1942-03-16

QUESTIONS

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

Mr. HAZEN:: 1.	How much of the building, number 80 Prince William street, Saint John, New Brunswick, is rented to the unemployment insurance commission?
2.	From whom was it rented?
3.	When was it rented?
4.	For what length of time?
5.	What rent is paid?
6.	Were the costs of renovating the premises paid for by the government?
7.	If so, who made these renovations and what did they cost?


Mr. MICHAUD:: 1.	Space on first and second floors including part of mezzanine floor, having a total area of 2,600 square feet.
2.	Mrs. Bertha Garson, Saint John, N.B.
3 and 4. Second floor space-five years from date of occupancy, namely September 22,-1941; first floor and mezzanine-five years from date of occupancy, namely October 28, 1941.
5.	$2,600 per annum, lessor to pay taxes and water rates and provide heating, cleaning, janitor service and elevator service.
6 and 7. The alterations and changes were made by the owner at a cost of $4,129.21, of which the owner paid $2,522.63 and the government $1,606.58.


PRICE CEILING-FRUIT JUICES
Mr. LOCKHART:: 1.	Are any rebates or other payments in connection with price levels being paid to importers of pineapple and grapefruit juices?
2.	If so, on what basis are such payments made?
3.	What amount has been paid to date to each importer?


Mr. ILSLEY:: 1.	Imported pineapple and grape fruit juices are eligible for subsidy, but no claims have been received in respect to pineapple juice.
2.	Grapefruit juice is eligible for subsidy on the following basis:
20-oz. tins unsweetened, to the extent laid-down cost exceeds $1.03 per dozen, maximum subsidy 20 cents per dozen.
20-oz. tins sweetened, to the extent laid-down cost exceeds $1.06 per dozen, maximum subsidy 20 cents per dozen.
48-oz. tins unsweetened, to the extent that the laid-down cost exceeds $2.23 per dozen, maximum subsidy 50 cents per dozen.
48-oz. tins sweetened, to the extent that the laid-down cost exceeds $2.34 per dozen, maximum subsidy 50 cents per dozen.
3.	Total subsidy payments in respect to grapefruit juice to March 6, 1942 inclusive amount to $11,842.65. It is not in the public interest to indicate the amounts paid to individual importers.


BUILDING OF CARGO VESSELS
Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: 1.	What is Canada's programme for the building of cargo vessels?
2.	What department of the Canadian government is responsible for the direction of this programme?
3.	Are any steps being taken by the government to investigate the possibility of reducing ship losses, either by increasing the speed, or by changing the structure of the ship, or by equipping them with heavier guns?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	Canada's cargo shipbuilding programme utilizes the complete facilities of thirteen shipbuilding yards now operating or preparing to operate.
The types of ships being built are those chosen by the British Admiralty and the British Ministry of War Transport, as being the most suitable for building and operating under war conditions, consistent with the chief objective of procuring the largest number of ships in the shortest possible time.
2.	The direction and the policy of the programme is under the Department of Munitions and Supply.
3.	All specifications and measures affecting the speed or the defence of the ships are being taken according to recommendations and suggestions made by the British Admiralty and the British Ministiy of War Transport.


DAYLIGHT SAVING
Mr. ROSS (St. Paul's):: 1.	Have any municipalities in Canada refused to comply with the government order to advance the time one hour?
Questions

2.	If so, what municipalities and for what reason?
3.	What steps are being taken by the government to have the order enforced?


Mr. McLARTY:: 1.	No information.
2 and 3. Answered by number 1.


WESTERN FARMERS-MACHINE COMPANY CREDITORS
Mr. BLACKMORE:: What measures, if any,' has the dominion government taken to protect more or less impoverished farmers of the three prairie provinces from creditor machine companies, threatening to repossess or sue?


Mr. ILSLEY:: This matter is primarily one that comes under the jurisdiction of the various provincial governments. However, the Farmers' Creditors Arrangement Act, which is in operation in the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, provides means whereby farmers in certain circumstances may make adjustments with their creditors.
WHEAT ACREAGE, 1941-FARM UNITS OF .	320 ACRES OR LESS


Mr. PURDY:: What percentage of wheat acreage under crop in 1941 in the three western provinces was represented by the self-contained farm units of 320 acres or less?


Mr. MacKINNON (Edmonton West):: Information not available at the present time. Compilation of the agricultural statistics, as taken in the 1941 census, not sufficiently advanced to obtain this information.


S. V. EASTLAND
Mr. KIRK:: 1.	Is Mr. S. V. Eastland in the employ of the wartime prices and trade hoard or other government service, at Winnipeg, Manitoba?
2.	If so, on whose recommendation was he so employed?
3.	Were the provisions of P.C. 4759 followed?
4.	If not, by what authority is he so employed?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	S. V. Eastland is an employee of the Department of Munitions and Supply, Regional Office, Oil Controller, Winnipeg, Manitoba.
2.	On the recommendation of the Regional Office manager of the Oil 'Controller at Winnipeg, Manitoba. This was approved by the Civil Service Commission.
3.	Yes.
4.	Answered by question 3.
WOMEN IN WrAR INDUSTRIES


Mr. LACOMBE:: 1.	Are any women employed at night in any of the war industries of Canada?
2.	If so, will the practice be continued?


Mr. McLARTY:: Many of the plants
engaged in war work in which women are employed in suitable occupations, are operated during the night and this practice will be continued while the emergent need for the rapid production of munitions of war continues.
Legislation controlling employment of women at night -is within the jurisdiction of the provincial governments and in those provinces where legislation exists restricting employment of women at night, it is the understanding of the Department of Labour that permits have been issued by the provinces, subject to prescribed conditions to meet special circumstances.


PRISONERS OF WAR IN JAPAN
Mr. REID:: Is Japan a signatory to the international agreement or to any agreement with any other nation in regard to the treatment of prisoners of war?


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: Japan is a signatory to but did not ratify the international convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war concluded at Geneva on July 27, 1929.
On being advised that the United. Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are observing the provisions of that convention so far as concerns Japan, the Japanese government replied that while not -bound by the convention they will apply its provisions to civil as well as to military prisoners from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India.
The government has no information of any other agreements with other nations signed by Japan concerning the treatment of prisoners of war.


SINCLAIR BALFOUR
Mr. TUSTIN:: 1.	Is Mr. Sinclair Balfour in the employ of the government at Barriefield or Vimy camp, Kingston?
2.	If so, what are his duties?
3.	What remuneration does he receive?
4.	Does he receive a living allowance?
5.	If so, how much?


Mr. RALSTON:: 1.	Yes, at Barriefield.
2.	Special representative of the Master-General of -the Ordnance.
3.	None.
4 and 5. He is entitled under the terms of his appointment to a living allowance of $15 per day. To date no money has -been drawn by or paid to Mr. Balfour.

Questions as Orders for Returns


EDUCATION OF SOLDIERS AFTER THE WAR
Mr. AYLESWORTH:: 1.	What action, if any, has been taken to finance education for soldiers after the war, who were in attendance at universities at the time of enlistment?
2.	If such action has been taken, will it apply to an American national who was in attendance at a Canadian university at the time of his enlistment in the Canadian forces?
3.	Will the answer to No. 2 be changed by the fact that the enlistment in the Canadian forces took place previous to the declaration of war by the United States of America?


Mr. MACKENZIE (Vancouver Centre):: 1.	Provision has been made1 to do this under authority of the post discharge reestablishment order, P.C. 7638, of October 1, 1941.
2.	Yes.
3.	No.


TIRE RATIONING-CLERGYMEN
Mr. HLYNKA:: 1.	Is special consideration being given by the rubber controller to place clergymen in the rural areas in a preferred class in the purchase of tires?
2.	If not, will consideration be given to the placing of such persons in a preferred category?


Mr. HOWE:: 1.	Yes.
2.	Answered by 1.


ENLISTMENT OF INDIANS
Mr. PERLEY:: What is the total number of Indians enlisted from each province, in the active forces, (a) army, (b) air force, (c) navy?


Mr. CRERAR:: This information is not available through the Indian department; whether or not it is available in the Department of National Defence I am unable to say.


Mr. POWER:: So far as air is concerned, it is certainly not available to us; they are not listed as Indians in the records.
' Mr. RALSTON: That applies to the army as well.


Ernest Edward Perley: I will frame the question in a different way and I shall probably 'be able to get the information I want.
Question dropped.


ENLISTMENT CAMPAIGN
Mrs. NIELSEN:: What has the government done towards launching a nation-wide enlistment campaign in
the weeks preceding the plebiscite and obtaining the fullest participation of all members of parliament in such a recruiting drive?


Mr. RALSTON:: May I answer this question orally? It is not the intention, as I am at present advised, to launch what might be called a special campaign in the weeks preceding the plebiscite. I can say, however, that we have been and shall be carrying on a nation-wide enlistment campaign, to use the words of the question, continuously, day in and day out. The house will probably be interested to know, if I may put it on the record now, the response we have had to date this year. In January the recruiting figures for the army were, as I believe I told the house, about 11,700; in February, a short month, 8,152; and in March up to and including the 14th, 4,019 for a little less than half a month. Regarding the participation of members of parliament, I may say first that citizens' committees all over the country have been exceedingly helpful and are increasing their activities. As I have said to the house before, the work of getting men for the armed forces justifies the very best efforts of all of us and I wish to emphasize again what I consider to be the need for the fullest and most active participation of all members of parliament in that effort. I venture to think that it is one of the many duties that rest upon members of this house in connection with their responsibilities of leadership.



QUESTIONS PASSED AS ORDERS FOR RETURNS


Mr. PURDY:: 1.	What is the total amount owing by each of the three western provinces to the dominion government, including any amounts written off and any indirect liabilities by way of guarantees, etc.?
2.	What payments have been made to each of the three western provinces by the federal government since 1930 in connection with unemployment relief and similar assistance, seed grain loans, etc.?
3.	What has been the cost to the federal treasury of the Canadian Wheat Board Act since its inception, including estimated loss on stock on hand or committed for, based on the price of wheat at the present time?
4.	What is the approximate aggregate amount paid by the federal treasury, including amounts accrued but not paid, from 1930 to date, for assistance to agriculture in the three western provinces ?


ALCOHOL FROM CANADIAN WHEAT
Mr. SHAW:: 1.	Is the government at present carrying on any experiments with alcohol manufactured from Canadian wheat?

Questions as Orders for Returns
2.	Has the government granted any financial assistance to any Canadian distiller to carry on experimental work in this connection?
3.	If so, what amounts have been granted and to whom?
4.	Have government tests been made of alcohol extracted from Canadian wheat, and what has been learned from such tests?
5.	Has the government discovered any satisfactory method of blending this alcohol with other products, to be used as a substitute for gasoline?


LABOUR REPRESENTATIVES ON WAR BOARDS
Mrs. NIELSEN:: 1.	Were any labour representatives appointed to war boards before the Prime Minister's statement to the delegation from the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada on February 12, last?
2.	If so, how many, what are their names and whom do they represent?
3.	Have any such representatives been appointed to war boards since February 12, 1942?
4.	If so, how many, what are their names and whom do they represent?


RAILWAY FREIGHT RATES
Mr. REID:: 1.	Has any application been made to the board of transport commissioners by either the Canadian Pacific Railway, the Canadian National Railways, or jointly on behalf of both railways, asking for a general increase in freight rates?
2.	If so, has such application been considered by the board of transport commissioners?
3.	What decision, if any, has been given in the matter?
4.	Has the wartime prices and trade board any control or jurisdiction in the matter of railway freight rates?
5.	If so, would any request by the railway companies for an increase of rates have to be granted or allowed by the wartime prices and trade board before being made effective, or would any order made to this effect by the board of transport commissioners supersede any authority of the wartime prices and trade board?
Mr. MiECHAUD (for the Minister of Transport): Return tabled.


CANADIAN FORCES-HEADQUARTERS MOTOR VEHICLES
Mr. MacKENZIE (Lambton-Kent):: 1.	What is the number of station wagons and other motor vehicles used at Ottawa by the staffs, permanent or temporary, of (a) the army, (b) the air force, (c) the naval service?
2.	What officers or group of officers on these respective staffs, or positions occupied by them, have been assigned or allotted passenger ears for their individual or collective use, or for carrying out duties connected with positions they occupy?
3.	Are any such officers or group of officers permitted the use of passenger vehicles, (a) for the purpose of conveyance to and from work,
(b)	for other purposes not connected with the duties of the positions they occupy?
[Mr. Shaw.)
4.	Is a record kept of the mileage of such vehicles for the purpose of checking against their use for other than official business?
5.	Are all such vehicles driven by persons in uniform attached to any of the respective services, and do such drivers perform any other duties than those connected with the operation of the vehicles?


PURCHASE OF MEATS FOR QUEBEC TRAINING CAMPS
Mr. LACOMBE:: 1.	Did the government, during the months of October, November and December, 1941, purchase pork and bacon for the training camps at Valcartier, Joliette and St. Jerome?
2.	If so, what quantity was purchased for each of these camps?
3.	What prices were paid per pound at each of these camps?
4.	Were the loins or fat parts of this pork consumed by the army?
5.	If not, were they resold to any person?
6.	To whom and at w'hat price?


PIGGOT CONSTRUCTION COMPANY
Mr. NICHOLSON:: 1.	Have any contracts been awarded to the Piggot Construction Company of Hamilton, since the beginning of the -war?
2.	If so, how many and of what total value?


LABOUR CONDITIONS-CANADA BREAD COMPANY
Mr. SHAW:: 1.	Is the government aware that a strike of workers has taken place in the Montreal plant of the Canada Bread Company?
2.	If so, what steps have been taken to date to settle such strike?
3.	Have government contracts for the supplying of bread and pastry to Canadian military or air force establishments been given to the Canada Bread Company since September 1, 1941?
4.	If so, upon what dates were such contracts given, for what quantities and at what prices?
5.	Have complaints been registered -with the wartime prices and trade board or any other department of the government by employees of the Canada Bread Company regarding hours of labour and rates of pay?
6.	If so, when, and what action has been taken with regard to such complaints?


CAPITAL ASSISTANCE TO INDUSTRIES
Mr. HATFIELD:: 1.	Was capital assistance given by the government to (a) Chemical Construction Company, (b) Dominion Magnesium Company, (c) Welland Chemical Company, (d) Regina Industries Limited, (e) Standard Chemical Company, (f) Alberta Nitrogen Company?
2.	If so, how much to each company?
3.	What are the names of the officers and directors of these companies and what is their business experience?


PRODUCTION OF MUNITIONS ON COST-PLUS BASIS
Mr. NOSEWORTHY:: 1.	When a firm, is permitted to manufacture munitions on a cost-plus basis, is an experienced production analyst assigned to report on the

Questions as Orders for Returns
day-by-day functioning of the workers and executives of such firm throughout the whole of the cost-determining period?
2.	If no analyst has been present in the plant, is mere inspection of the manufacturer's records accepted as a sound basis for determining payment ?
3.	Where several manufacturers are producing munitions on a cost-plus basis and the records of one firm are compared with those of another in arriving at a price for any given article, what assurance has the government that any of these firms were functioning efficiently during the price-determining periods?


MILITARY SERVICE-FARMERS AND FARM LABOURERS
Mr. FERLAND:: 1.	How many farmers and farm labourers have been called up for military training under the National Resources Mobilization Act in
(a)	Ontario, (b) Quebec?
2.	What number of farmers in (a) Quebec and (b) Ontario, have secured one or more postponements in the hearing of their appeals against military service?
3.	How many of those called up have been placed in an inferior medical category?
4.	Has the government authorized local commissions to hear and determine requests for leave by farmers who desire to return to their land during the farm work season?
5.	Has the government appointed an agricultural representative for administrative division "E" at Montreal? If so, who has been so appointed?


CORVETTES
Mr. MacINNIS:: 1.	How many corvettes have been ordered by the Department of Munitions and Supply from the 1st of September, 1939, to date?
2. How many have been launched by the various builders in the same period?
3. How many have been delivered to the government in the same period?
4.	What is the average cost to the government of the corvettes delivered?
5.	How many shipyards are building corvettes for the government?
6.	What is the average cost of the corvettes completed to date for each yard?



ADMINISTRATION OF ANNUITIES ACT

Mr. REID:: 1.	What is the total number of personnel employed in connection with the Annuities Act, including all branch offices?
2.	What is the total number employed at the central office in Ottawa, apart from the branch office ?
3.	What is the annual cost of the central
office ?	.
4.	How many branch offices are there in Canada?
5.	Where are these branch offices located?
6.	What were the total number of individual contracts secured for each branch office in Canada during the calendar years 1938, 1939, 1940, and 1941?
7.	Who is in charge of the central office in Ottawa?
8.	How long has this employee been in charge of this office?
9.	What salary does he receive?
10.	What was the amount of remuneration paid to all branch managers during the years 1938 to 1941?



MOTION PICTURE EQUIPMENT

Mr. GILLIS:: 1.	How much motion picture equipment has the government purchased since the outbreak of war?
2.	How much motion picture equipment has been sent to the Canadian forces overseas?
3.	Was any motion picture equipment sent to the Canadian forces in Hong Kong?
4.	What companies received motion picture contracts from the government, and what is the amount of each contract?



M.D. NO. 4 OFFICERS AND SELECTION BOARD

[Stage Direction]
Mr. LaCROIX (Quebec-Montmorency):
1.	What percentage of officers on the authorized establishment of headquarters military district No. 4 are French-Canadian bilingual, and what are their names?
2.	What is the composition of the junior selection board of military district No. 4, and which if any are French-Canadian bilingual?
3.	On the headquarters of district depot military district No. 4, how many officers are French-Canadian bilingual, and has there been any reduction in the proportionate representation at any time within the last year?

Mr. REID:: 1.	What was the total number of fishing boats collected from the Japanese, giving the numbers in each respective class of boats, such as seine boats, gillnet, packer, etc.?
2.	How many of these boats have been disposed of by cash sale, giving each respective class of boat and the price paid in each instance ?
3.	How many of the Japanese boats impounded have been found to have a lien or mortgage on them, held by individuals or companies?
4.	How many of these boats have been released to either individuals or companies on claims made by way of liens or mortgage?
5.	Have fishing companies to date registered claims either by way of lien or mortgage?
C. If so, what fishing companies and on what number and type of boats?
7.	What is the value of the claims made by the various fishing companies?
8.	Have any individual valuations been placed by the committee on any of the boats offered for sale?
9.	If so, how do the individual valuations compare with prices set on these boats by the Japanese?
10.	If not, why were practical steps not taken to prevent prices being obtained which are above the present value of some of the boats?
11.	What facilities are in effect now to allow interested buyers to inspect these boats?



MOTIONS FOR PAPERS


Mr. McGREGOR:: For a copy of all letters, telegrams, reports and other documents in the possession of the
Motions for Papers

minister or Department of National Defence for Naval Services, dated from September 9, 1939, to date, relating to the proposed gift of the Ajax club in the city of Halifax to the Royal Canadian Navy.



PRAIRIE FARM ASSISTANCE

Mr. CHURCH:: For a return showing-1. The amounts paid from the consolidated revenue fund to farmers of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, since the year 1930, by years, on account of (a) direct per bushel bonus, (b) wheat acreage bonus,
(c)	wheat acreage reduction bonus, (d) prairie farm income bonus, (e) Prairie Farm Assistance Act.
2.	The deficits sustained by the Canadian wheat board in each year since its establishment.
3.	The total amounts paid since 1930 to farmers in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, by way of, (a) wheat bonus, (b) hog production bonus, (c) cheese production bonus.



CIVIL SERVICE SUPERANNUATION


[Stage Direction]
Right Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING (Prime Minister) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to amend the Department of External Affairs Act to provide for the application of the Civil Service Superannuation Act to certain diplomatic or consular representatives.
He said:	His Excellency the Governor
General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. L. ILSLEY (Minister of Finance) moved that the house go into committee at the next sitting to consider the following resolution:
That it is expedient to introduce a measure to be called the Supplementary 1941 War Appropriation Act to provide inter alia,
1. That sums not exceeding $135,000,000 be granted to his majesty in addition to the sums granted by the War Appropriation Act, 1941, towards defraying any expenses or making any advances or ioans that may be incurred or granted by or under the authority of the governor in council during the year ending March 31, 1942, for:-
(a)	the security, defence, peace, order and welfare of Canada;
(b)	the conduct of naval, military and air operations in or beyond Canada;
(c)	promoting the continuance of trade, industry and business communications, whether
[Mr. McGregor.!
by means of insurance or indemnity against war risk or in any other manner whatsoever; and
(d)	the carrying out of any measure deemed necessary or advisable by the governor in council in consequence of the existence of a state of war.
2. That the governor in council be empowered to reexpend, advance or loan moneys that may be received by way of refund or repayment of advances, loans or expenditures under the War Appropriation Act, 1939, the War Appropriation Act, 1940, the War Appropriation Act, 1941, and the Supplementary 1941 War Appropriation Act.
He said: His Excellency the Govenor General, having been made acquainted with the subject matter of this resolution, recommends it to the consideration of the house.
Motion agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. M. J. COLD WELL (Rosetown-Biggar):: I should like to ask a question of the Minister of National Defence in connection with the statement he made a few minutes ago. How many draftees were called up in the same period? Did the figures he gave include volunteers from those who had been drafted, and if so, to what extent?


James Layton Ralston: I am sorry I have not the figures here. I cannot tell how many draftees were called up. These figures do include those enlisted from training centres who had been called up for training. I can give my hon. friend to-morrow or at any convenient time the figures for both.



PRODUCTION, COMMANDEERING AND FIXING OF PRICE

[Stage Direction]
On the orders of the day:
Mr. KARL K. HOMUTH (Waterloo South): In view of the news broadcast over the radio to-day to the effect that drastic provisions have been made in connection with the commandeering and price setting of wool in Canada, and Canadian wool production, could the minister, perhaps to-morrow, give the house a synopsis of what is in view or whatever order in council has been passed in this connection?
James Lorimer Ilsley: I am not sure what department is concerned in this matter; it depends on what the transactions were. I will make inquiry and either

Wheat Board Act
my colleague the Minister of Munitions and Supply or I will make a statement in regard to it to-morrow.



CANADIAN WHEAT BOARD ACT


[Stage Direction]
The house resumed from Friday, March 13, consideration of the motion of Mr. MacKinnon (Edmonton West) for the second reading of Bill No. 13, to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act, 1935, and the amendment thereto of Mr. Douglas (Weybum).
Mr. J. A. MARSHALL (Camrose):: When the house adjourned at six o'clock on Friday last I was endeavouring to show that all the proposals which might be formulated by the government concerning this subject must be directed toward the solution of two important problems of agriculture: one, debt and taxation; the other, the exploitation or exhaustion of the soil.
This policy, having been formulated, I believe that the farmer's responsibility ends there, and the responsibility of his elected members, his government, begins. It is then the duty or responsibility of his government to formulate plans which might be designed to achieve the results sought. Because of this we must have a policy, and if this policy is to be effective it must be based entirely upon the financing of consumption.
Farmers do not need to be told how to raise products. There are far too many government departments telling him how he must or must not do certain things. Farmers as a body have learned agriculture in the school of bitter experience. What they really want to know is how to sell the output of their farms and obtain an adequate return for their labour, so that in the course of a normal year they can make a decent income from working and managing their farms. In other words the farmers want to know how to pay their debts and give their families a decent standard of living. That, to me, is the farm problem, stripped of all verbiage and trimmings. AVhen the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) was speaking just a week ago to-day he said, as reported at page 1241 of Hansard:
As I said last year when we were asking them to do it, it took at least a hundred million dollars out of their pockets, and we did not by any means manage to put all of it back in.
Do hon. members realize what this implies? It means that the farmers of western Canada had $100 million less, which they could have used, which they could have applied upon their mortgages or bank loans and taxes. I did not
see in any newspaper, nor did I hear of any statement having been made by the Minister of Agriculture, that the minister would ask these financial institutions to ease their pressure on the farmer in the event of his not being able to meet his obligations. It would have been a humane gesture on the part of the Minister of Agriculture had he gone to the mortgage companies and other financial institutions and asked them to write off fifty per cent of this $100 million-or $50 million; split fifty-fifty, so to speak, on this amount of money. All the farmers received were left-handed compliments. No legislation was brought down to protect them against unfair or unscrupulous treatment on the part of the institutions or the municipalities.
A vital fact which is not recognized, so far as I am aware, in any policy of any government, is that the aptitude to produce requires a balancing facility for consuming. We can measure the wealth, the progress and the prosperity of agriculture only by what it sells. The whole aim of agriculture is to satisfy the needs of the people. These two ideas are constantly being lost sight You cannot have a state of over-production if potential output is governed by total effective consumption. Agriculture would face no serious difficulties if it were governed by this economic law rather than by government departments. Agriculture has been too long restricted because the purchasing power of the people has been restricted. Neither the restriction of production nor the restriction of consumers' purchasing power is pardonable as long as there is one home in the whole of the British empire, or in any of the allied countries, lacking agricultural commodities.
In 1939, when the estimates of the Minister of Agriculture were being discussed, I brought to his attention the plan devised by Milo Perkins of the United States department of agriculture. It is known as the "food stamp plan", and is intended solely for the purpose of dealing with surplus food commodities in that country. It is based upon the maxim that "charity begins at home". It is a scheme under which certain people may buy additional food at low prices, instead of that food being exported at cut rates. A subsidy is paid to the food merchant. The subsidy is paid out of taxes, and the scheme will increase taxation in direct proportion to its success. Apart from this feature, the plan employs the mechanism of Major Douglas's "just price". Not very long ago there appeared in the columns of the Western Producer a small news item, as follows:
Blue food stamps added $9,637,000 worth of farm products to the diets of nearly 3,600,000 persons in the United States during the month of September.
Wheat Board Act

In other words during the month of September, 1941, through the food stamp plan, the department of agriculture was able to distribute to the people of the United States $9,637,000 worth of farm products over and above normal consumption. In 1940 the consumption of meat increased by four pounds per capita over the year 1939. The consumption of pork in 1940 increased by 4-4 pounds per capita over the preceding year, which was the highest on record since 1929. The consumption of lard also increased, as was the case with many other agricultural products; and these increases were due to an increase in the purchasing power of the consuming public. On March 1, 1935, the editorial columns of the London Times contained this statement:
. The principal obstacle to trade revival lies in the inability of many potential customers to obtain the wherewithal to purchase commodities that they could use with advantage.
Again in 1940 the same newspaper carried this item:
Attempts in the past to get the economic machine back into gear have gone awry because we thought it enough to organize and stimulate production, bringing upon ourselves the anomalies of under-consumption" and "poverty in the midst of plenty." The consumer has too long been the stepchild both of economists and politicians. What will be needed most of all when peace is restored is planned consumption.
I recommend to the Minister of Agriculture close study of these two statements. I am sure no one, even in his weakest moments, would accuse the editor of the London Times of having a leaning toward such unorthodox views as those held by the Social Credit party; yet I want to repeat that the editor of this newspaper says that we must have planned consumption. We in this corner of the house have been advocating that for a considerable number of years. The financing of consumption must be studied, and we must come to it eventually. We must formulate a policy which, while acceptable to the agricultural community as a whole, also must be acceptable to the general public. Therefore I should like to suggest the following policy for agriculture: That Canadians as a whole should be provided with a flow of purchasing power adequate to ensure the distribution of as much as we can produce, and for which potential demand evists; that in the use of this purchasing power individuals shall be free to exercise their choice, and that farmers will be free from restriction and. control in order to fulfil the demand; and that the measures taken to put this policy into effect shall not be such as to cause an increase in taxation or debt, or an undue rise in price.

Here is where I should like to offer a suggestion to some of the farm organizations. I believe all these resolutions they have passed are very fine, but they should contain a clause which would safeguard their proposals. I maintain that the Minister of Agriculture could give $1 a bushel for wheat, or even SI.25, with one hand and a week from to-day turn around and increase the levy on every bushel of grain marketed from one per cent to five or even ten per cent. I have a feeling that he is even considering such a thing at the present time. Thus far I have not seen any safeguard such as I suggest should be in these resolutions.
No doubt many of my Liberal friends are extremely anxious to know what I would do about this matter. It is this. If I were made a dictator for the purpose of doing only one thing as a contribution to the "good life", I know what I would do. I would put the Minister of Agriculture, the Minister of Trade and Commerce and the members of the agriculture committee into a room together and keep them there until they had settled the problems of food production and food distribution in this country. The only person for whom I would allow them to send to help in their deliberations would be the governor of the Bank of Canada. The penalty for not getting the job done would not be that they should be called honest men, but that they should be fired.
In case some hon. members may be inclined to attribute this very sensible idea to me, thereby consigning it to the grave as soon as it has been given birth, I hasten to advise those hon. members that it is not original by any means. In the Sunday Times of London England, two or three years ago there appeared an article written by .Lord Horder. I lifted bodily from that article the portion I have just read to the house, and paraphrased it to suit the present occasion. Lord Horder is one of the few individuals in Great Britain who received his title for sheer merit. He holds a most imposing number of public offices, and is in fact physician to the king. Because of his standing and international reputation this idea of his should be worthy of a trial.
In conclusion I desire to submit to the Minister of Agriculture the following recommendations:
1. As the policies recommended by the bureaucrats of the Department of Agriculture in the past years have not solved our agricultural problem, the services of these individuals should be dispensed with forthwith.
A thorough housecleaning in that department is in the public interest.

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2.	That all existing agricultural legislation, including t'he bill now under discussion, be wiped off the statute books, because they are mere palliatives, are costly to administer, and have lamentably failed in their purpose.
3.	That the committee on agriculture should sit continuously during the present session, and during all recesses, until a .permanent solution has been found.
4.	That this committee on agriculture should decide, first of all, what the actual problems of agriculture are, bearing in mind those I have mentioned, namely debt and its twin evil taxation, and the exhaustion or exploitation of t'he soil.
5.	That this committee formulate a policy which, if put into effect, will bring about quickly a permanent solution of these problems.
I would suggest that a study be made of two things: (a) financing consumption, and (b) the food stamp plan.
6.	That experts be appointed to administer the policy; that these experts be divorced entirely from political influence; and that in the event of the policies being successful these experts be appointed' to the positions in the department made vacant by the removal from office of those who have had charge of our agricultural policy over the years.
The outline of procedure I have given would make a real approach to 'this whole problem, and in my judgment would return agriculture to its rightful position in the economy of our country.


Mr. LIGUORI LACOMBE (Laval-Two Mountains) (Translation):: Mr. Speaker, at the last sitting of the house, I was prevented from voicing the honest and free views of the electors, both men and women, of my constituency of Laval-Two Mountains. Like our gallant soldiers at Hong Kong, I was a target, not for Japanese shells or other enemy missiles, but for the satirical shafts of the honourable the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie) who is no longer, thank God, at the head of the Department of National Defence. However it may be, the affray has left me unscathed and in better fighting trim than ever.
Before proceeding with my remarks on the amendment and the measure now before the house, I wish to add my humble tribute to those paid by the Right Hon. the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), the hon. leader of the opposition (Mr. Hanson) and the hon. members for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) and for Outremont (Mr. Yien) to the memory of the Right Hon. Senator Raoul Dandurand. That outstanding statesman has
passed away at a ripe old age, after a life marked by great achievements. May I recall one event in his long and brilliant career? Fifteen years have elapsed since the day when, at the Luxembourg Palace, speaking after Mr. Raymond Poincare, he thrilled the heart of a great nation. The experienced diplomat whom Canada mourns to-day had, like us, a passionate love of France. He ardently hoped for the liberation and resurrection of that great nation made immortal through centuries of sacrifice, genius and heroism.
His splendid, noble and great life will ever survive in our memory. May he rest in peace and may this Canadian soil which he loved so dearly shelter his eternal sleep.
Another outstanding citizen, Mr. Ernest Ayers, manufacturer and commander of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great, has recently died. A man noted for his boundless generosity, he had, together with his brother Harry, recently made to the town he loved so much, Lachute, the gift of a splendid temple dedicated to our Roman Catholic faith.
To the families of those two great Canadians I tender my heartfelt sympathy.
I also wish to offer my sincere condolence to the bereaved family of the Hon. Senator Edgar N. Rhodes, a former speaker of this house and minister of the crown.
Mr. Speaker, I would not have spoken in this debate had not some facts of national importance just been misrepresented in the Quebec assembly, in connection with the mobilization act and the repeated requests which, with a few of my fellow members, I have voiced in this parliament regarding exemption for farmers' sons.
For an obvious purpose of political propaganda, one of the ministers of the Quebec provincial government has dared to claim that Premier Godbout verbally requested the federal authorities, as early as 1939, to exempt farmers' sons from military service. What kind of people does this minister think the electors of our province are? He knows or ought to know that compulsory military service was only enacted in June, 1940. He cannot be unaware of the fact that the mobilization act was not passed by the dominion parliament until June 19, 1940. In this connection, I may refer Premier Godbout and his minister, Mr. Casgrain, to the official report of the House of Commons for June 19, 1940.
No, Mr. Speaker, Hon. Mr. Godbout did not ask that farmers' sons be exempted. On the contrary, he, along with his ministers and the members who support him, bitterly
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opposed the motion which Mr. Rene Chalout moved in the Quebec assembly on June 18, 1940. That motion opposed the mobilization act. And while I and the hon. member for Quebec-Montmorency (Mr. LaCroix) were opposing with the utmost energy the mobilization act in the dominion parliament, Hon. Mr. Godbout lost no time in sending, on June 18, 1940, to our dominion ministers, a telegram wherein he rejoiced at the defeat of Mr. Chalout's motion. By such action he betrayed once more the farmers as well as the farmers' sons, who were later taken from the farms and sent to training camps under the mobilization act which had the hearty support of Mr. Godbout. No, a thousand times no! The premier of the province of Quebec has, with his supporters, championed the mobilization act by his vote. By his attitude and his actions, he supported in the Quebec assembly that act which now threatens to undermine agriculture, our first line of defence.
Let us now examine the correspondence that passed between the dominion government and Hon. Mr. Godbout. The letters written by Hon. Mr. Godbout, were belated and worthless, and they have had absolutely no effect upon the dominion government. Will that teach the Quebec premier that although retribution for servility and flattery may be late in coming it must inevitably sooner or later, bring shame upon dispensers of election bribes, upon people who break their promises one after the other and who have not the slightest regal'd for their pledged word. I say servility and flattery. Yet even these words are not biting enough to fully qualify the ambiguous and shameful attitude of the Quebec premier on the vital question of exemptions from military service for our farmers.
This man who sets himself up as the protector of agriculture waits a whole long year before broaching the matter to the federal authorities. You will easily note by the replies he received from Ottawa to what extent the premier of Quebec has become the ridiculous puppet of the dominion government. The Hon. Mr. Godbout wrote letters of the palest pink to both the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston). All this is evident from the letter he addressed to the right hon. Prime Minister on February 3 last. He, the self-styled defender of the agricultural class, dared to congratulate the prime minister of this country for a speech in which the latter repudiated those very pledges that were the only safeguard of our farm youth, the only factor safeguarding agricultural production so vital to our defence.

The people will understand now why the government of Quebec, placed as is the federal administration under the thumb of high finance, has mobilized its millionaire friends, its election parasites, its vote "telegraphers" from Montreal and Quebec to steal the recent Quebec East and Montreal-St. Mary contests. All this rabble will henceforth work under the orders of J. A. A. Leclair, chief organizer for the Quebec provincial government.
What a shame! You claim to foe honest, yet you dare to appoint as head of your organization a big contractor and war profiteer. This blunder will cause no surprise among those who are aware of all the facts, for they know that a high official of your provincial police in Montreal has just robbed the Canadien party-


The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr. Fournier, Hull):: Order. I would ask the hon. member to limit his remarks to the matter under discussion.


Mr. BRADETTE:: Hear, hear. It is a shame what he is saying now; it is shameful, attacking his province here.


Liguori Lacombe: It is the truth.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Nothing of the sort. You should be ashamed of saying such things, you a French Canadian.


Liguori Lacombe: I request that the hon. member withdraw his remark immediately.


Alphonse Fournier: Order.


Liguori Lacombe: The hon. member has just said that I should be ashamed of myself. According to Standing Order 41 of the house, this expression is unparliamentary.


Alphonse Fournier: If the hon. member did make such a remark, he must withdraw it.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: In my opinion, I merely said what I honestly and sincerely think.


Liguori Lacombe: I demand that the hon. member withdraw that remark.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: All I said, Mr. Speaker, was that a French Canadian should be ashamed to speak in that fashion about the province of Quebec, and about our compatriots.


Alphonse Fournier: If these words concern the hon.
member for Laval-Two Mountains, I request that they be withdrawn.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I bow to your ruling, Mr. Speaker, and withdraw them.
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Liguori Lacombe: Mr. Speaker, a point of order has been raised and I do not have to discuss it. My entire speech is concerned with our farm problems, with agriculture in general, and we are discussing the wheat problem at the moment.
I shall not read the letters which the premier, Mr. Godbout, forwarded to the federal authorities. In the first place, Mr. Godbout did not know, a whole year after the adoption of the mobilization act, where to apply to request exemptions for farmers' sons. It is not I who say so, and I would like my hon. friend to make a note of it. This statement is contained in the correspondence exchanged with the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston)-


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order-


Liguori Lacombe: -and published in the daily Le Canada on March 12, 1942.


Alphonse Fournier: I would ask the hon. members to maintain even in the heat of debate an attitude in keeping with the dignity of this house. When an hon. member rises to a point of order, the other should resume his seat and wait until it has been stated.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Mr. Speaker, I submit
that the remarks of the hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains are absolutely out of order. He is endeavouring to introduce in this debate on the western wheat problem matters which concern solely the province of Quebec. Moreover, he is reading his speech and, in this connection, I submit also, as a second point of order, that according to the orders of the house no hon. member has the right to do so in parliamentary debate.


Alphonse Fournier: If the hon. member is reading his
speech, I request that he refrain from doing so in future. I would also ask that he comply with that order which states that an hon. member must limit his remarks to the subject matter under discussion. I therefore request that he restrict his observations to the bill under consideration at the moment.


Liguori Lacombe: Mr. Speaker, speaking on the point of order raised, by my hon. friend, I wish to say first of all that I am not reading my speech but merely referring to my notes upon occasion. The next time the hon. member reads his speech, I shall be only too pleased to raise similar points of order myself. I have in fact often seen him read his speeches.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Mr. Speaker-


Liguori Lacombe: I am still speaking on the point of order, and I would request the hon.
member not to interrupt without first asking my permission, as the orders of the house provide. I am still referring to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. The question I have raised is one of national import closely connected with agriculture, to wit, that of military exemptions for farmers' sons. I submit respectfully that I am perfectly entitled to introduce the matter into this debate.
(Text) Mr. McDONALD (Pontiac):	Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I am under the impression that the house is dealing with No. 10 of the orders of the day:
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion of the Minister of Trade and Commerce for the second reading of Bill No. 13, an act to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act, 1935, and on the proposed amendment thereto of Mr. Douglas (Weyburn).
The hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains (Mr. Laeombe), from the time he began his speech until the present time, has not touched whatsoever on this matter before the house to-day, that is, the bill to amend the Canadian Wheat Board Act. His whole speech is dealing with the question of conscription of the farmers.


Liguori Lacombe: Mr. Speaker, I am positively not out of order and the whole question which I am discussing is directly concerned with federal agriculture to such a point that the hon. members who have just interrupted me will be the first, within a few weeks, to be forced to tackle these problems in their own constituencies.


Mr. HOMUTH:: May we have a ruling on the point of order, Mr. Speaker?


Alphonse Fournier: Here is the motion now under
discussion:
That this bill be not now read a second time.
It refers to Bill No. 13 concerning the price which the government is going to pay for wheat and to the amendment proposed by the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) purporting to have this price raised. I realize that much liberty is allowed the hon. member in speaking on the principle of the bill. However, when he introduces into his speech matters far removed from the question of wheat, I would ask him to wait for a better opportunity of making his remarks. I believe he is out of order. I make this decision impartially and without prejudice and I would request the hon. member to abide by the standing orders of the house.


Liguori Lacombe: Mr. Speaker, I submit to your ruling, and I shall now speak of the stand taken by the premier of the province of Quebec on the question of wheat.
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What has been the attitude of Mr. Godbout when wheat was brought east to the advantage of eastern farmers? Always influenced by the millers', the bakers' and the fertilizers' trusts, he has, for a number of years, refused to contribute to the transportation of western wheat into our province. The decision he took was only half-hearted. Being taken too late, it never attained its object. The hideous influence of the trust was exercised on the farmers of Quebec-those of Pontiac with the others-who have now to pay $38 a ton for fattening feed, while the consumer has to buy wheat flour at nearly $4 a hundred-weight. Such is the so-called protector of agriculture as our population should know him.
Will this man fell our people the name of the member of a trust, the financial grandee, who has just fled to the Bahama Islands with his assets in order to avoid the inconveniences of Canada's war effort and defence? Will he say how much in succession duties he caused the province of Quebec to lose?
Mr. Speaker, once again, and this is not the last time, I demand exemption from military service for farmers' sons. At this late hour, the premier of the province of Quebec claims that they should be exempted during the summer only. This is another deplorable mistake. Who would then attend, in the spring, to the daily stocks, to the growing of vegetable seedlings in hotbeds, to the tapping of maple trees?
Having been called to order, I shall be satisfied . with these few remarks for the present. However, I wish to point out to hon. members who have been so kind as to call me to order that I shall be as confident when I meet my constituents of Laval-Two Mountains, as they will be when, shortly, they have to face the people of their own constituencies.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Very well.


Liguori Lacombe: I shall point out to the hon. member who interrupted me last (Mr. Bradette), that my statements in this house were not those of a French Canadian, but rather those of a simple Canadian, and they were made in the name of the Canadian party, for my vision and my patriotism are not restricted to one province only. If anyone in this house ever raised the racial cry, he is the hon. member who has just interrupted. Why did he do it? Just to shamelessly promote his own political ends. That is his sole and only object.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Mr, Speaker, I rise to a point of order. The hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains claims that I have promoted racial prejudice. The house where I have had 
the honour of holding a seat for the last sixteen years, as well as the people of my constituency, and of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, know perfectly well that his statement is entirely devoid of truth.


Liguori Lacombe: The hon. member should not make a speech when he rises to a point of order.


Alphonse Fournier: I believe the hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains should withdraw the statement accusing another hon. representative of promoting racial prejudice. I think that under standing order 41, his utterance is unparliamentary and imputes motives to an hon. member. I consequently request that he withdraw his statement.


Liguori Lacombe: Once more, Mr. Speaker, I bow to your ruling. Everything is satisfactory since both the hon. member and myself have withdrawn our respective statements. That is all.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Mr. Speaker, it was not my
intention to take part in this debate. The policy which the government finally submitted to the house, as embodied in the three measures which have been under consideration-two of which have had their second reading, and the third of which concerns the present debate- was so fully placed before the house by my colleagues the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon.) and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) that there was little required to be said in explanation of the measures; and I would not have risen from my seat to-day had it not been for some remarks made by a fellow-member from Manitoba, the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader), with which I shall deal presently.
Generally speaking, the policies which the government submitted in the measures which have been before the house were reached only after very long and careful consideration. Quite naturally they were conditioned by the state of war in which the country has been, is now and probably will be for some considerable time. War makes new demands and creates new situations from day to day, almost from hour to hour. There is no doubt that the success that Japan has achieved since she went to war on December 7 has greatly influenced the whole question of food supplies for Great Britain and her armies and for our other allies, or such of them as can be supplied. It is only necessary in that respect to reinforce what was said by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, that a very large quantity of fats and oils, upon

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which our modern civilization so much depends, was derived from areas that are now under the control of Japan. But that was not the only disadvantage that came from Japan's success.
As is well known, Britain draws large supplies of foodstuffs, much of it concentrated like dairy products and canned goods, from Australia and New Zealand. We have to face the definite possibility that shipments from these two countries now will be very seriously interfered with, if not entirely shut off. The success that Japan has had in taking Singapore and overrunning Java has given her the bases from which she can range the south Pacific and the Indian ocean, and difficulties of convoying ships containing materials and foodstuffs from distant lands like Australia to the theatre of war in Europe have been tremendously increased. That means that Britain more and more must draw largely from north America for her supplies for her civilian population and her armies, and for some of the other allies as well, like the Free French. Consequently our policies have been shaped in the light of that inescapable fact.
In this country we must as far as possible increase the production of concentrated foods. What do I mean by concentrated foods? Bacon products, meat products, dairy products and, as far as possible, canned fish, fruits and vegetables. It is in the light of that fact that our policies were finally reached.
The question of wheat is not a new one in this house. Hon. members are well aware of that fact. I think I may modestly claim that for at least thirty-five years, indeed almost forty years, I have been directly or indirectly associated closely with the marketing of wheat from the plains of western Canada. I remember the time-it is so many years ago now that I do not like to recall it-when I managed a farmers' elevator in a little Manitoba country town and received there my first introduction to the problems of marketing wheat, and I recall also the agitation that took place in the early years of this century, which led to the creation of the first farmers' marketing company. All down through the years, from that time on, I have had a close association with the marketing problems in connection with wheat. I hesitate to make this statement, because one is reluctant to obtrude one's own personal views too much in a debate of this kind, but looking back over that period, while my judgment at times may have been wrong, I can quite conscientiously say that in all aspects relating to this problem I have endeavoured to do the thing which I thought was in the best interests of the farmers of western Canada.
If I may say so, I resent implications or insinuations that other motives have guided my conduct at any time during that long period of years.
The problem of marketing wheat is a difficult one because wheat is grown over an immense area by many scores of thousands of farmers, and naturally when a farmer is marketing his product under conditions where it passes for a time from his own hands before he gets settlement finally for it, there is room in his mind for doubt as to what may happen to it. I think it is unfortunate that this problem of marketing wheat in the past has not been free at times from political considerations or factors that operated in connection with it, and which often arose from people who were perfectly sincere. But I want to come back for a moment to the general line of policy that we have laid down.
As the bill indicates, we are limiting deliveries of wheat this year to 280 million bushels. It is quite unlikely, from the present outlook, that that quantity will be reached for marketing by the farmers of western Canada, and I say that for two or three reasons. In the first place, the subsoil moisture conditions in Saskatchewan and Alberta are worse than they have been for a good many years, and Saskatchewan and Alberta are provinces from which very largely, in fact almost entirely, wheat production comes. For a good many years now experience has shown that when, subsoil moisture conditions in the autumn are seriously deficient it is very unlikely that a bumper crop will be harvested. While therefore we will accept 280 million bushels, it appears to me doubtful to say the least whether that quantity will be reached.
But there was pressing need for the production of feeding grains. Last year there was a deficiency in feeding grains, that is in grains such as oats, barley and corn. The vast hog production campaign to meet the requirements of Britain, in which this country has been engaged for two years and which will require an increase of 140 million pounds of bacon products in 1942 over 1941, if we are to meet the requests that have been made to us by the British government, means that a very large increase must take place in the production of feeding grains. Not only that, but we shall probably be able to market in the United States, as has already been indicated by ministers who have preceded me, any surplus in these feeding grains that we can produce.
The United States, to make up a deficiency in vegetable oils and fats, is planning a quite considerable campaign for the planting of soya beans so that they may get from that
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source the vegetable oils necessary for their ordinary economy. For the same reason, as outlined by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, we are giving encouragement to the increase of flax production in Canada. We hope to increase it at least fourfold in the present year. That is the explanation of the much higher price that is offered for flax than that at which it had been selling during the last few years.
Our policy then is to stimulate and increase the production of feeding grains. A year ago, when we were considering this problem, the prices for oats and barley, two of our main feeding grains, were at least 20 cents a bushel less than to-day. By the higher price now obtained for these grains, by establishing minimum prices for them, by the bonus which is paid per acre for their production on the basis of the 1940 wheat acreage, we hope that in the area capable of growing these feed grains we can very greatly increase their production. For this reason the bonus has been given. I think it is sound policy, notwithstanding some criticism of it in the house.
There is another aspect of our wheat production that requires consideration. There are many farmers in western Canada who would prefer to see any assistance they may receive from the government given on a bushel basis. Naturally those are the farmers living in what might be described as fairly sure crop areas. Their wishes have been met, though not to the extent that many of us would like to see, by the increase in the initial price from 70 to 90 cents a bushel. But on top of that we have retained the principle embodied in the Prairie Farm Assistance Act, which in my judgment was one of the best pieces of legislation ever passed by this house in relation to this whole wheat problem. It is no secret that the credit for it goes very largely indeed to the present Minister of Agriculture. A farmer may suffer from total or partial crop failure through no fault of his own. It may be due to lack of rain- a crop lost through no fault of the farmer, indeed is usually or almost entirely due to lack of rain; it may be due to infestation with rust. In any case the farmer who thus finds his work lost and is left largely without any crop gets a measure of assistance under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. When we weigh all the factors involved I think the government, in the legislation submitted to the house, has in very large measure met the needs of the situation. I know that statement does not fit in with the views held by some hon. members opposite from western Canada. But as was said the other day in 
this debate, Canada is a large country and a difficult country to govern. No one section of Canada can always get everything it wants; otherwise government in the country would be impossible. I have long held the view, and I have been criticized for it and my position has been misrepresented in certain places, that any policies adopted for the protection of the wheat farmer in western Canada must carry the reasonable judgment not only of hon. members of this house but of the whole of Canada. I think that is a fair statement.
I should like now for a few moments to deal with some of the criticisms directed against me the other day by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader). Let me say at once that the hon. member for Portage la Prairie is one of the sincerest members in this house. I have always said that, and I have always believed it; I do not -think there is any hon. member who tries more sincerely to do what he thinks is right. But at the same time, and I do not say it unkindly, there are very few hon. members in this house whose judgment is more influenced by their prejudices than my hon. friend. May I say to him and to the house that long experience in life has taught me this lesson, that prejudice is never other than a very poor substitute for reason.


Mr. LEADER:: I rise to a point of order. Is not the hon. member imputing motives? If he is, it is against the rules of the house, and I ask him to withdraw. What I said the other day was said in all seriousness, believing it to be true. I had to substantiate every charge I made by citation from Hansard.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I was imputing no motive to my hon. friend. If he thinks I should withdraw the remark, I will do so. But I shall proceed to show him that he really did not know what he was talking about the other afternoon when he made his criticism.


Harry Leader: I rise again to a point of order. I do not think it is permissible for any hon. member to say that another hon. member does not know what he is talking about, unless he is sure of it.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Well, if that offends my hon. friend I withdraw it absolutely. His first criticism was in regard1 to my attitude on the mixing of wheat. He criticized me as being animated wholly by a desire to do chores for the grain trade in Winnipeg.


Thomas Reid: That was imputing motives.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: He illustrated that statement, as I said a moment ago, by my attitude

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on. the mixing of wheat. My hon. friend is quite right-although he is not correct as to the occasion he refers to; it was in a different debate in the house-in saying that I was not opposed to mixing. I have not changed my position on that. I think there has been more nonsense talked about the mixing of wheat than about any other aspect of the business of marketing wheat. Let me for a moment seek to justify that statement. It has only a remote relation to the subject of this debate, and I hope that if I transgress the rules I may not be too severely called to order. The fact of the matter is that mixing is denied) to-day only in the four top grades of wheat, No. 1 hard, No. 1 northern, and Nos. 2 and 3 northern. Wheat grading No. 4 northern and below can be mixed under the act, and in fact are mixed) very frequently. So that the criticism of my hon. friend applies only to that part of our wheat grading above No. 4 northern.
My contention always has been that in any event wheat is mixed before it is ground into flour. The miller in Britain mixes it; the miller in Canada mixes it, and) the argument I have always made is that the nearer to the producer you have that service performed the more the producer is going to get out of it.


Ernest Edward Perley: Where does the farmer
'profit by it?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The farmer does profit by it. If my friend will be patient I can explain it, but I did not wish to go into that. Thirty years ago there was a very considerable agitation among the farmers of western Canada for a sample market in Winnipeg. If my hon. friends will go back and read the reports of the conventions of the grain growers associations in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba of thirty years ago-and I attended them all -they will see that this was often one of the principal topics of discussion. Why? Because on the Minneapolis market a few hundred miles south of Winnipeg they had what was called a sample market. They had a grading system, but they also had a sample market where any miller, buyer or dealer could go and examine samples of grain, and to my own knowledge premiums of as much as five or six cents a bushel were paid to certain farmers on certain grades. What gave rise to the agitation against mixing? That did not come up until the time mentioned by the hon. member for Portage la Prairie though I think it was in 1922 instead of 1925.


Harry Leader: If I may correct the minister, it was in 1925, when the grain act was revised.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It was revised following the general inquiry which I think was in 1922.


Harry Leader: I have it right here.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It may be as the hon.
member says, but in any case it is immaterial whether it was 1922 or 1925. The point I wish to make is that prior to this limitation being placed in the grain act there had been mixing of grain all down through the years, and exception had not been taken to it. The difficulty arose in this way, and from a wholly different cause. The view developed in western Canada that on the average the grain shipped from the plains of the west was not equal in quality to the grain of twenty years before, and that was true. It was claimed that the mixing of grain had deteriorated the quality and lowered the general average of the grain reaching the markets abroad. That did not apply in the early years. Why did the difficulty arise at that time? I submit, Mr. Speaker, and I think I am well within the facts when I say, that it was due altogether to a great increase in the varieties of wheat produced in the west.
Let me give an illustration. About ten years ago I was motoring through Manitoba during harvest time, in the Neepawa district. There I saw a lovely field of wheat that looked to me to be good for thirty bushels to the acre. There had been some rust that year, and my instinct as an old grain man prompted me to stop the car and go into the field to see what damage had resulted from rust. The farmer was stooking a little distance away, and when my friend and I went into the field he came over. The gentleman with me was an experienced seedman. Before the farmer came over we picked up some heads and looked at them, and my friend said, "I have spotted seven different varieties of wheat in this one shock of grain." There was marquis, there was preston, there was red bobs, and I have forgotten the others. That practice was very widespread throughout the west. Many in this house will remember, and I am sure no one better than the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, the discussions that took place with regard to garnet wheat.


Ernest Edward Perley: I suggest that the farmer in question got his seed from an elevator where it had been thoroughly mixed.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No, no. Mr. Motherwell, who rendered distinguished service to agriculture in Canada, and from whose services I do not wish to detract, was the great protagonist of garnet wheat, as everyone knows. Why? Because garnet wheat was an earlier maturing variety, and could be grown in regions further north. But the introduction
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of garnet wheat in western Canada was one of the greatest misfortunes ever to happen to the whole wheat business of the west. Consequently you had this mixture of varieties, and it is only within recent years that the seed branches, not only of the federal department but of the provincial departments of agriculture, have been emphasizing the need of pure seed. It was this mixing of varieties, many of which had altogether different milling qualities, that lowered the general standard of our wheat abroad, and it will not come back until we return to and maintain true varieties. This question came up largely because of that situation.
Then the hon. member for Portage la Prairie went on to make statements about the right of farmers to ship their grain to certain terminals. In his remarks he claimed that this privilege had been taken away from the farmers. Speaking of your humble servant, the hon. member said, at page 1308 of Hansard:
Again, he was mainly responsible for the taking away of the right of the farmer to name the terminal of his choice. I do not want to go at length into that, but he was the one man who took away that right from the farmer.
The astonishing thing is that the farmer has that right to-day and has had it for nearly twenty years.


Harry Leader: Through the Campbell
amendments.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: It does not matter; he has it, and my hon. friend will find it in paragraph (2) of section 114 of the grain act. There is no question about it. But what has happened in practice? Have the farmers taken advantage of that right? Ask the pools; ask the United Grain Growers; ask any grain elevator concern in Winnipeg.


Mr. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: Under
present conditions has the farmer any choice?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Certainly he has.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Theoretically, but not practically.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Certainly he has. If the hon. member for Qu'Appelle puts a carload of grain into an elevator at Qu'Appelle, the elevator company is first obliged to take it in if it has space; and when my hon. friend orders a car he can go to the elevator agent at that point and say, "I want my grain loaded into this car." Then when the grain is loaded into the car he can say, "Here are your elevator charges," and he can take that car of grain and send it to any terminal he wishes.
[Mr. Crerar.l


Ernest Edward Perley: Perhaps the minister recalls the statement made last June, I think, by the Minister of Trade and Commerce, that it would be almost impossible to do that now, that the man would have to go down to Fort William with the car to pay the freight and get the warehouse receipts, and the Minister of Mines and' Resources backed his colleague up in that.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: What I am complaining about is the statement of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie, which I am quite convinced was made in good faith. But the farmer has that right, and if he does not take advantage of it, why does he not? Because there are not only the elevator charges to meet. He may not have the money to pay the elevator charges, but he wants the freight paid when the grain gets to the other end. As a matter of fact, while that provision has been in the law for almost twenty years, there is scarcely a farmer in the west to-day who takes advantage of it. I object to being criticized in this house as the individual who took a right away from the farmers. I did not. He has it and has had' it for the last twenty years.


Ernest Edward Perley: Is not the difficulty principally that the elevators at Fort William will not take it in, that they are all full, and the farmer has to take the grain to some elevator to be unloaded? Then the elevator says, "We don't want it."


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No; during the last ten years there were many times when the terminal elevators at Fort William were hungry for grain.


Ernest Edward Perley: They are not at the present time.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: They are not just now, though there is space for over 120,000,000 bushels in Canada at the present time.
I come now to another point. My hon. friend stated I was responsible-and I suggest that is the only inference which can be taken from his remarks-for keeping the grain exchange open, and that I went over to Great Britain after the outbreak of war and came back with the story that the cereals import committee in Great Britain wanted the grain exchange kept open. They did not make that representation to me; it was made to the wheat board, and my hon. friend was in error again. I say that, because he went on to say, about myself:
Then he went to Great Britain and returned with the advice that Britain wanted the grain exchange to function. He was interested in the grain exchange, notwithstanding the fact that

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the market was closed in Britain and they had sent an agent, and all that they purchased was purchased through that agency.
My hon. friend was wrong. The cereals import committee have never had an agent in Canada purchasing wheat, and they have not to this day.


Harry Leader: May I ask a question?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Yes.


Harry Leader: The minister is placing the wrong interpretation on what I said. He will admit that the grain purchased for the old country, and for France while it lasted, was being purchased through the one agency, whether it was here or in Great Britain.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: But that is not what my hon. friend said.


Harry Leader: Splitting hairs.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No. My hon. friend said they had sent an agent to Canada, and that all they purchased had been purchased through that agent. They did not send an agent to Canada at all, and they never have had an agent in Canada. All sales which have been made by the wheat board have been made direct by cable communication with the cereals import committee in Great Britain.


Harry Leader: The only agency?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: They have never had an agency in this country buying wheat-and when I say that I am not giving away any information which should not be divulged.


Ernest Edward Perley: They have not one at the present time?


Richard Burpee Hanson: They have had a representative here.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: They had engaged a firm in Montreal, I believe it was-I am not sure whether it was Montreal or Halifax-to look after the forwarding of their grain.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Then they had a representative?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: They had a representative in that sense. But that representative did not buy one bushel of grain.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: Did not Mr. Rank represent the cereals import committee?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Mr. Rank is chairman of the cereals import committee in London, and he is operating in London, altogether.


Ernest Edward Perley: Does not the Canadian wheat board represent the cereals import committee in Canada?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No, it does not represent the cereals import committee.


Ernest Edward Perley: We will find that out in committee.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: The wheat board in Canada represents the Canadian people and the Canadian government. It is a Canadian government body. They make arrangements for purchase and sale between two principals, and there is no agent in Canada who is purchasing any grain for the British government.
Then my hon. friend brings another indictment against me. It is not a very severe one, but he imagines, in some mysterious fashion, that I was the individual who prevented the farmers from getting advances on their grain stored on their farms after the 1940 crop. I need add little to that; the Minister of Agriculture dealt with the point the other evening, when the hon. member was speaking. As a matter of fact this question was considered very fully by the wheat board, and I believe it is obvious to any hon. member that there were problems associated with this matter. I believe I am correct when I say that the banks were reluctant to make the advances. Instead of making the advances, a system of farm storage was worked out to encourage the holding of grain on the farms. But while there was a big crop in 1939, and also a large one in 1940, the storage difficulty did not turn out to be nearly as great as had been expected, because the grain companies, the pools, United Grain Growers and private companies, built temporary storage at probably hundreds-I dare say thousands- of shipping points in western Canada.


Richard Burpee Hanson: You made it very attractive for them to do so.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No, they got their ordinary carrying charges.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Oh, they got more than that.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No, my hon. friend is quite wrong.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: And the right of write-off.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No.


An hon. MEMBER:: Plus exemptions.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No, my hon. friend had better wait until he is sure of what he is talking about. There was no arrangement concerning write-off made in respect to storage built at country points in western Canada. That is what I am talking about.
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Karl Kenneth Homuth: That is a distinction.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Not an arrangement at all. There was an arrangement made-well, my statement there might not be altogether correct, because there was an arrangement made concerning special storage at the head of the lakes, to accommodate about 50,000,000 bushels.


Richard Burpee Hanson: And some in the country.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: But the point I am getting at is this: the criticism made against me was one concerning my failure to support the giving of advances on grain on the farm. If that had been left to the wheat board it would have created a tremendous problem of administration. Naturally the government and the wheat board did not want to undertake that task unless it was absolutely necessary. Why? The farmer makes an application for an advance on his grain on his farm. After the application you have to go out to the farm and, first, see that the grain is there; second, see that it is housed in a place where it will keep and, third, be sure that it will be available at some time to repay the advance.


An hon. MEMBER:: It is done in the United States.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I do not know what they did in the United States, but I believe it was on only a very small percentage of their wheat. The lack of this provision has worked out in Canada without any very great hardship. I know of farmers who had grain on their farms and who wanted to take advantage of farm storage. They went to their local banks and borrowed money to pay for twine, threshing and current needs, and it worked out all right.
I should like now to make a few observations respecting the amendment of the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas).


Harry Leader: May I interrupt? I suggest that the minister deal with the last charge I made.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: What is that?


Harry Leader: I would refer the minister to page 2379 of Hansard for 1940 where he declared that the present tariffs were fair to the elevator companies in the face of the demand for lower storage charges. Would the minister deal with that?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I will. The pools, the United Grain Growers and the other elevator companies claimed the tariffs were fair. Considering all the risks involved, I think they

were fair. I have seen a statement recently, one which, I have no reason to doubt-an audited statement-showing what ten representative grain firms in Winnipeg made in the last ten years. This statement shows that there were several years when they had losses.
I am a shareholder, foi; instance, in United Grain Growers. I believe that that organization is as well managed as any elevator concern in western Canada. I have no doubt there are several hon. members in the house who were shareholders in United' Grain Growers, and if there are such they will recall that they received no dividends whatsoever on their capital for several years out of the last ten. That was the experience not only of that company but of others.


Richard Burpee Hanson: They are not alone in that. There were other companies in the same position.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Quite; I do not dispute that. It was a bad time for business of all kinds.


Mr. ROSS (Souris):: But they have done all right in the last couple of years.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Perhaps not as well as the hon. member imagines. I have examined the statements of United Grain Growers, for instance, and if my hon. friend will look at them he will see they have handled a large volume of grain and have not made a very great amount of money.


Mr. DONNELLY:: Have not the elevator companies paid 6 per cent on their capital?


Thomas Alexander Crerar: Some of them I believe
have not. They may have paid it, but if they did it was paid out of reserves. Some of them have actually had losses. On this point I am speaking of the last ten-year period.


James J. Donnelly: I mean in the last two years. I think I am right.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I had in mind a longer
period than the last two years.


Richard Burpee Hanson: It all
depends upon how you keep your books.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is an interesting observation, but it is rather difficult to get away with any juggling in bookkeeping when a firm of chartered accountants with a reputation to protect, and elected by the shareholders to protect their interests, is auditing the business statements.


Richard Burpee Hanson: I admit
that that is the theory, but I am not so sure of the practice.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: I am being diverted from
my thought. I should like to say a word or

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two about the amendment moved by the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas). Obviously if that amendment carries the legislation goes by the board.


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: No, not at all; that does not follow.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: No other interpretation
could be put upon it. This matter could properly be examined into when the bill is before the committee. There you can have discussion as to the why and wherefore of and the justification for the legislation. In this regard I agree wholly with the hon. member for Portage la Prairie. I regret that the hon. member for Weyburn has moved this amendment, because I do not think it adds anything to solving this most perplexing problem. Perhaps the people in my hon. friend's constituency will think that he is their champion in the House of Commons, and that may not be a bad thing for the hon. member for Weyburn, but I submit that that is not the highest ground upon which a matter of this kind could be considered.
This question presents many difficulties. Let me repeat that it is a policy for this year and this year only. You cannot chart a long-time policy for wheat with the world at war and with the changes that may come next month, or six months or a year hence. I maintain that it represents the considered and best judgment of a lengthy discussion. I have no hesitation whatever in suggesting to the house that the programme of the government should be accepted.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Is not the only unknown factor the probable size of the crop? The war is there, the transportation difficulties are there, and consumption is there; the size of the crop is the only unknown factor.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: We do not know what may happen to shipping during the coming year. There is also the question of the number of people who will consume this product, and there are other factors to be considered in reaching a conclusion on the matter.


Richard Burpee Hanson: Those
things are pretty well fixed.


Mr. FAIR:: May I ask the minister a
question?


Mr. SPEAKER:: The minister has exceeded his time, because there have been a considerable number of interruptions.


Robert Fair: Why should the farmer support this programme when he is being asked to take far less for his wheat than the cost of production? That is a direct question and I should like a direct answer.


Thomas Alexander Crerar: That is something that can be considered in the agriculture committee after the bill is given second reading. Let me repeat that it is impossible to chart a longtime policy for wheat. We do not know what sort of world we may be living in when this war is over. If, happily, we can get the world reorganized in such a way that we can again have peaceful trade throughout the world, then I think western Canada will come back to its old place in the supplying of wheat. If this condition is not to obtain, then we shall have to consider a future programme for that large part of western Canada which has been accustomed to making its living in the past by the growing of wheat. Let me repeat that this policy has been formulated in the light of all the circumstances as they appear now. I am satisfied that it is a policy that will commend itself to an overwhelming number of the farmers of western Canada.


Mr. ANTHONY HLYNKA (Vegreville):: Mr. Speaker, after listening to the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon), to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner), who spoke twice, to the Minister of Mines and Resources (Mr. Crerar), and to a number of other hon. members on the government side, one cannot help but wonder whether we realize that agriculture is playing an important role in this war. The present government has met all other industries at least half way, but it has always chosen to turn a deaf ear to agriculture.
I should like to have the government tell us from whom it takes direction when it formulates its agricultural policies. I should like an answer to that question. In connection with other industries the government has acted upon representations made to it, but it has refused to do likewise in the case of the farmers. Just the other day the Minister of Agriculture suggested to the hon. member for Battle River (Mr. Fair) that he should go through his constituency and tell the people to accept the present wheat policy. Referring to the hon. member for Battle River, this is what the minister said, as reported on page 1211 of Hansard:
I would say to him that any member of this house who carries back into western Canada the government's policy in relation to wheat and its policy in relation to other farm products can stand before any audience and explain to the people there that this is the best that can be done under the conditions with which we are confronted in the Dominion of Canada to-day, and the best that has been done in an attempt to settle their problems at any time.
After reading that statement and after listening to the Minister of Agriculture, I begin to wonder whether the principle of

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democracy is being followed. He is asking bon. members to go out into their constituencies and tell the people what is good for them. I believe that any democratic government should take direction from the people; the people should tell the government what results they want, and then it is up to the government to get those results for the people. The government should not shove down their throats something they do not like, something against which they protest.
Agriculture is as important to our war effort as is the supply of man-power and the industries which are turning out the tools of war. As a matter of fact, agriculture is an inseparable part of our war effort. Our farmers are asked to feed those who are actually doing the fighting. They must also feed the men and women who turn the wheels of industry. According to a pamphlet issued by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, over two million Canadians are directly dependent upon agriculture for their livelihood. An additional three millions are indirectly dependent upon agriculture. That makes a total of over five million people, or approximately half our total population. The income of our farmers in the last few years has been around 10 per cent of the total national income; it should be 33 per cent, as it was between 1926 and 1929. This leaves the farmers an insufficient amount of purchasing power to carry on and be able to contribute their maximum to the war effort; they must also provide for the education of their children, and build security for themselves so that when they reach the failing years of their lives they will not be dependent upon charity.
The government's policy as announced by the two ministers is not good enough, despite the fact that three members of the cabinet have spoken in glowing terms about it. Farmers cannot pay debts with the answers which ministers have given this house; their creditors ask for cold cash.
My humble contribution in this debate will be to place before the government 'the views of the constituents whom I have the honour to represent. Some hon. member's may wonder why I speak of placing the views of my constituents before this house, and not merely personal views-which has been the practice of most hon. members. The explanation is this. Before leaving for Ottawa in January, and knowing that this session would be an important one, I decided to try out a bit of democracy, of which we hear so much though it is seldom practised. I called two one-day conventions at central points in my constituency for the purpose of discussing agricultural problems only. I asked both conventions to 
give me their instructions and promised to place their requests, or if you like, demands, before this house. That is precisely what I intend to do to-day. I wonder how many other hon. members, especially those on the government side, asked their constituents for instructions, and how many would dare put them before this house. Probably few, or maybe none, except the hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader). The reason is that hon. members on the government side who represent agricultural constituencies are putting their party before the interests of the farmers whom they represent. I am sure the farmers will pass their own judgment upon this attitude.
Coming back to the two conventions to which I referred, I would say that both were non-party affairs. All had equal privileges of voting, regardless of political affiliations. Over five hundred delegates attended the convention held in the town of Mundare and over four hundred and twenty were present in the town of Smoky Lake. They embodied their requests in the three resolutions which I shall read to the house. Let me read, first, the one regarding wheat. It states the points of importance probably as well as they have been put in this house:
Whereas wheat production is the foundation of Canadian agriculture and, in turn, agriculture is the basis of the national economy;
Whereas the havoc of war will create grave after-war problems, and the accumulation of adequate wheat reserves to meet the famine and pestilence which are likely to develop should be an essential feature of Canadian policy;
And whereas the stabilization of wheat production at an adequate level, and the efficiency of our entire national economy and the health of national morale are dependent upon farmers receiving a price which will cover production costs and provide a margin of profit for their services to the nation;
Therefore be it resolved by this non-party convention of farmers that the federal government forthwith provide for wheat prices to be stabilized at $1 per bushel at the nearest point of delivery on the basis of the average 1940 general price level and that it be varied to bear the same ratio to any rise in the general price level.
I do not think I need add anything to that resolution; it is self-explanatory.
I mentioned a moment ago something about democracy and parliament. I should like to say just an additional word or two. Parliament, in my opinion, is a body of men who are elected by the people and whose duty it is to place before the government the views of their constituents and press for results

Wheat Board Act
which the people demand. When hon. members place before parliament the demands of the people, it is up to the government to find ways and means of obtaining the required result. The people do not care how this result is achieved; but if the government cannot do it, they will be replaced by another government which will. When a government gives the people something against which they are protesting, surely it cannot claim to be a democratic government. While I am on this point of democracy, listen to what Aristotle had to say about it:
The best material of democracy is an agricultural population; there is no difficulty in forming a democracy where the mass of the people live by agriculture . . . not having the necessities of life they are always at work, and do not covet the property of others. . . . Next best to agricultural and in many respects similar are pastoral people. . . . The people of whom other democracies consist are far inferior to them.
It will be seen that Aristotle speaks highly of agriculturists. If we had more farmers in this house, perhaps the results would be different.
With regard to the primary producer, is it not phenomenal that the only people in the dominion whose markets are not protected are the primary producers? The farmer is always told how much he will get for the things he produces and he is also told how much he must pay for the things he buys. How can anyone explain this strange situation? The farmer or printary producer is again the only one who pays freight both ways; he pays freight on everything he sells and he pays freight on everything he buys. I could1 find in my desk a pre-election campaign leaflet to show that the government's candidate promised the people of the constituency that the present government would adjust freight rates and overhaul the whole freight rate structure. But here we are in the third session and' nothing has been done in that regard. Let me stress this point. It is not a matter of advancing arguments against the government or of the minister trying to tie up somebody on the opposition side. The problems that face us are serious. Surely we must realize that half of our total population is affected by agriculture and by the income derived therefrom. The farmers have no other income, and we .cannot expect them to take it on the chin year after year just because the government chooses to force down their throats some orthodox policy to which it wishes to cling.	[DOT]
I do not wish to blame the Minister of Trade and Commerce. I could not blame the Minister of Agriculture or even the Minister
of Finance, for they are only the Charlie McCarthys of the present financial system which dictates its policies to them and, of course, they have to carry them out to the letter. I will not say much about the income of the farmer because so many have already done so. The government seems to take a good deal of credit for the increased prices on bacon, butter, eggs and other commodities that have gone up. If the government could figure out some way which would give them an excuse to take that increase away from the farmers it certainly would. That has been the experience of the past.
In the Ottawa Citizen of January 31, 1942, in the column "Diary of our own Pepys", this is what the writer has to say:
All ir.orning busy at many matters, and all! afternoon, and so past six to the meeting of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture to see what I could hear about the farming situation and one of the things I heard was that in the last war the farmers got one-third of the national income and the rest of us two-thirds, whereas in this war they get only one-tenth and the rest of us nine-tenths.
And so on. That is only one little article which explains the situation. Again, in the Citizen of January 31, 1942, the following appears in an editorial:
In the last twenty years the farmers of Canada have laboured under heavy handicaps. Under deflation and negative politics agriculture has suffered more than any other single industry. For one thing farm income has dwindled to such an extent that the average in 1940 was less than $600 a year compared with over $1,000 in 1929. The problem which that fact represents is not the farmer's alone; it is a national problem.
I come now to a resolution which deals-with parity of prices. May I read the following resolution passed at the two conventions to which I have already referred1:
Whereas under present conditions primary producers are forced to accept open market prices for their produce and to buy goods which enjoy protected markets;
Whereas this results in the prices of primary products being depressed to minimum levels with the result that the full burden of protection for other industries has to be borne by farmers and other primary producers;
Whereas in addition farmers are obliged to-meet the freight costs of both the goods they sell and the goods they buy;
And whereas this has led to the grave-injustice of the prices of agricultural and other primary products falling in relation to the general price level, thereby divesting such producers of their incomes and causing acute-depression in the primary industries, which in turn threatens the stability of the entire national structure.
Therefore be it resolved that the prices of all primary products, and of farm produce in
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particular, be adjusted so as to bear a just relationship to the general price level at all times on the generally accepted basis;
And be it further resolved that in order to meet the injustices created by the present inequitable freight rate structure that freight rates for Canadian goods be equalized on a generally accepted national basis.
I have several other resolutions, minor ones, but I will omit them so that I may have a little more time to devote to other matters. Perhaps the government does not quite get what the farmers mean by parity of prices. There are many explanations of that point. This is what we mean; this is what I mean when I discuss that particular subject. I have in my hand a few clippings from various newspapers from which I will read the headings. Here are several:
Canadian business hits high level; Massey-Harris earns more in 1940; Consolidated Mining earns large profits; Increased profits shown in report of Dominion bank; Hudson's Bay mines profit $5,948,855; C.P.R. earnings up $1,274,000; Canadian Breweries reports $255,931 profit.
That is one side of the story. The other side is this:
Wheat buying unmoved by exports; hog production held losing game.
It is a game to them.
Western farmer faces oversupply period; farmers urged to stress quality.
Some people are not satisfied with the quality though they are getting it for nothing.
Wheat futures touch minimum.
You have the comparison right there, and that is what we mean. The farmer must get a sufficient income to be able to buy the things he needs if he is to get along; to balance consumption with production, we must have parity prices.
The next point I wish to discuss is the debt situation. The hon. member for Rosthem (Mr. Tucker) dealt with this point and I think he made a good case. The federal government has failed miserably in the protection of our farmers against old private debts. There are literally thousands of farmers throughout western Canada who have been thrust under the heels of financial dictators for the past ten years. These farmers were left at the mercy of soulless financial institutions that were going to get everything out of the iarmers regardless of what may happen to them. This government believes in the sanctity of contracts; oh, yes. In fact, it believes in the sanctity of contracts above the sanctity of homes, and as a result many of our western agriculturists after having toiled for years have been dispossessed of their homes. While travelling throughout the
[Mr. Hlynka.l
country I have examined hundreds of cases which have been reviewed by the boards of review, and I found that in many instances the financial institutions have been charging farmers anywhere from 6 to 14 per cent interest. This government permitted them to bleed the farmers to death, and to-day it is wondering why hon. members representing western agriculture are opposing this particular measure, which will not give the farmer sufficient income to meet his obligations.
At some future date I shall deal with the debt problem at greater length.	On this
occasion I wish to place before the house only one resolution dealing with the debt problem:
Whereas the debts under which the farmers and other people of Canada have been struggling constitute an ever-present threat to their security and a drain on their inadequate resources;
Whereas market conditions, over which they have no control, have forced farmers to produce at prices lower than production costs, thereby leaving them no income with which to meet their obligations;
Whereas provincial debt legislation gave protection to debtors against unjust dispossession of their homes without prejudicing the position of creditors to obtain payment within their debtors' ability to pay;
And whereas the lending institutions have entered upon a course of action which has led to the said acts being declared inoperative by the courts, thereby jeopardizing the property rights of citizens and creating internal disruption at a time when this is most undesirable;
Therefore be it resolved that the federal government be urged to forthwith confer upon provinces any necessary statutory authority which will make the said debt legislation fully operative and beyond the reach of attack by the financial institutions.
And be it further resolved that the federal government be requested to adopt a general revision of debts on the basis of a reduction in the principal amount of outstanding debts by a sum equivalent to any interest payments made prior to December 31, 1936, in excess of 3 per cent simple interest.
That is the third resolution. I have here one further resolution, dealing with interest rates. That has not much to do with the Minister of Agriculture, but while discussing agriculture I believe I should put the resolution on record :
Whereas the farmers are asked to take part in Canada's war effort, and further in view of the fact that farmers' produce is being sold below cost of production;
Therefore be it resolved that this convention go on record demanding that interest on all debts be eliminated for the duration of the war.
These comprise all the resolutions passed at this'convention.
I should like to deal with the debt situation more fully but my time will not permit me to do so now. I just want to say that the

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present government has at all times given some excuse for not dealing with debt legislation adequately, for instance, that it would require an amendment to the British North America Act or that it is ultra vires or something of the kind. But this government found no difficulty in bringing in an amendment to the British North America Act when it wanted to put unemployment insurance into effect. The government found no difficulty in invading provincial fields in the matter of income tax and succession duties. But the government finds difficulty when it comes to helping the farmer. The government finds the British North America Act in the way when it comes to old age pensions. Those are the things that I believe the people will eventually have to realize, they will have to learn who their friends are and who are not.
The Minister of Agriculture painted the picture that conditions are going to improve after the war. Let us hope so. But here are three outstanding men who take a different view of agriculture after the war. Here is a clipping from the Calgary Albertan printing a statement by Leonard D. Nesbitt, publicity superintendent of the Alberta wheat pool. He said:
If history repeats itself (and it usually does) a prolonged period of agricultural distress will follow the end of the war. Such a condition has developed after virtually every major war, and particularly during the past century and a half.
One does not need to look back more than two decades to see what happened to agriculture following the first great war. Peace was declared in 1918 and two years of inflation followed. Out of the succeeding nineteen years not less than thirteen have been unfavourable to farmers, in that prices of farm products have been below the prices of other products. In five of these years the difference indicated by comparative indexes amounted to twenty points or more. In all but three of the years, the discrepancy was more than ten points. In only five of the nineteen years did farmers enjoy an advantage, and in none of these did the advantage amount to more than ten points.
Then Professor MacKenzie, president of New Brunswick university, speaking at Montreal on April 11, 1941, is reported as follows:
Speaking of the post-war world, Professor MacKenzie said there would be "disorganization and debts and poverty and suffering ..."
"Taxation will continue," he added, "at high levels, but that in itself need not alarm us, for taxation is merely a method of transferring wealth and of making accumulations of it available for large-scale use."
The last statement is a bit more encouraging, that taxation will be an advantage.
Here is a third quotation, and perhaps the writer, Sir Edward Beatty, is just as important as any of the other gentlemen. In an article
published in the Winnipeg Tribune, of December 31, 1940, he said:
We hear much talk of the social changes that are to follow upon the end of the war. I venture to suggest that the economic changes then experienced will prove more imperative and more immediately effective than any other. It is altogether probable that we shall move into a world that is much poorer than it has been over many generations, and this will apply not only to the fighting nations. For some time to come the countries to which Canada sells products of farm, mine, forest and factory may not he able to pay high prices for their purchases, even though they be in urgent need of the commodities supplied, and it may easily be that our methods of production will have to be raised to new standards of economic efficiency.
These three statements, uttered by men occupying important positions, should perhaps warn the farmers that they had better get matters adjusted for themselves now, otherwise they may find themselves out on the road.
I should now like to say just a word or two about the farmer delegation which visited Ottawa. It is a pity that in time of war there should be even the need for any such delegation. The $35,000 or thereabouts, spent to bring the delegation to Ottawa to plead with the government could have been used to better advantage; but the policies followed by the government during the past ten years-not only by this government but by the one that held office previously, because, after all, there is no difference between the two-placed the farmers in such a position that they were forced to come all this long way in order to make their representation. Personally I would think the best thing would have been for these delegates to see their own members of parliament; to present their demands to them and say, "We want you to bring these matters before the government, and we want results." Believe me, they would have had a number of them climbing up a tree.
In the estimates for 1942-43, tabled a short time ago, I found some startling things. Substantial increases were shown under several headings. Interest on the public debt, and other debt charges, call for instance, for an additional $17,414,000. But there are large decreases in several departments, notably the Department of Agriculture, where the 1942-43 appropriation of $18,508,016 is $30,059,352 less than for 1941-42. Provision for maintenance of prairie farm assistance and rehabilitation measures also was contained in the estimates. Prairie farm rehabilitation and water storage expenses are cut $500,000, but the allocation under the Prairie Farm Assistance Act remains the same at it was last year. The largest reduction was in the amount for wheat acreage reduction payment, $5,225,000 this year as against $35,000,000 last year. Other decreases
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are seen in the estimates of the Department *of Pensions and National Health, from $56,799,492 in 1941-42 to $54,839,093 in 1942-43. Then there is a decrease of $573,500 in the cost of old age pensions and pensions for the blind, with $31,372,500 being allocated as the dominion's share of such pensions.
I have the honour to represent the constituency of Vegreville, where we have some of the best young farmers of the west. On several occasions they have won prizes at the International Live Stock Exposition, and following the exposition this year the Associated Press sent out this dispatch:
William Skladan, Andrew, Alberta, kept the oats king title in Canada, with Alex Stewart, Ailsa Craig, Ontario, a former king himself, as runner-up. Dominion exhibitors have w'on the oats award fourteen times in the last twenty-one years.
Paul F. Pawlowski, Vilna, Alberta, who was the oats king last year, lost out in that division but won himself another crown, that of barley king, with Tom Mynzalc, Desjarlais, Alberta, as runner-up.
Then it goes on to say:
Highest award to Canada was that of wheat king, won by William Miller of Edmonton, with R. P. Robbins, Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, as runner-up. Canadians have won this title t-very year since 1928.
The oats king of last year, and the present oats king, both live in the constituency which I represent; yet the strange thing is that though these young farmers win trophies for their wonderful work, they can hardly make a living on the land.
I am sorry that my time is slipping away so quickly, and I shall not have time to deal with other matters of which I should like to speak. In closing, I should like to say that I am glad the government has given consideration to the postponement of military training for farmers' sons. I have had a great number of letters from older folk in my constituency, where perhaps the only son in the family is called up for military service, leaving behind *the parents who are over sixty years of age and unable to work the land. Surely in such cases consideration should, be given, and these young men should be released for spring seeding and other work.
I believe the hon. member for Rosthem dealt very well with the question of the Atlantic charter, so I need not touch upon that matter on this occasion. I should like to add, however-though I do not know whether the word "oomph" is parliamentary- that if the government had put enough *"oomph" into its policies and efforts, I think it could have done a great deal more than it has done. It surely has a great deal of
{Air. Hlynka.]
"oomph" when it comes to political contests. I have never personally met Mr. Arthur Meighen, but he surely must be a terrible man judging by the way he was described in this house. Why, we spent weeks and weeks fighting an election right here in this house, at public expense, getting free publicity. Surely, if there is nothing to be afraid of, the government need not have been so scared.


Mr. G. H. CASTLEDEN (Yorkton):: Mr. Speaker, if the continuation of this debate were to interrupt for one moment the conduct of the war, despite the fact that I do know something about the morale and the condition of affairs on the prairies I assure you I would not occupy the time of the house. I do believe that a people's morale, and their feeling toward their government is important at a time like this.
I was interested this afternoon to hear the Minister of Mines and Resources (Mr. Crerar) tell us about his long association with the grain trade, the grain growers and the grain business. Before he had finished1 I was tempted to ask him whether in recent years because of their terrific suffering they had been able to get members of the grain exchange off relief in Winnipeg.
It is unfortunate that the bureau of statistics does not publish facts and figures concerning prices paid to farmers for their grain, and prices finally received by those who sell the grain in the markets of the world. I, too, have been associated with the growing of grain in western Canada since the beginning of the century, and I know something about grain growlers' problems, because I have lived among grain growers. Apparently the minister has lived more in company with those who operate on the grain exchange.
I was sorry to hear the minister point out or even imply this afternoon that there seemed to be some discrimination by one part of Canada against the other parts. In my observations to-day I do not speak only of western agriculture. The amendment moved by the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) has dealt with parity prices for all agriculture-agriculture	across the whole
dominion. I believe I can speak of agriculture across Canada, because I have been on farms in all but one of the nine provinces, and I know I am stating the truth when I say that agriculture to-day is not receiving parity prices.
Judgment will no doubt be finally passed by those western agriculturists and grain growers in western Canada whose rights the minister was supposed at one time to champion. They will compare the condition of agriculture with the present dismal plight of the grain exchange and of the minister himself.

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The amendment before the house states, in effect, that the disregarding by this parliament of the representations made by western agriculture for a parity price for all agricultural products, and of the payment of at least $1 a bushel as an initial price, is contrary to the peace, order and good government of Canada. The resolution deals with the presentation made by western agriculture for a parity price.
I would draw to the attention of hon. members the fact that the parity price is not a cost-plus price; rather it is merely a cost price. The demands for bonuses and other types of assistance would not come at this time if the cost price had existed in the past. The core of the request from western agriculture is the idea of parity, but it should not be taken for granted that the delegation was against bonuses.
The hon. member for Rosthern (Mr. Tucker) tried to leave the impression in the house that the people were divided, that one group was asking for a bonus on a bushelage basis while the other was asking for one on an acreage basis. That is an unfair suggestion, because I do not believe that at any time the delegation made any such submission.


Mr. GARDINER:: One of the spokesmen did.


George Hugh Castleden: In the memorandum submitted it will be found that they were asking for a continuation and expansion of the principle of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. I believe the government has done that. There are new bonuses by order in council -though heaven knows how long they will last. Payments made under the w'heat acreage reduction bonus are a form of income insurance. The request for a parity price is a request for a fair wage, and that is about all. I suppose we could call the bonus a form of unemployment insurance, the only difference being that whether or not the farmer gets a crop he must still do the work. The income insurance is protection against receiving nothing for the work he does.
The delegation was one of which I say Canadians might well be proud. It was one consisting not only of agriculturists, but including people from almost all walks of life, people representing almost every phase of economic life in the western provinces. There were mayors of cities, reeves of municipalities, clergymen, teachers, storekeepers, businessmen, and the legislature of Saskatchewan was represented. Anyone hearing them was at once convinced that they were speaking with the calm assurance of people asking for justice. Their cause was a just and righteous one, and one which gave them strength. In my opinion the only reason why we did not have a similar delegation from all the provinces, was that agriculture is not organized across the dominion. If it were organized effectively across Canada there would have been deputations from all the provinces. I would like every hon. member to realize that those people would not have come to the capital city at this time, a time when our nation, our empire and democracy is in danger, unless they were filled with the righteousness of their cause, and knew that conditions were desperate. That is positive proof that there is something deeply wrong with agricultural economy in Canada.
From the evidence submitted by the delegation it is clear that a continuance of conditions in western agriculture will undermine the whole economy. I am sorry the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) has not seen fit to make a statement to the house respecting this matter, because he was very much in evidence during the time the delegation was here. Ministers of the crown who met with and spoke to the delegation admitted that the case presented was fair and reasonable.
Unless agriculture can obtain the cost of production, it must be condemned to tenant peasantry. If one cannot get the cost of production from his work, then the industry with which he is connected is headed for bankruptcy. Agriculture has been headed for bankruptcy for so many years that the fault is deep-rooted. Anyone who knows about the debt situation of agriculture in western Canada will know that it carries a debt load of about $S00,000.000. The destruction of our ownership of our homes will be the natural consequence of a continuation of this policy. The home is the foundation of any country. No people ever rose in the scale of nations if they let their agricultural economy sink to a level where the people could no longer live decently in homes of their own. Sixty years ago from seventy to eighty per cent of the people of Canada used to live under the healthy conditions of their farm homes, but now probably not more than forty per cent live on the land. This is a sign of inward decay of the nation. Migration of people from the farms to the city is a dangerous sign of decay. It should not be permitted in any nation; it should not be permitted by those who claim to be the governors of that nation.
It is not that people do not want to live on the farms, because they enjoy living there. If you will give some form of security, the people will live there. Something drastic will have to be done sooner or later to change our economy and make it possible for these people to live decently. The decision of the cabinet and the wheat committee, whoever they are, not to grant a parity price is merely a sacrificing of these people. We are destroying their last vestige of hope. Apparently the grain exchange is to continue. Apparently
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the packing plants and the packing houses are to continue to fatten upon the live stock brought in by the producers.
The farmer finds that he is losing whatever equity he had in his farm. He is finally forced to give up the lifelong struggle to keep his head above water. Every two or three days I receive communications from people in the west telling me of foreclosure actions against their farms. In some cases the sons who had kept things going as the parents got older have enlisted. I ask hon. members to consider how these boys in the forces must feel when they receive word from their parents at home that they no longer own the land. They are fortunate if they are allowed to stay on as tenants of the mortgage companies. It is much worse when the older people are turned out and have to depend upon charity.
I cannot understand why we should have to plead on the floor of this house for a parity price. It is only common justice that this should be given; it is the very essence of justice and fairness. It should fall like the rain and the sunshine upon everyone; it should be a recognized right. A continued lack of parity prices has left the farmer in a position of debt. I think I am quite safe in saying that for the last twelve years agriculture has not received its cost of production. As has been said by almost every speaker, the debt situation in the country is intolerable. There is something fundamentally wrong with a system which permits debt to rise.
A farmer requires a certain amount of capital to carry on his work of production, and he must give also the labour of himself and his family. Both of these should be rewarded if there is any production. The farmer uses the labour of his family and himself to produce, and the capital is used to buy the machinery which is needed for production. But if, because of circumstances beyond his control, the farmer loses his crop by frost, drought, hail, grasshoppers, rust or some other calamity, he receives no returr for his labour that year. The farmer gets absolutely nothing for his labour, but with the institutions as they are organized in this country, capital receives a reward that year. If the farmer cannot pay his interest, then it is piled on to the debt, and the next year he is penalized for not having produced the year before when it was not his fault that he could not. That same year the machinery produced no -wheat, but the next year or the year after, the farmer must pay double toll. The reward of capital is too great while the reward of labour is negligible. This accumulation of debt is crushing this industry.
[Mr. Castleden.l
The debt legislation that we have in the provinces does not meet the problem at all. Even though parity prices were granted, I do not believe the farmers of western Canada in the next ten years could work their way out from under the burden of debt that is placed upon them. But when the administration says that they will not recognize the claims to parity, then there can be no hope because the cost of production is not there. The burden of debt will continue and it will pyramid. This problem will have to be met. I think in war time the government should at least recognize that the solving of this problem is an essential step in the peace, order and good government of this country.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


George Hugh Castleden: Immediately before the dinner recess we were discussing the failure of the government to regard the presentations of the delegation from the west. I want to draw attention to the fairness of that delegation and the good faith which they showed in agreeing thait the definition of a parity price of wheat in the west should be decided, by the dominion bureau of statistics. In speaking on this matter, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) attempted to prove that the government had not disregarded the presentations of the delegation, and I am going to turn to some of the statements he made to give an idea of the method of proof which he used.
To give the devil his due, I must say in all sincerity that we have had already some concessions from the government. For one thing, they are going to submit the subject of agricultural legislation to the standing committee on agriculture and colonization. It will be quite a new experience for this committee, because it has not met since 1939, and therefore has not considered agricultural policy during the life of the present parliament. Also, price floors have been placed under certain commodities.
The type of argument to which I object may be illustrated by the minister's statement as recorded in Hansard of March 10, page 1204. Such an argument, I contend, is fallacious. Here is what he does: he places a table on the record giving the average prices of certain cuts of meat in 1926-29, the highest price in the period which set ceiling prices, and the increase above the 1926-29 level; he quotes the prices for round steak, rib roast, shoulder roast, stewing beef, veal shoulder roast and pork fresh leg roast. I do not know why the minister has seen fit to take retail

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prices of meat as an indication of what the farmer is getting for his products. In every one of the items he mentioned there is an increase above the 1926-29 level. I maintain that what he should have put on the record are figures showing the average farm prices of hogs, cattle and calves during the 1926-29 period, and the average farm prices for the same commodities from 1939 to 1941. Had he done so, this is what would have been found. I got these figures from the bureau of statistics; they were used by the bureau in determining Canadian farm income over a period of years:
Saskatchewan
	Average	Average	
	price	price	
1926-1929	1939-1941	Decreasecents	cents	per centHogs 	.... 10-2	7-7	25Cattle 	.... 5-6	5-29	5Calves	.... 7-1	6-5	8
If you take the Manitoba prices for the same commodities, you find practically the same rate of, not increase, but decrease.
These figures prove a few rather interesting things. They show that the farmer got less in 1939-41 than in 1926-29, whereas the consumer paid more, and that the increase in consumer prices means one thing, namely that the packing companies are cleaning up on the "in-between". Here, in his own words, is what the minister used his figures to prove:
I give these in order to indicate that the government has not disregarded the farmers' desire to have parity prices.
If that is the method of proof he uses, all I can say is that figures do not lie, but lawyers do a lot of figuring.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weybum):: Why lawyers?


Mr. MacINNIS:: Because the other word would not be parliamentary.


George Hugh Castleden: To show that the government has disregarded the parity price, I quote what the minister said as reported at page 1211 of Hansard:
On every one of these farm products, except wheat, we have been able to satisfy the farmers of Canada. I only need to say that the activities of this house during this session indicate clearly that the situation in relation to agriculture in Canada is very different to-day from what it was when this house met in any other session since the war started. We only had one persistent delegation this year asking for something more, namely, the wheat delegation, and they came only because they are the only farmers in Canada whose problems have not been grappled with successfully down to the present time. But just as soon as conditions under which we are labouring, with a world war on, are such as to make it possible the problems of the wheat farmer will also be dealt with to his satisfaction.
Well, he had power before there was a war on, and we know the result. This kind of promise of what is going to happen in the future is the sort of thing that agriculture has been starving on for far too long.
With regard to the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) and the advisers of the government's wheat committee-the grain board-I believe a decision has been made that they will not recognize parity prices for wheat.
A number of abuses have crept into the administration of this department which, I think, should be wiped out. I have in mind, for one thing, the operations of the car allotment committee, which set out deliberately to discriminate against the cooperative wheat pool and force its business to the grain trade.
There is also the matter of storage of grain in privately leased elevators. The Dominion of Canada built these terminals at a tremendous cost to the country, and then, instead of operating them and controlling them, leased them to grain companies, members of the grain exchange, at rentals as low as $72,000 or $73,000 a year, that figure being accepted for the use of an elevator holding three to three and a quarter million bushels of grain. When we ask how much this particular grain company received in storage fees-paid, I suppose, by the grain board- we are told that the figures are not available. Why are they not available? Whose money is it? Whose elevator is it? All you have to do is figure out the storage on three and a quarter million bushels at eight cents a bushel per annum; it amounts to about $260,000. This kind of thing is not good enough. We permit the grain companies, some of them with offices outside the dominion, to make hundreds of thousands of dollars by storing Canadian wheat in elevators belonging to the Canadian people. Yet the department refuses, or has refused, to allow the farmer a storage allowance for storing his own grain on his own farm in a bin which he built for himself.
This is the sort of thing that destroys the confidence of the people in those who are administering their affairs. Effective steps should have been taken in all of these fields to prevent the exploitation of western agriculture, and then the western farmers would have felt that the government was sincere in trying to carry out something in the way of reform for them. I think the decision not to give the farmer parity price for his wheat reflects the real loyalty of those responsible for this legislation. It is not loyalty to western agriculture, nor is it recognition of the justice of their

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cause, or recognition of the rights of those who toil; rather it favours the exploiters of those who toil; it favours those people who can take advantage of the unorganized condition of producers and consumers. They exploit labour wherever it is found, from east to west, from coast to coast.
The result of the whole thing is that the people who will clean up on this situation will be the mortgage companies and those who to-day are obtaining legal title to land and to the homes of the people in the west. Their plans are plain. What they intend to do is to take hold of the legal right to property and farms in the west. When you find 80 per cent of the farms mortgaged or owned by mortgage companies, the farmer unable to pay off that load of debt, and the companies foreclosing and getting control, you can see what the situation is like. When the war is over, I presume another army of people will be imported into this country from war-tom Europe to settle on this land owned by some financial concerns with their head offices in Montreal or Toronto, and the immigrant will be loaded down with a burden of debt-tenant-peasant, slum schools, people not owning their own property, people without freedom and without security.
If the time ever comes when western agriculture can again be placed on a basis where it pays, I do not believe that many of those now on the land will have anything to say with regard to the ownership of that property. These people, in trying to solve their problems, have worked in a cooperative way and have been successful to a large extent in wiping out some of the abuses in the handling of elevators at country points. I was rather sorry to hear the hon. member for Wood Mountain (Mr. Donnelly), who the Minister of Agriculture said should be minister, make the statements he did. I quote from the hon. gentleman's remarks, as reported at page 1183 of Hansard:
The other day I picked up a financial paper and looked it over, and I found that a pool elevator with a capital of $18,000,000- $12,000,000 received from the farmers for elevator deduction and $6,000,000 for reserve- had declared a profit of $3,000,000-16 per cent. I want some of our financiers over there to tell me what they think of that. If that is not high finance, what is it? . . .
I belong to the wheat pool and I have not received much of it yet. They do not pay any income tax or excess profit tax. How much did they take away from it in order to start an insurance company? They have some of my money. Can I get my capital back? You know we cannot. When I die my estate will get fifty cents on the dollar.
It would be a splendid contribution to a good cause, and I am sure he will be rewarded IMr. Castleden.l
in heaven when his estate is settled, though daily I have been expecting to hear of his being called to "another place."


Karl Kenneth Homuth: They do not use money there.


George Hugh Castleden: I refer to another place near here. I would point out to the hon. member for Wood Mountain that the $3,000,000 he speaks of is made up in three ways: $900,000 of it represents patronage dividends paid to those people who send their grain to their own elevators. Some years ago they overpaid the farmers several million dollars; the provincial government caime to the assistance of the wheat pool, and they are paying back every year $1,100,000 of that money. That is a portion of the $3,000,000 profit. The other $1,000,000 was used to build temporary storage to assist these congested elevators. The true loyalty of those responsible for the policy of the government at the present time is shown, I believe, completely in the legislation.
There is not very much doubt that the money which will be used to pay for the wheat that we are expected to export this year will come out of the financial arrangement in connection with the billion dollars representing a gift to Great Britain. We are all in favour of that; but if this gift is to be made by Canada, then all Canada should share in it, and all the people should take part in the payment so that the producer should not be called upon to pay an unfair share. He is engaged in the lowest paid industry in Canada.
This bill fails to recognize the principle of parity prices, the principle laid down by the western delegation. That delegation-and I wish hon. members to bear this in mind-in their final statement to the government said in effect: "We did not come down here to compromise. Our representations are fair, just and reasonable. This is the minimum. We are not asking for cost-plus; we merely want cost". If the policy laid down by the government is adhered to, then I say it is a bad policy, bad for agriculture, bad for the morale of the people at this time, and bad for our cause. I maintain, therefore, that it is contrary to the peace, order and good government of the country, and I urge every member-and surely half of the members of this house represent, at least in part, agricultural communities right across the dominion-to vote for the amendment and ask the government to bring in an amended bill which will recognize the principle of parity prices for agriculture.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: In view of the fact that in the last twenty years the section of the country which I represent has witnessed greater agricultural development

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than any other part of Canada, I do not think I need offer any apology for speaking on these two bills which are up for second and first readings respectively. Before going any further, however, and without indulging in any heroics, I would refer to the statement that has been made by the hon. member for Laval-Two Mountains (Mr. Lacombe), that he was debarred from speaking last Friday. Even a few newspapers in the province of Quebec and one French-speaking paper in Ontario have tried to create the impression that the hon. gentleman was martyred, that he was fleeced, or robbed, of his right to speak.


Liguori Lacombe: I rise to a point of order. Under standing order 41 I would ask the hon. gentleman to withdraw his statement.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I see no point of order whatsoever. I made no insinuation about the hon. member. I just stated what some newspapers tried to make out, that he was deprived of his turn, or robbed of his right to speak.


Liguori Lacombe: It is not an insinuation; it is more than that. It is an affirmation from the hon. gentleman. He has no right to discuss your ruling given last Friday, Mr. Speaker.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: For the peace of mind of the hon. member I must make this statement. On Tuesday of last week I was supposed to speak on this bill; then the whip asked me to wait, and I have been waiting all these many days. I hope that these newspapers state that I have been put out of my rights and privileges as a member of parliament or that I have been treated unfairly. There are certain ethics that must be observed by members of parliament-


Liguori Lacombe: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order. The hon. member is absolutely out of order. We are discussing a bill concerning wheat, not the privileges of the hon. member.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: There are in this House of Commons 245 members, and the hon. member knows well that it is impossible for them all to speak on the same day or even in the same week.


Liguori Lacombe: I rise to a point of order. The hon. member is absolutely out of order, he has no right to discuss your ruling.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I have the honour of having been born in the province of Quebec, although the largest part of my life has been spent in Ontario. I shall always cherish my connection with my native province. I believe it is my duty to mention here and now that I fully understand and realize what 44561-864
my native province has done in furthering our war effort and the magnificent efforts she has made. Yet I resent very strongly seeing some of my compatriots in Quebec province choosing this time to urge their grievances on the floor of this house, and trying to wash their linen here. The position of the minority is never very pleasant; we always feel a certain natural uneasiness. But speaking as a member of a minority in the province of Ontario I say very sincerely that never on any occasion has any reflection been cast upon me for my racial affiliations. I say that with deliberation, conviction and in all sincerity. However, it is true that, as a majority has some obligations, the same rule must also be applied to a minority. As one of French descent I shall never try to besmirch the reputation of any man in public life in my native province. Never at any time have I said a word of disrespect against the authorities of my province of Ontario where I now live. In any other provinoe members of a minority group owe it to themselves to give no cause for unfair criticism of the people of the good old province of Quebec, and they should, of necessity, at least try to respect their own public men.
Regarding this bill, and speaking particularly of western agriculture, I always find the western members most refreshing in presenting their viewpoint.	For the last
sixteen or seventeen sessions that I have had the privilege of sitting in this house we have had a repetition of that discussion, which to my mind is national in its scope and very constructive. It is true that sometimes overstatements have been made, but that is only natural when one recognizes the ruggedness and vigour of western politics. To me it is always a revelation and an education. It also gives a chance to members from the east and south and the agriculture of eastern Canada to enjoy on the floor of this house that fine, cool and invigorating, vital breeze from the western plains.
I believe it was stated last Friday by the hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefen-baker) that the measure brought forward by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) smelt very much of politics, or something to that effect. I have always been a great admirer of the present Minister of Agriculture. The farmers of my section of the country believe he is one of the best we have ever had. They have confidence in him to help solve not only some of the problems of western farmers but the problems of agriculturists all over Canada. If he had wanted to play politics with that bill, it would have been just as easy for him
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to ask for SI .10 as for 90 cents. But he shows himself to be a practical man, a real Canadian and a real statesman who fully realizes and appreciates his responsibilities.
The hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) has an amendment before the house asking for SI a bushel for wheat at Fort William. The hon. member for Portage la Prairie (Mr. Leader) was speaking on Friday afternoon when he said he thought that that amendment smelt of politics, and the answer from the hon. member for Weyburn was, "That is not fair." I believe the hon. member was absolutely sincere, but surely that amendment and the legislation brought in by the Minister of Agriculture must counterbalance one another, and shows that there is no politics as far as this problem is concerned. If I thought for one moment that they were playing politics with western agriculture, I should be quick to *criticize the government. But I believe in the sincerity of mankind, and surely when we are [DOT]discussing the problem of the farmers of western Canada we should be ready to go at least halfway with one another here.
I have always admired the sincerity of the hon. member for Portage la Prairie. Last Friday he said he was going to fight for one thing and one only, namely $1 a bushel for wheat. The farmers in my section of the country are fighting at the present time for higher prices for potatoes and hay. Remember that for years we lost tens of thousands of tons of hay, could not even give it away on account of distance and lack of markets. We felt very strongly that the federal government was not treating us properly. Farming is the greatest industry in the world. I sincerely believe that with the price for wheat proposed by this legislation they are entirely satisfied; they are loyal enough Canadians to accept it at least loyally if not joyously.
Do not think for a moment that our eastern [DOT]or northern Ontario agriculturists have all their problems solved. Some mention was made of the conveniences Ontario farmers enjoy. I agree 100 per cent that they should have such facilities as running water and electricity and more modern commodities, but in my section of the country-and mind you this is in Ontario where the hydro is owned by the province itself-the great majority of our farmers, after forty-five or fifty years of farming, have no electric power for their homes. We bear with this, hoping that, after this conflict is over, the time will not be far distant when at least some of these conveniences will be supplied to our fine agricultural population. I know that in saying this I am speaking to converted members of parliament, including the representatives of the west who will say they should get that and
IMr. Bradette.]
more. A year and a half ago I read an article in the Winnipeg Free Press saying that an hon. member in the southeast corner of this house was asking the government to give the farmers at least $2 a bushel for wheat. That hon. member no doubt was sincerely and honestly convinced that that shouldi be the price. But the Winnipeg newspaper said that people must be practical with your own people and also with the rest of Canada. No doubt at 90 cents a bushel basis No. 1 northern at Fort William there is no large amount of money in growing wheat, but under the circumstances with bonuses, to me that price seems to be very acceptable. The same also applies to barley at 60 cents, oats at 46 cents and flax at $2.25.
Every citizen of Canada must be thankful to western agriculture because of the fact that we have a surplus of wheat and coarse grains. If at the present time we are frequently accused of not knowing there is a war on, to a large extent this is due to the fact that we have all the wheat, flour and bread any person or family can use; we have all sorts of grain for the feeding of hogs and cattle, which results not in a false atmosphere but in a situation which finds the country certainly very generous and comfortable to every citizen. We also hear it said that the government has not been sufficiently courageous. I do not believe there has been a government in any part of the civilized world that has tackled a great problem with the courage and logic that the present administration has exhibited in dealing with the wheat problem. I say this as an easterner, not as a politician, because last year a great many newspapers in sections of Canada other than the western provinces argued that wheat should not be pegged by the government, that there practically was no solution of that problem. This year again we saw many newspaper editorials almost making a farce of the situation, and saying the government, without a thorough study of the situation, was going to accept the requests presented by the delegation which came here from western Canada.
All these things make one realize what the government has had to face. I believe the federal government has been very courageous indeed in curtailing to a large extent the acreage of wheat grown. This is something that has been done in a sincere and fearless way. It was also refreshing to hear, during the present discussion, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) make the statement that other things would be done in connection with wheat and coarse grains in the west from time to time as conditions changed and new policies were warranted.

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Every 'member of this house has some connection with the rural population of Canada. We all realize that during the last twenty-five years our agriculturists have been going through the same evolution that the rest of the world has experienced, and that the problems of agriculture have become more and more acute. We in the newer sections of the country, in the younger districts, went through seven years of the deepest depression. During that period 90 per cent of the farmers in the township in which I now live were on direct relief, and in many other parts of northern and southern Ontario the situation was not quite as easy and comfortable as some hon. members from the west seemed to think. But we believed implicitly, not particularly in the idea of compromising but in the principle of every member of this parliament coming here and studying the great problems of the western agriculturist, thoroughly, impartially and with a national outlook. I well remember that in my youth a good many people from the old province of Quebec moved to the west, which at that time was the promised land not only of this continent but of the world, the breadr-basket not only of Canada, not only of the Americas, not only of the British empire but of the whole of the civilized world. Some of the dreams we had then came partly true; but there was also at that time some overoptimism, which really is at the root of some of the discussions and problems that the west is having to-day. No doubt we shall continue for many years to pay the price of that overoptimism, because in those days we could visualize this country with at least fifty million people by 1950; it was Canada's century, as Sir Wilfrid Laurier said at the time. Those who went west built up provincial government services and wonderful public utilities; and this is neither the time nor the place to criticize that optimism, which was absolutely warranted at the time, but of which there is bound to be a "morning after," and a price aftermath to face.
We had a somewhat similar situation in northern Ontario. I remember that in 1909 I bought some property in a subdivision two miles from the centre of my home town. I have been paying municipal taxes on that property ever since, but instead of growing the population has been dwindling. I should not be criticized for that. I was also sharing the optimism of my time. In my own part of Ontario we wanted a railway connecting with tidewater at James bay; the farmers of the west wanted the same thing. I am not here to criticize the Churchill railway, because no party, no government and no parliament could have opposed the construction of a railway from the western .provinces to Hudson
bay. Yet those costly developments never came up to expectations. Those were days of optimism, but we must be realists in these realistic times, and one has only to read the Sirois report to see the problems that are faced at the present time by the fine population of the -three western provinces.
Sometimes, naturally, those of us who belong to the older parties in this house have been inclined to be more or less-more rather than less-impatient with certain political eruptions that have occurred periodically in the west. If a person takes the trouble to study the main causes of these eruptions, it will be found that in most instances it has been the agricultural situation, no doubt aggravated by that overoptimism to which I referred a few moments ago. But that does not mean that the rest of Canada should ignore these movements. Apart from the social credit movement, which was purely an economic or monetary reform movement, all the other movements have been due to the uneasiness brought about by a lack of prosperity on the-part of western farmers. We have seen the-Progressives, the United Farmers of Alberta-


Mr. FLEMING:: What about the political uprising in Ontario?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: It was due to agricultural conditions, also. As the hon. member for Humboldt (Mr. Fleming) has said, a few years ago we had an agrarian movement in-Ontario which was called the United Farmers-of Ontario. Again, the reason for that political movement was the fact that Ontario agriculturists were not prosperous and felt that they were not getting a fair deal. That is why I say we must be indulgent with these movements and try to comprehend them. It, is no use trying to put them aside with a wave of the hand; that will not be sufficient. They will not disappear that way. We must get together with these people, try to study their political theories and philosophy to see their viewpoint; and in most instances, if we go to that trouble, it will be possible to-find a common solution to our problems, or at least more tolerance to their approach. The difficulties facing this country will never be solved by a simple equation or by simple mathematics. A solution can be found only through a thorough study, from the proper angles, by all sections of our population, industrialists, financiers, political leaders, farmers,, labourers and all others. During the present debate a little heat is sometimes generated when one speaker says something against some other group in this house; but all through the discussion I believe we have only one end in view, namely, a solution of the prob-
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lems with which we are faced at the present time, and more illumination of that allimportant problem.
The hon. gentleman who preceded me, speaking of the agricultural problems of the west, said that perhaps after this war we might have a large number of people trying to enter this country. One of the great problems at present facing Ontario and Quebec, as well as the western provinces, is the fact that we have not sufficient machinery to look after our own natural increase. At the present time, in the Abitibi region of Quebec, which is adjacent to the part of Ontario in which I live, one of the greatest experiments in land settlement the world has ever witnessed, with the exception of the migration from Egypt, is being carried on. I believe it has been relatively successful up to the present, though perhaps not to the extent that might be wished; but I believe that experiment should be closely studied, because it may be of great help in solving the problems with which the province of Quebec is faced at present and the world itself may find itself confronted with after this conflict. But in that province we also have this situation, that within the next thirty or forty years not more than half a million more people can be fruitfully placed on the land because even in Quebec they know the limited acreage of farming land that they have left.
When I read the Sirois report I was astonished to learn from it, through the evidence of Professor W. J. Waines of the university of Manitoba, that so far as the population of the three western provinces is concerned we have practically reached the saturation point. I should think that with the development which has gone on in twenty or thirty years there would be practically no more space to fill up in the three western provinces. If my information is correct, only about eighteen million acres of land in those western provinces are fit for cultivation, and a lot of that is sub-marginal. Therefore on that score alone one can easily see the turmoil and the travail of the western deputations who are discussing the problem of agriculture, and the time may not be far distant when the west will have to go into subsistence farming.
At this point I should like to say a few words about the delegation which was in Ottawa a few weeks ago. My personal belief is that it was one of the finest movements of farmers this country has ever seen. Everyone will admire them, and particularly when we remember that these large and small rural municipalities which suffered1 so much during the depression, which have suffered from {Mr. Bradette.]
drought during many years, and from debts, found it possible to raise a sum of money large enough to send to Ottawa a delegation so representative and in such large numbers. I believe, however, that if they had seen their own good, clean-cut and active members of parliament discussing their problems, with the vim and fervour that they always display, they would have realized that the question of agriculture was being well handled and brought before national attention on the floor of the house.
When I say that the western members are vocal I do not make the statement disparagingly. It is their duty as impartially but as strongly as possible to bring before the house the great problems they face. But I make this one appeal; I want you to give us a chance to appreciate and understand the problems of others also. I must say, however, that I will vote against the amendment of the hon. member for Weyburn (Mr. Douglas) for the very good reason that I cannot see the necessity for it. He might just as easily have asked for $1.10 or $1.20 as have asked for $1. That 10 cents would mean an awful lot to the farmers in the three western provinces, or to farmers in Ontario. At the same time, however, the hon. member for Weyburn is a logical and practical individual, because he has been dealing with spiritual matters, and also with matters of the body, and he knows that all our wishes cannot come through.
I say we cannot always get what we want in this world. I know I have always applied that principle to myself. We have to be reasonable and fair. The western agriculturist is as great a realist as you will find; he is just as practical as any other man in Canada. The delegation was well received-in fact I believe it was received by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) and1 by several cabinet ministers and members of parliament. I had the pleasure of meeting quite a number of those who came, and I was agreeably astonished to see the number of French-Canadians in the group. Among the French-Canadians -I believe there were twenty or twenty-four of them-there were three or four Belgians. How proud I was to see their intense Cana-dianism and their great pride in affiliation with us!
When we are dealing with this subject we ought not to bring any politics into it. The hon. member for Lake Centre (Mr. Diefen-baker) said the other day that he believed there was politics in this kind of legislation and the reception of that delegation. If I wished to enlarge upon that angle, I would remind the hon. member of the discussion which took place in 1931 with respect to the
*4* lj

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imperial trade agreement with Great Britain. I was in Ottawa at that time, when a large delegation of agriculturists from Ontario and Quebec came to Ottawa to wait upon the then Prime Minister. Without attempting to criticize his action-because I know he was very busy-I must point out that no government official met the delegation which came in those days. If the western agriculturists have their problems now, certainly the Ontario farmers had problems to face at that time, just as they have many grievous ones at the moment.
In what I am about to say I am reminded of the plans of mice and men. Last year some of our eastern agriculturists were very much concerned with the feeling that growers of coarse grains in Ontario would be met with a flood of cheap coarse grains from the west. Well, the farmer always works with providence, and in most instances providence is kind1-but not always provident. In Ontario last year on account of drought conditions we had a very short crop of coarse grains, and we were very glad indeed to get the coarse grains from the west so as to carry on in Ontario. That makes us realize that in dealing with agriculture we are not dealing with something that is stationary but rather with something absolutely dynamic and always movable and changeable.
For instance, we are sometimes confronted with the suggestion-one concerning which I wish to be enlightened-that grain is one of the commodities which can be stored with the greatest facility and the least possible loss. I do not believe that is true. I have done considerable grain dealing in my part of the country, and on many occasions I have found that because of a change in the temperature, a wet season, or for some other reason, grain will deteriorate fairly intensively and rapidly. I believe that in the west at this time, no matter what some hon. members may say, there is bound to be some wear and tear, some loss on wheat that is stored and, in many instances, heavy losses and deterioration.
The other day I read in a newspaper about the multiplicity of insects which are now taking hold of much of the wheat in storage in the western provinces. That fact alone makes me realize that in all the plans we make, using our old standards, we find great difficulty in applying them to new situations, and unforeseen difficulties will have to be surmounted. I always pride myself in my open-mindedness in dealing with matters pertaining to the west. It is true that in our section of the country we are in a position to know something of the different municipalities in Ontario, and it is equally true that we
know an equal amount about the capitals and the large centres of population in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. We are served by a daily and weekly press not only from the east but from the west, and I believe that on that score alone we are in a position to know as much about western as we do about eastern problems, which is of great help to our population and makes us very impartial.
At this point I should like to say something which may at first appear to be local or regional. On two or three occasions during the last year or so some hon. members in opposition-I believe they were hon. members of the Scoial Credit group, and I make this observation as one Canadian to another, as man to man-went so far as to say that due to the war we should find it possible to stop the gold mining industry of this country. I hold no brief for the gold mining industry, although I do happen to represent one of the finest, greatest and richest gold mining sections in Canada, and, I might also say, well managed. I am not going to discuss at this time the gold standard, the yardstick for our monetary system, or the system we should have. Other opportunities will present themselves for such a discussion.
But if hon. members from the west could see what gold mining has done in my section of the country and to the whole of Canada, how it has benefited not only those connected with the mines but also the agricultural section of the community, I believe they would change their views. Tens of thousands of our settlers have gone into dairying, cattle raising, the production of poultry and eggs and other farm commodities. The only market they have is found in the gold mining sections of Porcupine, Kirkland Lake and the other mining communities. Surely hon. members do not wish to take those markets away from us.
If to-morrow the government found it possible to transfer every machine we have in gold production and also the labour so engaged to the fruitful and efficient manufacture of munitions and supplies for Great Britain, I would say it should go ahead, and do so. If in a reasonable time it would be possible to use those machines now engaged in gold mining for the development of a synthetic rubber industry in that section of the country, then I would say by all means do it if such an industry should be developed. But surely the government should not be asked to come to that section of the country to-morrow and throw out of employment about 65,000 people. Surely you could not ask that; I would not ask it of your people unless they could be usefully employed in war industry.
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The settlers and the farmers are reasoning it out in this way: How is it that western farmers, who should understand our problems, will say that the gold mining industry should be destroyed, and especially when the farmers in northern Ontario are ready, satisfied and willing to cooperate one hundred per cent with the government so that the farmers of the west will have their place in the sun and their right to reasonable prices for their production? Surely you can visualize my argument. If it is contended that agriculturists should be kept on the farms when there is a surplus of wheat in Canada, then surely the miners of the Porcupine, Kirkland Lake and Elk Lake districts and other mining districts in Manitoba and British Columbia should not be thrown out of work. I think there is logic in this argument. Hon. members are entitled to their opinions and I would be the last to moralize, but surely I have the implicit right to make that plea.
There is a population of 300,000 people directly interested in gold mining. This industry was one of the main reasons why our people were able to get by economically during the depression. We certainly are thankful for that. It was a great stabilizing factor during that hard period. The people in these mining sections were at least comfortable during the depression. Many of them are also agriculturists. This gold mining section is right in the middle of what is known as the clay belt of Ontario, one of the newer and finest farming sections in Canada. I ask hon. members to consider these things before they are ready to throw out into misery, into the cold, into squalor over 300,000 people. I want them to be a little more careful in their statements.


George Hugh Castleden: Could these men not be more valuably employed in munitions production?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I will answer that in this way: are there not a lot of farmers in the west who will be growing wheat next summer who could be better employed in manufacturing munitions?


George Hugh Castleden: They are doing it
already.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: We are realists in our own section of the country, and hon. members must be realists. The machinery used in gold mining cannot be put to making munitions, tanks or guns in a day or overnight. Hon. members may be surprised to learn that mines like the McIntyre and the Hollinger are doing some war work now, producing articles of war. I have been told by managers of these mines that if it were found necessary to close them for a period of months or years, many 
of them would never come back again into production. It would be absolutely impossible to exploit them again.


Mr. NICHOLSON:: What useful purpose is being served by gold? How is it terrorizing Hitler?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I said at the outset that I did not intend to enter into a discussion of the gold standard.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Wheat is not terrorizing
Hitler very much, is it?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Not at the moment. I
know that that question was put in all sincerity. The gold mining that is carried on in our section of the country is of benefit to the workers of Toronto and Montreal and the industrial population of the rest of Canada. We are very fortunate at the present time in that the United States still buys Canadian gold. This permits us to purchase materials used for the manufacture of munitions, guns hnd tanks to be sent to our armed forces and to our allies. It certainly greatly helps to stabilize our Canadian dollar. I want to make my argument quite clear and I do not want to be misquoted. The gold miners and farmers in my section of the country want all the good possible to be done for the western wheat growers, to do all they possibly can for a total war effort.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: Do the United States
want our gold?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: A few years ago a member of parliament attended the commencement exercises of the high school in Timmins, and he commented upon the fact that gold was taken out of the ground with hard1 work and sweat and then sent south and buried in another place. The chairman of that meeting, speaking later, told him that that argument could be carried a little further. He said, "I understand that in your section of Ontario you grow tobacco; that tobacco is made into cigarettes, smoking tobacco and cigars, and we up here turn it into ashes." That shows how far this sort of argument can go. When we talk of a total war effort we must visualize all these things. We must maintain our armed forces, and goodness knows we want to d*' that 200 per cent if possible. We must provide all necessary equipment, clothing and food to our armed forces and also our allies. We want a civilian population that is fruitfully employed. That is the only way you can maintain your armed forces. It could be argued that all breweries should1 be closed up. I do not believe that is necessary, but I will admit that if it were done we could still carry on the war just the same. It might be argued

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that we should stop the manufacture of alcoholic beverages, and we certainly could stop the manufacture of these soft drinks that are spoiling the stomachs of so many of our younger people. I could name fifty other industries that could be shut down. This simply shows what could happen if you carry an argument to an illogical conclusion, arguments that could not stand 'before the light of logic.
The agriculturists have problems, but so have the miners. The minute you take the livelihood away from these gold miners, 50,000 farmers in my section of the country will be without a market. The farmers of southern Ontario send their eggs, meat, vegetables and fruits up to our section. At times our farmers have fried to keep them out, but I have always argued that we are not only citizens of Ontario, we are citizens of Canada. That section provides a market for southern Ontario farmers and farmers in the province of Quebec.
I have a brother in that section who has two sons enlisted. He has fifty dairy cows, and he tells me that if the town of Timmins were closed up, there would be no reason for his farming.


Alexander Malcolm Nicholson: But what use is gold?


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Ask him what use it is not?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Does the bon. member realize that France, Norway, Spain, Great Britain and Portugal have sent billions of dollars in gold bullion to the United States? Perhaps hon. mefnbers would be surprised to know that Hitler was highly displeased; he was quite choleric and abusive when he found that millions in gold had been taken away from France before the invasion. Do hon. members think for one moment that Hitler would not be quite happy if he could get at the gold centres of this country? This argument applies just as forcibly to Italy. However, this is not the time or place to discuss the gold standard or our monetaiy system.
My argument is that there is a ready market to-day for the gold we can produce, and this is a good thing for Canada. I have no fear that the United States will close this market because at the present time that country is spending millions in gold in south America; but if this market should be cut off, then there would be only one thing for *this country to do, build up a gold reserve of five or six billion dollars in order to keep this industry going. That is as far as I am going with this question. I know that western members, while sometimes quite rugged in their discussions, are generally speaking, fair to the rest of the country.
We have large centres of population in Timmins, Schumacher, South Porcupine, Elk
Lake, Kirkland Lake and other places in that section. All these are in the province of Ontario. There are also some fine gold developments in Manitoba and in British Columbia. There are conditions in the Pacific coast province which may make for serious worries. I mean the Japanese situation. Let no one think that the government has no difficulty in looking after the thirty thousand Japanese in British Columbia. Remember that when you come to stop the gold mining industry it will involve three 'hundred thousand people who will be thrown out of work and will constitute one of the greatest problems with Which this country has had to deal. I speak somewhat heatedly because I know something about this matter and of its full implications. I am sure that there is no hon. member who doubts my sincerity.


Georges Parent: I am sorry to have to inform the hon. member that his time has expired.	.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Go on.


Georges Parent: With the unanimous permission of the house.


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: I thank the house very much for that favour. I have only a few words to add. I do not want to abuse the patience of hon. members because they have always been very kind to me.
In my view7 a discussion of this kind is all to the good so long as it does not become biased and so long as those who are asking for consideration are reasonable in their demands. It is always possible to discuss national problems in a national way, trying to get at the root of the difficulty and solve it in a fashion which will be fair and acceptable to all concerned. Agriculturists do appreciate the problems of other sections of the population, and they expect to receive in turn similar" attention and sympathy. We speak profusely and no doubt properly of new deals and of a new order of things, although I believe that in some instances these expressions are used merely as catchwords and tend to blur the vision of the real issues, so promoting a state of aloofness and inability to reach the crux of our problems. No class can grow and prosper at the expense of another class. If by our study and our effort in the legislative field we can restore confidence and comfort to the primary producer, the discussions on this bill will have been time well spent.


Mr. GILLIS :: Before the hon. member concludes his speech, I wish he would clear my mind on one point. He spoke to a considerable extent, in the discussion on this wheat
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bill, on the question of gold mining. I should like to ask him, first, if it is not now the policy of the government to curtail as far as possible gold mining as a non-essential war industry; second, are there not now a thousand miners in Kirkland Lake who are unemployed and cannot get either work or relief as far as the government are concerned?


Joseph-Arthur Bradette: Of course, Mr. Speaker, it is for the government rather than myself to answer that question. I may say that the mine management of my own section-the only district of which I can speak with personal knowledge-have to face at the present time priority demands as far as steel construction and machinery are concerned, and they willingly submit to these restrictions. In some mines it is quite a problem to get the necessary labour. As far as Kirkland Lake is concerned I am not familiar with the situation, but I express sincerely the hope that the fine workers in that section of the country will find fruitful employment as soon as possible.


Mr. F. D. SHAW (Red Deer):: The hon. member for Cochrane (Mr. Bradette) has just completed a rather interesting speech, although I believe he wandered somewhat from the subject, for he covered a wide field. I do not suppose that I am expected to follow suit; in fact there is not enough time for me to deal with the matters which he has given us for consideration.
One hesitates to inject himself into a debate when it reaches its final stages. However, failure on the part of one who represents one of the finest mixed farming areas in western Canada to give expression to his views at this time might lead some persons to construe that silence as indicating wholehearted approval of the policy announced for 1942. Such a conclusion would certainly be far removed from the fact.
I believe we are all ready to recognize the difficulty with which any government is confronted that endeavours to solve a problem of such magnitude as this agricultural problem. When the Minister of Trade and Commerce (Mr. MacKinnon) and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Gardiner) were explaining the proposed policy to us, I could not refrain from watching each minister as he was speaking and trying to determine from his actions whether or not he felt elated over the policy which he was-I was going to say-compelled to give us. I do not profess to be a professional psychologist, nor am I a recognized crystal-gazer, but I felt that it was with some reluctance that the Minister of Trade and Commerce delivered his message. I may be 
wrong, but my impression was that he, as a western member, thought something better should have been offered. As for the Minister of Agriculture, I felt that he was quite jubilant as a result of having that message to deliver. In dealing with the matter of parity he made a masterly job of juggling, to the extent, in my opinion, of showing that two things which do not equal the same thing equal each other. That was my impression when the Minister of Agriculture finished. As the minister was selling us that policy, I was rather relieved that he was a Minister of Agriculture and not some type of door-to-door salesman who might camp upon my doorstep to sell Witch ointment, let us say, or Devil lotion to reduce the hefty housewife or give curly hair to the baldheaded. I fear that in either instance he would have done anything to sell his lotion or his mixture.


An hon. MEMBER:: Would they work, though?


Frederick Davis Shaw: Page the salesman.
I have the honour to represent, as I said earlier, one of the finest agricultural constituencies in western Canada. Fortunately we are not afflicted there by drought; we have not been tormented by insect pests; and at the same time we have not broad expanses of cultivated land devoted entirely to the production of wheat. Nevertheless we have a problem, and a very serious one, and I propose using conditions there as a basis for delivering my message at this time.
As you are well aware, Mr. Speaker, in a mixed farming area, we are engaged in the production of certain agricultural commodities for which there is a very great demand at this time. I have in mind the production of cheese, lard, eggs, and milk; and when I mention milk I might also refer to our great eondensory at Red Deer, the product of which has, I understand, already reached the British market. I could enumerate other products which are derived from mixed farming.
It is true that prices of those commodities have definitely improved during recent days- that is, according to announcements which emanate from certain departments of government showing the established prices of those articles. But it always seems strange to me that when it comes to the final analysis, to the man who actuually produces the commodity and puts it on the market, his price is always so much lower than the quoted price. I have felt for a long time that the day has at last arrived when the government should take some definite action to see that the producers of these commodities are guaranteed a fair return in the light of prices

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which are presumed to prevail. I feel that some bodies or some organizations are taking advantage of these producers.
The situation in a constituency such as mine has been something like this. A number of years ago settlers moved into that area and purchased land. They were optimistic, no doubt, as the hon. member for Cochrane has said. But God forbid that we should ever lose that quality of optimism. They agreed to pay, in most instances, prices which were not regarded as unreasonable in view of the fact that wheat was worth from $1.50 to $2 or thereabouts a bushel. They paid as initial payments on that property possibly their life savings, and in many instances they borrowed money at 6, 8 and 10 per cent interest. It is also true that these farmers paid high prices for the machines which were required, high prices for the stock which they needed, and then they undertook farming.
We all know the whole desperate situation with which these farmers were confronted from 1931 until 1934. The bottom fell out of the price of grain. We well recollect the 30 cents a bushel which farmers were called upon to accept for wheat. Prices of all other farm commodities fell in proportion, but the interest charge against the farmer's borrowings, the value placed upon his land, did not come down-not in proportion, if at all. We know, too, that taxes increased owing to the extent of the relief which it was necessary for the various governments of Canada to pay. While the farmer's income dropped in many instances as much as 80 per cent, he was still called upon to pay the contractual price which he had agreed to pay for his land, at the rates of interest set forth in the contract. During those years we found many evicted from their properties. We found mortgage companies foreclosing. They did not foreclose all at once, it is true, but they gradually foreclosed as they could procure tenants for the land which they repossessed. Those, generally speaking, were the conditions confronting the farmers during that period, and those conditions did not improve materially even up until the time the war broke out.
The farmers did definitely protest against the conditions under which they were being forced to carry on. They protested, but on the other hand they continued producing. We found many of them branded as dishonest because of not meeting their obligations, and some of them to this day are having a difficult time living down the imputation of dishonesty which was put upon them. I think it is fair to say that during those years we did not realize that a necessary condition of the restoration of prosperity was the recognition
of a more adequate income for agriculture. We have always stated that agriculture is our basic industry, but we utterly failed to see that, with such a large part of our Canadian population depending upon agriculture, if we had given a square deal to farmers during those years we would undoubtedly have stabilized our economic life in this country and would have been much better able to face the situation with which we were confronted in 1939.
One more observation in that connection. It is quite true that during those difficult years some of the governments did take steps towards introducing legislation which had a tendency to scale down certain debts. But I would make this observation. I do not believe there is any member of this house who would say that as a consequence of the writing down of debts the plight of the farmer in Canada was appreciably improved. Many of us had occasion to examine into many of the soldier settlement contracts, and we realize from the experience we gained there that hardly 2 per cent of those whose debts were written down found themselves in a more favourable position after the passing of a few years. In my estimation it is futile to undertake to solve the problems of the farmers by merely scaling down their debts. All they want is an honest opportunity to pay their debts, and that can be done only through the establishment of a fair and just price for the things they produce.
I believe it is a fact that there is no class of people in the world who will rally to the defence of democracy, when democracy is threatened, sooner than farmers. When the war broke out in 1939, Canadian farmers were 'among the first to rally to the support of the country; and when I think of the extent to which they did rally to its support, offering their sons and their produce, offering to change their methods of farming, offering to do anything that would help the country in her hour of peril, I am reminded of the words of the President of the United States when dealing with this same matter. He said:
When democracy is in danger our farmers always have rallied to its defence and they always will. All they ask in return for their increased production is fair prices and assurances of protection after the emergency has passed.
We could modify that. We are not so much concerned about paying them for huge increases in production, speaking particularly of wheat, but we are concerned about giving them a decent price for that whea/t which can be accepted under a quota system of delivery.
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Through the first year of the war our government relied to a very great extent upon European markets. We believed, for example, that France would continue to be a large purchaser of Canadian wheat and that various other European countries would do the same. I do not think it ever entered our heads that we would not be shipping more grain to the United Kingdom than we have shipped during the past two years. Therefore, during the first few months, in fact, during the first year of the war our wheat surplus did not bother us much. But in June, 1940, came the crash; with the fall of France we found our European market cut off. Then we began to give consideration to the vast surpluses of grain which would surely accumulate.
During the following year, that is the crop year 1940-41, we instituted a scheme of acreage reduction, paid the farmers a bonus for reducing wheat acreage and turning the land into summer-fallow. I personally cannot subscribe to the idea that we should pay farmers to allow land to remain uncropped. I believe that every part of agricultural Canada can be put to use. I am not advocating that we should plough all our land and sow it to wheat. But I am stating what has already been stated here that a great deal of that land in western Canada can be used for the production of sugar beets. That is only one illustration. We might give consideration to the production of fodder crops and of further root crops, and to the expansion of the dairy industry-although that may not please certain parts of the country- but I am definitely opposed to curtailing the production of foodstuffs in time of war. I may be wrong, but I would rather be wrong in that regard than sorry if we ever are confronted with a great demand and an inability to meet it.
Last year the government also undertook to pay to farmers in areas where farming is more hazardous certain forms of assistance. I approve that; anyone who is familiar with those great expanses of prairie that were dried out year after year could not but subscribe to that form of assistance. Then a more recent innovation was the prairie farm income scheme. The farmers of western Canada were assured that these bonuses would be paid at certain times.
I understand all the farmers in my constituency were led to believe that the wheat acreage reduction bonus would be paid in December. They made their plans accordingly; they wrote to machine companies to whom they owed money; they spoke to the tax collecting agencies explaining that they anticipated the receipt of this money. Then weeks went by, in certain instances even months; they failed to receive the money and no 
explanations were forthcoming. Did the machine companies, the tax collecting authorities and the mortgage companies accept the statements given to them by the farmers who were expecting the bonuses? No. I understand also that 50 per cent of the Prairie Farm Assistance bonus was to be paid in December. But I have had ever so many complaints from farmers that they did not receive the 50 per cent payment and that they had not yet received the payment which was due in March. The same thing applies to the income payments. I think there is one thing to be learned from that. The ministers responsible have seen the regional offices administered during one crop year, and if there is something wrong in the administration it is high time to set it right and remove the difficulty. I do not want to be harsh, but I sometimes think that the man and his association with the party are considered before his qualifications for the position. There was something wrong; we might as well admit it, and I think it is time right now to do a bit of housecleaning.
With regard to the policy for 1942, I must first say that we do appreciate the fact that the farmers are being offered another 20 cents a bushel. There is no denying that 90 cents is better than 70 cents. But 90 cents is not parity, and I am satisfied that the minister did not satisfy the members from western Canada that it was parity and, in some instances, perhaps more than parity. It is only fair and right that when it comes to determining parity level we should be given more information than was provided by the Minister of Agriculture if we are to be satisfied with his calculations. I believe, and I think the farmers of my riding believe, that $1 a bushel at the local elevator now is not a cent too much. I know that the farmers of my constituency cannot carry on and meet their obligations at less than $1 a bushel at the local elevator.
We do not go in for acreage reduction to any extent in that riding because we have not large areas devoted to the production of wheat. There is some reduction, but our income from that source is not very much. As far as wheat is concerned, we have to depend upon the price established for 1942, and I have not met a farmer yet who thinks that 90 cents will enable him to carry through and meet his obligations. I agree with what was stated by one or two members of this group, that there should be an amendment to the Prairie Farm Assistance Act with a view to making it a sound1 crop insurance scheme. I believe that is absolutely essential, and I am not impressed by the statement of the Minister of Agriculture that for

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this reason or that it cannot be done. We notice that when he is desirous of going in any direction he usually succeeds in removing the obstacles in his way.
I believe the farmers of western Canada require further guidance. We must through some means undertake a more complete organization of this country's agricultural industry; we must do further planning of production. I have already indicated that I believe certain areas might be devoted to the production of sugar beets. That is only a suggestion. We should plan production in this country province by province, and do it now.
Furthermore we should organize the agricultural resources of this dominion. It has been intimated in the press that farmers may encounter difficulty in securing farm machinery. If farm machinery is not going to be given priority, and I think it should be, then we must organize in order to use the equipment which is available this year or next under a system of restricted machine production. Also we ought to give further direction to our farmers to enable them to market their secondary products, on a cooperative basis if necessary.
There is one other matter. Those whom I represent are definitely opposed to the action of the government in draining man-power from our farms indiscriminately and without consideration for farm requirements. If they are going to continue this, then I expect them to tell us how the farmer can carry on under a system whereby we take our men from the farms into industry and to join the various branches of the armed forces without regard to agricultural requirements. This has become a very serious question. Under the present set-up they take a man in for training and indicate that he will be released later on to work on the farm. Then, when we apply for his release they say, "We have invested a certain amount of money in this man now. We are very sorry, but we cannot release him." We are confronted with that difficulty frequently. The allotment of man-power for farm work should be carried out on a carefully planned basis; and any scheme for allotting labour to the farm should have a direct relationship to the requirements of industry and those of the armed forces.
Final and complete victory will depend upon the consideration we give agriculture at the present time. If we fail to meet the requests of agriculture, then we are making a mockery of all those things for which we say we are fighting. We must understand that under the new order which we have promised to all, including the farmers, agriculture must be
guaranteed its rightful place in the national economy. Before the outbreak of war we regarded the farmer as the outstanding peacetime casualty. We all looked upon him in that way; we thought of every reason in the world for making him a casualty. Governments kept farmers disorganized and brought about that result. Then the war came upon us, and once again we are making the farmer the casualty. So I say in conclusion that, if final and complete victory is to be won, the farmer must be guaranteed his share of the national income, and further guaranteed that when the war is over he will not be forced back into the position in which he found himself during those extremely hard years from 1931 to 1934 and those difficult years from 1934 up to the present time.


Mr. J. A. GREGORY (The Battlefords):: Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult in the waning hours of a long debate to say anything new and original. One does not care simply to repeat those things which have been said already by a multitude of speakers; but at the same time, representing a Saskatchewan constituency, I feel that I should place myself on record with respect to the wheat policy for 1942-43 which is now before the house for consideration.
One year ago, in speaking of the wheat policy of that time, I said that policy bore all the evidences of a compromise. I find myself again in that position this year; the policy now before the house bears all the appearances of a compromise. In viewing this policy it is necessary to do so from three aspects: from the point of view of the initial price to be paid for wheat, the wheat acreage reduction scheme, and the continuation of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act. I have said that this policy bears all the evidences of a compromise. In a country such as Canada, as I said last year and as has been said time and again during this debate, there are many conflicting interests. There are conflicting provincial interests, notwithstanding the fact that the provincial boundaries are in many instances, purely artificial. There are conflicting interests which arise from our geographical situation in various parts of Canada. All these matters must have their place and effect in decisions made by the cabinet. In addition to conflicting interests, I find another, influence that has operated in the creation of a compromise wheat policy. Since coming to Ottawa I have discovered that there is a minority opinion within this house, as well as a minority opinion outside this house, that Saskatchewan cannot survive; that it is a hopeless task to try to maintain Saskatchewan,
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and that the sooner the people move out of that province, the better it will be for the whole of Canada.
These are some of the things that have brought about the compromise wheat policy of this government. It is very true that we have in Saskatchewan a population of nearly a million people of the white race who, during the last thirteen years, have endured tribulations such as have never been endured in the recorded history of that or any other part of Canada. In addition to the drought, which has visited every part of that province intermittently during that period of time, the world depression took a toll of the price of farm commodities, to the extent that during the last thirteen years there has not been a farm commodity which has returned to the farmer the cost of production.
Let me again remind the house that during the last forty-five years, during which floods of immigration poured over that western country, reaching the extent of half a million people in 1912-13, and as enormous developments took place there following that great flood of immigration, prodigious volumes of wealth were created each year in the west, which wealth found its way down to the central provinces to enrich their banks, mortgage companies and other financial institutions; yes, and to build its small industries into large industries, its small cities into large cities. Thus, during the last forty-five years that western country has made a marvellous contribution to the building up of Canada as a whole.
I ask you, sir, are those years to be forgotten? Is this great contribution made by the west to Canada as a whole to be set to one side? Is this white population of nearly a million people to be abandoned? If I may be permitted to answer that question, let me say that years of great production again will come to that western country. Once again the wealth will roll from the farms of Saskatchewan and the west as a whole down to the central provinces of Canada, thus enriching the life of the whole country.
It may not be known to all hon. members, that in the great prairie belt in the west we are not dependent upon the currents of air from either the Atlantic or Pacific oceans to create our rainfall. We are dependent only upon the meeting of the warm current of air from the gulf of Mexico with the cold currents from the Arctic ocean. It is this meeting which creates condensation in the form of rain, hail, sleet or snow, according to the period of the year. During the last few years the currents from the gulf of Mexico have moved very much farther east, and thus the currents from the Arctic and the gulf of Mexico have failed

to meet over that prairie region, with the result that we have had thirteen years of intermittent drought.
Judging from the records of early settlers, from the traditions of the Indians, and the records of some meteorological stations in the United States to which we have had access, we have learned that what we used to call the great American' desert-and I remember having learned this in my geography class, when a boy-has intermittently enjoyed years of heavy rainfall and good crops, and on the other hand years in which the currents of air had failed to meet, with the resulting lack of precipitation. I have confidence that history will repeat itself, and that when the right meteorological conditions develop, that great western country will again become the breadbasket of Canada, as it was once described.
I now turn my attention to the splendid delegation of about 400 farmers from Saskatchewan, who journeyed to Ottawa to lay their case before the government, and to stress their views respecting a wheat policy for the west for 1942-43 crop year. In my opinion that was one of the finest delegations which ever came to Ottawa; we are proud of it. It was an accurate cross-section of the whole of Saskatchewan, including farmers from that province, merchants, clergymen, professional men, reeves of rural municipalities, mayors of cities and others, each of whom conducted himself with decency and dignity. The presentation of their case to the government was characterized by moderation and intelligence.
What was the essence of that presentation? For the purpose of debate may I summarize it under four headings: (1) That there should be no price ceiling on wheat; (2) the initial payment on wheat should be $1 a bushel; (3) there should be a parity price paid for -wheat, by further payments over and above the $1 initial payment during the course of the year from time to time, to bring the price of wheat up to a parity with other commodities, and (4) the continuation of the Prairie Farm Assistance Act.
For the moment I shall deal only with that portion of the brief which I have summarized under these headings. Disregarding the rest of the brief, may I say I find myself wholly in accord with the requests made by the delegation. I believe those requests were reasonable and fair, in view of the war economy of Canada.
Let us see how these requests were viewed in certain parts of Canada. We have heard objections voiced by hon. members from other provinces, and this evening I would particularly draw the attention of the house to an editorial which appeared in the Truro

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Daily News shortly after the delegation had gone home. The following is the text of the editorial:
Should be nothing doing
The 400 beggars from the western wheat fields of Canada have visited Ottawa and returned. They called themselves Prairie wheat growers and their supporters". In fact it would seem that they are a gang of leeches stirred up and led by a few shameless agitators. They were probably dominated by those who make money out of buying and selling wheat and the big wealthy wheat producers.
Presaging this trek of a couple of train loads of supplicants to the government for pap we urged that our elected representatives stiffen their back bones and use fair common sense in this case.	...
The government is in control of prices in Canada. So far, in spite of mistakes that are bound to occur, an excellent job has been done. Wage and salary earners should be highly satisfied.
With the last sentence I wholly agree.
It is probable that the holding down of the cost of living by the wartime prices and trade board will make unnecessary a bonus to employees for the present quarter. This is all to the good.
Now these western beggars have tried to overawe the government by taking a veritable army to Ottawa demanding special privileges. All other citizens of the country have been paying extra taxes so that the government may give these westerners a present of millions of dollars in the past to help them meet world market conditions. The last was a government guarantee of 70 cents a bushel to the grower for his wheat. In the face of the government's ceiling on prices this pap fed class from the west asks the government to collect from the rest of us another 30 cents a bushel as an additional gift to them to further fatten their pocket-books.
Nothing doing! This is definitely what should be told them. Let them get out and "root hog or die" as most all industries of the country have to do.
With the latter part of that sentence I find myself definitely not in accord.
The government told them that their request would receive consideration. The answer right on the spot, should have been, definitely "No!"
In the three years ended July 31, 1941, we contributed approximately 80 million dollars to these brassy western beggars. The new $1 a bushel gun this army of 400 put up to the government would mean under similar circumstances about 115 millions. It is certainly time to call a halt. If the government needs an opposing army to wait on them to help them to say "No," we feel sure thousands of already necessarily tax burdened citizens of Canada would join it.
In the last two years, since coming here, I have heard a great deal of talk about the necessity for unity in the awful struggle in which we and the rest of the world are engaged. I wonder just what contribution the editor of the Truro Daily News has made to unity in Canada. The article is unfair;
it is untruthful, and it is an insult not only to the delegation but to every resident in Saskatchewan. I am not aware of any reason for using that kind of language with respect to the people of that province. I know of no person in Saskatchewan who would have any reason to feel an inferiority complex when meeting Canadians from any other province. We came from the other provinces of Canada; we came from Great Britain, we migrated from the western United States, and some of us came from the eastern United States. Enormous contributions have been made by nearly every country in Europe. The opportunities thus presented to a man in Saskatchewan w'ere never available to those in other provinces. The effect of intercourse among these various people has been broadening; it has enriched the life of every person who has gone to Saskatchewan. There is no necessity to direct insulting remarks such as these to the residents of that province.
il sometimes wonder how Saskatchewan maintains its position in confederation. I shall not at this moment make reference to the various secession movements that have sprung up in Saskatchewan, but I may have something to say about this at some future date if necessary. These movements have sprung up because of the unfair treatment handed out to that part of Canada. It is bled white with freight rates on those commodities that flow easterly and it is bled white with freight rates on the things it consumes that flow westerly. It is bled white by a high tariff structure which is of no benefit to western Canada, which is nothing but a detriment.
There are no banks with head offices in that province. We are away out on the end of the limb of the financial structure. We have always been charged the most exorbitant interest rates. In the forty-five years I have lived in western Canada I have found that 12 per cent was the common rate of interest at one time. Then it was reduced to 10 per cent, and then 8 per cent was the recognized rate charged by everybody, banks and individuals. It is only recently that there has been a softening of these excessive rates to 6 and 7 per cent. One realizes from personal knowledge that in that part of the country the wages of money have been vastly greater than the wages of men, at least in the last fifteen years.
It is a widely held belief that before the end of the 1942-43 crop year wheat will be worth considerably more money. Both President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill have said that a great offensive will be commenced in the spring of 1943. If that does
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occur, it means that Canada and the United States will have to feed armed forces in all parts of the world. We shall have to feed Russia and the Russian army and, if the offensive is successful, we shall have to feed the liberated peoples as we drive Hitler out of Europe back toward Germany. When that time comes, there will be gqch a demand for wheat that we shall not have to talk about it in a whisper and with humility as we do when we apologize for this great granary of 500 million bushels of unwanted surplus. When that time comes, wheat will once more hold up its head. It will again be that No. 1 western hard which will be demanded 'by suffering and starving people. When that time comes, wheat will be worth probably twice what it is worth at the present time. May I suggest that out of that increased price it is quite likely that more than the parity price asked by this delegation will be handed back to the farmers in the form of participation certificates.
I should like to say a word or two with respect to these bonuses. I am pleased indeed that the wheat acreage reduction bonus has been continued. This will have the effect of inducing people to leave wheat production to some extent and' to go into the production of coarse grains in order that we may fill our contracts with Great Britain for those classes of foods for which we have contracted. I am pleased indeed that a floor has been placed under flax. This will be conducive to encouraging people to produce the oils which we need so badly.
The Prairie Farm Assistance Act assures a living to the farmer in case of crop failure, and possibly the return of some of the operating cost of his farm. At least it keeps the farmer on the land. It is much better than that obnoxious word "relief". He is being maintained by bonuses which are legal in nature and for which he does not need to apologize. Unfortunately no amendment is proposed at this session to this act to prevent the 8- to 12-bushel class being wiped out. I trust the agriculture committee will do something with respect to bringing in an amendment to cover tho.se in the 8- to 12-bushel class. I think an amendment to pay that class 81 per bushel would be satisfactory. I know that this would meet with general approval in western Canada. Every letter and telegram that I have received from the time this question was first mooted to the present date makes reference to the advisability of continuing these bonuses. Beyond question they are of great value to western Canada, and the people of that part of the country fully appreciate them.
This wheat policy goes part way in fair play for wheat farmers.
[Mr. Gregory.!
What gains have we made in this present legislation over the previous wheat policy? I think these gains can be summarized under four headings: First, there is no price ceiling in connection with this wheat policy. Second, the 280 million bushels to be purchased next year will be purchased, not by private interests for the purpose of making a gain out of the increased price to which I have referred, but by the Canadian wheat board and whatever profits are made will go back to the farmers of western Canada. Third, there is a substantial increase in the initial payment. Twenty cents a bushel is not to be sneezed at. May I say again that the letters I have received from western Canada all show a sense of appreciation for what has been done. These people realize the benefit which will be derived' from the fact that the initial payment on wheat has been raised to 90 cents a bushel. Fourth, we have retained the two bonuses to which I have referred.
In summarizing the beneficial effects of this wheat policy over previous policies, I do not want it to be understood that I am satisfied with this policy; I want it to be definitely understood that I am not satisfied with it. I believe the farmer is entitled to $1 a bushel for his wheat as a part of the war economy of Canada.
In conclusion, may I say that I am only pleading for fair play for the people of my province. Industry and labour have been amply rewarded and provided for in this country. Many other producers in other provinces have been treated generously, and I plead for fair play for the producers of wheat. Why should the wheat farmer always be the forgotten man? Why should he be the beggar at the feast, if you will, the poor relation in the economy of Canada? I suggest that in the discussions of the agriculture committee the demands of this delegation be kept in mind with a view to bringing in a report implementing in every detail the requests of this delegation.


Mr. R. W. GLADSTONE (Wellington South):: Mr. Speaker, I wish first to congratulate the hon. member for The Battlefords (Mr. Gregory) upon his logical and enthusiastic support of the legislation before the house, having to do with the interests of the agricultural population of the great province of Saskatchewan as well as of the other two wheat producing provinces, Manitoba and Alberta. He has, however, interjected into his speech this evening one word, "secession", which should never be used by the representative of any province in this dominion. Even though we farmers of Ontario believe that in the past we have paid toll to manufacturers for the

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upbuilding of industry, and although western farmers have done the same, I am sure we shall be conscious to-day that we are reaping the benefits of what we then gave to industry, as we see Canadian mechanical transport going to Egypt and Libya, and our guns and shells being shipped to all parts of the world for the protection of that freedom which all of us love. Therefore I counsel all hon. members to think seriously, regardless of whence they come or what their interests may be, before using the word "secession" in this parliament.
We have entered the second week of a debate on three bills relating to the wheat situation. So far, I believe, thirty-seven hon. members have spoken, thirty of them from western Canada and seven from eastern Canada. Quite naturally the arguments of those from the west have been either in support of the bills now under consideration or in advocacy of something better than they contain. We expect, of course, that hon. members from the west will do everthing possible for the improvement of conditions in their chief industry. It may be said here that the attitude of hon. members from the east who have spoken has been one of sincere willingness to do anything they can for the improvement of agricultural conditions in the western provinces. They realize that there cannot be prosperity in their towns and cities unless there is prosperity on the farms.
It is my feeling that we eastern members would do well to make a keener study of agricultural conditions of both the east and the west. The notice of motion in the name of the hon. member for Broadview (Mr. Church) may be regarded as a beginning in that direction. Undoubtedly we eastern members should have a better understanding of what is going on in the west as well as a fuller appreciation of the situation of the small farmer in eastern Canada. The hon. member asks for a return showing:
1.	The amounts paid from the consolidated revenue fund to farmers of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, since the year 1930, by years, on account of (a) direct per bushel bonus,
(b)	wheat acreage bonus, (c) wheat acreage reduction bonus, (d) prairie farm income bonus, (e) Prairie Farm Assistance Act.
2.	The deficits sustained by the Canadian Wheat Board in each year since its establishment.
3.	The total amounts paid since 1930 to farmers in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, by way of, (a) wheat bonus, (b) hog production bonus,
(c)	cheese production bonus.
In the course of the present discussion the whole western agricultural situation, particularly with respect to wheat, and extending
over many years, has been reviewed, and also the proposals affecting the 1942 and 1943 crop years. I do not wish to continue the discussion of the past or even the proposed legislation, but would rather direct my remarks toward the future of all agriculture throughout Canada in the new order that is to be.
Canada is an extremely difficult country to govern. In .the long expanse stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and far to the north we have great variations of climate, of physical contours, of resources, of conditions and circumstances, and correspondingly varying interests. It is a major problem of government to endeavour to harmonize all this diversity of interest.
The prosperity of any country, and most certainly of Canada, hinges on the creation of new wealth, which in turn depends upon the development of our resources of the farm, the forest, the sea and the mine. Here, as we all realize, is to be found the support for the upbuilding of our cities and towns and their industrial life.
We may recall the development of our eastern provinces. The pioneers came to these provinces, the French to Quebec and the English, Irish, Scotch and other nationalities to the maritimes and Ontario. They came with their families in those days when the only transportation was by means of sailing vessels. They came to the primeval forest and were supported for a time by the beneficence of settlers who had preceded them to the new land. But gradually they hewed out a place in the forest for their little cabin and clearing whereon they might produce some vegetables and grain. They expanded their clearing year by year; it became their home, and farming became their way of life. That has been the history of the development of these eastern provinces-the province of Quebec notably and likewise the province of Ontario.
The farm unit in Ontario has been largely 100 acres, and over a period of years there was until recent times a gradual betterment with the erection of fine buildings-houses and barns-and the making of a way of life wherein the 100-acre farm supported a family. As the years went along, more land was cleared and there came the need for implements to increase production. So, through invention and science, we had the perfection of some tools with which to carry on agriculture. This brought about the development of little manufacturing communities, and stage by stage, with greater development of the country, and then with the development of the western country, these industrial areas have grown larger and larger. The tendency
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has been for the manufacturing interests to congregate in certain cities, and the further tendency in these modern times has been for these industries to grow larger and larger until we have now reached the stage of enormous manufacturing and mass production -production where regrettably the machine is almost replacing the man, where a piece of iron goes into the machine and travels through the various processes of bending, shaping and riveting, without the human hand touching it and only some skilled supervision being necessary. It is, of course, a debatable question whether the introduction of these modern machines has resulted in the aggregate in lessened or increased employment of labour.
There has been a corresponding development in merchandising, where the small store, the corner grocery, has been replaced by the chain store. This no doubt has brought an improvement in certain phases of merchandising, but it has had its disadvantages, the disadvantage of ownership going to other cities and most certainly passing away from the man who had a personal interest in the development of his community. We have lost much of that good old-time civic spirit and responsibility that made for the development of our fine towns and cities in Ontario and in other parts of Canada. I would hope that this development of mass production in the factory and in merchandising may not spread into the realm of agriculture. It seems to me that our God-given heritage- these fertile fields-was intended primarily for the support of families of this great Canadian nation, and it is to be regretted if there is a tendency in legislation or otherwise to have the farm unit increased far in excess of any necessity for supporting a family.
The means of continuing the small farm unit are, of course, contingent on mixed agriculture. That is the backbone of the eastern provinces, and it is gratifying to know that in some of the western provinces, particularly in Manitoba and Alberta, there is a tendency toward mixed farming. Possibly in the great province of Saskatchewan it is necessary to farm on a large scale because certain sections are no doubt unsuitable for mixed farming. It is a question as to what direction government policy should take in the future in relation to these large-scale farm operations that extend to 2,000, 5,000 and 10.000 acre farms. As I have said, our unit in Ontario is 100 acres. I do not know what the corresponding unit of the mixed farm would be in the west, whether 320 acres or 640 acres; but most certainly I, as a member representing a rural constituency in the east, regret the tendency to the establish-

ment of farms on a scale where very few people are supported on the land and where operations approximate more nearly the form of mass production carried on through the operation of wide-swathe machines, perhaps operated by absentee owners.
In the past it has been remarked that Canada is the granary of the world,. Perhaps in days gone by we could look to such a prospect, but in recent years there have been changes. We have come into competition in world markets; we have come into competition with the United States, Australia, the Argentine, Russia and other nations, great growers of wheat. We have seen our market diminishing; and who can say that when this war is over, the days will return when we can feel that we have any assurance of a market for all the wheat we can produce? This being true, does it not behoove us to endeavour to organize our agriculture so that we may not be building up an enormous excess year after year but may be working out a system in the direction of smaller units and more diversification, spreading this as far as possible to the western provinces as well as Ontario and Quebec, to the end that the farm unit, whether 100 acres in Ontario or 640 acres, say in the west, may be the home and dwelling-place of a family. It would be regrettable if the tendency in our agriculture should be toward depopulating the rural areas and making them merely the site of operation of great power machines.	-
The difficulty relative to marketing is, as I have said, this competition with other nations. Our surplus wheat must be sold in the markets of the world. We have to compete with the Argentine where the wheat growing lands are close to the seaboard and therefore their transportation costs are much lower than ours, with our great distances from the prairies to the ocean. Therefore I venture to suggest this- it may not be within the realm of possibility at all-that when the victory is won and the day comes to settle the peace, those great wheat producing nations give some consideration to an endeavour to work out plans by which the land in all countries may become more and more a place of homes for the people. After all, surely the intention of the Almighty was that this land should be a place of prosperous and happy homes. I do not know whether it is possible, but it seems to me that this tendency to high-power machines cutting wide swathes across the land should be stopped. Perhaps this could be done by an agreement among all these great wheat producing countries. Par better to have a narrower machine cutting, say eight feet, which is only profitable to operate on a 640-acre farm, than the enormous high-powered machines that com-

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plete the whole operation in one day, suitable only for farms which operate on a large scale. If there is any tendency in Saskatchewan to establish 2,000-, 5,000-, and 10,000-acre farms, I think it is greatly to be regretted. I hope that when the peace is being formulated, the other nations will come to their senses and seek some means whereby land will be used for the purpose for which it was intended.
I wish to reiterate my desire to support any possible effort to improve western conditions *during this time of emergency. The west has come through difficult times and must be supported. I agree that in a great measure at least wheat is a war casualty, and since we are spending money for so many things we must spend to assist that western country. But I again express the hope that some means may be found to stem the tide running in the direction of large-scale operations and that we may somehow get back to the utilization of the land as a place for homes, for families of good Canadian citizens.


Mr. R. T. GRAHAM (Swift Current):: I rise solely for the purpose of adding a constructive and, I hope, a soothing note to the discussion concerning wheat and the wheat farming areas of Saskatchewan. I have listened with great interest to the contributions to this somewhat long debate, particularly perhaps those by hon. members from eastern Canada. Of their remarks I have no criticism whatever to offer; I think I fully appreciate their point of view. I have, however, had conversations with some of my friends on this side of the house who live in eastern Canada and have noted with some concern an attitude of mind that might be described, if it were a matter of war, almost as defeatism, or a sense of futility in approch-ing the problems of the west, as we members from the west think it our duty to do. For instance, they suggest-and I have every sympathy with them-that the western wheat problem occupies too much of the time and attention of this house, in this and other sessions. Some suggest even that it might be better to abandon Saskatchewan, the great plains region-I speak of Saskatchewan simply because 1 am more familiar with it-as a selfsupporting economy, to stop the drain on the dominion treasury and call the whole experiment a day. I use the word "experiment" advisedly, because that is the very point I wish to make to-night, that Canada has been watching and probably for some time will continue to watch the greatest of all national experiments in the attempt to build an agricultural economy which will maintain a reasonable Canadian standard of life in that great plains region. I wish for a few moments to review not only the history of that part of
Canada, but to outline some constructive things that have been done to bring that experiment to a successful conclusion.
Hon. members have pointed out that in the Palliser triangle there are roughly a million Canadians, a million human beings who have all the desires and ambitions of Canadians in any other part of Canada. The hon. member for The Battlefords (Mr. Gregory) properly pointed out that it is a very cosmopolitan type that has settled on those prairies; and, as one of my eastern friends agreed with me to-night,
I am sure those who happened to note the type of men who made up the delegation which came to Ottawa recently would readily agree that nowhere in Canada could a more stable or finer looking crowd of citizens be gathered together than those 400 men who came from the wind-swept province of Saskatchewan bent on making representations to the government. Is the policy we should pursue now one of defeatism, one that suggests the abandonment of that great experiment which we commenced not so long ago, almost within the lifetime of most of us in this house, when that Palliser triangle was opened up for settlement by hundreds of thousands of people who poured in there to reconstruct their lives and. build new homes and new futures?
I must confess that as I listened the other day to the hon. member for Victoria, Ont. (Mr. McNevin), I had to agree that there was a great deal of truth in his statement that the early days, or what he called the pioneer days, of western settlement were comparatively simple compared with the early days of the settlement of Ontario. There were no great stretches of forest to clear; there was no great preparation of the soil necessary. Nowhere, as the Sirois report points out, had any agricultural area of like size ever been developed and brought into such immense production in such a short time. But I would have hon. members recollect that the Sirois report points out one other truth; that until the time the great west was opened up for settlement, both Liberal and Conservative governments, despite the high hopes which were in the hearts of Canadians at the time of confederation, had been unable to get that confederation of the provinces started on the path to prosperity. In spite of every policy that was adopted, the machine seemingly refused to work. But when the west was opened up, it not only marked the opening of a great area, but also marked the commencement of an industrial period in eastern Canada. So, as you would expect, the two meshed together, one development resulting from the other development out on those open plains of the three prairie provinces, perhaps particularly the province of Saskatchewan. As
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another hon. member said to-night, immense wealth in the form of wheat and other grains poured out of those provinces. It has been said often that billions of dollars of wealth have been produced and made available to all Canada as a result of the farming operations of those provinces.
Those were the early days; but strangely enough, almost paradoxically, they were not the pioneer days of Saskatchewan's history. The pioneer days unfortunately came after some of the rosy hopes had faded, the hopes that this was a land of milk and honey, that money could be made easily and without any great effort, and that the prosperity which accompanied the opening up of that territory would continue as a matter of course. In. fact it was not until 1929 or 1930 that the truth began to come home to the people of Saskatchewan, that they, too, like the pioneer people of Ontario, had real problems to solve before an economy could be found which would satisfy the needs of the country.
I do not propose to-night to touch on great national problems such as tariffs, freight rates, the financial concentrations in eastern Canada, and the impact of these policies upon the west.
I wish for a few moments merely to deal with sotme of the .practical problems which were found to exist in connection with that great experiment that we have been carrying on in the west. Drought, of course, has been the great factor in producing many of the problems that confront us, probably the greatest contributing factor to the results we have seen. Following the perhaps overenthusiastic expansion that took place, based as we know now on the too rosy hopes that were held, a great structure of debt grew up. Then the resultant adjustment had to be made, with loss to the eastern investor and terrific loss to owners of farm lands in the west.
But even in the matter of drought, by the use of science, by the study of atmospheric, climatic and soil conditions, we have made very considerable progress. Our experimental farm system has contributed greatly in this regard, in the development of types of wheat suited to particular climatic conditions. I need not relate these developments in detail. The discovery of marquis wheat was of itself a tremendous contribution to the solution of one of the problems of western Canada. But even apart from the development of proper cereals, methods of cultivation have been constantly studied and made the subject of experiment. Through the work of a fellow citizen of mine in Swift Current, Doctor Barnes, who unfortunately was called to his heavenly home before his work was completed, we learned a great deal of the truth

that nature has locked up in the laws that apply to moisture conservation. So the system of summer-fallowing, of conserving moisture in the fallow, has been proceeded with, developed and encouraged in western agriculture.
In addition, the programme under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act has been of tremendous help in conserving the water supply, both under the small dug-out schemes and under some of the comparatively large irrigation schemes which have been promoted under that legislation. Just before the house resumed this evening I spoke to one farmer who is visiting in Ottawa, and1 he was relating to me his own experience. Because of the scarcity of water in his particular area during certain seasons of the year he had to drive some fifteen miles to obtain water. It was brought to his attention under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act that there were possibilities in regard to a small reservoir, and that has solved the difficulty of water supply for him. In addition to the reservoir, in which he collects water by natural drainage, he was able to sink a well and obtain very fine drinking water, filtered by the processes of nature.
We have discussed many times in this house the great advantages that the Prairie Farm Assistance Act has brought to an economy which periodically has been faced with drought periods that have had the result of leaving some people in dire circumstances. In addition, there has been carried on a thorough study of land utilization. In the early days undoubtedly a lack of knowledge of soil types in the west and a failure to appreciate climatic conditions resulted in certain areas being opened up which we know now never should have been developed for agricultural purposes. Soil surveys of the entire province of Saskatchewan have been completed, and there are now on record with the provincial government at Regina, and I suppose here at Ottawa as well, complete results of those surveys showing all the various types of soil which go to make up the huge area of that province. This is of tremendous value in determining the use that should be made of certain types of land. For some years now, under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, through the cooperation of the municipalities, the province and the dominion, land not suited to the growing of grain has been taken out of actual agricultural production and used for pasture purposes.
The development of such grasses as crested wheat-grass proved of immense benefit in developing the stability of fodder and feed crops in that area. I should like to point out

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that crested wheat-grass, like a great many other things introduced to western Canada, i3 the product of a country the climatic conditions of which are very much like those of our own. I refer to certain portions of eastern Russia, where experiments have been carried on in connection with agricultural problems-carried on not for the lifetime of a person, but for many centuries. So I say to the house that with the agencies of science, set in motion by the government, we are making real progress in at least minimizing the result of recurrent droughts which occur in Saskatchewan.
Rust was probably the next greatest factor in loss in connection with the crops of that province. All hon. members know that science again came to the rescue and evolved rust-resistant wheat. In fact, there are more than one of these types-Thatcher, Apex and Reward are fairly well resistant to rust. I do not believe anyone could compute the value of the discovery of those varieties of rust-resistant wheats in western Canada.
We all know, too, that we are faced with periodic visitations of grasshoppers. There again, entomologists, of the United States and Canada, acting in cooperation, feel certain that with full cooperation of the people in the adjoining states and provinces the grasshopper menace can be not only minimized but almost wholly met. That, too, is a great step toward solving the real problems confronting the farmers of western Canada.
Then, in connection with sawflies, in my own constituency, the dominion experimental farm has for several years been experimenting in the development of a wheat plant with a fairly solid stem which will resist the inroads of the sawfly. It has not yet, of course, reached a state of perfection, but I feel certain and those in charge of experiments assure me that, by the application of Mendel's law, by a continuation of the process of selection and development such a wheat plant can be developed, so that the sawfly menace will be greatly minimized. There has been no difficulty so far in obtaining a firm stemmed wheat; the difficulty has been to have that particular hybrid produce a wheat of a quality demanded of western Canada.
Problems connected with cutworms and wire-worms, two very great causes of damage in Saskatchewan, have been under study for many years by experts of the husbandry branch of the dominion experimental stations. It is true that they have not yet found an easy or cheap solution to that problem, and yet I believe science will never give up the task of studying the cycle of life, or the moments of exposure when they can be attacked. I
feel that in time those two costly infestations will have been greatly lessened.
The same observation would apply to soil drifting. The soil drifted, of course, after the years of drought during which time it was worked up so finely that the blowing process started, thereby causing great damage to many areas in Saskatchewan. Again, by methods of cultivation, particularly by that of stripfarming and by other means of working the soil in lumps rather than in fine particles, soil drift is gradually being overcome. Again the dominion authorities are playing a great part in seeing to it that any portion of a farm developing the danger of soil drift is immediately looked after, and that rye or crested grass wheat is sown on small portions. Drifting is like an epidemic; it spreads. By sowing these grasses, fibre is put back into the land, and damage to greater areas of farm property is prevented.
It will be noted that the difficulties with which western agriculture is being confronted are being tackled in a constructive manner, . and that we are making real progress. We as Canadians, not only as persons from one particular province, should recognize that the million people in that Palliser tract are carrying on one of the greatest experiments in the history of Canada; because, after all, it is on the thousands of individual farms thoughout the province that the real experimental work is being carried on. The wisest of those in chai'ge of our experimental stations readily agree that, despite all their knowledge, all their education and the thousands of. experiments they conduct, the true solutions will most likely be found in the experiments carried on by the farmers themselves on the actual farms they are operating. Therefore I believe we would lose a sense of perspective if we were not patient and wise in our day. We must remember that this is a new country, and that it is unlikely we would solve all our difficulties in such a short space of time as the life of one generation. We can, however, hurry the process with the aid of science and that of government agencies. But I do not think we would be unwise enough for a moment to suggest that there is anything surprising in the fact that that great and vast territory has found itself confronted with difficulties, or to suggest that we should for one moment accept a policy of abandonment or of defeatism with regard to that great experiment.
The hon. member for The Battlefords has said that we should be appreciative of the difficulties that those Canadians are facing out west in that great experiment. I have no doubt at all that perhaps not in my lifetime,
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but in the lifetime at least of our children, or our children's children who come after us, that that portion of Canada will pay great dividends to the whole of this dominion.
On motion of Mr. Fraser (Peterborough West) the debate was adjourned.
On motion of Mr. Michaud the house adjourned at 10.50 p.m.
Tuesday, March 17, 1942