cash advance even on the quota the farmer is to be allowed to deliver. According to the statement of the Minister of Trade and Commerce, the 1940 wheat crop will fill practically all the available storage space. The farmers are not likely to be able to sell any wheat until next spring or early summer. How are they going to finance from the time they take off their crops in September until they are able to sell next April or May? How are they to pay their harvesting operations? How are they to pay their store bills? How are they to keep their families throughout the winter? This committee should keep in mind the fact that the federal government has announced already to the provincial government that the federal contribution to relief is to be discontinued on March 31. What is the outlook for the farmers west of the great lakes? If no provision is made to help the farmer finance between the time he takes off his crop and the time he is allowed to deliver it, we shall see hardship in western Canada such as we have never seen before.
Our sixth objection is that the storage to be paid is only on that part of the farmer's crop which he is ultimately to be allowed to deliver. If he grows more than the quota, the government accepts no responsibility for assisting him in carrying that wheat. He is not to be allowed to sell it, but he is to be charged with the sole responsibility of carrying it. We believe that that wheat is an asset and that the government has some responsibility in connection with it, and ought to accept that responsibility by providing assistance for the farmers to enable them to carry that part of the wheat which they grow over and above what they are being permitted to sell.

I wish to place before this committee six proposals which we think ought to be accepted and incorporated into the government's wheat policy for the handling and marketing of the 1941 wheat crop. The first is that the initial price ought to be raised. It was suggested by the Saskatchewan legislature and by producers' organizations that the price be 85 cents per bushel, and that there be added to that 85 cents the proceeds from an increased processing levy. The other day the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Senn) quoted certain statistics which had been collected by the Sirois commission on agricultural income per farm up to 1937. We have worked out the figures from the same source from 1937 to the present, and we find that during the last four years the average cash income of the farms of Canada was S472 per annum. If living in kind is added and depreciation on buildings and equipment deducted, it amounts to $632 per farm unit. In the prairie provinces the average cash income was $496, and if living in kind is added it amounts to $559. It was found that Saskatchewan had the lowest average cash income from 1937 to 1940; the average income per farm unit was $102 per annum, and when living in kind was added, it amounted to $291. These figures prove beyond any possible contradiction that an initial price of 70 cents will not meet the situation when the wheat farmer is to be allowed to deliver only 65 per cent of the wheat which he was allowed to deliver last year and the year before.
Our second proposal is that there ought to be a maximum delivery for the first quarter-section, and the quota for the remainder should be on a graduated basis. We would suggest that 1,000 or 750 bushels should be accepted for the first quarter-section and a lesser amount for each succeeding quarter-section. This would take care of the very man the minister was talking about this afternoon, the man with 100 acres in wheat, who will now have only sixty acres. He is the one who is going to feel the pinch of this most. He has no way to reduce his overhead. He is the man who ought to be allowed to make a maximum delivery from the first quarter-section.
Our third suggestion is that the government should assist the farmer to build storage facilities on his farm in order to store the surplus wheat. In the final analysis the farm is where wheat should be stored. When we realize that in 1937 this government spent $18,000,000 in buying seed grain and delivering it to the drought areas of Saskatchewan. we shall realize how important it is to have at- least 200,000,000 bushels of wheat

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
stored on the farms of western Canada. There could be no better crop insurance against future contingencies.
The fourth suggestion we make is that there should be a cash advance of 75 per cent of the initial price on the basis of the quota to be delivered. If a farmer knows how much wheat he is going to be allowed to deliver and the government is not in position to take delivery until next May, then the farmer should be able to get a cash advance in order to meet his outstanding obligations and carry on until such time as the government has the storage facilities to take delivery of the farmer's wheat.
Our fifth suggestion is that storage charges should be paid on wheat stored on the farm. We believe that the government has a responsibility to the farmers to assist them in carrying that part of their crops which they are not going to be permitted to sell. It will seem strange to a farmer if he is storing 2,000 bushels of wheat on his farm and can collect no storage, and a few miles down the road is an elevator full of wheat being stored for the federal government and drawing two-thirds of a cent per bushel per month for every month and every year it is there. It will be difficult to explain to a farmer why an elevator should draw storage charges and he should receive none for the wheat he is carrying against the time when this country and other parts of the world will need it.
The sixth proposal which we wish to place before this committee for its consideration is that the government should increase the processing levy on wheat milled in Canada for domestic purposes and that the proceeds of such levy should be used in assisting in financing the maximum deliveries which are to be made from the first quarter-sections.
A 50-cent processing tax would net the government about $25,000,000, which would enable the government to pay ten cents a bushel on the first 1.000 bushels to be delivered from each quarter-section. In other words, without any extra cost to the treasury the government would be enabled to pay 95 cents a bushel, if we add the 10 cents to the 85 cents proposed earlier, on the first 1,000 bushels delivered by the farmer.
I know the suggestion will be made by some hon. members that this will raise the price of bread, but I think the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Perley) dealt with that quite adequately yesterday. The royal commission appointed in 1934 to study mass buying and price spreads found that there was no justification for raising the price of bread until the price of wheat went past $1.60 a bushel. All western members will remember that in 1938 14873-1231
the price of wheat reached $1.47 a bushel, but the price of bread did not rise. There is no reason why a 50-cent processing levy could not be placed on wheat milled for domestic consumption.


Mr. HOWDEN:: How about the small
farmer who bakes his own flour?


An hon. MEMBER:: He should be
exempted.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Even if he were not exempted, I would point out to the hon. member for St. Boniface (Mr. Howden) that over a period of years the price of wheat has fluctuated. When the price of wheat went down to 37 cents a bushel, the price of flour did not drop proportionately. As a matter of fact, we have in this country a milling combine which have absorbed and benefited by any drop in the price of wheat. They could afford to pay $1.35 a bushel for wheat.


John Power Howden: That would not help out the small farmer who makes his own flour, if he has to pay a processing tax on every bushel.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: It would mean at the very most one cent on one loaf, or two or three cents a day for the average family, and the average farmer would pay that gladly if he were going to get 95 cents a bushel for the first 1,000 bushels he produced.


John Power Howden: The hon. member was
talking of farmers with $100 a year. They depend on their own flour for bread.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: They would have a great deal more than $100 a year if they got 95 cents a bushel for the first 1,000 bushels they produced.
I suggest, in closing, that it seems to me that the government is halting between two opinions. The Minister of Agriculture on November 14 assured the house, and I am inclined to agree with him, that in the normal course of events world demand will absorb the huge surplus of wheat which we are likely to accumulate during the war. On the other hand the Minister of Trade and Commerce seems to be alarmed and dismayed at this growing mountain of wheat. The government seeks to alter the agricultural economy overnight and to turn one-third of the wheat-producing lands in western Canada into the production of coarse grains or into summer-fallow. which in the final analysis will produce still more wheat.
While we realize that the expansion of wheat acreage at this time is most undesirable and that a certain amount of curtailment may be necessary, we deprecate most vigorously so drastic a reduction in -wheat acreage. The prairie provinces in general, and Saskatchewan
1940	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
in particular, by reason of their climate and topography, are ideally situated for the growing of wheat. Large areas of the prairies are ill suited for any other kind of farming. We still grow the finest wheat in the world, and when this war is over there will be starving millions to be fed, not only in Europe but in Asia, where a unified and victorious China may open up markets larger than any of which we have ever dreamed. We must not lose our vision at this time. We must not allow the temporary problems contingent upon the war to distort the long-term view. What guarantee have we that nature will continue to give us the great wheat crops that we have had in the past two years? A few years ago certain people of western Canada said, "If only we had a crop, all would be well." Now they say, "If only we did not have a crop, all would be well." What is 500 million bushels of wheat? Two or three complete crop failures would find the grain bins of western Canada empty again. The Saskatchewan members of this house will remember as I do a time, not very long ago, when some of the prairie farmers were burning their straw stacks, and within two years those same farmers were scouring the prairies looking for straw to keep their stock alive.
Have we forgotten the lesson of Joseph, who during the bountiful years in Egypt built vast granaries and stored huge quantities of wheat and corn? He was wise in his day and generation, and the monument to his memory is contained in those simple words, that when the famine came, "there was corn in Egypt." Let it not be said of us that we had less foresight than Joseph.
Therefore it seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that the task of this government is twofold: first, to prevent any increase in wheat acreage, and, if necessary, to encourage curtailment; and. second, in the manner in which I have outlined, to make it possible for wheat producers to get a fair price for a part of their crop and to be given assistance in carrying the remainder of their crop against that day when returning peace and the free exchange of world commodities will declare to the world once again that "wheat is king."


James Garfield Gardiner: I just want to put
on the record a table which will clear up some figures that have been used in connection with estimating the probable returns for western farmers. I will place on Hansard the figures which were used by officials who were working on this policy in its early stages.
The suggestion is that in making up the cash returns to the farmers for the present year, old wheat from the 1940 crop will be marketed to a volume of 167 million bushels, which at 52 cents makes $87,000,000, and that

new wheat from the 1941 crop will be marketed to a volume of 150 million bushels, which at 52 cents a bushel makes $78,000,000, or a total, from the old wheat and the new, of $165,000,000.
The non-wheat returns would be $163,000,000. Adding together those two figures, $165,000,000 and $163,000,000, gives a total of $328,000,000.
The figure of $163,000,000. representing the non-wheat returns, is made up of $148,000,000 of actual returns for 1940, plus an increase of $15,000,000, which is the same increase that took place between 1939 and 1940.
It will be noted that the first figure of $87,000,000 includes no returns to the farmer from storage earnings on wheat grown during 1940 and delivered between January 1 and July 31 of 1941. That would account for a little more.
There may be some question whether there will be an increase of $15,000,000 in the nonwheat returns to the farmer.


James Lester Douglas: Is it fair to
add that $S7,000,000 from the sale of the 1940 crop in calculating the income of 1941? Most of it is already owing.


James Garfield Gardiner: The same would be true as between 1941 and 1942. This is figured for the calendar year beginning with January 1 and ending with December 31. There would be very little difference if we took the year as beginning August 1 and ending July 31.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Was the same method used in calculating the 1940 income?


James Garfield Gardiner: Yes. There is only
one other thing I wish to say in reply to the last few remarks of the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas). There is no division of opinion in the government with regard to this policy. The government brings it down as a matter of government policy, with no division of opinion at all on the matter. I should not like the suggestion to go out from this committee that the government in introducing this particular policy expect that the policy as such will be changed as it passes through the house. There are some details that might be a matter for consideration as we go along, but the policy itself is one which has been unanimously accepted by the government and it is introduced into the house as the government's policy.
On the other point, as to whether there is a difference between what was stated last fall and what is stated now, that is not a matter under consideration at all in connection with this policy. This deals only with this year, and the figures which were given to the house last fall W'ere exactly the same in relation to

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
the present position as the figures that are given to the house now. There has been no change. In other words, the government was in agreement last fall; they are in agreement now, and I imagine they will be in agreement when we have to consider the wheat situation two or three years hence.


Ernest Edward Perley: Is this the policy, then,
that the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade and Commerce proposed to the cabinet?


James Garfield Gardiner: I would put it the other way around; this is the policy which the cabinet proposed-


Richard Burpee Hanson: To you?


James Garfield Gardiner: -to the country.


James Arthur Ross: Will any regulations be brought down for our discussion?


James Garfield Gardiner: I stated in the house this afternoon that some provision would be made for having the regulations discussed either by a committee or by the house. Of course, if they are discussed by a committee, they will come to the house for discussion.


Mr. RICKARD:: In rising to take part in this debate to-night, I am going to take a rather different attitude from that of some previous speakers, in that I intend to give this government some praise for what they have done for agriculture. I believe that the government are to be commended for the legislation which they have brought down to benefit the farmers, not only of the west but of all Canada. The name of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) has been prominently before the people of late, and I believe that we have in the present minister as fine a Minister of Agriculture as Canada ever had. He knows the problems of the farmers of Canada as well as, and perhaps better than, any other man we could get. We may not all agree with what he says and what he does, but we appreciate the position which he is in to-day, and we know that, in the main, he is doing a really good job.
Since I came to the house six years ago, I have tried on several occasions to place before parliament the condition of the farmer in Canada, and perhaps more particularly the position of the farmer of Ontario. I have tried to show the difference between his costs of production and what he really receives for his product, which, after all, is the main problem as far as the farmer is concerned. It is not so important to consider what the farmer receives for his produce as what it costs him to produce it. I believe I am safe in saying that 75 per cent of the farmers of Ontario would be satisfied with the prevailing prices
for their products if costs of production correspond with what they receive. But the history of agriculture shows that always in time of war when the agriculturist produces a surplus of goods, he experiences great difficulty in selling them, particularly in the early stages of the war. That was true of the last war and it is true of the present one. As the last war progressed, prices rose, perhaps to a height which they should not have reached. I hope the same thing does not happen again, because I believe it was one of the worst things that ever occurred so far as agriculture was concerned.
To-day all industrial activity in Canada continues to increase with the expansion of war demand. There is an increase of employment and of non-agricultural income. According to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley), our expenditure on the prosecution of the war for the year commencing April 1, 1941, will amount to approximately $1,460,000,000, the largest, sum which was ever voted by any parliament in Canada. Included in this sum is an item of $177,928,000 for the expansion of industry, which indicates that the productive capacity of Canadian industry will be substantially increased, and therefore should lead to an enlargement of domestic demand.
Since June, 1940, the continuous rise of wholesale prices has been inevitable. All commodities have risen to some extent, and for the month of February averaged 84-6 of 1926 as compared with 82-8 the previous year. Prices of farm produce have also risen slightly but have not yet made up the loss sustained in the early part of 1940. This may be due in large measure to the low price of wheat. All live stock registered some strength in February, and should continue to show gains as the domestic demand increases.
I have here an index of living costs on the 1935-39 basis; they rose from 108-0 in the month of December to 108-3 in January, 1941, but the general index in the year from January to January was 108-3 this year, compared with 103-8 in January, 1940, showing that the cost of living increased by 5 per cent.
At the present time exportation of agricultural products is difficult because of the uncertainty in the supply of Shipping. To-day the bulk of Canada's exports goes either to the United Kingdom or to the United States. We have heard a great deal of discussion of late from some hon, members of the opposition about what this government has or has not done for the relief of the farmer. I believe that the hon. member for Huron North stated last November, referring to the farmers, "We never did get a fair deal from any government, least of all from this one." The hon.
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Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
member for Haldimand, of course, brought in a want of confidence motion in the government with which motion, I wish to say, I do not agree. I believe 1 am safe in saying that this government since 1935 has done more for the Canadian farmer than any government since confederation. I took the trouble to look up some of the prices of farm products from 1930 to 1935, and then from 1935 to 1940. Here are the figures of the prices of bacon hogs, live weight; beef cattle, and lambs, on the Toronto market:
Year	Hogs Beef cattle Lambs
1930	
$12.32	$8.79	$11.011931	
7.51	6.29	8.961932	
4.70	5.51	6.771933	
5.54	4.63	6.921934	
8.60	5.50	7.621935	
8.90	6.40	7.701936	
8.46	5.50	9.001937	
9.00	7.60	9.601938	
9.50	6.26	9.001939	
8.80	6.90	9.501940	
8.70	7.85	10.50
We all know that the price of cattle in 1941 on the Toronto market has been anywhere from $8.50 to $9.50 and as high as $10. In the case of lamb, prices are somewhat lower. We might go back to 1926. as some have done, and take it on the basis of 1926-29. I could give prices of cheese, milk and eggs and of many other farm products, but those three are enough to allow a comparison of prices as between 1930-35 and 1935-40. We owe a great deal to this government and particularly to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) for the agreement he made with the United States whereby we sell our cattle in that market. We are getting the best price for beef cattle that we have had in many years. We are selling all our surplus cattle to the United States, and I believe that up to date it has not been necessary to send any cattle to Great Britain as part of the war effort. The United States is taking all our cattle and will take more if it can get them.
We have heard the suggestion that the price of farm products should be put on the basis of 1926-29, but so far as cattle are concerned I believe we have had, in 1941, a price well above that figure. Of course, in one dairy industry, cheese constitutes one of the chief products, and we are selling to Great Britain at a price of 14-4 cents all the cheese we can produce. This government is adding another 3/5ths of a cent, making it fifteen cents, with a bonus of S2 on 94 score cheese and $1 on 93, and the province of Ontario is giving a bonus of two cents, making the cheese price in Ontario to-day nineteen cents, f.o.b. Montreal on best grade. In my opinion the producer of cheese can 
produce at that price. We have a contract with Great Britain for 112,000,000 pounds, and I think we should be able to supply that quantity at the price offering.
Then there is the butter situation. We have heard a good deal of discussion of price pegging, the setting of a minimum price. Perhaps the butter situation did give rise to a lot of discussion and may have started the whole story, but I do not think the government made any great mistake in setting the price. I could never see why speculators should buy 60,000,000 pounds from the farmers at twenty-one cents a pound and be allowed to sell it to the consumer at forty and forty-two cents. But that is what was taking place. I believe that if the price board would set a minimum price which would be reasonable to the farmer for the summer, the producer of butter would be much better off than if he took the market price of twenty or twenty-one cents, such as obtained last summer, and obtained forty-two cents in the winter.
Then there is the hog situation, about which there has been considerable discussion. We have an agreement with Great Britain. Someone has suggested that we should send bacon to Great Britain free. Others think that we are not getting enough and should take the price Great Britain is paying us and the government subsidize to the 1926-29 level. We have promised to supply Great Britain with 420,000,000 pounds of bacon, and since that contract was entered into, we have been producing an average of 3,000,000 pounds of bacon a week in excess of the contract. Great Britain has agreed to take
1,000,000 pounds a week more than the contract, which means that to-day we are storing in our cold storage plants 2,000,000 pounds a week. I wonder sometimes, if the price of bacon were raised to the 1926-29 level, what we would do. I imagine we would have more hogs ten times over than we could sell. History proves that the minute you make anything really profitable for the grower, you get too much of it.
A word about the apple situation. I am interested in apples, and I believe that the apple growers of Canada are more than satisfied with the assistance given them by this government. I do not think any member of the house will contradict that statement. We have sold our apples at a reasonable price because we have received protection from this government.
I come now to one of the most important items of legislation, namely, the wheat problem. Some days ago the Minister of Agriculture gave a summary of the situation.

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
He announced the policy with regard to wheat, whereby wheat deliveries are to be taken up to 230,000,000 bushels at a price of 70 cents, basis Fort William No. 1 northern. This will mean considerably less income for the western farmer; there is no doubt about that. But to offset the acreage being taken out of wheat, it is proposed that $4 an acre be paid for summer-fallow, S2 an acre for sowing to grass seed, and $2 an acre for coarse grain. The idea is to reduce wheat acreage by 9,000,000 acres. We in Ontario have been and still are willing to help the western farmer, and for a period of years we have paid our share of the many millions of dollars contributed towards the assistance of the west. We are still willing to do that; but we do feel that the bonusing of coarse grain, particularly bonusing, to the extent of S2 an acre, the western farmer to grow coarse grain, is going a step too far.
I am not so much opposed to summer-fallow, although I do not believe that is the right thing to do either. I think, as far as grass seeding is concerned, that is something which should be encouraged. We have broken up too much land in the west for the growing of wheat, and it would be a good idea to get it seeded back. I would be more willing to pay $4 an acre to seed down than $4 an acre for summer-fallow or $2 an acre for coarse grain. I am afraid we shall be establishing a precedent of fixing a price on coarse grains just as we have on wheat. As the hon. member for Victoria, Ontario, said, I would rather pay a little higher price for wheat, perhaps 72 or 75 cents, and stick to wheat, than bonus the growing of coarse grains to come into competition with the eastern farmers, which to my mind must happen; I cannot see anything else for it. The amount itself may not be so great but the principle of the thing seems to me absolutely wrong.
As far as this proposal is concerned I as an Ontario farmer do not feel that I can support it, especially if this coarse grain clause is left in. I hope the government will consider this seriously and for the sake of the hog producer and the grain grower in Ontario leave this clause out. If that were taken out, I believe we could explain to our people the reason why it is of advantage to bonus summer-fallow and grass seeding. We realize fully that we have too much wheat. Some land must be taken out of wheat and put into something else. We expect in 1941 a surplus of wheat of between eight and nine hundred million bushels, although the world surplus of wheat is expected to be 1,500 million bushels. Someone said wheat is a war casualty, but I do not agree with that; we had too much
*wheat before the war started, and if in the years from 1935 on we had had big crops, we would have had ten times more wheat than we can sell.
As I said, labour to-day has a guarantee of the scale of wages of 1926-29 plus an increase for the rise in the cost of living. I am not complaining about that, but surely what is good for one is good for another. The cost of production of the farmer has risen considerably; that is one of the reasons why I have to take this attitude. Take our farm implements; the price of a six-foot binder to-day is $240; when I started farming I bought a six-foot binder complete for $120. About three companies control the price of farm implements. It does not seem to make any difference how much the duty is reduced, the price continues to rise. The duty was 25 per cent; it was reduced to 7| per cent, and the price went up.
Then there is the scarcity of help, especially as far as the dairy farmer is concerned. Some argue that taking men from the farms does not make any difference to the farmer, that the farming industry will remain intact. But anyone who is in the dairy business to-day depends absolutely on hired help, and if his man goes to the city and gets a job at anywhere from $100 to $125 for two weeks' work, as they have done, the industry is bound to suffer.
Over a period of years Canadian manufacturing industry has been protected by all governments, perhaps beyond what it should be. I am not a free trader; I believe in a certain amount of protection, but I believe that by protecting industry with a high tariff we are doing a great injustice to the farmers. I have noticed, since coming to this house, several hon. members of the opposition have made many pleas for the farmer, but every time protection for industry comes up they are right on the job. We must be consistent; we must be reasonable.
We have to-day in Canada what is known as the federation of agriculture. We have in organizations of one kind and another 350,000 farmers, or practically half the farmers of this dominion. We have 340 farm organizations selling to the farmer, and over 320 farm organizations that buy from the farmer. I am all in sympathy with farm organizations; farmers have a right to make their requests known to any government. Farmers have not enough representation in this House of Commons. I took the trouble the other day to go over the book and I found that there are about thirty-five farmers in the house. We have some others who are classed as farmers, gentlemen farmers; we are glad to have them; they are an asset to our industry, but of
1944	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
real honest-to-goodness farmers who know what it means to do a real day's work on a farm, we have about thirty-five.
Farm organizations and federations of agriculture can do a great job for the farmers if they are reasonable in their requests. But if they are going to demand the impossible, the organizations will not be of much help. It is all very well to be critical, but we must offer something constructive if we are going to get anywhere. Representations have been made to this government by farm organizations, and as the Minister of Agriculture said their ideas in many instances have been accepted and put into effect by the government. If they continue to do this in a businesslike way, I believe the farmers of this country will eventually get a better deal.


Mr. BLAIR:: Like the previous speaker, I hesitate to criticize this government too much. I passed through the trying times we had under different governments, and it gives me a cold chill to think I might do anything to injure the government we have now. That resolution, and a vote of lack of confidence in this government from an hon. member who sat under the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett when we as farmers were hiring help and paying our men from pigs at three cents a pound-in fact, I sold the last batch at 2.90-from cattle at three cents a pound, while the honoured present leader of the opposition sat smiling at the pleasant times the farmers were having! I was in extreme distress at that time; I had five hundred acres; I went home in cold sweat and sold every acre of land I had and got out of it. I put my sheep, cattle and horses out on shares. I waited and I bought the land back later at half the price. I sold these farms to organizers who believed what the Conservatives were telling them about butter. They got in their cows; butter was thirty cents, and they were told by the Conservative party, "No more butter at thirty cents." And there was not until the Liberals came into power. These men came and asked me to take back the farms off their hands. I said I was sorry, but I had made other arrangements; I had other ideas.


Mr. FRASER (Northumberland):: Doctor, you are a financier.


John Knox Blair: I have again five hundred acres, and I am going to hold them until this government is defeated. I am going to hold out; but if ever this government is defeated, I will part with that land just as quickly as I can, get rid of it.
I hope the government will not pay too much attention to the far corner or to the

western members. We hear a great deal of nonsense in this chamber. We have a member who comes from Qu'Appelle, who rises in his place and shadow-boxes with the Liberals on the other side. They are all planning together how to get a little bite out of the government, how to get a little donation. I have watched that go on time and again, and I have said to myself, "More shadow-boxing." Here the hon. member rises in his place and speaks as though he is opposed to this scheme, but really he is tickled to death to see the amount of money that is going to the west. But let us not give the west everything they ask. I can see the difficulty the minister has; no matter what you give them you can never satisfy them.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: Is this Canadian unity?


John Knox Blair: Say, listen, down in that comer; we have people from the west appealing to the ministers to build chimneys on schoolhouses, to clean children's heads and all such nonsense as that. Now we are beginning to bonus them. This is against the fundamental principles of the Liberal party. I believe if the Right Hon. R. B. Bennett were here to-day, he would blush to see some of the things we are putting through. We have gone further than the Tories would go. We are destroying the Liberal party. We are giving away too much. We are beginning to give bonuses and subsidies, and we are finding white elephants left on our hands.
Look at the wheat problem; it is our own fault. The western farmers pleaded and pleaded, and now they have a baby elephant on their hands and do not know what to do with it. Neither does the minister know what to do with it. Now they want a bonus on coarse grains, and we have to pay the farmer for storing his grain. Why, if I were a western farmer and were paid eight cents for storing my wheat, I would build a great big barn and keep wheat for centuries. They are getting eleven per cent and more on their money, and now that you are going to give bonuses and subsidies you should cut that down. Why, if they got two or three cents, that would be plenty. I never let a tramp ask for a dinner in vain, but I never gave him a very fat dinner. Charity should be fairly well circumscribed, and when the west comes to the minister asking for donations to this and that, he should give them very little. The hon. member for Qu'Appelle and the other members from the west fight against this or that, and ask for the other thing, but they all agree when they get to their offices upstairs.

Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
We have done so much for the west. There is the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act. That act was to be in force only until the farmers got on their feet again; but we find that even this year, when they have so much grain they do not know what to do with it, they still have this act. When are they going to be rehabilitated? If they are not rehabilitated now, when will they be? Then we have the Prairie Farm Assistance Act; the reestablishment of settlers; direct relief; material aid; feed and fodder; shipment of live stock, and so on, each costing millions of dollars. Saskatchewan seems to get the biggest share of the boodle, 856,772.000 altogether. Alberta gets only $7,565,000 and Manitoba only $2,438,000.
There may be something in it when they appeal to us to bonus them in the name of charity. When they cannot sell their wheat they have a right to some consideration, and I think they should get it, but I am afraid the minister will go too far if he does what he has suggested. According to the Sirois report-which is strongly condemned in Ontario but appears to be all right nationally-we find that the individual income in Prince Edward Island was $221. In Alberta it was $360, which meant that in Alberta the individual had an advantage of $139 over the individual in Prince Edward Island; and still the people of the west are asking for more. The individual in Saskatchewan had an advantage of $40, and the individual in Manitoba an advantage of $166 over the individual in Prince Edward Island1; still they aTe asking for more. I suppose these herrings down on the coast can live for less, but in any event they are not here asking for donations.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: What about
Ontario?


John Knox Blair: I think it is a great mistake to loosen the purse-strings too much in giving these subsidies. I do not believe there is a western farmer here who will not boast that the west can run Ontario off the map in growing pigs. I could name dozens of hon. members who have made that statement. I say to them, grow your grain and feed your pigs. We will take a chance on being run off the map, but do not ask Ontario farmers to pay you to grow the grain. We do not object to meeting you on an equal basis, but I am sure our farmers will object if you ask them to pay you $2 an acre to grow coarse grains to feed pigs which you will sell in competition- with those raised in Ontario. Remember, the Ontario farmer must pay a good part of that $2. I think you are overdoing it, and I hope there will be some modification, especially in
connection with coarse grains. The rate for summeT-fallow is too high, also. It does not take $4 an acre to summer-fallow in the west; you can do it for a good deal less than that. The -people of the west are getting much more than the people of the maritimes; yet they are asking for charity. I believe they should be given a certain amount, but I hope the minister will keep that amount within strict limits so that our Ontario farmers will not object too seriously.
I must say that the minister and the government have done splendid work; I think the butter question was handled particularly well. It was all right to put a reasonable peg on the top price of butter, but I hope the minister will also put a peg on the bottom price. The distance between the floor and the ceiling is the measure of what the speculators and the packers get in -profits. If the minister wants to compensate Ontario to some extent for this subsidy on coarse grains, which will mean that the farmers of Ontario will pay the farmers of the west to raise pigs in competition with them, that might be done by pegging the minimum price of butter at a reasonable level. In passing, may I say that I hope the minister will limit the amount of land on which the bonus may be paid. A man who has five or six thousand acres is not a subject of charity. If the government is to pay for storing grain in granaries there should be some limit upon the amount to be stored. If we keep a thousand bushels from one winter to the next, that is our business. We generally do it because we think it will be profitable.
Some western farmers operate farms of from five to six thousand acres. Are we going to bonus all these men? If I had a farm that size, I would summer-fallow the whole thing. There should be some limitation. I know the acreage in wheat in the previous year will guide to a certain extent the amount of bonus to be paid, but at the same time I would modify the payments. I would keep them down in order that we might appease our eastern farmers.


William Earl Rowe: The hon. member for Durham (Mr. Rickard) referred to the fact that when the tariff on farm implements was lowered, the price went up. My hon. friends will recall quite readily the time when the statements from the Liberal side were entirely different from what we are hearing to-day. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) said that the members of the government were whole-heartedly in accord with this movement, and it must be alarming for him to hear two of his followers be critical of it.
1946	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
I believe, however, that no one can view the agricultural situation of this country without being greatly alarmed.
For many years the agriculturist of this country has received much less than his just share of the national income. From 1926 to 1930 over 30 per cent of our people were engaged directly in agriculture. The farmer's income was only eighteen per cent of the national income, even though thirty per cent of our people were engaged in agriculture. For the last seven years over thirty per cent of our people have been engaged in agriculture, but they have received only eight per cent of the national income. The average income of 730,000 farmers of Canada has been $8 a week per family. The father, mother, and the boys and girls labour from early morning until late at night to make an income equal to the minimum price provided by statute for the office girl in the city.
Our industrialists are given cost plus ten per cent contracts. The labouring men of this country have, by statute, been guaranteed a reasonable wage. The farmer, however, is operating on a cost-minus basis. The dairyman is given a maximum price for his butter. The hon. member for Wellington North (Mr. Blair) said that he would support it if the price was put on the other end, although I believe he said he would support it anyway. He thought there should be a floor as well as a ceiling. The hog producer has been given the special privilege of producing more for less. It is not much wonder that the farmer feels that he is a "loss leader" in this new modern society in which only those who organize and demand, receive a just reward for their individual efforts. The federation of agriculture, which met in Toronto not long ago, put this pretty well in the words of Mr. Hannam when he said:
In the seventeenth month of the war we are so sincerely worried and alarmed about the detrimental effect which the present trend of national policies is inflicting upon agriculture that we deem it our duty to so advise our people and our national leaders in the hope that adjustments may be made before the unity of our people is affected and before our war effort suffers a setback.
This problem affects a great mass of our people. It has been my privilege to observe the general tendency of agricultural development in this country over many years. I have been a member of this house for some time, and there are hon. members that have been here longer than I, but it is in no spirit of "I told you so" that I remind the committee that in 1926, 1927, and especially in 1928, I stated

that we were developing a lop-sided agriculture. The hon. member from the other province nods his head. He was here at that time.


Mr. MARTIN:: He said 1932.


William Earl Rowe: Nineteen thirty-two as well.
But that statement had no influence upon many people. It was only a few of us from the old provinces of Quebec and Ontario who felt that way. The hon. member for Wey-burn (Mr. Douglas) made an excellent speech this evening, and like him I do not for one moment want to raise an issue as between the east and the west, or refer to the advantages which the east may have and which the west has not, or which the west may have and the east has not. However, coming from Ontario, I think it is only fair to state that the old provinces of Quebec and Ontario produced more gross agricultural wealth in 1938 than all the rest of the provinces combined. This is the information contained in the year book, and I think it will be found in almost every year since that time. I make this statement with all due respect to that great granary and bread-basket, the province of Saskatchewan.
I have been impressed with the grasp which hon. members have of this problem, and I have been pleased with their reference to the need of diversification of production. I well recall having stated in this house in 1928 that we would soon find the great west filled with unsold wheat. An hon. member who then sat to my left met me aftenvards in the lobby and told me that while I might know about conditions in Ontario, I knew nothing about conditions in the west. He told me they would never sell wheat for less than $1 a bushel, that they would grow wheat and wheat alone as long as they were in agriculture. I only wish to point out what I have urged before-


An hon. MEMBER:: Oh, oh.


William Earl Rowe: My hon. friend laughs, but
he is still of the same mind. He is a member of the same order. I would remind him of what one of his colleagues said to-night. We were told that if the duty on farm implements were reduced, we would be able to buy them cheaper, but we had to pay more. I can well recall that in 1932, as the hon. member has said, I contended, as I contend to-night, that if in an effort to find a sound solution for this problem, it was thought wise to maintain a board of grain commissioners, we should also establish a board of live stock commissioners. This is necessary if we are going to have a properly diversified agriculture. In 1932 I

Sup-ply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
urged upon the government of the day, which I was supporting, the establishment of an export marketing board which would administer the bonusing of live stock exports of a high quality and study the markets of the world.
Let me recall to the committee that in 1921 the value of our live stock production was greater than our grain production, yet we lost those markets. By 1930 we imported
40,000,000 pounds of meat and 55,000,000 pounds of butter to feed our people. Some are fearful that we are going to have too much animal fats. If the government is going to turn some of this wheat into the production of animal fats and if it is fearful there will be too much, why should they object to tariff board reference No. 99? Why not impose a tax of three cents a pound on vegetable shortening and two cents a pound on the vegetable oil content of soap? That would bring four or five million dollars into the treasury-and heaven knows it needs it-[DOT] and it would mean seven or eight million dollars for the farmers of this country. This suggestion is in keeping with what I have advocated on many occasions.
We have witnessed the government going into the wheat business, and to-night we see a monument to their clumsy mismanagement of this business down through the years. We have on hand millions of bushels of wheat which we cannot sell and which we might have used in the production of other products, and now to-night the government proposes a restriction of the wheat acreage. All through the years this government has been in power we have been passing estimates for scientific research, experimental work, and other means of increasing agricultural production. In other words, we have had one arm of the Department of Agriculture spending huge sums on experiment and research to increase production, and now it is proposed at greater expense to create another arm to restrict production.
Bonuses have been considered in the past, Mr. Chairman, by hon. members to your right and by many to your left. Bonuses and subsidies have been termed vicious. I urged bonuses ten years ago to encourage the development of mixed farming products in order that we might diversify our agricultural production. Since that time we have seen the government bonus products of which there were huge unsold surpluses. Now we have this government bonusing men to do nothing, to restrict the acreage of wheat. We have now a government policy of not to grow wheat, a policy that is going to cost this country $35,000,000, after we have witnessed this government going into the wheat business, and at a cost of $100,000,000 bonusing producers and building storage capacity for unsold surpluses. If a bonus policy ever was vicious, surely it is vicious now to bonus men to do nothing when Great Britain is fighting with her back to the wall. As someone has neatly said to-night-and I thought it was a good joke-in fifteen years the boys will come back from overseas, and we can picture one of them asking his father in Canada, "What were you doing while I was fighting?" and his daddy farmer replies, "Well, son, I was summer-fallowing."
In the days to come it will be infinitely better that we should have too much of foodstuffs on hand than not enough. It is bad psychologjr to restrict the production of wheat at a time when the government is urging everyone else to produce. It seems to me an unwise and unsound policy, and certainly it is not doing what the government of Great Britain is urging us to do.
I shall be glad to support anything that will help the western grain growers because I realize they are faced with a serious problem, and I know the Minister of Agriculture is struggling with it desperately at the present time. He is generally recognized, I think, as one of the most skilful political pilots we have seen in this house for a long time, but may I suggest that so far as agriculture is concerned he has clumsily driven it into the most hazardous tailspin it has experienced in the last fifteen years.
Not long ago in the British House of Commons that greatest of modem statesmen, the Prime Minister, the Right Hon. Winston Churchill, said:
We shall do our best to encourage the building up of reserves of food all over the world, so that there will always be held before the eyes of the people of Europe, including-I say this deliberately-the German and Austrian peoples, the certainty that the shattering of nazi power will bring them all immediate food, freedom and peace.
In view of that ringing challenge for our assistance in building up reserves of food, I am not surprised that the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade and Commerce should bring down this policy to restrict production as a joint measure of the two ministers, because I do not think there is a member of the government who would have the courage to bring down this fantastic proposal and father such a child alone. The policy proposed here is the very opposite of what we are being urged to do by the British government. The United States of America are going to export $450,000,000 worth of agricultural products, and yet only a short time ago they were destroying their hogs and
1948	COMMONS
Supply-Agriculture-Wheat Acreages
burning their cotton in the south. Now it is in demand for the manufacture of cordite and other explosives.
The Minister of Agriculture said this afternoon that a few years ago we had only 28 million bushels of wheat in this country. If we have another drought year, and if this war should be over in a comparatively short period, is it not better for us to build up reserves of food which will surely be required after the war is over? What is 500 million bushels of wheat distributed throughout the world?
Swiftly changing and tragic events have created new problems. To-day while we grimly face a dark and difficult future, we have faith in our strength to restore peace through victory. The restoration of the agricultural industry is vital to Canada's economic fabric, to enable us to withstand the financial obligations which the war imposes; but if we are to justify our place in the life of the empire, we must answer the call of Britain and have available large stores of food for a hungry and starving world if peace should happily come sooner than we expect. When that day comes-and we all pray to God it may be soon-when peace dawns once again and world rehabilitation stands as the next gigantic Anglo-American task, we dhall surely find more opportunity to give our bonused surpluses to the poverty and hunger-stricken peoples throughout the world than to boast of higher temporary prices established by this fantastic plan to curtail production. I say this in all sincerity. I do not wish to embarrass the government, at all, not so much as some hon. members may wish to do before this issue is closed, but I do urge the government to reconsider bonusing any industry in Canada for doing nothing. I appeal to the minister to consider the matter again. I would rather spend $100,000,000 or even $200,000,000 to send foodstuffs to Great Britain than pay half that amount to men in this country to do nothing.
Why not encourage agriculture to produce more? Why not put a bonus on cheese and bacon? I may be asked: "Where would you sell it?" I reply that there are thousands of women and children crying for these products to-day, and if this war is over in two years, all the foodstuffs we can produce will be required. But this policy of restricting production, as the hon. member for Weyburn said to-night, is a long way from the policy which Joseph followed in Egypt of accumulating stores of food against the day of famine when they would be needed.
Are hon. gentlemen opposite prepared to say to Mr. Churchill, "We did not do what you asked us to do. We did not build up reserves of our No. 1 hard wheat, but, instead,

we paid our farmers for doing nothing, and we are going to get their votes because we shall get higher prices for their products when they are needed so badly after the war is over."
I say again, Mr. Chairman, I shall be glad to support any policy that wall really help to solve the great problem of agriculture, but I maintain that this policy will not solve it. This solution will only create another agriculture problem in eastern Canada. I have much regal'd for the wheat producers, and by the way I produce quite a bit myself, but wheat is not our only agricultural product. The live stock industry has produced great wealth for Canada, and you do not have to produce much live stock before you add to the richness of the soil; but when you produce wheat, you deplete the fertility of the soil. So far as cash returns are concerned, the provinces of Ontario and Quebec have, in the last ten years, produced more agricultural wealth than the rest of Canada combined.
May I remind hon. gentlemen that after the last war we shipped 77 million pounds of live stock products to Great Britain before 1921. This is a different war, it is -true, but after this war the people will be just as hungry as they were after the first great war. and where are they going to find the foodstuffs they will need? I urge the minister to reconsider whether this policy of restriction of production is sound or unsound in the interests of the empire. We must wrin the victory, and I have never known any country to lose victory because it had too large a surplus of food.


Mr. FAIR:: 
The CHAIRMAN:: Shall the item carry?


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Before you call it eleven o'clock,	Mr. Chairman, would	the
minister clear up the statement he made a few minutes ago with regard to the income from wheat this year? I understood that he included about 25 per cent of the income from the 1940 crop. I wonder whether he included the entire income from the 1941 crop.


James Garfield Gardiner: No. I took the bushel-age which the officials of the department estimated	was	still in	the	hands of	thefarmers and which would come out between January 1 and July 31, together with the amount they estimated would come from this year's crop between August 1 and December	31,	which	figure	they set	at
150.000,000 bushels.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: I thought this
afternoon	the	income	was	estimated	at


Mr GARDINER:: That was from
230,000,000 bushels of wheat, at the price mentioned.
Progress reported.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned, without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Friday, March 28, 1941.