1943-03-16

[Stage Direction]
First report of special committee on social security.-Mr. Macmillan.


Mr. H. C. GREEN (Vancouver South):: Mr. Speaker, I ask for leave under standing order 31 to move the adjournment of the house for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, the urgent need for prompt and drastic action by the dominion government to prevent suffering by the Canadian people through a shortage of fuel.
And leave having been granted:


Howard Charles Green: Mr. Speaker, I suggest to
hon. members that the time has come when this house must give the most careful consideration to the fuel situation in Canada, because in this country, whether we like it or not, fuel is a necessity of life and the fuel situation at the present time is very serious. I do not have to rely on my own opinion in making that statement; I have very good proof to support it in statements that have been issued by the government.
The first aspect of the situation is that there has been during the present winter a great shortage of fuel; and winter, much to our discomfort, still continues at least in this part of the dominion. Only a few days ago the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe), who is now responsible for Canada's fuel policy, issued a remarkable release dealing with the question. It is release No. 216a dated March 4, 1943; and dealing with the fuel situation during the present winter we find this statement:
Despite appeals made last year for an increased production of cordwood, insufficient was cut to last out this winter and some sections of the country already have suffered extreme hardship.
Further along in the press release we find some details of this hardship:
In one small town, within seventy-five miles of Ottawa, families unable to obtain fuelwood have been compelled to leave their houses and move into the already crowded homes of their neighbours. In the same town, and in other Ontario and Quebec localities, people have been obliged to burn fences, doors and flooring in order to keep warm.
In another portion we find the statement that there has also been a critical shortage

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Green
of coal during the present winter. I think most hon. members will agree with me when I say further that there has been great suffering on the part of the Canadian people, and that there has been great loss to the war effort, in that through illness or for one reason or another men have lost many hours of work in war industry.
So much for the present winter. But there is also a serious danger of a greater shortage next winter unless immediate action is taken. I find authority for this statement in this same press release which begins as follows:
Canada faces a wood fuel famine so serious that unless immediate action is taken many thousands may be unable to heat their houses adequately next winter; families may be forced to vacate their homes, and the health of others may be adversely affected.
The statement goes on to quote the Minister of Munitions and Supply as follows:
"Generally speaking," Mr. Howe says, "the prospect for next winter is very serious for the tens of thousands whose homes are not equipped for heating or cooking with anything but wood. It is no less serious for those who have been burning wood in furnaces and stoves in which either coal or wood may be consumed, for the shortage of coal has been critical this winter, and there is every likelihood that it may become more critical in the coming winter. Because less coal may be available, the demand for wood fuel is likely to rise."
At the beginning of the concluding paragraph we find this sentence:	[DOT]
But if the shortages of wood fuel were severe this winter they will be much more severe next winter, unless immediate action is taken.
A few days later-in fact only five days ago, on March 11,-the Department of Munitions and Supply published an advertisement in many Canadian newspapers. I hold it in my hand, and I find that it is headed, in large type "Warning". Below that are the words "Canada faces a wood fuel famine next winter". The first paragraph reads:
Are you one of the Canadian householders who burned fences, doors and even flooring to keep warm in this winter's sub-zero weather?
Another paragraph says:
The dominion government recognizes that the wood fuel shortage is so serious that, even with the full cooperation of everyone in affected communities an adequate supply is not assured.
So that there can be no doubt whatsoever that the fuel situation is very serious.
Normally this would not be the concern of the dominion government; I realize that. Normally it would be left to the local authorities, and left of course to the law of supply and demand. In other words it would be a matter for the fuel dealers and the fuel producers, along with the people in the various communities. But now the dominion government must step in, because this is a war emerg-gency problem. That fact is recognized in the same press release, where we find these words:
"The Department of Munitions and Supply," said the minister, "recognizes that this emergency situation has been created in large part by the war conditions."
Of this there can be no doubt. In the first place the dominion government has absolute and unlimited control over man-power. The dominion government has the responsibility for the distribution of man-power. It has the power not only to set a ceiling on prices, but also to say at what prices fuel must be sold. The dominion government has stepped in in many localities and set up fuel control boards which in a measure have interfered with fuel distribution in localities in which these boards are functioning.
I repeat that this is now a problem for the government of Canada. What has the government done about it Well, after a great deal of pressure and much delay it announced on March 4, or about that time-the date of this press release-what its fuel policy would be. I shall not read it in detail, but it may be summed up as follows:
First of all, there is to be a subsidy of one dollar per cord paid to the dealers on all commercial fuel wood contracted for and cut on or before June 30 of this year, and held to dealers' account on that date. Hon. members will notice that this applies only to wood contracted for and cut on or before June 30 of the present year-that is, within the next three and a half months. The coal controller has been authorized to pay such portion of the transportation costs as he considers proper in respect of fuel wood, particularly where dealers find it necessary to contract for fuel wood at locations outside the areas from which they normally derive their supply. The coal controller will repurchase from the dealer at the dealer's cost the fuel wood on which the subsidy of one dollar per cord has been paid, and which is still in the dealer's hands on the 31st of May of next year, 1944. Assistance is to be given in providing priorities for necessary equipment. Farmers who leave their farms temporarily in response to this appeal to engage in cutting fuel wood are to be deemed, by the national selective service authorities, to be carrying out their regular occupation as farmers, and to be given the right to deferment from military service which such occupation now carries. There is however a proviso, which, I think, renders the last-named promise much less effective by

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Green
providing that such temporary absence should not interfere with agricultural production. In other words the farmer is to do his farming first; then if he has any time left he is to produce fuel wood.
That is the first branch of the government's fuel policy. Hon. members will notice that it leaves it to someone else to produce the fuel. These provisions go into effect only when somebody else has taken the initiative of getting out the fuel, or arranging to get it out. The way that works is clearly explained by an article which appears in the Vancouver Province of March 10, purporting to set out an interview with a fuel dealer. It states this as the opinion of the dealers:
Unanimously they declare the problem is one of man-power. "Get men into the woods, the mines, and the saw mills, and your fuel worries will be over," one dealer said. "Subsidies will not do any good if you have not got the men to produce the stuff."
Another dealer said:
Right now I have got carloads of coal idle on rail sidings without men to unload them, although I have had orders for labour with the selective service for several days.
In the Vancouver Province of March 11, we find pictures of these coal cars, for the unloading of which no men can be found. The article explaining the pictures says:
While many Vancouver homes are still dangerously short of fuel and local coal dealers attempt to cope with stacks of unfilled orders, carloads of coal are standing idle at railroad sidings here because of a lack of labour to unload it.
Milder weather in the past week has stepped up coal shipments from Alberta mines, dealers report, but their appeals to selective service for extra labour to shift the coal from boxcar to truck have been in vain.
That shows just how far this fuel policy does or does not go when it comes to the working out of the policy in a community. But there is a second branch of the government's fuel policy, it is to shove off the problem on to the local authorities, on to the municipalities. In other words, the Minister of Munitions and Supply by his fuel policy is attempting to place the fuel baby right on the laps of all the city fathers across Canada. He explains that quite carefully in the press release from which I have quoted, where he says:
This is a problem which primarily belongs to municipal and township authorities.
I submit to you, sir, and to the members of this house that that is where the policy is dead wrong; that is where the policy must be changed. I submit that the primary responsibility must rest upon this dominion government rather than upon the municipal authorities. In support of my submission I

propose to quote from a resolution which was passed by the city council of my home city of Vancouver on March 9, a copy of which was sent to the Minister of Munitions and Supply. It recites that on February 9 the iouncil forwarded to Ottawa a resolution pointing out that the wartime prices and trade board had power to produce and distribute fuel and to require any person possessing fuel to deal with it in such manner as the board may prescribe. It says that the city council have no such power, and goes on to say:
And whereas the supply of man-power in the production of fuel and the prices to be charged for fuel are both matters solely within the powers of the federal authorities and are fundamental to any solution of the problem;
Another recital reads:
And whereas there has now been received by his worship the mayor two letters from the coal controller, dated March 6, 1943, suggesting that the question of the supply of fuel in this city should be assumed by this council, and urging that the city provide a large reserve stock pile of fuel wood in the city;
It then sets out the views of the council of the third largest city in Canada on this fuel question, the city which has been hardest hit. I quote:
Therefore be it resolved that this council reiterates its former stand that it has no such control of man-power or prices as would enable it to undertake the securing and distribution of fuel in this city, and repeats that it is without legal power to engage in the production of fuel This council again points out that the problem is essentially one of man-power and that only federal authority can control that man-power. Unless men are put to work in the coal mines and in the woods, the shortage of fuel must continue. Only Ottawa can give the necessary direction to man-power, and it would be deceiving the public to suggest that this council can do so;
I admit at once that the citizens in the various cities and municipalities and townships of Canada can help, and I think it is right that they should be asked to help as much as possible. But the dominion government must accept the primary responsibility. This means that the Minister of Munitions and Supply, even more so the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell), and perhaps also the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley), who got rid of the problem quite neatly by passing it on to the Minister of Munitions and Supply, must accept primary responsibility for the production of fuel for the citizens of Canada.
I do not like to close without offering some suggestions, for what they may be worth. Others may be offered, but these the government should certainly act upon. First of all, the government should declare both the production and the distribution of fuel an essential

Fuel Shortage-Mr. White
industry. The government should so distribute man-power as to provide the necessary man-power for the production and distribution of fuel; by this time the government should know what man-power is required for this purpose. The government should set fair wages for the men engaged in the industry, and should set fair prices for the fuel. Perhaps forestry companies or forestry battalions should be set up such as those Canada has in Great Britain; such a step might help in the solution of this problem. Finally, the government should be prepared if necessary to ration fuel for the coming winter. Fuel is a necessity of life in Canada. The government has announced that its policy is to ration the necessities of life when necessary, and should be prepared to do this in connection with fuel for the coming winter.
In conclusion I repeat that this is primarily a problem for the dominion government. It cannot be evaded by the government. I stand behind what is contained in the statement given to His Honour the Speaker that there is an urgent need for prompt and drastic action by the dominion government to prevent suffering by the Canadian people through a shortage of fuel. In the press release and the advertising from which I have read, both emanating from the Department of Munitions and Supply, stress has been placed upon the need for immediate action by the municipal authorities -in other words, the need for immediate action by someone else. I close by pointing out that the need for immediate action is a need for such action by the dominion government.


Mr. G. S. WHITE (Hastings-Peterborough):: Mr. Speaker, the present fuel situation in Canada is of such importance that it certainly deserves the consideration of the house. Recent press dispatches have indicated that there is a most serious fuel shortage throughout the entire dominion. The press dispatches quoted by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) bear this out, as do the official statements made by the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe). The release issued by the department states that this problem is one which belongs primarily to the municipal and township authorities. But in making that statement the minister overlooked the fact that the fuel shortage which has existed during the past winter and which still exists is due to the action of the wartime prices and trade board in setting a ceiling price in August, 1942, without any consultation with the municipalities to whom they now wish to pass the problem. They set a price which was far too low.
The village of Marmora is located close to large wood areas and woodlots. One local dealer contracted last summer to take out 2,500 cords of fuel wood. In August, when a price ceiling was placed on fuel, he cancelled every contract and did not take out one cord of wood. He could not operate at the prices set by the wartime prices and trade board. The action taken by this contractor in Marmora was duplicated in many other places in eastern Ontario. When the price ceiling was put on, the labour that was usually available in the fall for work in the bush and in lumbering operations was soon absorbed in the mines and industrial plants in the surrounding area. It is quite true that in January of this year, when the price was raised $2 a cord, the operators could operate at a profit, but the whole problem then was to obtain the necessary labour. The subsidy of $1 a cord to be paid to dealers, and the assistance that is to be given in transportation costs, will help. But it all comes back to the question of man-power.
The minister has announced that the wood fuel shortage within the next few months will be somewhere around half a million cords. I quite realize that it does not help at this late day to say that this shortage is due to muddling, but I do say it all comes back to the lack of a proper man-power policy on the part of this government. Until recently few people considered that wood was an essential, and very little attention was paid to the seasonal labour employed in cutting wood. These men were allowed to drift into industry or were called up for military service. In his statement to the house a short time ago the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) announced his plans for farm labour but made no reference to what he proposed to do with respect to the shortage of man-power in the fuel wood industry. It is strange that he failed to make reference to the serious situation that exists to-day in the fuel wood industry. That situation prevails in most of Quebec, and yet the minister and the government allowed a very large number of Canadian woodsmen to leave this country to work in the lumber and logging industries of the United States.
This release from the Department of Muni-'tions and Supply also states:
No central authority could with any degree of efficiency take the necessary steps to meet local demands which are so diverse in different localities.
I ask the minister, why, is it not possible to organize units which could be moved from district to district where wood is available for cutting? It seems to me that in view of the serious situation which now exists there must
127S
Fuel Shortage-Mr. White

be some over-all organization established, with central authority, if we are to obtain propel results. Under the regulations for the control of man-power the minister has the authority and the power to transfer men from one industry to another and to place men wherever they are most needed.
As pointed out by the member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) this release of March 4, 1943, does make some provision for farmers cutting wood; but as most hon. members know, the average farmer and farm hand at this late date in the season has very little time in which to engage in cutting wood. I wish to second the suggestion of the hon. member for Vancouver South that labour battalions or forestry units be established. There must be many men in the home defence forces who have had experience in this type of work. In addition there are the conscientious objectors, and the Doukhobors and the German and Italian war prisoners. Surely from this large body of man-power the minister can obtain sufficient men to undertake this very important work.
Some time ago the minister announced that about four thousand coal miners had been -eturned to the coal mines in order to cope with the shortage of coal. Why, then, cannot men with experience in wood cutting be returned to do that kind of work?
There is also the question of the necessary equipment for cutting and taking out wood. The minister attempts to pass the responsibility to the individual municipality, but when you analyse that proposal, how can the individual municipality obtain the necessary equipment, trucks, and so forth, to transport the men many miles back and forth each day in order to furnish the municipality with its own individual wood supply? It seems to me that instead of having hundreds of small municipalities trying to operate on a very small scale, and considerable expense which must in the end be borne by the local tax-payer, we should have an over-all scheme, with central authority; the government should take over the entire responsibility for supplying fuel where a shortage exists.
Some years ago when the Ontario hydro put their power line through from the Gatineau to Leaside, they ran a very wide right-of-way through a heavily wooded section of the country; the hydro organized bush gangs, which were housed under canvas and moved from place to place, and in that way did a good job in a short time. This gives some indication of what can be done with properly organized labour battalions or forestry units To-day in the district in which I live men are being offered $4 a cord to cut wood, but

no men can be had at that price because no men are available. I suggest that the whole solution lies in the question of man-power, which is controlled entirely by the federal government, and that it is up to the federal government to supply the necessary manpower to meet this crisis.


Mr. E. G. HANSELL (Macleod):: Mr. Speaker, the basic reason for discussing at this time this matter of public importance, namely, the shortage of fuel in Canada, is of long standing. It dates back to the beginning of the war-yes, and even farther back than that. The problem specifically before us arises from the bungling man-power policy of the government ever since the war broke out.


An hon. MEMBER:: Oh.


Ernest George Hansell: Someone says, oh. It is a very easy word to say. Like some other things, it covers a multitude of sins. Had the government listened to this small group at the beginning of, the war-I refer particularly to the speech that was made by the hon. member for Lethbridge (Mr. Blackmore) when this honourable house through its legislation declared war on the axis powers-we would not now be discussing this matter, because in that speech the hon. member for Lethbridge recommended the total mobilization of Canada's financial, industrial and manpower resources. His proposal was at once misinterpreted. People thought we were proposing that eveiy man should shoulder a gun and be put into the battle line. That was not the intention. The intention was that every man should be called to his task, and one of the tasks in war time is to have a properly functioning industry which will promote the war effort up to one hundred per cent of the industrial and man-power capacity of the country, part of which is the coal mining industry. Had that proposal been accepted, had the government not been shortsighted in this matter, the coal mines of Canada to-day would be well manned and there would be no shortage of coal.
It is very hard for us to realize that in a country such as Canada, which contains fourteen per cent of the entire world's coal deposits, and includes, let me say, the province of Alberta, which has eighty-five per cent of Canada's coal deposits, anyone should go cold in winter time. Some of us have correspondence on this subject on our files, and the government are aware of it because they were approached during the past winter by many municipalities and cities in this country warning them that our citizens were

Fuel Shorlagc-Mr. Hansell
going cold because they could not get fuel. The condition is a serious one, particularly when looked upon in the light of the fact that we have in this country so much coal and other forms of fuel.
Some of us come from coal mining constituencies. We are aware of the problem and we look at it in the light of the fact that coal mining in Canada is a large industry. About eighteen months after the war broke out I realized what might happen should there be a shortage of coal, and at once got in touch with the then minister of labour, the present Secretary of State (Mr. McLarty).
I had a talk with him and as a consequence told him I would write him outlining my conception of a coal policy for Canada in the event of unforeseen circumstances coming into the picture. On April 4, 1941, I wrote this letter to the minister:
Hon. N. A. McLarty,
Minister of Labour,
Ottawa.
Dear Mr. Minister,
Pursuant to my interview with you in regard to the coal situation in Canada as it is related to probable unforeseen events during time of war, may I present to you the following for your careful consideration.
Much has been said in the past concerning future markets in Canada for Canadian coal, and while I have consistently urged in and out of parliament that these markets be increased to a point where all Canadian mines are operating at full capacity, I would impress you, sir, from my observations I have concluded that although all coal mines in Canada, as presently equipped were producing to capacity, such production would not nearly supply Canadian demand without the aid of coal imports. This being so it therefore follows that the great industrial areas of Canada must be, at the present time, largely dependent upon the ability of the country to obtain coal from other countries, or increase considerably our own potential production.
This consequently raises the question of any possibility arising whereby difficulty would be faced in obtaining sufficient coal to avoid a break-down in our wartime production.
According to information published by the wartime economic coal committee only three per cent of the annual production of American coal finds its way to Canada. The meaning of this is alarming, when considered in the light of even a slight break-down in the American coal industry. Should the United States increasingly require coal for their own wartime industries, and anything happened which would reduce their own output by only three per cent thus making it difficult to supply Canada with coal, our own wartime industry would be almost completely stopped, and little or nothing could be done about it.	....
One might venture to ask what possibilities there are that would cause any breakdown in the output of coal. One answer to this is the likelihood of labour troubles. That, Mr. Minister, is my particular reason for addressing this to you, and I would earnestly suggest that you 72537-81
make suitable inquiries at Washington as to the labour situation as it exists or might eventually exist in the coal mining industry of America
Quite recently the press have carried dispatches which show that labour is having its troubles in the United States. As you have noticed under date of March 31 news comes to the effect that the President of United States interceded to prevent a strike of some 330,000 coal miners.	.
I trust it will not be considered an imposition on my part to suggest to the government that they take special care to prepare for any eventuality which might arise. This can be done by so managing our affairs as to gradually bring the coal mining industry of Canada to a place where we are not dependent upon outside sources. I would urge that this is a serious matter as to deserve the very best attention of the government.
I am taking the liberty of sending a copy of this letter to the Hon. Mr. Crerar, Minister of Mines and Resources, and to the Hon. Mr. Howe, Minister of Munitions and Supply.
Yours very truly,
Ernest G. Hansell,
Member of Parliament.
I received a cordial reply from the then minister of labour. I might say in passing that I received an acknowledgment from the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) but not from the Minister of Mines and Resources (Mr. Crerar). The then minister of labour gave quite an exposition of the situation as it existed. But one paragraph reads thus:
It is quite true, as you state, that the amount of United States bituminous coal imported into Canada represents about three per cent of the total United States output, to be exact it was 2-52 per cent in 1939 and 3-55 per cent in 1940. It must be remembered however that the four hundred and fifty-three million tons of bituminous coal'produced in the United States in 1940 is still one hundred million tons below the average produced in the years 1923-29; in other words, the United States bituminous coal industry is capable of considerable expansion, and it is not probable that any serious shortage can be anticipated.
I would emphasize that last sentence. Commenting on that statement I may say that the Canadian coal industry also is capable of considerable expansion, and if an orderly expansion of the Canadian coal mining industry had taken place with a view to providing our own people with our own coal, we would not be discussing this matter to-day. I agree with other speakers that this is largely the responsibility of the government, because of its short-sighted man-power policy. Let me illustrate. In one family in my constituency there are six sons, all of them coal miners, with a widowed mother to support. When the war broke out this little family held a conference. The mines were working short time

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Hansell

then; miners were looking for something else to do to keep out of the bread line. The boys said: "We will all enlist; we will volunteer to fight for our country." They looked at the youngest of the family, and they said to him: "We believe you should stay behind and take care of mother." The youngest of the family said, "All right; if you enlist I will stay at home and look after mother." The five of them enlisted. Some of them are overseas to-day. The time came when the government saw fit to put into effect the mobilization act. We thought then that perhaps the government was beginning to listen to the small group in this corner, but I am afraid that was too much to expect. The mobilization act was passed; the country began to call up its men. The youngest boy was called into the service. It did not matter whether he had four or five brothers fighting, he was called up, and he had to go. It was not until the government realized the seriousness of the man-power situation in the mines that this young boy was able to get a three months' leave. An extension of that leave was given to him. Now he will have to apply for another extension and then another. The situation has become so bad during this winter that the Minister of Labour has had to freeze all labour in the coal mines.
Surely it is obvious that if there had been an orderly mobilization of all our man-power, putting every man to his task and paying him what he was worth to the country, this situation would not be upon us to-day. There needs to be a review of our entire man-power policy in respect of this country's needs and the needs of industry.
We see the same thing happening in respect to farm labour. I am not going to discuss that now; I cannot because we are not on that subject. But there is a farm labour shortage, so that the government had to change its policy and send an interpretative letter to the various mobilization boards as to what it desired to do. But if these things had been done with a long-range view as to the best way of carrying on in Canada in time of war, this sort of thing never would have happened. When will the Liberal administration of this country do things in the right and proper way? That is the question I ask.


Mr. J. A. ROSS (Souris):: Speaking in the address in reply to the speech from the throne on February' 4, I referred to the fuel problems of this country. Since that time they have in many respects become intensified. I pointed out that on November 21, 1942, I had sent a telegram to the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) pointing out that:

Many municipal officials fear that due to lack of fuel with severe winter weather there will be undue hardship and suffering on the prairies. The present labour difficulties at the coal mines is the result of lack of proper coordination by various departments of the government. Imperative that immediate action be taken to avoid a very serious situation.
The Prime Minister replied saying that the contents of that telegram had been passed on to the ministers of the two departments concerned, the departments of finance and labour. I also sent a copy of the telegram to Mr. A. MacNamara, who had just been put in charge of man-power.
My home town of Melita is situated on a direct railway line within ninety miles of a coal field in Saskatchewan. It has been unable to obtain sufficient coal from those mines, and as a result the consolidated school in the area has been closed for lack of fuel.
I also made some reference to resolutions I had received from municipal officials and officers of the associated boards of trade of Manitoba at that time. A meeting was called by the mayor of Minnedosa, Doctor E. H. Clark, regarding the fuel situation, on January 27, 1943. Representatives were there from Brandon, Neepawa, rural municipality of Odanah, rural municipality of Saskatchewan, the towns of Minnedosa and Dauphin. Mayor Young stated that the fuel shortage -was a national emergency and that pressure should be brought to bear on the government at Ottawa to do something about it. A general discussion took place, and the following resolution was passed:
It is hereby resolved that this meeting, representative of a large area of western Manitoba, take immediate action to impress upon the government of Canada the very serious fuel situation now facing the people of western Manitoba.
Be it further resolved that the government of Canada be requested to establish without delay, organize and operate necessary wood camps in Clear Lake national park and vicinity, providing necessary labour and transportation facilities to place such fuel at suitable designated points on winter highways. Sale and distribution of such fuel wood to be under supervision and control of officials appointed by the government of Canada.
I placed on Hansard on February 4, a copy of a resolution, which appears at page 137; I shall not repeat it. There was much other information which I received from those people. Under date of March 11, I received further information under the signature of Mayor Clark of Minnedosa. He said:
Re fuel situation in western Manitoba.
A further meeting of the associated boards of trade and municipalities of western Manitoba was held in Minnedosa yesterday.

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Ross (Souris)
Minnedosa has no coal or wood in dealers hands. Neepawa has no wood. The committee has sent Superintendent James Smart a telegram offering $3.25 a cord for one hundred cords of dry wood piled just north of Clear lake. We cannot be sure of roads for a week ahead at this season and have asked for immediate instructions to the superintendent.
We learn that 1,000 to 1,500 cords of green wood may be cut by the A.S. workers now cutting in the park. This wood cannot be profitably hauled until next fall, green wood is too heavy to handle until then.
The fire-killed wood in the Lake Audy area should be felled as it was burned three years ago this spring. This wood, if made available, could be hauled through this summer and makfe certain that the community shall be supplied through 1943 and the winter 1943-44. The price should be set and the superintendent authorized to sell to the municipalities as required.
A much greater number of workmen must be put at the work if an adequate supply for summer and fall delivery is to be provided. If A.S. workers are not available the government should plan the provision of men. Shortage of labour is the whole reason for this short fuel supply and selective service under its control alone can correct this.
The camps now operating should be continued and greatly enlarged and a major part of the 100,000 cords made available for delivery through the summer and fall.
My colleague, the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) has referred to an advertisement which appeared in all the local papers throughout Canada, headed:
Warning
Canada faces a wood-fuel famine next winter.
It is published under the authorization of the Minister of Munitions and Supply. It goes on to say:
Are you one of Canada's householders who burned fences, doors, and even flooring to keep warm in this winter's sub-zero weather?
The shortage already has affected many communities . . . total stocks of dry wood are nearly exhausted ... in some places the small supply of green wood cut for next winter is being used nowr to meet the present emergency.
It goes on to refer to the subsidy of $1 per cord offered under the new regulations. While I am on that point I should like the minister, when he replies, to tell us who ultimately gets that $1, whether the producer or the dealer. I find this at the bottom of the advertisement:
Municipal councils, farmers, fuel dealers, individual citizens, service clubs, and all other groups in communities where wood fuel is burned, are urged to begin at once a rapid survey of their local situation, and to take immediate action to relieve the shortage.
As has been pointed out by previous speakers, this is definitely a responsiblity of the federal government and not of the local municipalities, especially in time of war. In my opinion the man-power muddle and the 72537-81J
operations of the wartime prices and trade board are responsible more than anything else for our present fuel difficulties. I have some personal knowledge of this problem, since I own a small river woodlot myself, as do several of my neighbours. Last fall and this winter I endeavoured to hire men and make arrangements to have that wood cut and taken out, but found that under the existing regulations of the prices board I could not hire a man to do this work and sell the wood at any profit at all. On March 9, 1943, at page 1075 of Hansard, the finance minister referred to the price per cord of bush wood m British Columbia. He said that with the authorization of the wartime prices and trade board the price had been increased from $9 to $13 a cord, and that this price was deemed necessary to assure a supply for that particular zone. I assure the minister that this same difficulty exists in a large part of the area which I have the honour to represent. A moment ago I referred to the resolution from the associated boards of trade, in which they pointed out that they had offered $3.25 for cut wood as it was piled in the national parks. Poplar wood, which is the poorest type of fuel wood you can purchase, sells in my home town for $8.50 a cord.
Speaking in this chamber on November 10, 1941, I referred at some length to the brief on man-power and national selective service which had been presented to the Prime Minister and the members of his cabinet by the dominion executive of the Canadian Legion, on October 21, 1941, calling upon the Prime Minister to institute all necessary measures to place Canada on a total war footing. This brief asked that the mobilization of man-power should be undertaken immediately in order that our resources of manpower might be used to the best advantage, whether in agriculture, industry or the armed forces. In the advertisement to which I have already referred the minister makes a special plea to agriculture to assist in getting out this wood. Speaking further at that time I said, as will be found at page 4210 of Hansard for 1941:
I hope, therefore, that due consideration will be given by the government at once to instituting national selective service at this time, in the interest of people in all walks of life; for I am sure many ministers realize what their duty requires of them in the present situation.
I am more convinced than ever that the government should have taken that step at that time. It was essential then; certainly it is much more essential to-day.
I take it to be only fair that I should give any suggestions I may have as to a way out of this difficulty. May I suggest first that the
Fuel Shortage-Mr.. Gillis

price controller allow the necessary price adjustments so that people can afford to cut and sell their wood if the help is available. Then I suggest that wood camps be organized in such places as Clear Lake national park and other suitable points throughout Canada. Here conscientious objectors and draftees could be employed; and in certain cases, under proper supervision, prisoners of war could also be used.


Mr. CRUICKSHANK:: What does the hon. member mean by "draftees"?


James Arthur Ross: I think the Minister of Labour, under whose department that comes, will explain all the details.


Mr. MITCHELL:: The hon. member should explain them; he is offering the suggestion.


James Arthur Ross: In war time this fuel problem is definitely a responsibility of the federal government, not of the municipality.


Mr. CLARENCE GILLIS (Cape Breton South):: Mr. Speaker, the situation described
this afternoon by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) was not unexpected by this group. From time to time in this house, in 1940, in 1941, and on at least three occasions in 1942, I pointed out exactly where we were heading so far as the future of fuel in Canada was concerned. On June 8, 1942, I pointed out to the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) that the coal mining industry in the east, the west and the centre was working half time, and that we were fast approaching the time when the coal supplies of the United States, upon which we depended, would not be available. Again on June 18 and August 1, I brought this matter to the attention of the house, and since then I have waited patiently for the situation that has finally overtaken us.
I listened with great interest to the presentation by the hon. member for Vancouver South, but he made two statements with which I cannot agree, and I want to take this opportunity of explaining why. The hon. gentleman said this was a war emergency situation. I do not agree with that. This is a creeping paralysis that has been developing in Canada, so far as a fuel policy is concerned, for the past thirty years.


Mr. REID:: Not in British Columbia.


Clarence Gillis: I am not discussing wood
just now; with the proper organization of our fuel, possibilities in Canada we would not require so much wood. When I mention fuel I refer to the recognized national fuel of Canada, which is coal. Repeatedly, through their union representatives, the miners have 
waited on both Liberal and Conservative governments of Canada with respect to a national fuel policy and the full realization of the available fuel in Canada, properly organized and properly marketed. So that instead of characterizing the present problem as an emergency situation, I say it is just a matter of blundering on the part of both the old line parties with respect to the question of fuel. This situation has not developed over night; we have been watching its development for the past three years, and very little has been done about it.
I also disagree with the hon. member when he says that ordinarily this would not be a matter for the federal government. I think at no time and under no circumstances, in a country like Canada, with its nine provinces and its hundreds of municipalities, can you leave the organization, the marketing and the distribution of a natural resource which is absolutely necessary to the nation in the hands of small groups in the various communities, with any hope of working out any sort of proper solution. This is one problem which was always within the province of the federal government. It is a national industry, and we should have had a national fuel policy with a national marketing board who would have been cognizant of the situation which has developed, and who would have taken steps to offset it.
In the presentation thus far by hon. members one point has been completely missed. It has reference to the men employed in the industry. First we are told it is a lack of a man-power policy, a lack of this and a lack of that. As a matter of fact it is just a matter of getting enough men there to put them to work. If we are to have any satisfaction in the fuel industry of Canada we must have some recognition of the men who actually go below ground to produce the fuel. It is not just a matter of ordering men to go into the mines, or of sending them underground and expecting them to produce to a maximum. It just is not going to happen that way.


Howard Charles Green: I said there must be fair wages.


Clarence Gillis: Let me point out to the hon. member for Vancouver South that according to a press report men were taken from the army and sent back into the mines. They worked there for a short time, and then went back to the army, issuing a public statement to the effect that they would not work under the conditions and for the wages which applied to miners in British Columbia. They said they were making more money in the army, and accordingly they went back to the army.

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Gillis
The first point to which consideration must be given, if the men are to stay in the mines and produce coal, is that of providing proper working conditions, paying proper rates of wages, and recognizing the problems of miners themselves. Coal miners cannot be kept in the mines if they are given an opportunity to enlist. Men are leaving the mines in large numbers and going into the army, because they are escaping something they know is worse than what they are going into. We must begin to recognize that fact, and make it a part of the organization of our industry.
I say to the Minister of Labour what I have said for the last three years, namely, that the mining industry stands at the root of our country's welfare and is essential to our war effort. The freezing of wages and the usurpation of the powers of collective bargaining of this group of men, who have been organized for the past thirty years, have definitely retarded progress in this field. Neither the miners of the east nor those of the west have been able to come to any understanding with the operators in connection with wages. There has been continuous strife in the mining industry, because they have had to come to Ottawa to iron out their grievances and have adjustments made in their wages.


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not think the hon. member wishes to exaggerate, but I must say that I saw in my office only a few hours ago the near completion of an agreement with the miners of Nova Scotia. I do not think it is fair to say what he has been saying.


Clarence Gillis: I do not wish to exaggerate. The Minister may have signed an agreement with them a couple of hours ago. I have no way of knowing that.


Humphrey Mitchell: I did not say that.


Mr. MacINNIS:: He saw it, which is a different thing altogether.


Clarence Gillis: I did not see it, and the miners of Nova Scotia have not seen it yet. The minister knows, as do hon. members who read the press, that for three years there has been constant turmoil in the mining industry. One reason for this condition is that when this group of men come to Ottawa to negotiate an agreement they are dealing with men who have absolutely no conception of the conditions under which these people work. These conditions will have to be recognized. There has been a usurpation of the power to deal with employers, a power which was recognized in Great Britain at the outbreak of war. In that country they have never tied
up the unions. They still iron out their grievances with their employers, a condition which ensures industrial peace. If the government is to have a national fuel policy it will have to give consideration to this fact. Men underground are escaping from this method of earning a living, and are going into the army, or anywhere else, in order to be clear of it.


Humphrey Mitchell: The hon. member would not say they go in on a patriotic basis? I do not think that is a fair statement.


Clarence Gillis: I say it without fear of contradiction, because I know what they are talking about, Anything is preferable to the kind of life they have to live. The mere getting of a sufficient number of men back into the mines to produce fuel is not enough; it will not accomplish anything.
I do not say the government lacks a manpower policy. I do not say it lacks a fuel policy. What I do say is that in the administration of its man-power policy the government is using men who are incompetent, and they are incompetent because they are doing a job absolutely foreign to their experience. They do not know the necessary machinery which must be put to work to organize the man-power of the country.
I have seen the policy on paper, and it looks all right, I have seen many other government policies on paper, and they look all right. But when it comes to putting men on the job, organizing ability is required. The government is doing something which in my opinion is going to tie it in a knot, and will continue to do so in the future. It selects men from every walk of life except the industry affected. There are no men heading up the fuel board who come from the fuel industry, or who know the industry, or have any ideas with respect to the marketing of fuel.


Mr. HOWE:: What about Mr. Payne, who is a member of the fuel board?


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Payne?-the last order in council I saw with respect to a fuel board showed that it was headed by Mr. J. McG. Stewart. On the board were the governor of the Bank of Canada, Mr. Graham Towers, and some other lawyer from Montreal.


Humphrey Mitchell: Also Mr. Payne, one of the officers of district No. 18. He is a member of the fuel committee, and he is also a miner.


Clarence Gillis: Another order in council was passed since that.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Payne is still there.
Fuel Shortage-Mr. Gillis


Clarence Gillis: I received an order in council the other day. I think the minister is thinking about the fuel control board, on which Mr. Neate sits as secretary.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


Clarence Gillis: Another order in council has been passed. It sets up three men with complete directional jurisdiction over the board on which they sit.


Humphrey Mitchell: No.


Clarence Gillis: Well, that is the order in council I read a few days ago. I am sorry I have not a copy with me. I believe it was set out in a press release from the Department of Munitions and Supply. This press release referred to an order in council revamping the fuel control board.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Payne is still a member, and has been since the beginning.


Clarence Gillis: His name was not mentioned.


Humphrey Mitchell: The hon. member may be talking about something else.


Clarence Gillis: No, I am talking about fuel control. The setting up of a board of four or five men here in Ottawa will not serve the purpose. It is necessary to have a board to direct distribution in each province, a board which will make an analysis of the requirements of a province. In this way the national board would have some idea as to the production required across Canada in order to meet demands. This has not been done.
I know, too, that so far as Nova Scotia is concerned there are shipping difficulties. We appreciate the difficulties, and we knew the condition was developing two years ago. I do not see why wooden ships, which can be turned out very rapidly, could not be used in the St. Lawrence trade. We will have to do something about these matters, rather than just think about them.
There is another aspect of this man-power situation. The hon. member for Vancouver South outlined the necessities of the manpower situation in that province. According to a return made to the hon. member for Rosetown-Biggar (Mr. Coldwell), being sessional paper No. 149, as of January 14, 1943, there were registered at the unemployment and selective service offices in that province a total of 13,977 unemployed. According to this return the total unemployed across Canada numbered 96,331. If there is a shortage of man-power and the national selective service officials were cognizant of that development, [Mr Howe.]
as they should be, I do not think the situation in connection with these unemployed persons who are registered should have been permitted to develop.


Humphrey Mitchell: If there are any miners among that 90,000 they will be put to work in the mines within the month. The figures do not indicate that.


Clarence Gillis: But they could all chop wood.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: No.


Clarence Gillis: This is supposed to be manpower, not woman power. What is wrong with a man with two arms taking an axe and chopping some wood if it is necessary to the war effort?


Humphrey Mitchell: I am sure that some of the members of this house who have two arms and two legs would not last very long chopping wood. You must be fair about these figures.


Clarence Gillis: These are employable persons, and I -would consider that most of the members of the House of Commons are unemployable. These are supposed to be men who are looking for work.


Humphrey Mitchell: A bank clerk may be employable, but in a bank.


Clarence Gillis: As I said before, it has been a matter of putting the wrong people in the wrong place to plan this particular phase of our war effort. It all comes back to the government not recognizing that if there is to be successful administration of its war policy, there must be some planning- It is not a matter of taking in king's counsel and professors and men who may be able to write a book nicely; it is a matter of getting the people who actually produce, who know something about marketing. They should be given an opportunity to make a contribution in this field. If that were done I do not think you would run into these difficulties.
I urge upon the Minister of Labour that he make an examination of this question. It is not enough simply to take a man and say that you are going to put him down in a coal mine where he will have to work for the duration, that he will be frozen to his job. They discovered in the United States in 1918 that you could not dig coal with bayonets.
I think the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) will remember that particular situation. You cannot freeze a man to a job and make him work; you must give him something to work for. You must recognize that he is a human being. If you are going to get out of this situation one of the first things you will have to do is to take members of the

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury)
mine workers from the east, west and central sections and use them in an advisory capacity to Mr. Stewart, Mr. Towers and the others who have the technical experience to put this stuff on paper. But they need some practical help in working out a fuel policy.


Hon. R. B. HANSON (York-Sunbury):: Mr. Speaker, my approach to this matter will be somewhat different from that of the last speaker, the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis). As I understand it, the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) moved the motion he did in the belief that there is a nation-wide condition which requires immediate consideration and action on the part of the government. The hon. member for Cape Breton South has emphasized the necessity of a national fuel policy, but I do not think the house is especially concerned with that at the moment. I do not mean to suggest that that is not an important matter; it is deserving of every consideration, and it has had consideration at the hands of every government I have known since I have been a member of this house. I am not prepared to say whether we have been successful in establishing anything that could be characterized as a national fuel policy, but I am afraid we have not.
A great many factors have operated against Canada having what might be termed a real national fuel policy. Most important of these is geography, something that is not always recognized, but it stares us straight in the face when we come to consider this situation. Then there is also the question of our territory being contiguous to that of the United States, and the question of availability of supply from their middle-west coal fields. This is a dominating factor in relation to any national fuel policy in Canada. While I might discuss this question from the broader point of view, it is my purpose to confine my remarks to the position of the Canadian fuel supply as it affects our own citizens.
I am afraid the situation has reached very substantial dimensions. I do not suggest that it is nation-wide, but I do suggest that it is a spotty condition that obtains in many of the provinces. I have no particular knowledge of the conditions in the west or in the prairie districts, so that I shall confine my remarks to the situation which exists in my province, as to which I claim to have some knowledge and information.
Under normal conditions we would not have a wood fuel problem in that province; under normal conditions production is usually about equal to consumption. However, we have a
situation there which is perhaps different from that prevailing in most of the Canadian provinces. For a distance of 150 miles or perhaps longer we are adjacent to the United States border. This particular part of the United States has very little wood fuel of its own, and for a considerable period of time has drawn upon Canada for most of its needs.
I think the situation could have been coped with had it not been for what I shall term the inflexibility of the policy of the wartime prices and trade board which put a limit of $12 per cord upon hardwood fuel in Nova Scotia. If one did not have to consider the conditions that existed in the immediately adjacent areas, I should have said that that was a fair price for hardwood fuel. I do not think the producers in my province would have raised any objection to that ceiling price if the conditions had been different. But what is the position? Within five miles of the Canadian border there is a series of towns where the ceiling price on wood fuel is $16 per cord payable in United States funds, which gives the equivalent of $17.60 per cord in Canadian funds. The additional truckage amounts to only five or six miles, and the result is that whatever surplus there may be or supplies available for home consumption are often trucked right by the doors of the Canadian consumers, driven across the line and sold for the equivalent of $17.60 a cord.
That is a natural outcome of the situation and I suggest that there is bound to be difficulty in dealing with it. I called attention to the matter in a question which I asked the other day of the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley). I did not know at the time that he had unloaded this problem on the shoulders of his friend and colleague, the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe). I do not think that my eye had caught the advertisement which was referred to this afternoon, but which I have since read.
I have tried to visualize in a sketchy way the situation which exists down there, and what is the proposed remedy? It is a subsidy of $1 a cord. To whom? To the wood dealers? To the producers? The minister can clear that up in a few sentences. His solution, the offering of a bonus of $1 a cord, is wholly inadequate and does not meet the situation. It is really a pitiful palliative.
In an advertisement to the public the minister suggests that all communities should set to work, and that municipalities are charged with the responsibility. May I respectfully suggest to him that that, too, is wholly inadequate. The municipalities have no authority to act, and the problem is so
1286	COMMONS
Fuel Shortage-Mr. Hanson (York-Sunbury)
large now that they could not possibly act. The only people who can act are the federal authorities, under the provisions of the War Measures Act and all the other enabling legislation which this parliament has so generously granted to the government. Because of the very psychology of the situation the municipalities will not act. They say it is a federal responsibility. If the difficulty were a minor one the government could very well expect the municipalities to do the work even if they had to clothe the municipalities with the necessary authority, but the problem has reached such proportions that the municipalities cannot deal with it, and, as I have intimated, they have not the power and authority to go ahead and do it.
I can understand the minister saying: We cannot deal with the municipalities. Generally speaking, that situation should be avoided. But the minister and the government can deal with the provincial governments. And where is the provincial government of New Brunswick in this matter? Sitting down supinely, as usual. That government never do anything until they are driven to do it. All they do is to take the subsidies they get, and they do not use them for the purposes for which they are intended. They have a surplus of a million dollars and they refuse to give an additional cent for old age pensions. However, that is only in passing. When the provincial election comes on this summer they will hear from me about that sort of thing.
I want to get back to the situation in my part of the country. The wartime prices and trade board have had this matter under consideration for a long time. I understand that there has been set up an administrator of wood fuel, and that they have had an adviser in New Brunswick in the person of Mr. John C. Veness of my own city. Mr. Veness is a professional forester who knows the forestry business and knows the locality. In a report he made certain recommendations which, if put into effect would probably have taken care of the situation, but his recommendations have not been heeded. I have before me a copy of his report, made as late as January 13 last to Mr. D. Roy Cameron, deputy administrator of wood fuel of the wartime prices and trade board. The report is so long that I dare not take the time of this house to read it, but it is available to the minister and to the wartime prices and trade board. He does make a general recommendation against subsidization, and he makes constructive recommendations with respect to how the situation could be handled. I shall not read them, but I commend them to the minister. [DOT]

What I think we should do is this-and I offer the suggestion from the point of view of an observer, a layman if you will, but, I hope, an intelligent observer. I am not saying this in any critical spirit. Some sort of control should be established in relation to both production and distribution. It may be necessary that this inflexible price structure should be raised. I do not think that a subsidy is the right way to raise it. But when you have two price levels lying side by side you can see that, human nature being what it is, and as long as it is what it is, you are not going to have the local consumer protected when the producers can ship their wood across the line and get $5.60 a cord more for it than they can get at home. Surely these wood producers are entitled to a break. I can remember when they were producing wood in my own city for $6 a cord, and the work of producing that wood fuel I characterized as the refuge of the distressed. That was, of course, during the depression.
The suggestion I make would be that local controls in that part of New Brunswick, established under the authority which the government possesses, should arrange for production. It may be done through the stabilization corporation or some other government body which will see to it that a fair price is paid for the production of the wood.
There is a good deal of talk about the lack of man-power. I think that criticism generally is true, but I do not think there is any great lack of man-power for the production of wood fuel in New Brunswick-and I want it distinctly understood that I am limiting my remarks to the western part of New Brunswick. A good many men in that part of the province are engaged in the production of wood fuel, and February, March and April are the months in which fuel is produced in that province. Men who are at home while field crop farm work is more or less at a minimum are now concerned in getting out next season's supply of wood for the market. Encourage them all you can. See that the prices on the trvo sides of the border are more nearly equalized. I think the price on the United States side is too high. If it were not for that competition I would suggest that the price on the Canadian side is quite high enough, but it may be necessary in view of that competition to raise the Canadian price and have a little flexibility in the ceiling price.
Then arrange for distribution. See that local consumption requirements are taken care of first. After that is done there will still be a surplus to go across the line. I do not want to see any embargo on the traffic in wood

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Reid
across the line. The people over there need their fuel just as our people need it for home consumption, and it must not be forgotten that we have to get certain supplies of anthracite coal from the United States. There is the psychology of the matter to consider. If the supply of hardwood fuel going from New Brunswick to Maine were cut off, it would create bad feeling between the people of the province and the people of the state-and it is bad enough now as a result of tourist restrictions; let me tell you that. I do not think a greater mistake was made than was made by the foreign exchange control board in restricting tourist traffic through control of exchange. Canada lost money, on balance, by reason of that restriction. I do not think the foreign exchange situation is nearly as grave now as it was, and I urge upon the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) that he give consideration to the question of removing that restriction, because I believe that on balance Canada will gain. I know the gasoline situation is a factor, but that will have to stand on its own basis. But that is merely in passing. I would arrange for export under permit of the available surplus of wood from New Brunswick to Maine after our domestic requirements have been taken care of. Take care of our own requirements; let the primary producer have a decent price for his product; and be a good neighbour to the friends across the line who need that fuel.
But what is happening under to-day's conditions? Every cord of wood that is available is being trucked right past our doors over to Maine, and nothing has been done to stop it. The situation has just not been grappled with; that has been the condition all winter, and of course it should not be allowed to continue. I think probably we shall get through this season, but we must take a somewhat longer view; for this situation will obtain next year. There is time to plan and arrange for it. In this country we need fuel for heating purposes up to, let us say, the middle of May, and for cooking purposes all summer. Most people in my country burn wood for fuel. To prepare for next fall and the cold weather following, some kind of arrangement will have to be made, and I assume that the department could set up a plan to take care of the situation, patterned somewhat along the lines I have suggested.
Let me tell you what is happening in one part of New Brunswick. A substantial portion of the wood fuel for domestic use comes from the winter operations of the hardwood mills. I know of a place in the Tobique area where five winter mills are in operation, each of which will cut a million board feet of hard-72337-82
wood per year; that is five million feet. I am not prepared to say at the moment what quantity of fuel will be available from the five million board feet of hardwood lumber which will be produced by this firm in those five winter mills, but it will be substantial. I am informed to-day that all the fuel from those mills has been sold to truckers from Presque Isle and other places in, the state of Maine, and that not one cord will be available to domestic consumers in New Brunswick. This is a condition which will be very profitable to the producers and the truckers. But the wholesale exportation of wood from that community should be not prohibited, but regulated. I believe I can get for the minister more information on this point if he requires it. I mention it merely as an illustration of what is going on down there to-day, and it is all due to the differential in the price.
I know that this question is not without difficulty. That is the local situation, with this price allocation and price fixing. There is glaring discrimination down there. I do not know whether anything could be done by negotiation with the United States; I do not offer any suggestions in that regard, but I do know that so long as there is a discrimination in price, a very grave difference, there will be trouble in that community and no fuel will be available next year for our consumers in that country.
The government policy of passing this matter along to the municipalities is not good enough, and certainly the offer of a subsidy of a dollar a cord for production is not adequate. To me it is just a pitiable palliative. We must have something a little more realistic. I press upon the minister and his advisers that they take action at once with respect to the immediate situation, and that they get busy * on a long-term plan for the succeeding season.


Thomas Reid: The subject of fuel having been brought up this afternoon, there are one or two suggestions I want to make to the minister and the government in connection with the fuel situation in Vancouver and the neighbouring district.
First, I disagree with the remarks made by the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis), who this afternoon, speaking on this subject, gave it as his opinion that the question of fuel shortage had been developing for thirty years. No statement is wider of the mark in so far as the Pacific coast is concerned than an assertion of that knid. To my mind it shows that at least in so far as British Columbia is concerned, and I speak particularly of Vancouver, New Westminster

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Reid

and the Fraser valley, the hon. member does not know the situation at all. For the benefit of hon. members, and in particular the hon. member for Cape Breton South, I will outline the fuel situation in those localities.
Coal has been mined in British Columbia for many years, and has been used as well as wood for fuel, but during the past number of years, especially since oil has been in fairly general use for fuel, oil has been utilized in many homes in both kitchens and furnaces. Following that, someone discovered that sawdust could be burnt as a domestic fuel, and certain firms started to manufacture equipment which could be put on a kitchen range or stove and also on a furnace whereby sawdust could be burnt.
To say that we would have had a critical fuel situation had the war not come along is ridiculous, because there was fuel in abundance in British Columbia, especially at the coast, until the war started. Those who transferred their ranges from coal or wood to oil were receiving oil from California and elsewhere, and many people turned from the burning of wood and coal to the burning of sawdust. Since there was unlimited sawdust, wood and oil for heating purposes, coal found itself looking for a market. I say that without fear of successful contradiction; and for an hon. member to rise in his place in this house and say that a condition of fuel shortage has been developing for thirty years is, I contend, not according to the facts, and I feel it my duty to rise and say so.


Clarence Gillis: Mr. Speaker-


Thomas Reid: If the hon. member wishes to ask a question let him ask it, but I will not allow an interruption unless he asks a question, which I will do him the courtesy of permitting him to do.


Clarence Gillis: I am rising to a point of order.


Thomas Reid: Well, if the hon. member is rising to a point of order I shall have to sit down.


Clarence Gillis: The hon. member for Vancouver-


Thomas Reid: New Westminster. Keep that right.
Mr. GILT,IS: -put words in my mouth. The hon. member for Vancouver East raised a national


Thomas Reid: He comes from Vancouver South.


Clarence Gillis: -problem, and I discussed it in its national aspect. I was not talking about sawdust or *wood.


Thomas Reid: Is that the hon. member's point of order?


Clarence Gillis: Just a moment. The hon. member has definitely stated that the coal of his province is looking for a market, and that is exactly what my remarks had reference to, not to sawdust or wood.


Thomas Reid: Well, Mr. Speaker, you may see a point of order in what the hon. member is saying, but I do not. It may be that I do not understand all the rules. I repeat that it is plainly ridiculous to talk about a fuel policy in coal as affecting British Columbia, because coal, by the time the war came along, had been relegated in that province not to the bottom but to second or third place.


Clarence Gillis: I was speaking for your
miners.


Thomas Reid: The hon. member should have kept to that, and probably he would have been far better off.


Clarence Gillis: I did.
Mr. REID. He did not mention a national policy at all. Perhaps he will allow me to proceed. The situation in British Columbia was as I have described it. Then the war came along, and with the lack of tankers and the demand for fuel oil for war, many of those who were burning fuel oil found themselves at a disadvantage. Likewise difficulties arose with regard to the manufacture of sawdust. May I say at this point that I have every sympathy for the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) who has had this problem placed recently upon his shoulders, shall I say, and rather suddenly. It is rather interesting to note that just as soon as the wartime prices and trade board got rid of the problem the chairman, Mr. Gordon, writing to Vancouver, stated, "It is not -my responsibility; it is the responsibility of the Minister of Munitions and Supply." As I have said, I sympathize with the minister whose problem it is, because it is not entirely a matter of lack of coal or lack of wood, although that is bad enough. Might I say in passing that coal is somewhat difficult to obtain. It takes a great deal of labour to produce coal, and not only that but there is also the transportation from the mines to the bunkers, then to wholesale firms and then the loading into trucks and taking it to the homes. I suggest to the Minister of Munitions and Supply that he give consideration to the possibility of bringing into Vancouver a small shipment of fuel oil which would relieve the situation there to a great extent. I also suggest to the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) that instead of having some

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Lockhart
150 men, conscientious objectors, planting seeds and little trees among the green timber for the provincial government during the war these men might be used for cutting fuel. Were some machinery and labour provided in the way of power saws and men who know something about felling timber, were groups formed and placed in strategic localities close to Vancouver and New Westminster, the fuel situation would be considerably helped. The hon. member for Cape Breton South spoke about any man with two arms and two legs cutting fuel. That is like the suggestion that men from the grocery or department stores or clerks could go to the farms and help the farmer with his harvest. Well, they can, but sometimes they are very much in the way. I have seen some men go to the woods with an axe, but at times you have to have a doctor handy because you cannot be sure how they will use that axe.
I take exception to another statement my hon. friend made, that perhaps many hon. members could be said to be on the unemployed list. I do not know what he was doing last summer beyond electioneering for the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, but I know I helped to cut my own wood and so helped the fuel situation, and I certainly was not unemployed. That is more useful work than I believe the hon. member did.
Mr. NORMAN J. M. LOCKHART (Lincoln) :	It is not my intention to cover any
of the ground already dealt with, but I believe some of us who have had practical experience in the distribution of fuel might add one or two suggestions to those already given.
The matter was introduced by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green); other important points have been brought out by the bon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson). I am speaking on behalf of a great many people in the southern part of Ontario, so that it is quite evident that this is a national problem. I recall that back in December, 1942, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Ilsley) distinctly stated that there was a fuel shortage, to the extent, I believe he said, of some eight million tons of coal. That statement must have been the result of a study extending over two or three months at least, so that we can see that perhaps in the earl}' fall of 1942 this serious shortage already existed.
There was some criticism of the effort that was made to correct that situation. During the past winter those who are interested in obtaining and distributing fuel of different 72537-82}
kinds noted that even in such a town as Lindsay, Ontario, I think it was, right alongside an area where there is a great production of wood, the papers reported a great shortage of fuel, and people were even burning their furniture. Such a situation cannot be allowed to exist.
I say to the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) from a practical point of view that not only did this difficulty affect ordinary established home owners in this country, but in my particular area there are nearly 1,000 war-time houses. These wartime houses are equipped with a special type of equipment known as the ordinary Quebec heater. They can burn wood. Then someone came along-I do not know how anyone could ever have conceived such an idea-and said they could burn bituminous coal in these small stoves. The wartime prices and trade board or some other constituted authority came out with great headlines saying there was plenty of bituminous coal. Well, if you attempt to burn that kind of fuel in the equipment provided in these war-time houses, in a very short time the lids and doors of the stoves are blown off and people are overcome with gas. In fact, I am satisfied I am right in saying that a few days afterwards three deaths as a result of coal gas poisoning were reported in the Toronto papers. This thing entered into the lives of war-time housing tenants, people who are working long hours to furnish us with the munitions of war. In that particular area if we are to burn wood it means transportation costs. It will not be an economic scheme to transport anthracite coal from south of the border past the doors of the thousand war-time houses in my area or in Toronto or Hamilton and take it to Lindsay, where they have plenty of wood, and bring the wood back to the Niagara peninsula. Therefore I urge the minister to get some coordinated form of distribution.
That raises another point which I personally took up with the regional war labour board and which I want to draw to the attention of the minister. A representative of the regional war labour board came to my area. We pleaded to be recognized as an essential industry district as far as the distribution of coal is concerned, and used as our illustration the 1,000 war-time houses there. But with no effect. You cannot get men; you cannot get trucks; you cannot get tires and gasoline. The gasoline situation is not so bad, but it is impossible to obtain the tires, men and trucks.
The hon. member for Vancouver South made some mention of coal standing in cars. We have a ceiling price; I am not complaining of
Fuel Shortage-Mr. Lockhart

that, but that ceiling price fixed the cost of delivery, and then arose the question of demurrage and the labour to unload these cars. In the early part of this year I have seen cars of fuel stand for days before men could be procured to do that type of work. The selective service boards have to be approached, and I think any hon. member who has had that experience will know that men cannot be obtained to do that type of work. Consequently we must have a coordinated national policy, because this is a national problem. I have no desire to discriminate when I say that anthracite coal should not be taken past the southern area to the northern parts of the province. There must be coordination by some central authority.
I do not know what the minister expected to accomplish by the advertisement referred to by the hon. member who introduced this question. I know that these advertisements have appeared all across Canada. Surely the wording in them will not solve this problem. It is just a foolish waste of money.
In all sincerity I ask the minister to put the distribution of fuel of all kinds on the basis of an essential industry. Surely what has been said this afternoon has shown that this action is necessary at the present time. I urge the minister to get together with the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) and work out some way by which men will be made available- not the floaters, the men who do not want to work-to deliver fuel, particularly to the homes of munitions workers. I have seen women come to the offices of fuel dealers with tears in their eyes, begging for fuel, willing to take a small parcel of it along home in the baby buggy. That is not hearsay; I happen to be in the business myself, and I have seen this occur. I ask the two ministers to approach this matter with determination, because something should have been done long ago. The regional labour board admitted to me that something ought to be done, but when I asked whether they had made representations to that effect they simply shrugged their shoulders. I ask the minister to work out a coordinated effort to overcome this difficulty. Do not try to dump this problem back on the municipalities, because some of us in this house have held high municipal offices. Some of us who were chief executives in cities and towns tried to have our municipalties handle these matters of fuel, and I think each of us lost money for our municipality.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Not all.


Mr. LOCKHART:: Most of us did, but of course the hon. member is exceptional any! Mr. Lockhart.]
way. It will not be sufficient to attempt to deal with this problem by expensive advertisements in newspapers or in any haphazard way. I urge the minister to establish a definite programme, national in character, so that those interested in the industry and those vitally interested in the distribution of fuel will be supported in their efforts to see to it that all our citizens are kept warm during the coming winter.


Angus MacInnis: Mr. Speaker, this question of fuel is a very serious problem in the province from which I come and particularly in Vancouver, a part of which I represent in this house. The crisis in the fuel situation has arisen, I believe, largely because we cannot have controls and still expect the law of supply and demand to operate. There is only one way to meet the situation in the present circumstances, namely, to extend the controls and also to extend the organization of production and distribution. That is what we must realize.
In normal times the distribution of fuel was one of the poorest paid occupations in and around the city of Vancouver. As was pointed out by the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid), the greater part of the fuel consisted of millwood and sawdust, which is also a form of millwood, and the price paid the distributors for their work provided a most miserable wage. It is true that to the extent that the large fuel dealers handled wood, those who were delivering it earned a reasonable wage, but the fuel dealers dealt principally in coal, and a great deal of the wood fuel was distributed by what I might call casual labour. As soon as other employment became available, those people left the poorly paid employment and went into the better paid jobs. The hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) has pointed out that the miners who were taken out of the army and put back into the mines are not staying there, because they can make more money in the army. I remember that last year, whenever the question of wages was discussed, certain hon. members always referred to the men who were working for $1.30 a day. Well, we in this comer of the house put a stop to that sort of talk; and if anything more is needed to prove the truth of our statements it can be found in the positive fact that men taken from the army and put to work in the mines will not stay there because they can make more money in the army.
The city of Vancouver, as has been pointed out by the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green), is faced with a serious situation,

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Maclnnis
which cannot be dealt with in the way suggested in the letter from the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) to the mayor of that city. In the first place the city cannot go into the fuel business without having enabling legislation passed by the provincial government. In addition it may be quite difficult at this time to get the equipment necessary to enable the city properly to carry on adequate fuel storage and deliveries. But it is not only in Vancouver that the fuel situation is serious. I have no doubt that other hon. members from British Columbia have received copies of a letter and resolution signed by the secretary of the Okanagan Valley Municipal association under date of March 5, 1943. This organization represents fourteen interior cities and municipalities, and it has this to say:
Whereas the present shortage in coal production is of grave concern, causing as it does dissatisfaction and discomfort to the civil population;
And whereas such conditions contribute much to the lowering of morale of those engaged in essential war industries with consequent retarding of the war effort;
And whereas to meet the labour shortage in the coal industry it is evident that methods to adequately meet the industrial and domestic coal requirements may result in the introduction of compulsory service in the mines, i.e., impressed labour working for private interests;
Therefore be it resolved that,
1.	The federal government declare the coal mining industry to be an essential war industry and take over full control of the mines for the duration of the war.
2.	That the provincial government cooperate in such scheme by relinquishing for the duration of the war any constitutional rights in, or control over, the natural resources of the provinces as may apply to coal.
3.	As the government of Canada, through its monthly and annual returns of our economic needs, is fully aware of the necessary amounts of all essential commodities that are required to maintain our standard of life;
Therefore be it resolved that the government be requested to plan such production, through its control of labour and distribution, of such commodities, so that our economic needs be met without unduly upsetting our war needs. Such planning would avoid the unnecessary disturbance of supply and uneconomic distribution of supplies that we now suffer from.
This resolution demonstrates that the fuel shortage is felt throughout the whole of British Columbia, whether the people be dependent upon coal or upon wood fuel.
On January 16 the lower mainland of British Columbia experienced its coldest weather in thirty-three years. In twenty-four hours this brought about an acute fuel crisis. Many homes were caught without the necessary fuel. Young children had to be brought to the hospitals. People had to use their garden
fences, and sometimes their neighbours' fences for fuel. Finally, after a week of frantic search as to what could be done, troops and conscientious objectors were used to cut wood.
Here is a peculiar situation: they had to make use of green fuel consisting of fir and alderwood cut adjacent to the city. The price set at that time for that type of wood was $9 a cord. A report in the Vancouver Province of January 25 said that experienced fuel men and military officials asserted that S5 a cord was a reasonable price for that kind of wood. However, the price was set at $9 a cord. This was the reason given by R. M. Brown, regional wood-fuel officer in Vancouver, for charging that relatively high price:
Wood prices, even if charged for army-cut wood, must have relationship to prevailing cost of cutting and distributing fuel on a commercial quality. If it were too low it would completely discourage private operators from cutting bush wood.
This seems to indicate that $9 a cord was a fairly high price for that wood. But within the last few days the price of $9 has been increased to $13. There may be plenty of wood, but if the price is set at a point the poorer people cannot afford to pay-and $13 a cord is a price poor people cannot pay-we have not solved our fuel problem.
I agree with the hon. member for Cape Breton South and other hon. members when they say that this fuel crisis has been developing for a considerable time. As is usual in so many of these questions, the party to which I belong is in the lead with a solution. The British Columbia section of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation had made suggestions, as far back as last June, to meet such a crisis. At that time it made suggestions, many of which have been made in this house to-day. In a report following an investigation, this was said:
Fuel is a necessity of life, as food and water are, and it must be provided on the basis of need, not of profit.
Then the report went on to say that fuel should be declared an essential industry and dealt with as such by the federal authorities. Recommendations included the retention in the province of vital fuel supplies, the manufacture of sawdust for domestic use, the cutting of woodi on publicly-owned lands, the establishment of a central office in each city, with power to pool orders and plan distribution, and the establishment of adequate hourly and weekly wages in the fuel industry in cases in which, as I have already said, the industry had been deserted by those formerly engaged in it, to take part in better paid1 occupations.
Fuel Shortage-Mr. Maclnnis


Mr. COLD WELL:: Who made that report?


Angus MacInnis: It was made by a committee appointed by the British Columbia section of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in June, 1942. However, no attention was paid to the report, and very little was done about the fuel situation until the month of January, at which time it became clear that the situation was becoming acute.
Let it be noted that despite all efforts to maintain men in the mines, the number of men working, at least in British Columbia mines, has gradually decreased. I hold in my hand a copy of the votes and proceedings for the legislative assembly of British Columbia, under date of February 11, 1943. In this copy I find answers to a series of questions, the first of which was: "How many mine-workers were employed in and around the coal mines of the province of British Columbia in 1930?" There is a further question as to the number for the year 1940, and another as to the number at the present time. The answers are quite revealing, because they show that in 1930 there were 4,645 men employed in and about British Columbia mines. In 1940 that number had dwindled to 2,874, despite the fact that the. demand for coal had greatly increased. In February, 1943, the number had dwindled to 2,365. So that we find that there were approximately twice as many men in British Columbia coal mines in 1930 as there were in 1940 when the demand was very much greater-possibly double that of 1930. Then, the number in 1940 was 500 more than that of 1943. These are facts which indicate what is wrong with the fuel situation at least in British Columbia. It is a condition which cannot be improved merely by tampering with price control structure.
The fuel industry will have to be organized under a competent authority. The whole industry will have to be surveyed to find out the need, and then the labour will have to be made available to meet the need. A difference of opinion arose this afternoon between the hon. member for Cape Breton South and the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Munitions and Supply with regard to who the members of the fuel control board are. I have here a press release dated March 7, 1943, which states:
Under a new order in council, jurisdiction over the production and supply of coal, coke and wood fuel, has passed from the wartime prices and trade board into the hands of the wartime industries control board, it was announced to-day by the munitions and supply department.

The order in council creates a new coal control, which will assume the powers, duties, and functions of the coal administration, including the continued operation of the dominion fuel board, which was absorbed by the coal administration in 1941. All supply orders issued by the administration have become orders of the coal control.
The staffs of the coal administration and of the dominion fuel board have been transferred to the munitions and supply department. James McGregor Stewart, K.C., is now coal controller and will retain his title and powers as coal administrator, under which he will continue to regulate prices of coal, coke, and wood fuel. Frank G. Neate, who has been deputy coal administrator, is now deputy coal controller. D. Roy Cameron, formerly deputy administrator (wood fuel), and Gustave C. Piche, of Quebec and Montreal, a forestry engineer and formerly chief of the forest service for the province of Quebec, have been appointed as deputy wood fuel controllers.
It seems to me that the hon. member for Cape Breton South is rather better informed on. this matter than the two ministers.


Humphrey Mitchell: In order to have the
record straight-	.


Angus MacInnis: I am just about to finish, and the minister may say what he wants to say when I sit down.
I am not speaking now in a critical frame of mind because I realize that this is a situation which has developed on account of certain circumstances connected with the production and distribution of coal. As I have already said, I am satisfied it cannot be dealt with solely by tampering with the price control structure; it can be dealt with adequately only by organizing it on a national basis.


Mr. P. C. BLACK (Cumberland):: Mr. Speaker, coming as I do from the province of Nova Scotia and the county of Cumberland I am interested in this discussion, from the point of view of both production and consumption. Both the province of Nova Scotia and the county of Cumberland are exporters of coal, but notwithstanding this fact they have problems with respect to getting supplies to heat their homes and keep the industries going. There are two large coal fields in Cumberland county, Springhill field and River Hebert-Joggins. I have not the exact figures, but we produce annually in the county about three quarters of a million tons of coal. I believe that if this industry had been properly organized and the skilled miners retained, we could have enlarged the production beyond 750,000 tons of coal and we would be producing a million tons.
Since the commencement of hostilities, the mines of Cumberland and Nova Scotia have been greatly handicapped on account of a

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Black (Cumberland)
shortage of skilled man-power. I agree with what the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) has said with respect to the enlistment of miners who could have served their country better in the mines than in the armed forces, but I disagree with him in one respect. I do not believe the miners from the county of Cumberland enlisted because they wanted to get away from the coal mines. They enlisted from a sense of duty to their country; they enlisted voluntarily to serve in any theatre of war.
Some time ago 500 experienced miners had enlisted from the Springhill mines. I assume that the total figure is now 600 or 700. These mines require a daily working force of about 1,250 miners to carry on their present scale of production, but they have 1,600 to 1,700 on their payrolls. Many of the men are not experienced coal miners, and their morale has not been kept up as it should have been. The same condition applies in the River Hebert-Joggins field. In this district the mines are smaller and the seams are thinner, but I believe the percentage of enlistments has been as large as that from any part of Canada. These men also volunteered to serve in any theatre of war. The output of the mines has been reduced and the cost has been increased. If a proper policy of selective service had been put into effect early in the war, or were put into effect even now, it would have gone a long way in solving this fuel problem.
I referred to the morale of the miners in Cumberland and throughout Nova Scotia. This has not been what it should be, but I do not blame them. There- has been dissatisfaction with regard to taxation, and this should have been avoided. However, most of the miners continued to work irrespective of the incidence of taxation. A single man begins to pay income taxes when he has earned $660, and a married man at $1,200, and they continue to work with hesitancy and without the goodwill they should have. When these earnings are exceeded almost 100 per cent is applied to taxation, and this leaves a bad taste.
Perhaps hon. members may have noticed in the press that the miners in Springhill have lately not been able to get coal which they mine themselves to heat their own homes. The coal had been assigned for shipment elsewhere. If things were properly handled, a condition such as this would not exist. The miners of the county of Cumberland and the province of Nova Scotia are willing and ready to do their duty, but they will not stand for injustice or unfair treatment.
There was also a feeling of resentment when the Minister of Munitions and Supply, (Mr. Howe), when he was Minister of Transport, converted the steamship Charlottetown from the burning of coal to the burning of oil without any explanation to the people of the coal producing communities which depended upon this for about 25,000 tons a year to give them a home market for their product. There was also resentment in connection with rationing because the miners felt that they should have been allowed larger quantities of food and beverages in their hazardous occupation. If they were satisfied that restrictions were necessary, they would willingly submit to them.
I agree with what the hon. member for Cape Breton South has said about the resentment over the fact that our coal mining districts have had no representative on the fuel board. The coal miners of our province would have more confidence in government policy if there were a representative of theirs on the fuel board. There are in that province a number of capable and experienced practical men who have the confidence of the coal miners. I was in the government at Halifax for eight years or more, and there was never a major matter having to do with the coal mining industry or labour when we did not consult the miners. On many occasions I came to Ottawa in connection with the payment of subventions which resulted in extending the market for Nova Scotia coal. We always consulted the heads of the miners' organizations, and on -many occasions we asked them to accompany us and assist us in making our presentation to the government or to the fuel board and those in authority. In that way we obtained their good-will, and that feeling spread among the workmen in the industry. Had the government followed that policy and given our miners representation, it would have assisted in building up the morale of the miners in Nova Scotia and greatly helped the coal industry.
We have some capable men on the fuel board. Those of us in Nova Scotia who contended for many years for expansion of the Canadian market for our coal will be forever grateful to those responsible for putting our coal subvention policies into effect in central Canada. The man perhaps more helpful than any other is Mr. Frank Neate, who is now deputy coal administrator. The late hon. Wesley Gordon, at that time minister of mines, did us a fine service in approving a national fuel policy and appropriating large sums of money in order that we might market an additional tonnage of Nova Scotia coal in central Canada. It was our policy at that time
Fuel Shortage-Mrs. Nielsen

to establish a market within Canada, for a minimum of seven million tons of coal a year. We had to extend our territory from Montreal as far west as Toronto in order to market that output, but to-day we are supplying a market only as far west as Levis. A long educational process was required to teach the people of central Canada to fit their boilers for the use of Nova Scotia coal. That will have to be done over again. Nova Scotia, in view of all the sacrifices made in confederation, contends that it is entitled to that market, and the coal mines of Nova Scotia should be kept operating, in the years after the war, in supplying that market.
We have now on the fuel board Mr. J. McG. Stewart, Iv.C., from Nova Scotia. It is true that he is a lawyer, but he is a very able man and has done excellent service for the benefit not only of Nova Scotia and all Canada as chairman of the fuel board.


Mr. McGEER:: Then why the collapse if
his services have been so wonderful?


Percy Chapman Black: 
Mr. J. G. DIEFENBAKER (Lake Centre):: I realize that so much has been said on the subject before the house that there is very little one can add, but I feel that the situation in Saskatchewan should be brought to the attention of the minister. I do not agree, however, with the last speaker (Mr. Soper), when he stated that what has occured here to-day will cause "serious consequences in the months to come, in that fuel will be hoarded; for the fact is that a month ago or less the minister himself put an announcement before the country to the effect that if something were not done, serious consequences would follow next winter. What the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) has done is to rivet the attention of the country on the fuel situation and the necessity of action being taken now and has given the members of the house an opportunity to suggest what should be done.
As far as Saskatchewan is concerned, the government was warned last fall by the city of Prince Albert, which is represented in this house by the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King), that serious consequences would follow unless something were done to assure a reasonable production of wood fuel in the area in the vicinity of Prince Albert. The wartime prices and trade board fixed the price of fuel wood in Saskatchewan on a 1941 basic price level, at which time the price of cord-wood in Saskatchewan was scarcely higher than it had been during the years of the

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Diejenbaker
depression, when the getting out of cordwood was a means whereby many settlers were able to assure themselves of a livelihood.
Take, for instance, the price of poplar wood. A man working reasonably hard can get out two cords a day. For that he received wages of four dollars, or two dollars a cord, out of which he had to pay to the provincial government stumpage fees of twenty cents a cord, or forty cents. The return was so low that the settlers would not get out wood for sale.
They could not get any help and if they did get it out they were working at a wage far below that paid by lumber industries in the far west and in northern Ontario. As a matter of fact most men who previously got out wood in Saskatchewan went to northern Ontario where they received $4.80 for a double cord of pulpwood, and had their fare paid both ways. There was no incentive whatever for anyone to produce w'ood in Saskatchewan. In the fall of 1942 the wartime prices and trade board was asked by the city of Prince Albert, and I believe a like communication was made to the Prime Minister as member for that constituency, that prices should be fixed at a level which would assure those engaged in the production of wood of a reasonable wage. The prices suggested were, $6 for poplar, $6.50 for jackpine and $8 for tamarac. But the wartime prices and trade board refused to do anything in that connection, although in Kenora in northern Ontario, for like wood, 87.50, $8.50 and $10 were the prices permitted to be paid.
The situation in Saskatchewan having been brought to the notice of the government in the fall of 1942, the government must assume the responsibility for the shortage that occurred in January and February, 1943. If fuel conditions in Vancouver, where the climate is so balmy, caused the discomfort referred to by several hon. members, the situation in Saskatchewan during the past winter can be imagined. In Prince Albert for a period of ten days forty per cent of the population had little or no fuel; yet adjacent to Prince Albert and throughout northern Saskatchewan are vast fuel resources uncut for the reason that there was no selective service system that would put men out to cut this wood; uncut because it was not profitable for the farmers or settlers to get it out and because it was impossible to secure men to work at wage levels lower than those paid in British Columbia and northern Ontario for similar work.
I have three suggestions to offer to the minister. These have come to me from vari-

ous settlers in northern Saskatchewan who believe they would assure an ample supply of the necessary wood during the coming winter.
1.	The dollar subsidy, if I may call it that, paid to the dealers will not meet the situation, because it will not be passed back to the producers. The subsidy should be paid direct to the producer, the settler, the farmer, or the labourer as the case may be.
2.	The dominion government in order to encourage production should pay the provincial stumpage fees.
3.	There are any number of farmers living in northern Saskatchewan in the wooded areas who would be very glad to get out wood if they had the necessary finances or financial assistance to enable them to do so. I suggest that the government finance the farmers by advancing a portion of the price of the wood once it has been placed on the skidways. That will enable the farmer to get and to pay the nece'ssary help, and the remainder of the purchase price would be paid to him at the time he makes delivery.
4.	The Indian reservations in Saskatchewan afford an opportunity to get man-power for this work. There are not as many adult men on these reserves as their were a few years ago, for the Indians have made a contribution to this country, have given an example of service, unequalled by any other race. I think every able-bodied man in every reserve in Saskatchewan, certainly those in northern Saskatchewan, has volunteered. But those who are at home on the reserves, if they were given an opportunity to earn money by getting out wood, would do so, provided .that their earnings were turned over to them, not handled through the Indian department or the Indian agencies, I have it on good authority that there are at least 700 to 800 men, Indians, both on and off the reserves in the northern part of Saskatchewan, who are available to go out and cut wood.
I believe that unless something is done immediately, the fuel situation in Saskatchewan next winter will be a desperate one.
A similar shortage in production prevails in the lumbering industry. The labour is not available, because the government has not seen fit to direct men into the service that they should serve in, and has given them freedom to go from one part of Canada to another where wages are highest. Our labourers, lumber producers and the like will not stay in northern Saskatchewan producing lumber and fuelwood when the wages there are about half of what they can get in British Columbia or northern Ontario. They go where the wages

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Shaiv
are best. In the production of fuel the government can carry into practical application the recent orders in council that, as the hon. member for Vancouver Bast (Mr. Maclnnis) *said, promised that much would be done, that look well on paper, but are not being properly carried into effect.
At six o'clock the house took recess.
After Recess
The house resumed at eight o'clock.


Mr. F. D. SHAW (Red Deer):: Mr. Speaker, during the course of the afternoon a number of hon. members engaged in the debate on the very important subject of fuel, and dealt with the conditions which prevailed earlier in the present winter and the conditions that may well be anticipated in future should there not be some radical change in policy with respect to the handling of the fuel question. My colleague the hon. member for Macleod (Mr. Hansell) reminded the house that if other groups or political parties in this country had adopted the same attitude toward the manpower question that we adopted in 1939 and 1940, and in fact still hold, many of the troubles which now confront us never would have occurred. I say that if other political parties had not spent their time in what I call political tomfoolery, probably there would have been no necessity for the conglomeration of regulations which emanate from government offices almost every week, and which serve to do little more than further confuse us. The hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Soper) attributed a good deal of our uneasiness to pessimism, if I interpreted his words correctly. I understand he is a dealer and incidentally a consumer; but evidently he has very little faith in his own Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe), who indicated through the press that there was all the reason in the world for pessimism under the present government policy.
It seems rather strange that I, coming from the province of Alberta where we produce approximately eighty-five per cent of Canada's coal, and from a constituency in which there is a number of mines producing domestic coal, should have to take part in a debate of this kind on account of the fact that in my own constituency a good deal of hardship was caused by the acute shortage of fuel. So great was that shortage; so difficult were the problems which confronted a great many of the people of Red Deer constituency, that upon returning to this house in January I felt obliged to place upon the order paper a resolution, which I should like to read:
Whereas domestic fuel is a vital necessity in Canadian homes;
And whereas the acute shortage of domestic fuel available for home consumption has created severe hardship and in many instances acute suffering in many parts of Canada during the present winter;
Therefore be it resolved,-That, in the opinion of this house, parliament should immediately take such steps as are considered necessary to bring into production and distribution undeveloped fuel resources of Canada.
That resolution may appear rather restricted in its application. If I had been given an opportunity to sponsor the resolution, I would not have confined myself merely to the development and distribution of undeveloped resources; but having seen the figures of the estimated coal requirements in Canada, I was concerned about this fact, namely, that the sources of supply which had been developed could not, in my opinion, supply the needs. I do not intend to elaborate upon that resolution at this time. If I were sponsoring it, I would feel obliged to take the .forty minutes at my disposal.
During the past winter, in the city of Red Deer particularly, acute hardships were experienced; in fact I am almost obliged to believe that the Minister of Munitions and Supply was referring to Red Deer or the residents of that city when he made reference to the fact that some people had burned their fences. I know that as a result of the shortage of fuel there the schools were closed and a great many business establishments either closed or nearly closed; and when I speak thus I do not confine my remarks merely to Red Deer but include many different towns in that constituency. Furthermore I know the situation became so acute that the two airports in that vicinity were contemplating either closing entirely or at least curtailing their operations.
The people of Red Deer were perturbed. The people of the other towns of my constituency were also rather disturbed. I must pay tribute to the dealers who in a splendid manner adopted a scheme of rationing, but I do not believe that responsibility should be placed on the dealers, for it put them in a very nasty position, if I may use that word.
Mr. HANSELL; You may.


Frederick Davis Shaw: Thank you. A number of factors were responsible for the acute fuel shortage. I will not attempt for a moment to minimize the fact that we had a very severe winter, but as yet we have had no communique from anywhere indicating that next winter will be any milder. In fact, in war time, whatever the cause, we seem to encounter more severe weather than during
Fuel Shortage-Mr. Shaw

peace time. I will not try to elaborate upon that; I could not. In any event we in Red Deer were confronted with a serious problem in regard to transportation. As I say, we have numerous small mines in that district, but there was difficulty in securing the trucks necessary to move the coal. The coal was available, but there was greatly reduced production by reason of the insufficient number of miners available to keep those mines operating to capacity.
May I point out that there are a number of reasons why our truckers have difficulty in carrying on the hauling of coal. In the first place they are having a much harder time in procuring parts for their machines. They have difficulty in obtaining tires-and I am not complaining about this unnecessarily, because it is a situation which confronts us. Not only that, but many of our truckers have * been directed to other places as a result of the higher rates of remuneration to be found in those places. I have in mind particularly the large numbers of truckers who accepted work on the Alaska highway. I know, further, that the Canadian Pacific Railway was undoubtedly confronted with problems in connection with transportation. I am told that freight cars loaded with coal stood near the mines for days and days, and could not be moved. I do not know the exact reason for this, but I can surmise as to what it may be.
With respect to the actual production of coal, to the best of my knowledge none of the mines has closed in that constituency on account of a shortage of man-power. I know that many smaller mines in Alberta have closed down completely because the miners have been taken or have gone elsewhere. As I said, that is to a degree responsible for the situation. Many of our men engaged in the mining industry volunteered for service in the army, the air force and the navy. They were encouraged to do so. Probably they received that encouragement from a spirit of adventure. Probably they were encouraged by more attractive employment, as has already been explained to-day.


Mr. HOMUTH:: Give them some credit for patriotism, too.


Frederick Davis Shaw: I think I am about the last one in the world who would cast any reflection upon the patriotism of any young man. Many of these men joined the service voluntarily; many of them were taken under the provisions of the National Resources Mobilization Act, and many others have taken employment in other branches of war industry because mine operators could not compete, from the point 
of view of wages, with the operators of other industries engaged in the production of war commodities.
Prom experience I know of the extreme difficulty with which many of us were confronted when we endeavoured to procure leaves of absence for some of the miners who were taken into the army under the National Resources Mobilization Act. I do not believe the government appreciated the situation. I will not try to determine the reason for that; but surely they should have had the facilities at their disposal to determine whether or not an individual was actually required in the coal mines, or somewhere else. But we went on for weeks and weeks and weeks until we have become sick and tired of the whole thing.
In order to conserve the time of the house I do not propose to elaborate upon these matters at any greater length. Let me come now to the question of wood. I am in absolute agreement with the hon. member who said this afternoon that we should give consideration to subsidizing the actual producer of wood-if "subsidizing" is the proper word. In my constituency the farmers in their spare time engaged in the cutting of wood. That is what they used to do, but now most of their labour has been taken, and as a result they have no spare time. When they had the spare time, however, they engaged in the cutting of firewood, and hauled it to town for sale. We have our dealers in the towns, too; but in my part of Alberta, in the smaller urban and rural areas, they constitute a small minority. I say we should give consideration to the subsidizing of those farmers, so that they will be encouraged to cut fuel and deliver it to the towns. Some of them have told me recently that it is not worth their while, and that they will not bother with it any more. In a sense, I do not blame them; and yet that course will not solve our fuel problems. On the other hand, I would urge that there be a redirection of miners from the armed services and from other branches of industry back to the mines. That is an absolute essential.
The question of the division of responsibility arises. My opinion in this connection is based to a great extent upon the statement of the Minister of Munitions and Supply that we shall have a fight between the federal government, the provincial governments and the municipal districts. It will be most unfortunate if the federal government fails to recognize its responsibility in this regard.

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Black (Yukon)
The solution of our fuel problem will not come through these three bodies fighting until such time as the next winter is upon us.
There is another matter with which I should like to deal in conclusion. We still have 22,000 gold miners engaged in the production of gold in Canada. I know this is a touchy question in the minds of some people, but I would remind the house that the President of the United States showed courage when he dealt with it. I reminded the house on March 1 that a committee of the house of representatives had stated that it would not be the better part of wisdom for the United States even to contemplate the acceptance of gold after this war as a method of settling debts as between the United States and other countries.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: But they are still producing gold.


Frederick Davis Shaw: True; but it will be noticed that the action taken in the United States is far more drastic than was ever contemplated before.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: They produced more last year than the year before.


Frederick Davis Shaw: I would ask the hon. member to give me the date upon which the President issued his most recent order.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: I cannot keep track of those dates.


Frederick Davis Shaw: Then why ask me to? I trust there is no scheme being concocted to put us back on the gold standard. I am of opinion, and there are medical men in the house who could confirm my opinion, that it is now realized it is not the best thing for one's health to put gold in his teeth. This all leads to a more limited commercial use of the commodity. I am of opinion, one which is held by many people throughout the country, that the 22,000 skilled miners engaged in the production of gold should be put to work producing something which has been proven to be of far greater value in wartime, namely, coal.


Humphrey Mitchell: Does my hon. friend
know the difference between a hard-rock miner and a soft-coal miner?


Frederick Davis Shaw: Under the present policy the government is placing the men in such a position that if the mines are to carry on, and supply even part of our needs, they will have to take workers who have not the skill or the adaptability that these 22,000 gold miners would have.


Humphrey Mitchell: Does my hon. friend
know that coal mining is a highly skilled employment? In some provinces there are regulations an individual has to pass before he can work in a coal mine.


Frederick Davis Shaw: The point is that they have to be trained, in any event. I ask the Minister of Labour where he will get the men who must be directed to the production of coal in order to meet the requirements of this country. I say that we can take a miner engaged in gold mining and train him for that purpose much easier and in a shorter time than we can many of those upon whom he may have his eyes at the present time.
I realized before I mentioned that subject that it would be a touchy matter with some people, but it will be noticed that in the light of that I did not refrain from mentioning it. I contend that unless we give sound consideration forthwith to the whole man-power question-after all, this is part of the manpower question-we shall shortly be confronted with difficulties which few anticipate at the present time. I know that some will say I am a pessimist. I would sooner be a pessimist and avoid a terrible situation that might come along later on than be an extreme optimist, or, in other words, an ostrich, burying my head in the sand and hoping and praying that everything will work out satisfactorily. We have had altogether too much of that up to the present time.


Ernest George Hansell: Especially from the Liberal side of the house.


Frederick Davis Shaw: The hon. member for Macleod says that that is especially so from across the floor on the government side of the house. I agree.


Mr. GEORGE BLACK (Yukon):: Mr. Speaker, the debate which has taken place this afternoon on the shortage of fuel, particularly wood fuel, reminds me of that old rhyme, "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wrood." I think this applies particularly to the remarks of the speaker (Mr. Shaw) who has just preceded me. It may seem strange that we should have a fuel shortage in the Yukon, but this is due, to some extent, to war conditions. Those in the Yukon who owned trucks and tractors and who would ordinarily be engaged in the transportation of fuel, have for the most part leased or sold them to contractors on the Alaska highway, thereby doing much better for themselves than if they had continued to use their machines. In addition, many of the men who would be

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Black (Yukon)
engaged in this industiy have volunteered for active service with the army, the navy or the air force.
Under an agreement between the governments of the United States and Canada, Canadian workmen are prevented from obtaining employment with United States contractors and earning the splendid wages paid United States workmen. I protested against this policy as being wholly unfair to Canadian workmen, but it is still in effect. Some Canadian workmen have been clever enough to find a way around this prohibition, and they are cutting poles for these contractors. I know of one expert Canadian axeman who cleared $135 in one day. One could not expect that man to cut wood for fuel when a ceiling of from seventy-five cents to $1 an hour was put on his wages by the labour board. As I say, the Canadian fuel shortage is due, to some extent, to war conditions, and also to the administration of the selective service policy.
I should like to bring to the attention of the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) one instance that came to my notice recently. A group of young men were trained as welders in a Winnipeg trades school and were sent by the selective service bureau at Winnipeg to Toronto to report to the selective service bureau there. Immediately upon arrival at Toronto they were told that they were urgently needed at Transcona and would have to leave at once. When they said that they had just come from there the Ontario selective service officer said to them, "No; you came from Winnipeg and we are sending you to Transcona." Evidently the official in the selective service bureau at Winnipeg did not know that welders were needed at Transcona, while the official in the selective service bureau at Toronto did not seem to know that Transcona is practically a part of Winnipeg and that the workmen go back and forth daily between Winnipeg and Transcona. Surely the Minister of Labour does not approve such stupidity on the part of his officials. I suggest that he supply them with geographies.


Humphrey Mitchell: If what my hon. friend is saying is true, I should like to have the details. It seems almost incredible.


George Black: If the Minister of Labour will apply to his own selective service bureaus at Winnipeg and at Toronto he will get the information officially. We hear about the overcrowding of railway trains. Why overcrowd a railway car to send a crowd of men from Winnipeg to Toronto and then back again to Winnipeg?

In the Yukon we have no draft evaders, no conscientious objectors, no prisoners of war, no Doukhobors and no slackers, and we do not need any regimentation of labour. If the men there were allowed a fair wage for their work, they would get out the fuel. I say to the Minister of Labour that if he is so inclined he can solve the difficulty as far as the Yukon is concerned.
Mr. KARL K. HOMUTH (Waterloo South): Mr. Speaker, I intend to take only two or three minutes-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Hear, hear.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: I knew that would be pleasing to the house. That is the best cheer I have got since I came to the House of Commons. There is a suggestion which I wish to make to the minister, and there is something which I should like to draw to his attention and which I think will at least help in solving the fuel problem in western Ontario.
In the first place may I preface my remarks by saying that this is definitely the government's responsibility, it cannot be placed upon the municipalities. Under the expansion of war services the dominion government have taken charge of practically every provincial organization. They have taken charge of the administration of timber, mines and everything else that ordinarily would come under the jurisdiction of the provincial governments.
In western Ontario we have a very serious situation with regard to gas and oil fuel. On several occasions I brought this matter up in the house. For a year and a half there was a rather vacillating policy; nothing definite was done, and the result was that many people in western Ontario suffered serious hardships and went to tremendous expense to remove the gas-burners from their furnaces and put in coal burners and other methods of burning fuel.
It was felt that the wealthy gas companies, controlled principally in the United States, should have been compelled to reimburse the people for the expenses to which they had gone. Either that, or the government should have reimbursed them for the hundreds and hundreds of dollars they had spent in taking out of gas fixtures and rebuilding their chimneys in order to burn some other type of fuel. But that was not done, and in a part of the country where over ten per cent of the men have volunteered to go to war, we perhaps do not criticize as vehemently as we might some of the regulations put out by the government.
The other day the hon. member for Huron North (Mr. Cardiff) brought a letter to my attention because we had been discussing the

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Homuth
fuel situation only a day or so before, and I wish to read this letter to the minister and suggest that a great deal more of the cooperative spirit that is evident in this letter might well be shown in our war effort. The letter reads as follows:
Harrison, March 10, 1943.
Mr. E. Cardiff, M.P.,
Brussels, Ontario.
Dear friend:
I am writing you for information and advice, re the subsidy on fuel wood.
About February 1st a number of my neighbours who have no wood or bush of their own asked me to sell them firewood.
We have made a bargain whereby for every cord of firewood they cut and draw away they cut a cord for me. I am very proud of the way it is working. We have men from the village going in with farmers who have horses to do the hauling. We have had as many as 10 men and 4 teams working at once.
Now I think I am entitled to the $1 per cord subsidy, on all the fuel wood which is hauled away from my bush. There is no wood dealer involved in the whole transaction. No money is paid for the wood dr for labour excepting to the man who operates the buzz-saw.
I do not think I am entitled to the subsidy on the wood which I keep and burn in my own home. I would be pleased to hear from you and have your opinion.
I know for a fact these men are not worrying about their supply of firewood for next winter, as we have about 120 cords cut already.
Yours truly,
Milton Leonard,
R.R. No. 2, Harrison, Ont.
That shows a spirit of cooperation which could be built up in Canada if the government would only go out and build it up. We have built thousands of homes across this country, war-time houses that are supposed to be wrecked when the war is over, but if we had carried on a campaign which would have aroused in the people a sense of their responsibility and of that patriotism of which they are capable it would not have been necessary to build a great many of these homes. We could have found many homes with rooms that are not occupied and many others which could have been subdivided, but the whole war-time housing programme was conducted through a series of newspaper advertisements, which must have cost a great deal of money, and nothing substantial came of it all. Surely the members of this house and the people of this country are prepared to carry on a campaign to stir up the patriotism of our people. Look at the tremendous number of war-time houses that have been built in the city of Hamilton, or in the city of Galt, in my riding, where fifty are being built now. If a campaign had been carried
on to arouse the patriotism of the people, they would have opened their homes and taken people in, and these war-time houses would not have been required.
Similarly we could carry on a campaign to stimulate the cutting of wood fuel. There is no part of western Ontario that has not a good acreage of bush from which wood fuel could be cut. All that is required to stimulate production is cooperation. The writer of the letter I have read cannot get the subsidy. I called up the fuel controller's office and was told that under the order in council this man cannot get the subsidy. Why? Because he is not a dealer. Surely, Mr. Speaker, a man who is willing to sacrifice his bush and keep down the price of winter fuel ought to be entitled to the subsidy at least on that part of his fuel which goes to other homes than his own. Unfortunately, so many of these orders in council are drawn up by men who cannot see and have not seen or will not see the practical side of some of these problems. The hon. member for Huron North and I talked with Mr. Cameron, and he said, "It is a matter of administration. But the order in council does not provide for paying subsidy in this case." I believe that if the minister would advise his board to go out and try to build up some of the cooperative spirit shown by the writer of this, letter, a great deal could be done to alleviate the fuel shortage across Canada. There is on the part of everybody in this country a spirit of cooperation and a desire to help the war effort. But these silly orders in council and these crazy regulations which make a man so dizzy that he does not know where he stands break down the desire on the part of the people to do something in the war effort. I point out to the minister that much can be done, not only in this fuel situation, but in connection with housing and many other problems that face the government if they would just approach the people in the proper way, explain the situation to them, appeal to their patriotism and be honest with them. There is no question that the people would cooperate heartily.
The hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Soper) this afternoon said that this was an idle debate which would cause a run on fuel. Let me point out to him that every time any of the controllers appointed by this government announces that there will be no control or rationing of this or that commodity, the people immediately go out and buy it. Why? Because they cannot believe the controllers. They know that the controllers say in February, there will be no control-and in March control
Fuel Shortage-Mr. Pouliot

goes on. The controllers say in January, there will be no rationing-and in February rationing goes on. And so it goes. What we must have in this country is a spirit of cooperation, and I wish to tell the government that the people are prepared to cooperate with the government if the government is prepared to cooperate with them.


Mr. JEAN FRANCOIS POULIOT (Temis-couata):: Mr. Speaker, this question is a very important one. The Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) and the premiers of the various provinces have often, in interviews given to the press, drawn the attention of the public to the importance of the fuel problem. In our part of the country coal is imported from other provinces and from some of the eastern United States. But most people use wood for fuel, hardwood like maple, the wild cherry tree, birch and other varieties which are most suitable for making the homes of our fellow-citizens warm and comfortable.
It has been suggested by some of the members that a subsidy should be paid to the farmers to encourage them to cut wood for fuel. Of course, it is a work that requires experience. No novice can pick up an axe and go out into the bush and cut down trees and split wood, but in our part of the country there is not a single farmer or a farmer's son who cannot do that kind of work. They are all familiar with it; they are expert woodcutters.
Some one has complained of the number of Canadian woodsmen who are working in the United States. The main reason is obvious, it is that we have reached a point, mostly on account of forest fires, when United States forests supply some Canadian mills along the border.
But there is another reason why Canadians cross the boundary to chop lumber in the United States; it is because over there they pay fair wages, considerably higher than those which are paid by some companies, one of which operates in my county. It is not at all surprising that young men or older men refuse to work for a company which pays so much less by the hour or by the contract than do the United States companies.
Is this the right time to offer a subsidy for cutting lumber? We know that the time to cut trees is when there is no sap in them. Spring will start, officially, on March 21. We have at times spells of cold weather, but the sap is about to run in the trees. It will then be too late to cut them.
One reason for the present scarcity of lumber is the very large quantity of snow which has fallen in our forests and which has made the cutting of trees more difficult.

The hon. member for Yukon (Mr. Black) spoke of the labour board; and in this matter we have every reason to complain of the wartime prices board, because, by making public a certain price which has been established for kindling wood and for furnace wood, they have removed all possibility for those who look after the transportation of that wood from the forest to the homes of the people to continue that work. The price has been published. The producer asked for the price which was originally paid' by the consumer, and the middleman has nothing at all wherewith to pay for transportation. These regulations have been made by men who are bookworms and who have no experience in the lumber trade, particularly in that regard. By trying to improve conditions they have made the situation much worse than it was.
The hon. member for Red Deer (Mr. Shaw) made some apt remarks about the difficulty of transportation by trucks. I will not repeat what he has so accurately enumerated, but this is a great difficulty which is not easy to remedy. Then, of course, there are also the railways. But at the present time the railways are jammed. It has been remarked that anyone who travels from Toronto to Montreal, or who goes to St. Lambert, near Montreal, will see all the sidings full of war material which was made a year or two ago and which has not been moved. It would be a great help if that material, whether munitions, aeroplanes, or otherwise, could be forwarded to Russia, the United Kingdom, China, wherever it is needed, but it is left here to rot. We hope that it will not be destroyed completely. But it is in boxes and cases; rain and snow have been falling on it for years, and now what is being done? Those boxes and cases are being painted. But it is too late. Would it have been easier to transport fuel than it has proved to be to carry that mass of munitions which we see on all the sidings in eastern Canada?
The hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) who for such a long time has been advocating total war, recited as his own this afternoon part of an article which I wrote in French and which was entitled, " Elliott Little was Right." Does he suffer from amnesia? I remember the time, which is not so far distant, when he insisted on sending all our young men to Libya. He blamed the government for not sending young Canadians to Libya; he wanted conscription for overseas at once. And now we see a number of these champions of conscription for overseas service asking the government not to apply conscription to the army. If they complain about something, they may weep for their own sins. We have

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Pouliot
heard hon. gentlemen opposite rising in their places one after another asking for the conscription of all men for the army.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Oh, no. Some of you
fellows have been swallowing yourselves for years.


Jean-François Pouliot: I can swallow myself without poisoning myself. It is different with the hon. gentleman.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Well, you would be an
awful mouthful.


Mr. SPEAKER:: Order.


Jean-François Pouliot: Here I am to apply the
twilight-you know, the one by which a certain operation is administered without pain. I remember the time when a Tory member for Toronto, who is now out of the house, otherwise I would describe him in a picturesque way, was bold enough to say the member for Temiscouata was helping Hitler by fighting against conscription of men for overseas service. I realize fully that Canada alone cannot win the war; we need our allies, and if we put all our men in the army, what will be the result? The result will be a still greater mess than we have now in the fuel business. Are these hon. members logical? The other day I praised the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe (Mr. Rowe) for a very good speech that he made about the farmers and the importance of agriculture for the welfare of our country. And what did I read in that fine newspaper called the Toronto Telegram, reporting the last assizes of the Tory-I beg pardon, the Progressive Conservative party, where the hon. member for Dufferin-Simcoe complained bitterly that insufficient reinforcements were sent to our boys in England. He also complained that it was the reason why Europe was not yet invaded. Does he not know that at the present time there are in the Canadian army many farmers who have been sent there, who, although they were willing to get into the army, and had no objection at all to enlisting, knew very well that as soon as they enlisted the padlock would be put on the ancestral farm, on the old homestead, because the father who suffers from rheumatism is unable to find help and unable to replace his sons who are going away. This is a well known fact. How many young farmers are there in the army, men who had no objection at all to enlist, men who are not Doukhobors, not conscientious objectors, not Mennonites, but good Canadians of British or French origin, whose presence was urgently needed on the farm of their father or their own farm, but who, on account of that false patriotism that was preached by all members of the
Tory party without exception-and I speak of those who rose in their places after their new christening-


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Who took them into the army? Your government, the one you supported yourself.


Jean-François Pouliot: They were acting on suggestions like that of the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth). The former leader of the opposition, who probably had to give up his seat for that very reason, was fighting me.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Are you still with the
government or against it?


Jean-François Pouliot: I ask my hon. friend to
keep quiet, otherwise I shall go to his home town and tell his constituents how he is thought of in this house. I have been before in the province of Ontario and I have never been afraid to attend a joint meeting anywhere.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: That is all I need.


Jean-François Pouliot: If my hon. friend is
ready to find time for a discussion I will bring Hansard with me and it will be his own condemnation.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: You can bring the government with you, too.


Jean-François Pouliot: Now, sir, what happened? We had a chairman of a board called the national war services board, now called the mobilization board, who although he was a judge did not understand one iota of his duty, so much so that I had to bring his case to the officials of the department and to the minister, who decided it was important and in the public interest to see how many injustices were inflicted on account of the stupid and criminal decisions of that man. He is replaced now by a better man, I admit, but the farmers who have been suffering just because that man lacked judgment completely are still there; they cannot come back. I remember that on July 13 last year the Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) said from his place in the house that it would be very hard to give an opportunity to young men who are in the army, even if they did not volunteer, to come back to civilian jobs.
Who is the expert on fuel in the adjutant-general's branch? It would be interesting to know. At the present time it is impossible to get any definite information. I wrote today to an official of the department that when a man gets into the army he is under his commanding officer and he has to go to his officer commanding to ask for leave. How

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Pouliot
is it that I receive letters from the Department of National Defence to the effect that leave has been refused, not by the officer commanding but by that mobilization board? We never know where we are; we have irresponsibility from A to Z. And this, sir, is why the country is now complaining about the mess that exists and is in a state of fear for the future. How many little homes are there in every part of the country, some of them far away from the forests, who get wood in railway cars in winter and in summer on trucks? Now a much smaller quantity of fuehvood has been cut; conditions are harder than ever. How can men haul lumber in the forests when we can hardly walk on the streets of Ottawa? The winter has been very hard. The situation is very difficult.
Will it be remedied by a subsidy? If so, what will be the rate of the subsidy? A dollar? Why, it is a joke. The subsidy should be much higher than that. Our people in a great many instances have not enough wood to finish the winter. Who would think that at this time of the year we would have a cold spell like the one we now have? Who would think of that? It takes a lot of wood or coal.


An hon. MEMBER:: R. B. Bennett did it.


Jean-François Pouliot: The least we can ask is for all hon. members to try to find ways and means to solve that problem, provided that the matter is discussed without prejudice. What is the easiest way to come to that? It is for hon, gentlemen opposite, and those on the government side, who have been beating the drum of conscription for overseas service to beat their breasts and say "Mea culpa! It is our own fault, our own mistake if there are such conditions as we all deplore to-day." So should they say. They are too proud to admit it; they will never admit that they are wrong. But after a discussion such as we have had this afternoon and this evening, is it not time to think deeply, to think in all sincerity and all earnestness of the problems that confront us? In my Humble view the farmer on his farm is perhaps not performing deeds as heroic as those of the boys who offered their lives at Dieppe or who went to Hong Kong and were made prisoners after a gallant fight. But the work of the farmer is just as noble as that of the soldier; and by "soldier" I mean anyone in any of the three branches of the service. I have respect for all, and1 now we see that we depend upon them to the same degree.
Therefore, sir, is it not time to consider Canadian politics from a Canadian point of

view? We have heard too much of international affairs, of Canada being a citizen of the world, of Canada being one of the great countries, when really Canada is only the trailer of our major allies in this war as far as external policies are concerned. Is it not time to think of our own people, of those who at times work under very difficult conditions without complaining and who deserve the sympathy, encouragement and support of this house? Even though one was considered to be speaking of a foreign country if he mentioned the name of Canada in this house, I always believed that in external policies, just as well as in domestic life, charity begins at home. That does not mean at all that we are isolationists. It means that we should first consider our problems from a Canadian point of view. So much propaganda has been put out by the various government agencies and by the press, which is supported by the war profiteers, that it is important for hon. members to have the courage to change their past utterances and come back to cold facts, and to realize that for the future welfare of Canada it is most important to consider everything from a truly Canadian point of view.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Mr. Speaker, I should like to talk a little bit about fuel, after hearing everything under the sun discussed this afternoon. Hon. members ranged all the way from funny money to the plebiscite vote.


An hon. MEMBER:: We shall have gas now.


George Alexander Cruickshank: Well, it is the kind of gas that does not heat very well in British Columbia. I rather thought we would solve the whole problem here to-night, for apparently every other problem has been solved from Winnipeg. I do not know what happened to the hon. member for Peel (Mr. Graydon), that he did not solve this problem also. I can see some advantages in his daily one o'clock conference; the filibuster that has been staged to-day must have been very well organized.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Now, now.


George Alexander Cruickshank: That is all very well for the hon. member; he has had an intimation that a gentleman from Temiseouata is coming into his riding to speak. I do not want that gentleman in my riding; I do not know what might happen.
As I say, I should like to talk a little about fuel. The hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) does not always ask for my

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Cruickshank
advice about what he intends to say. I do not always agree with him, but I do not think he should criticize everything that comes from this side of the house. Apparently I am the only private Liberal member who is to speak in connection with this matter.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: Have you any fuel?


George Alexander Cruickshank: Now, listen; you tried to make a speech and could not, so let me try. I am sure the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) will be interested to know that I still get my home newspaper, and in every issue for the last seven weeks the main item, apart from a word about milk and something about the Japs, has had to do with fuel and the lack of it. It is a very serious matter. The Minister of National Defence (Mr. Ralston) has one of the largest camps in British Columbia in my riding, and at the height of the worst storm of the winter there was not a pound of coal in that camp. I do not know who fell down there, but to the credit of those soldiers be it said that they got out and cut wood for themselves and also for the civilians in the surrounding district.
I am not particularly worried about mistakes that have been made in the past, but I am interested in what is to happen next year. In my province we had a hospital with over fifty beds, and it had not sufficient coal. That is not good enough. It is up to us to find ways and means of seeing that there is a supply for next winter. There is no reason to worry about what happened this winter, but what will happen in the future? It is absolutely unfair to say that this is a municipal problem. Speaking as an ex-municipal official I say that is not so, that the municipalities have not the facilities, the finances or the authority to handle it. It is our responsibility as a federal government.
In connection with the subsidy, as I see it the only people who will be affected by it are the small farmers, and they are very much interested to learn who will receive that subsidy. If it is to be paid as all the other subsidies are paid, I am afraid it will go, as other subsidies have done, to the large shipbuilders, the large tank builders, the large aeroplane builders and not to the actual working men. An assurance should be given by the minister that the subsidy is actually going to the producers. Personally I am of opinion that one might as well have no subsidy at all as one of $1 a cord. I was interested in what was said by the hon. member for York-Sunbury (Mr. Hanson) as to the price of hardwood in the maritimes. I think he said it was $16 a cord, in cordwood lengths.
In the Fraser valley hardwood in stove lengths costs $10.50 a cord delivered. That is quite a difference. Two and a half months ago the federal government paid $5.50 a cord in British Columbia for cutting wood into four-foot lengths. That was what was done by the Department of Munitions and Supply. That being so, how are we to have stove-wood cut and delivered for $10.50? It simply cannot be done. Any man in British Columbia who wishes to cut wood can go into a logging camp, into a shipyard or anywhere else. The minister should revise the subsidy. I agree with the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) when he says that the subsidy should be based on the knowledge of practical men who cut wood, and not on the knowledge of experts from the Bank of Canada.
There is one other small item which affects British Columbia and which, I suppose affects the rest of Canada. A farmer cannot take wood weighing more than half a ton in his light delivery truck. In the constituency of Nanaimo one man was convicted and fined for doing what was advocated by everyone. He went out and cut wood for his own use and hauled it in his own truck. Because he hauled more than half a ton he was fined in the court at Nanaimo. Although the hon. member for New Westminster (Mr. Reid) is not in his place at the moment, I know that many farmers formerly crossed the river to bring wood, in small amounts, to their regular customers. They cannot do so to-day.
I do not wish to take up more time. There has been too much time wasted discussing conscription, and a few other items, instead of fuel. But for the benefit of the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot), I have not taken back anything I said about compulsory selective service, and I do not intend to.


Mr. D. G. ROSS (St. Paul's):: Mr. Speaker, the whole problem comes down to a consideration of compulsory selective service. As long as we put off a proper consideration of this subject, we shall get nowhere. The hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) said a few minutes ago that the problem confronting us is a Canadian problem; and that we should look at it from the Canadian point of view. His Canadian point of view may be different from our Canadian point of view, and my Canadian point of view.


Jean-François Pouliot: Surely, surely.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: There are a great many people in this world who want us to look at this matter from the Canadian point of view-and not a selfish, national Canadian point of view. The whole thing is a national problem. As far as that is concerned, it
1306	COMMONS
Fuel Shortage-Mr. Ross (St. Paul's)
divides itself into two or three different topics. There is the question of production, and the further question of distribution, each of which is most important. There is also the question of advance information to the public as to what they have to do.
Last year in the house the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) made a statement respecting fuel oil. Had I not questioned him next day on his statement, and had it been left as it stood for a couple of weeks, all the oil furnaces in Toronto would have been converted into coal-burning units. He said we would have no fuel oil-or practically no fuel oil-for domestic purposes. Well, the next day he changed his mind. His controller told him that he was not saying the same thing. The answer to that is that these controllers are fellows who make all the decisions for the minister. As a matter of fact, the ministry ought to be able to make up their minds about what is going to happen.
I have heard in this House of Commons a great deal about wood, and I am not going to emphasize the wood situation, more than to say that I think the whole fuel position in Canada is just a question of wooden-headed government policy. The government is not thinking far enough ahead.


Karl Kenneth Homuth: That should supply some fuel.


Douglas Gooderham Ross: It does, as far as wood is concerned.


Mr. McNIVEN:: You mean cool-headed?


Douglas Gooderham Ross: I know a young woman who worked in Toronto, but who owns a little place outside the city. She cannot get help or transportation, and when she comes home every week-end she has to cut her own wood. However, I must say there are a tremendous number of difficulties in connection with the fuel question.
There was a strike in the United States which delayed fuel deliveries in Toronto, with the result that we have had a very hard winter. In addition, we had a great deal of snow, which complicated matters considerably, as far as deliveries around the city were concerned. The people of Toronto have been trying to be as economical as they possibly can in their fuel consumption. In this connection I might give one illustration of where one controller over-controlled another controller. I know of one apartment block in Toronto-and I have no doubt many hon. members know of similar situations-the owner of which went to his tenants to discuss the coal situation with them. This one took up the matter before the fuel controller issued

his orders with respect to fuel consumption. The owner said, "We want you to be economical in your use of coal this year." As a matter of fact, he issued a manifesto to his tenants. I believe there were 345 apartments in this particular apartment block. The owner said, "Will you please be careful of your coal this year. Be a little more careful of your hot water consumption, because the heating of the water requires coal. Keep your room temperatures down to 65 degrees. Keep your windows closed; do not shove them up to the top when you require fresh air. If you wish to keep the place warm, and at the same time be economical of heat, keep your windows closed." Well, what happened? Along came the rent controller, and he said to the apartment owner, "You must give the same service as you gave before. You cannot cut down on heat. You must give the same service, because they are paying the same money." Well 1 Well 1 Well!
Another question arises. Where are they going to get off? As I say, the people of Toronto have been trying to conserve their coal. In spite of the hard winter they have had they have used very little more coal than in the year before.
Here is another point. There are so many orders coming around that one is all the time running and taking out orders about coal; taking out orders about this and that, with nobody caring. As the hon. member for Waterloo South (Mr. Homuth) said, everybody is busy trying to keep up. One does not even have time to read the newspaper in the morning. The whole question comes down to one of national selective service.
What does one find when he 'visits 174 Spadina Avenue, Toronto? What do the returned boys call that place? They keep saying they want men. The returned boys call it the gestapo. If you are five minutes too early you have to wait; if you are five minutes too late you cannot get in. They just say, "You take the job." I know they told one man whom I know to take a job for three weeks driving a truck. This man was a machinist, but he accepted the truck-driving job. Now, instead of being classified as a machinist, he is classified as a truck driver. He cannot get a job as a machinist, because the gestapo has taken over. This all happens under the government's national selective service. The returned men are being treated like nobody's business, and something ought to be done about the matter.
The distribution of coal in Toronto is a most difficult problem. The coal dealers in Toronto can use every truck that they can

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Tustin
get; yet who decides who is to have a trucking licence in that city? Is it the transport division of the wartime prices and trade board or the oil controller? A man goes down there and says he wants to get a licence. First, he goes to the city hall to get a licence for his truck. The police department have charge of that, but they have been told not to issue licences unless they first receive authority from the transport division of the wartime prices and trade board. Accordingly he goes there, but to whom do they send him? They send him to the president of the trucking association of Toronto. In this particular instance this man says, "No; we turn you down."
I called up the wartime prices and trade board and told them that all the coal dealers wanted trucks. I told them about this man, and they said that if he could get a say-so from the president of the trucking association he would give the green light on him. What kind of system is that? These men want to get licences to work, but they are under the control of the president of the trucking association of Toronto. That is the situation. The coal dealers in that city can use every truck they can get their hands on, yet they are limited in getting trucks by the president of the trucking association.
There is one other matter to which I wish to refer. The people were asked by the minister to get in their coal last fall, or in other words to hoard coal, despite what my hon. friend over here says. They were told to get it in during the summer, and many did get coal in. A time-payment plan went into effect, and they budgeted for the amount of coal they needed. But this has been a heavy winter, and many find that they have run out of coal. They order five tons, two tons or whatever they think they need, and then what happens? They are all working people and they cannot pay for these commodities all at once. The next thing they know the twenty-fifth of the month comes along, and they are told they cannot have coal unless they pay for it in cash. The coal dealers in Toronto cannot give credit for this necessity of life to those who they think should have credit. That is a most ridiculous situation. A man may have only enough to buy half a ton, and that means that the dealer must go round half a dozen times before he has delivered all the man's coal.
This is about all I have to say, except that these controllers ought to get busy and use some judgment. The minister should get after them to see to it that they use a little judgment instead of putting everything
on a hard and fast basis. As I say, we can use all the trucks we can get in Toronto; there is plenty of work for them, but the whole situation is controlled by the one man, the president of the trucking association.


Mr. G. J. TUSTIN (Prince Edward-Lennox):: Mr. Speaker, I was interested this afternoon to see the Minister of Munitions and Supply (Mr. Howe) and the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) vying with each other in an effort to impress the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) with the fact that there was one experienced man on the board that governs fuel for this country. Be that as it may, to-day the government finds themselves in a most difficult position in regard to fuel. I intend to refer particularly to fuelwood.
In my district the people depend a great deal upon fuelwood for heating their homes. Shortage of labour has been blamed for the shortage of fuelwood, but I am not so sure that that is the situation. Personally I think the fault lies with the wartime prices and trade board. Last August, prices in my district were set at $2 a cord less than they were in the winter of 1941-42. A roadside price was set also. Just in passing, may I say that most of the fuelwood brought into my community must be brought a distance of about fifty miles. The roadside price was set at $6.50 a cord, and it costs anywhere from $4 to $5 a cord to bring it in; yet the ceiling price was put at $9 a cord.
Anyone who knows anything about cutting wood will realize that cutting must begin early in the fall. As I say, the price was set last August. That price was set either by a man who was inexperienced in fuel control, particularly as regards wood, or without any investigation whatever being made. There is a considerable amount of wood on the roadsides in certain parts of Ontario, but on account of the price that was set on it, it cannot be brought into the different communities to be disposed of.
It will be much harder to get wood in this winter because the placing of these controls upon the industry last fall has killed the industry entirely. It is too late now to give consideration to cutting wood for next winter's supply. The men who take out this wood usually work on farms in the summer months. In the very near future they will be upon the land. Another factor that had a great deal to do with the curtailing of the amount of fuelwood that reached the different communities was the order passed putting a thirty-five mile limit upon trucking. While this order has been postponed time and again,

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Noseworthy
it placed the man taking out wood in an impossible position because he did not know whether he would be able to truck it to those communities where he could sell his wood.
There is only one way in which the fuel-wood situation can be successfully solved. Reservoirs of fuelwood must be created in the different communities, and those reservoirs must be in the dealers' hands. Very few of the men who take out wood are in a position to cut it into stove or furnace lengths; they sell their wood in four-foot lengths. I was surprised to hear what the hon. member for Temiscouata (Mr. Pouliot) had to say. He was quite vehement in some of his remarks about this group. Apparently he has made a right-about face. He seems to have forgotten what his leader said, and he seems to have forgotten also the statement made by the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) within the last few days. I refer to the man-power situation.
On March 24 last the Prime Minister (Mr. Mackenzie King) said that any man working on a farm would be frozen to that farm. In his announcement the other day the Minister of Labour said that any man who went to the bush to take out wood would be placed in the same category. I am of opinion that these men will not place any more trust in that statement than they did in the statement made last year by the Prime Minister.
I have not much more to say except that I was delighted to hear that the fuel control had been handed over to the Department of Munitions and Supply. In fact, it seemed to me, when I read that remark of Mr. Gordon the other day, that he was boasting of getting rid of it. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that this country would certainly be much better off if the gentleman who is at the head of the wartime prices and trade board were able to hand over a great many more controls to responsible ministers of the crown.


Mr. J. W. NOSEWORTHY (York South):: Mr. Speaker, serious as the fuel situation in Canada appears to be, I certainly hope for the good of the Canadian people that it is not as serious as it has been represented to this house this afternoon and evening. Certain contributory factors to our present fuel situation should be taken into consideration. There has undoubtedly been underproduction, particularly of coal. I well remember deputations coming here from the east and from the west last spring and summer asking why the coal

miners could work for only two or three days a week. Yet apparently no solution of that problem was found.
There are other factors over which not even the Liberal government with its safe majority has much control. As already pointed out, we have had a very severe winter. I do not know how other members have fared, but I have personally just about gone bankrupt paying for coal. There are still other factors. There has been a great demand for manpower. It is quite evident that we cannot have a man in the armed forces, working in agriculture, working in a munitions factory, and at the same time cutting wood or digging coal. There is also this factor, that we have in the past depended to a large extent upon men who were living near the margin of subsistence to dig our coal and chop our wood. To-day these men are able to find employment at better wages elsewhere and are not anxious to dig coal or chop wood.
The question has been raised regarding the effect of the wartime prices and trade board regulations upon the fuel situation. I suggest that the root of the trouble as far as the wartime prices and trade board is concerned has not yet been mentioned in this house. To my mind it is this, that the regulations laid down by that board have in almost every instance militated against the primary producer and the small dealer. That has been brought out, I think, though it has not been specifically mentioned in the debate this afternoon and evening. We have learned that the primary producers of both wood and coal in New Brunswick, northern Saskatchewan and British Columbia were being underpaid and found it unprofitable to work in the production of fuel in competition with other lines of industry.
Last year I was approached by the retail coal dealers' association in Toronto, and it was pointed out to me at that time that more than one hundred small coal dealers in that city were forced out of business on account of government regulations and restrictions which favoured the big coal dealers in that city. I discussed that matter on numerous occasions with the coal administrator, ^ and a special committee was sent to^ investigate the situation in Toronto. Our claim was that if these small dealers were forced out of business, there would not be sufficient equipment to deliver coal to the people of that city during the coming winter. The investigator who went to Toronto reported to me later that he was satisfied that the remaining coal dealers were quite capable of delivering all the coal that would require to be delivered in

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Senn
Toronto during the following winter, and that no danger would result from large numbers of the small dealers being forced out of business. Yet last winter we had the spectacle in Toronto of women and children coming with baby carriages, go-carts and anything with runners or wheels, to carry home coal from the coal yards, because a hundred or more coal dealers who were equipped with one or more trucks for the delivery of coal had been forced out of business as a result of the competition of the larger firms.
I maintain that our fuel situation, in so far as the wartime prices and trade board affects the situation, is caused by the fact that its regulations, unintentionally or otherwise, in every instance have favoured the big business man.
It has been the practice to-day to offer suggestions to the minister. I wish to offer one that I know he will not accept any more than he will accept any of the others that have already been offered. My suggestion is that the minister follow the example of the United States government and send every one of these dollar-a-year men, who are to-day being paid by big business, back to the firms from which they came. They found they had to do that in the United States. Those whom they retained as dollar-a-year men they retained only in an advisory capacity, and not in administrative posts. If the minister will surround himself, not by men recruited from big business who have the outlook and the point of view of big business only, but with some who know the needs and have the outlook of the common primary producers, the small business men and the small dealers of this country, and will take their advice occasionally, we shall not get into such a muddle regarding our fuel problem.
Mr. MARK C. SENN (Haldimand): Mr. Speaker, I should like to bring to the attention of the minister a phase of the fuel situation which has not so far been discussed. It is true that it is somewhat of a local character and of local interest, but none the less it is important.
In the district from which I come and throughout all southern Ontario we have a fuel known as natural gas. It is used in the heating of homes, for cooking and also for lighting in a great many places, particularly where we have no hydro facilities. This gas is used not only in farm homes but in towns and villages, and is distributed in the larger centres such as Hamilton, Brantford, St. Catharines and so on.
This gas, as the house well knows, is produced from wells running anywhere from 600 to 1,200 feet in depth. The wells are put down by large drilling outfits which are operated by skilled labour, and each well costs anywhere from $800 to 51,500. Therefore the house will readily understand that the average farmer cannot himself finance such an operation.
The development is, of course, carried on by companies and syndicates, whose progress is seriously retarded for two reasons. First, there is the labour shortage. I can tell the minister of at least two large drilling outfits in my particular neighbourhood which are lying idle because the skilled labour that was operating them has been conscripted or taken into the army. The other reason, of which I would ask the minister to take particular note, is a shortage of gas pipe and casing for the wells. This material is, of course, made of iron or steel, and is very difficult to obtain at the present time, with the result that the development of these gas fields is being seriously delayed. Most of the operations take place during the summer months. It may be said that there will be little need of extra gas for fuel during the remainder of the winter or through out the summer; but if we are to have the operations expanded and the developments carried on, the work will be seriously affected if we have not some priorities for gas pipe and for the casings which are put into the well.
The supervision of this gas business has been carried on almost wholly by the provincial mining department. There has been a gas controller in our province for a great many years. However, last fall an order went out, I believe from the wartime prices and trade board, at least from the fuel administrator, disallowing the use of natural gas in furnaces. Many people were put to a good deal of trouble to re-equip their furnaces. In many instances they were unable to do so. Wood stoves and coal stoves are very difficult to buy at the moment, and their scarcity has caused many people a good deal of trouble in changing from the one sort of fuel to the other. After all, this gas fuel takes the place of coal and wood. It is very important in that particular district and, in fact, all through southern Ontario. I draw this matter to the attention of the minister because, if anything can be done to enable the companies which are developing these fields to get supplies, it would be of great assistance to the fuel situation in that particular district.
Fuel Shortage-Mr. McGarry


Mr. M. E. McGARRY (Inverness-Rich-mond):: Although the matter I wish to deal with is substantially of a local nature, it is quite relevant to the subject under discussion.
In Port Hood, in my constituency, the people have been subjected to a serious shortage of fuel, and have suffered considerably as a consequence; and this, despite the fact that within the precincts of the town is a large block of coal, which is easily accessible, and which dould be economically mined. A cooperative company which has in mind the opening of this mine would receive sufficient financial stimulus from the provincial government to start operations. An appeal has been made to the fuel controller, Mr. Stewart, but up to the present time nothing has been done: the request to open the mine has not been granted. In view of the conditions which prevail locally, the shortage of coal, the suffering entailed upon the people of Port Hood as a consequence, and the great cry which is heard now regarding the national shortage of coal, and in view of the fact that there is here a splendid block of coal which could be economically mined, and that there are enough men over military age in the town to do the work, it seems to me that it is rather senseless, and a demonstration neither of compassion nor of interest in the war effort to leave this block of coal unworked.
In the town of Inverness the largest producer has become somewhat reduced in volume, so that the production is not as great as it was some years ago. But there are in that area several seams which could be mined very economically and would produce large quantities of coal. I understand that the provincial government has in mind assistance for the opening and developing of some of these seams, but the retarding agency, as far as I can learn, is the fuel controller.
Last fall fifty per cent of the assessable property in the town of Port Hood was swept away by fire. The people are subjected to many economic disadvantages and are suffering in many ways. I believe that their ardour and morale should not be chilled further by requiring them, one might say, to sit on a great block of coal and suffer from the cold. The same may be said with regard to the town of Inverness. When the volume of coal mining was reduced, many of our miners had to go abroad. If these other seams of which I have spoken were developed, not only would something be done to alleviate the national fuel shortage, but it would mean something to the town of Inverness. Property holders who were obliged to leave the town would be able

to come home, bringing their families with them. Any way you look at the subject I cannot see why, in instances of this kind, particularly in view of the complaints of shortage of fuel, these coal deposits at Inverness and Port Hood, which the provincial government is prepared to assist to develop, should be kept closed or undeveloped on account of what I would regard as a very foolish restriction.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: In view of the resolution to adjourn having come from a Vancouver member, I feel there is the possibility of the impression going abroad that that city suffers such a climate that a fuel shortage at any time would be a serious matter, and is an idea which we who pride ourselves upon the mildness of Vancouver's winter should not allow to go unchallenged.
No one has more disagreements with some of the price control regulations than I have. But to blame them for the weather of Vancouver and the Dominion of Canada is, I think, going a little beyond what should be considered reasonable condemnation. It so happened that this winter in Vancouver, according to the Conservative paper, the Vancouver Daily Province, the temperature dropped to four degrees above zero January 22, the lowest since 1909. But by 9 o'clock on the same morning the temperature had risen ten degrees. During that period of extremely unusual weather-and it is not often we have unusual weather in Vancouver-there was a fuel crisis. Hardship and suffering undoubtedly occurred, and there was a tremendously increased demand for fuel. Steps were taken to meet that unusual situation and on February 2 the Sun newspaper reported as follows:
Army authorities to-day released figures showing a total of 690 cords of bushwood had been cut by soldiers Sunday.
Army crews continued operation at the same rate Monday and to-day, and will continue felling trees until the civic fuel committee declares the emergency over.
Shortly after that, the army that had gone into the woods to meet this emergency ceased their operations and, I presume, did so because the emergency had passed.
On January 25 the chairman of the wartime prices and trade board came to Vancouver, and of course he was faced with the problem of the fuel shortage. According to the Province newspaper Mr. Gordon is reported to have defended the part played by the war-

Fuel Shortage-Mr. McGeer
time prices and trade board in. the fuel situation and answered a series of questions relating to his organization's operations in British Columbia.
He charged that the wartime prices and trade board had received no cooperation whatever from the marketing board.
He announced that plans were already being executed for the relief of the fuel situation in Vancouver and told of measures being taken to break the potato deadlock as well. Mr. Gordon, after pointing out that logs were now being cut in False. Creek sawmills as an experimental expedient to solve the fuel problem, said that a general rationing of fuel such as had been done in respect of other products now on rations would be utterly unworkable.
The rationing of fuel in Canada, which is now proposed by lion, members opposite, would, I believe, be an extraordinary departure from the general underlying principle of rationing. True, wherever there is an actual shortage, and distribution on a basis of equality can be maintained only by rationing, all the difficulties and costs and inconveniences of rationing become necessary. But to suggest, that here in Canada, with our abundance of coal and fuel, particularly in British Columbia, we must submit to all the inconvenience of rationing, when all that is necessary is to take some reasonable precautions to see to it that an abundant supply is available, is something that I cannot support.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Weyburn):: May I ask the hon. member who suggested rationing fuel?


Gerald Grattan McGeer: The hon. member for Vancouver South, I understood.


Howard Charles Green: I said that perhaps rationing might be necessary.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: Oh, my hon. friend comes to '"perhaps"; it sounded a little different as I got it across the floor.


Howard Charles Green: Well, read the speech if you do not believe what I say.


Gerald Grattan McGeer: I am not questioning the hon. member's word. I say that the force with which he presented it sent it across to me without the "perhaps." But I agree that "perhaps" rationing of everything may be necessary'.
I appreciate, and I rather congratulate the hon. member for Vancouver South upon the course he has pursued this afternoon. I would not suggest for a moment that this fuel agitation is designed to counteract the influence of the social service programme announced in the press to-day by the government. I would 72537-83-h
hardly think there "would be such a design as that, although it did seem to me, as I noticed the evident preparation of every one of the speakers who followed the mover of the motion to adjourn, that is was a fairly well-laid plan.
Coming from Vancouver, I know there are some persons there who do not believe that the government at Ottawa was responsible for the fuel shortage, and they were not Liberals.
I quote from the Vancouver Sun of February 3, which says, "Labourites demand council supply wood." And the Sun reporting the meeting of the Vancouver and New Westminster district trades and labour council has this to say:
Full responsibility for the fuel shortage was placed on the aldermen by President Birt Showier as he countered a claim by delegate Jack Price, a city council member, that the coal shortage was partly due to down-town buildings changing from oil to coal. The coal used by large buildings could not be burned in a home furnace, the president asserted. The sole responsibility for the situation rests with the aldermen and they have done nothing but pass the buck to the provincial and federal governments.
I think this incident in the house this afternoon and evening does draw to the attention of the government the nature of the responsibility that comes with bringing down any programme of controlling prices and regulating production. If the government is to control the price of coal; if the government, is to control the price of wood fuel or the price of any consumer's commodity, then the government m.ust face the responsibility of guaranteeing or taking and exercising the powers of guaranteeing the supply of that commodity at that controlled price. I mention that because I believe I have observed a tendency on the part of the wartime prices and trade _ board to assume that mere regulation of prices is all that is necessary. LTndoubtedly control of prices in this emergency is necessary. If prices had not been [DOT] controlled in this emergency, and controlled in the effective way they have been, then the disaster to those unfortunates unable to pay the price that would have been demanded would have been much greater than their suffering from the temporary shortage which existed.
I think, however, the government would be well advised to take this as a lesson, and to recognize that controls go further than the mere regulation of price. I do not think we shall ever face a serious shortage of fuel on the Pacific coast, or in Vancouver, or throughout the west. True, we may experience extraordinary weather conditions from time to time; we may face the hardship of a -temporary break

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Adamson

in, the fuel supply, but there are a great many other features of our price control that we shall have to meet as time goes on. I am not in a position to question the methods already adopted to avoid a repetition of what has happened during this winter, not only in the west but throughout the whole dominion; but if we are to make a. success of the control and regulation of prices, I think it is now fairly evident that we must also take steps to guarantee the maximum possible flow, where there are shortages, and the essential flow where there are not, of supplies of consumer needs. I do not know that to-day there is any serious shortage of fuel in Vancouver; I telegraphed to ascertain whether there is or not, but all the information I could secure before I left that city was to the effect that the situation was reasonably well in hand and that with better weather coming the emergency would pass.


Mr. A. R. ADAMSON (York West) :: Mr. Speaker, I had no notice whatever that this debate was coming on this afternoon. I wish to say that in reply to the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. McGeer), who has just resumed his seat, as far as I know, this was no move whatsoever, political or otherwise, to counteract the valuable statement on social security which was made to-day by the Minister of Pensions and National Health (Mr. Mackenzie). I do not think the hon. member does himself justice in 'making the statement he made.
With regard to this question of wood I should like to offer the suggestion that we utilize the services of prisoners of war on the bush lots of Ontario. Labour with which to cut the trees on the wood1 lots is practically non-existent. I know that to be so because I live on a wood lot myself. I believe prisoners of war would be only too willing to do this work, and the English experience has been that they are of great help. When that suggestion is made, the immediate reply is that a great many of them might escape. With that I disagree. The practice has been that those prisoners allowed outside the wire are the ones who have become known as reliable people and the experience in England has been that prisoners of war have provided very useful assistance in connection with agriculture. If their work can be utilized in England, which is in a far more vulnerable and1 in a far more dangerous position than Canada, surely we could try the experiment here and see if they could be used for work of this kind in this country, for among them are many expert woodsmen.

I wish to sound a note of warning in this regard. The farmers of old Ontario know how hard it is to get wood for fuel; there is hardly a farmer who has not gained that knowledge during the past year. As a result of this shortage there will be a tendency to go into the bush lots and wood lots of Ontario and further deplete them. This would be most dangerous. I believe there are sufficient windfalls already on the ground to provide a useful supply of wood fuel for a very large part of southern Ontario, and it is this fuel that I believe prisoners of war could harvest. I would further suggest that they could be utilized for reforestation work, to be done this year and this growing season. We know we are up against it for man-power. We know we have not the man-power for this type of work, and I suggest that it would be well worth while to make this experiment in the utilization of prisoners of war.


Mr. SLAGHT:: Does the hon. member suggest that. the, farmers of Ontario would want, say fifty Germans, armed with axes, in their back wood lots?


Agar Rodney Adamson: There would not be fifty; there would be perhaps four or five in any one place. That has been the practice in England. Could the hon. member imagine employing fifty men on one farm? They have proved eminently satisfactory and a great help ini harvesting the crop that was grown in England this year.
Then I should like to mention the danger of overcutting and further denuding our forests in the agricultural districts of Canada. In this connection I wish to quote the 'editorial from this month's American Forest, to indicate the situation that exists at present. Speaking of Europe and the warring countries, it says:
Most of these countries, even in peace-time, have to import lumber from the few nations with forest surpluses. As in England the war now is draining off forest gfowtn over a wide expanse of the civilized world. Overcutting and destruction is reported everywhere in the warring and occupied countries. Every thinking forester knows that the forest depletion that is going on in England and European countries will nave repercussions in America.
Lack of wood and the tremendous demand that is building up for it when reconstruction of these countries is at hand means pressure on our own forests. It is a fair prediction^ that this pressure, involved as it will be in international relations, may be so great as to complicate seriously and intensify our own forest problems when the [DOT] war _ is over. Skilful diplomacy will be called for in dealing with it; and that in turn will call for more exact information than we now have on our own forest situation and our own post-war needs. The one comforting fact is that we have the forestgrowing soils in abundance.

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Fumiss
This demand for farm wood, in order to keep the farm houses warm, must be scientifically administered. We cannot send the people at will into the remaining bush lands of Ontario, and say to them, "Go and cut the wood, at so much a cord." If we do that, we shall increase our problems of soil erosion, drifting and drought. There would be no surer way of causing permanent damage, damage that could never be repaired, than to allow indiscriminate, unregulated and unscientific destruction of our wood lots.


Mr. S. J. FURNISS (Muskoka-Ontario):: Mr. Speaker, I do not rise frequently in the house, but I feel I should say a few words to-night to relieve the minister of the responsibility for conditions over which he has no control. The district of Muskoka, which I have the honour to represent, is one of the greatest sources of firewood in Ontario. It is within easy trucking distance of the line where coal meets wood, and the cheapness of either decides which will be used to the greater extent for fuel. .
When I tell the house that the official record of the fall of snow at Muskoka airport, in the centre of the district, was recorded two weeks ago at fourteen feet seven inches, hon. members will understand why little or no wood has been cut in that district this winter. To make matters worse, the snow came early, before there was any frost in the ground, with the result that there are some places where water stands, and on which there is no solid bottom to work. The wood was cut in the winter, and swamped out where it could be easily loaded on trucks and trucked away. That snow has settled to possibly five or six feet, and in some places seven feet.
Only recently a Muskoka resident told me that in some places in the bush of Muskoka there is a depth of seven feet of snow, and he said further that wood-cutting and lumbering is at an absolute standstill. The hon. member (Mr. Adamson) who has just resumed his seat spoke about cutting fallen timber for wood. A sawmill was located within a quarter of a mile of my home this summer. Lumber was cut out of a hardwood bush in that vicinity, and it was paid for by the thousand feet. The lumbermen took the tree only up as far as the limbs, and the result was that they left hundreds of cords of wood in the bush. That timber was cut when the leaves were on the trees. The leaves dried on the limbs, and now there is a canopy of snow over the top of the trees. That timber will lie there until the snow is gone.
I understand the subsidy is a dollar a cord on all wood cut until June 30. I would suggest to the minister that that time might be 72537-83J-E
extended in some districts until the end of October. Muskoka is not the best farming district in the world. The land is in scattered patches, and the farmer is not occupied all the summer in farming operations. He and his son, if the time were extended, could cut a considerable amount of wood which otherwise would not be cut. I know that wood cut when the leaves are on is not as good wood as that which is cut when they are off. Any practical woodman will corroborate that statement. But second quality wood is better than no wood at all. I believe honestly that if the time of cutting were extended, thousands of additional cords would be cut which otherwise would not be available for burning next winter. I ask the minister to give this matter serious consideration.


Clarence Decatur Howe: Mr. Speaker, when the orders of the day were called the hon. member for Vancouver South (Mr. Green) moved the adjournment of the house to discuss a matter of urgent public importance, namely, to inform the house and the country of the acute fuel situation. He then proceeded to tell the house that the government had informed the country very fully on the subject some two weeks before he spoke. Then he read lengthy extracts from the statement issued by the government. It seems to me that under the circumstances he was scarcely bringing to the attention of the house a matter of urgent public importance with which hon. members; were not familiar. The advertisement from, which he quoted had been published in almost every newspaper in Canada, and in addition, radio announcements had been made calling; the attention of the public to the situation.
The government has, of course, from the commencement of the war, given'continuous attention to the fuel situation. The fuel administrator was the first appointment made by the wartime prices and trade board in the direction of the administration of an industry. That appointment dates back to 1939. The fact that nothing has been heard until recently about difficulties in obtaining fuel is, I believe, a tribute to the efficiency with which the fuel situation was administered by the wartime prices and trade board, and by the fuel administrator. I can speak freely on the subject, for it is only within the last two or three weeks that I have been directly responsible for the administration of the fuel situation. I think a splendid piece of work has been done.
We can hardly discuss coal and wood fuel as a single problem, because they differ materially. Coal is undoubtedly a national problem. It was so considered before the war, and it certainly has been so considered during
Fuel Shortage-Mr. Howe

the war. The consumption of coal in war years has increased tremendously. In the prewar year of 1939 the consumption was 29,600,000 tons. In the last calendar year the consumption was 43,000,000 tons, representing nearly fifty per cent increase. It is estimated that for the year 1943 the consumption will be 48,700,000 tons, a further very considerable increase. Of this coal only about one-sixth is used as domestic fuel. Of course the railroads are the largest single consumers, using about one-quarter of the total consumption. Heavy industry uses the remainder beyond that used by domestic users and the railroads.
The quantities of coal consumed have risen rapidly month by month, and probably will continue to rise as long a;, the present emergency exists. The production of Canadian coal unfortunately has not kept pace with the expanded consumption.' Consumption of coal . has risen almost fifty per cent in the period from the commencement of the war to date, while Canadian production has risen only fifteen per cent. Whereas Nova Scotia coal once came as far west as the lake St. John district, and Sudbury, and London and Hamilton, at the present time we find it necessary to bring United States coal as far east as Riviere du Loup. In other words, the maritime provinces production of coal is able to do little more than meet the requirements of the maritime provinces. Before the war the distribution of Alberta coal was a problem, while to-day we find that the prairie production of coal is barely able to meet the requirements of the prairie provinces. Therefore we must draw very heavily upon imports of coal from the United States. Imports of coal from England, which were very important before the war, have been reduced almost to nothing.
Last summer the difficulty of obtaining domestic coal was foreseen by the government, and hon. members will recall that an announcement was made that the government would arrange for the financing of purchases of coal by domestic users. This policy was taken advantage of to a considerable extent, with the result that far more coal was purchased last summer than is ordinarily the case. There was no difficulty about purchasing coal at that time; anyone could purchase all the coal he wished, and the financing was arranged for him by the government. I think people in general anticipated their normal requirements of coal and had that coal in their cellars. As the hon. member for Lanark (Mr. Soper) has said, the dealers anticipated that the bulk of their distribution for the

year had been finished last autumn, and expected to have little to do this winter. We all know that we have experienced a very severe winter, the most severe in fifty years, and the result has been that the anticipated requirements for domestic coal have been greatly exceeded. The householder who thought he had a sufficient supply in his cellar has had to go to his dealer for additional quantities of coal.
Coal was available in Canada but unfortunately it was not always available where required, and the problem of distribution became grave. I think the efforts of the fuel controller and his staff have succeeded to a large extent in overcoming the difficulties of distribution and have put coal in the hands of users when it was required, with a very few exceptions. I know there have been threats of serious coal shortages, threats that schools would have to close, threats that families would be without heat, but I think, with very *few exceptions, the situation has been met in time, and these threatened emergencies have not actually occurred.
I do not think the problem of wood fuel can be regarded as a national problem. At the present time this country consumes about 10,000,000 colds of wood fuel. About three-quarters of this, or 7,500,000 cords, are cut by the consumers themselves. In other words, about three-quarters of the wood fuel never appears on the market. The farmer is the greatest consumer of wood fuel, and that fuel is cut by him as a normal part of his farming operations, is hauled to his house, and burned there, without appearing on the market.


Mr. MacNICOL:: Would that not include sales in villages and towns roundabout?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Not the fuel about which I am speaking. I shall speak about that in a moment. About 2,500,000 cords are consumed by unban users, and this represents the marketable fuel upon which the unban householder depends. It is anticipated by the fuel controller that we shall be about 500,000 cords short of the required supply, as the situation stands at the present time. In order to stimulate the production of fuel and have it move into dealers' hands to the extent of 500,000 cords, a campaign was undertaken two weeks ago to inform the public of the situation and to offer certain forms of cooperation by this government, to municipalities, cities and dealers, in order that this threatened shortage may be overcome.
It has been said here to-day that in suggesting that the municipalities have a responsibility in the matter, the government was at-

Fuel Shortage-Mr. Howe
tempting to relieve itself of the whole problem. I think that is far from the case. In fact, I think anyone reading the announcement will take the view that the government is offering a real and active partnership between itself and the municipalities in order to solve a problem that is local rather than national. In publishing this advertisement it was the wish of the government, first, to call attention to the situation; second, to be helpful in working toward a solution, and, third, to ask each municipality to direct a cooperative effort, in line with the broad needs of the locality, in an effort to meet its own particular situation.
The offer of the government has been stated here to-day. It is to pay a bonus of SI a cord for wood cut before June 1 and in the hands of dealers on that date. The question was asked whether this $1 a cord would go to the dealer or to the producer of the wood. The SI a cord is paid to the dealer, but it is not paid surreptitiously. Every producer is advised the the dealer is being paid this extra SI a cord, and it is the intention of the government that he shall pass the bonus on to the producer. The dealers who have met with the government on this problem have all stated that it is their intention to pass on the $1 a cord to the producer, and I think I can say with great confidence that it will find its way into the pockets of the producer.


Percy Chapman Black: What about the producer who is also a dealer, the man who sells direct to the consumer? Will he get the bonus?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Yes.


Mr. GRAYDON:: Have definite instructions actually been given to the wood dealers throughout Canada to pass on the dollar to the producer of wood?


Clarence Decatur Howe: We have been told that the
dealers were unable to operate because the price was too low. This gives the dealer a chance to operate at a price on which we believe he can operate. The farmer knows that the dealer is getting the dollar bonus, and he knows the ceiling price, and I think the producer will hardly sell at a rate lower than the ceiling price plus the dollar.


Gordon Graydon: I am trying to find out
whether or not the government has instructed the dealer to pass the dollar on to the producer, or has the government simply left it to the good graces of the dealer himself to pass the dollar on to the producer?


Clarence Decatur Howe: I can hardly say that the
government has issued specific instructions to the dealer, but certainly every implication is there that that must be done. I think there is every certainty that it will be done.


James Arthur Ross: May I ask a question?


Clarence Decatur Howe: Every one has had a chance to speak.
Mi-. ROSS (Souris):	This is a question I
asked this afternoon. I wanted an answer.


Clarence Decatur Howe: I have tried to answer it.
I did not interrupt my hon. friend when he was speaking, and I would ask him not to interrupt me.
There were some difficulties last winter in the distribution of wood, and undoubtedly there was hardship in certain areas on account of the lack of wood fuel. It was due to rather unusual circumstances. In the Vancouver area it has been the custom to depend very heavily upon what is called mill waste and sawdust; that is, the chips and shavings which are surplus from the sawmills of that area. A great many householders in Vancouver have furnaces suitable for burning mill waste and sawdust but not for burning coal. There has been a reduction in the cut of lumber in the Vancouver area, with the result that certain mills which a year ago operated on a twenty-four hour basis have been operating on an eight-hour basis, and some have not been operating at all. The supply of mill waste and sawdust was consequently greatly reduced in that area. Another difficulty was that the snowfall in the Vancouver area stopped the production of logs for a considerable period, with the result that most of the mills were closed completely for a period of some two months. That, was an interruption in the normal supply of wood fuel, which had a considerable effect in that area. Coal was diverted from Alberta into the Vancouver area to the amount of 100,000 tons. The fuel controller also arranged for the delivery of 100 million board feet of pulpwood, which was cut up into cordwood lengths and used as fuel. That very prompt action kept suffering to a minimum, but there was an unusual situation in the Vancouver area which caused hardship. The fuel controller did his best to meet that situation, and I think with some degree of success. That emergency has passed. It is to prevent exactly that kind of emergency that we are asking the cooperation of the municipalities with the government.
I have spoken of the bonus of SI a cord to dealers. The notice mentioned several
Fuel Shortage-Mr. Howe

kinds of assistance from the government. It mentioned the fact that the government would assist in the transportation of pulpwood in certain cases, where the fuel controller may think assistance is justified. The intention is to assist in moving fuel from one producing area, where there may be a surplus, to a producing area where there is a deficit. It is also the purpose to help out in trucking the wood from the roadside to destination where local equipment is not sufficient for the purpose, and to help generally in the transportation and distribution of fuel wood.
The notice also offers the help of the government in securing priorities for necessary equipment for cutting fuel wood. It also asks the farmers to take an active interest in producing an extra supply of fuel wood and undertakes to protect them against any possible violation of the war service regulations when so engaged. In other words, the notice is an offer of cooperation on the part of the government, and an invitation to local communities and the citizens to cooperate with the government in solving a problem which no section of the community can claim as peculiarly its own.
We have had various suggestions offered to-day for a solution of the problem. I think the one most often given was to increase the ceiling price. That is an easy solution for a great many problems, but it must be obvious to every member that if we were to adopt the practice of increasing the ceiling price to meet every problem that comes along, we should soon have no price ceiling and no price control at all, and thus be well on the road to inflation. Five hon. members of the Progressive Conservative party offered that solution. I urge them to avoid suggestions of that kind if they believe that price control is a sound policy in times such as this, because that policy can be maintained only by rigidly observing existing price ceilings. One breakthrough for a particular commodity invites a break-through for a number of other commodities. To maintain a price ceiling policy with frequent exceptions is an impossibility.
One hon. member of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation suggested that the answer would be to pay higher wages to wood cutters. That, I think, is not a solution. The production of firewood is not an industry in the sense that it lends itself to organization on a full-time basis. It is a part-time industry. It always has been, and I think it can be operated economically only on that basis.


Clarence Gillis: I made no reference to higher wages for wood cutters. I was speaking of the coal miners.


Clarence Decatur Howe: The hon. member for Lake
Centre (Mr. Diefenbaker) made four constructive suggestions. I have dealt with one of them. He made the suggestion that the government should finance the producers of firewood. I think the policy of assisting the dealer and asking the cooperation of the municipalities leaves the way open to that kind of assistance. If the dealer is not willing to finance the producer, perhaps a plan can be worked out to meet special situations, where the financing of the producer would assist in the total production. That is a matter regarding which suggestions from a local organization would receive sympathetic consideration here.
We have had the suggestion from the hon. member for Muskoka-Ontario (Mr. Furniss) that the date be later than June 1. The reason why June 1 was set as a date is that ordinary wood should be cut by the first of June in order to be dry for use the following winter. We hope that sufficient wood can be delivered to dealers by June 1, but if later on it becomes apparent that sufficient wood will not be in dealers' hands to meet the situation, I have no doubt, that the period for the bonus will be extended.
I think that covers most of the points I wish to discuss. I ask for the complete cooperation of coal miners, producers of wood, consumers, dealers, and everyone associated with the problem in Canada. Part of the difficulties of the fuel controller has arisen from needless labour disputes. The hon. member for Cumberland (Mr. Black) mentioned coal mining in his area. I happen to know that one mine in his area has been closed for two weeks over a trivial labour dispute arising out of a change of foremen. I sincerely hope that the practice of closing down this most, essential industry for trivial reasons will not continue.
One of the difficulties on the Pacific coast this winter has been the fact that what was reported in the newspapers as a slow-down occurred in the mines of Vancouver island. In the period from June 1 to date the consequent reduction in normal production has amounted to 250,000 tons of coal in that area. Surely these situations can be avoided. I am sure that the Department of Labour is doing everything it can to maintain production at normal rates. The government asks for the cooperation of those engaged in these essential industries in seeing to it that Canada as a unit puts forth every possible effort to meet this situation.
I feel that our discussion to-day has been helpful. I hope it will assist the fuel controller in bringing home to the men and

Fuel Shortage-
-Mr. Douglas (Weyburn)
women of Canada, both consumers and producers, the gravity of the problem and the need for action.
During the coming year we hope to have an ample supply of coal, and we hope that every consumer of coal will lay in an ample stock for the winter months. We also hope that those using wood fuel will see to it that their winter needs are supplied. If they are producers as well as consumers, we trust that they will cut a little extra to make sure that they have sufficient for the winter, and if they are dealers or producers for sale to dealers, that they will make an extra effort to see that the dealer has ample stocks in hand.
Another announcement of the government to help the situation was the offer to the dealers to buy back in June, 1944, any wood bought before June, 1943, which had not been disposed of. That, of course, is an inducement to dealers to overpurchase rather than underpurchase to meet the situation.


John Ritchie MacNicol: I have to buy quite a few tons of soft coal yearly for buildings in Toronto. My superintendent tells me that never in his experience has he seen soft coal of such a wretched quality; that it is almost dust, and that it takes perhaps a ton and a half to two tons of soft coal this year to equal in burning value a ton of soft coal in normal times. Has such a situation been brought to the minister's attention?


Clarence Decatur Howe: The Toronto district is dependent upon coal from the United States. I assume that the quality depends upon the colliery from which the coal is bought. If the hon. member's superintendent would buy from a well-known colliery, his difficulty might be lessened.


Mr. T. L. CHURCH (Broadview):: Coming from a district where there is a good deal of suffering, I would point out to the government that something should be done. Even if the dealers have coal, it is not possible to get it delivered. The men have been taken for the army and there is nobody to handle the deliveries. I cannot see that any appreciable progress has been made. The government can make all the statements it likes, but there are from eight to nine months in the year when we in Canada must have fuel, and in central Canada we are dependent upon the United States. We are away back to where we were during the last war, in 1917, when there was the same serious trouble. I fail to see that we are making any progress. The government is confronted with a most dangerous national problem in the present fuel situation. The first thing we know, the
United States may put on an embargo, as they did in 1917. I urge on the government that something should be done. The small dealer cannot get men to deliver fuel. In 1922 I brought this national coal problem before parliament, but very little progress has been made. We are not through the present winter yet, let alone next winter.


James Arthur Ross: May I complete the question which I was trying to ask the minister? I inquired who actually got the money, and the minister said it went to the dealer.
I am not just clear about the matter. Supposing a farmer producer with a wood lot cuts 100 cords of wood and sells it himself in town, is he entitled to the bonus, or must it go to a dealer?


Clarence Decatur Howe: If the man in question cuts 100 cords of wood and sells it himself, he is a dealer and would be entitled to the bonus as a dealer.
Mr. T. C. DOUGLAS OVeyburn): The minister dealt with a number of suggestions which were offered this afternoon, but he said nothing about the question of man-power, and that is a particularly pressing matter with reference to the coal mines. The minister said that the prairie production barely met its own needs. I can speak only with regard to the part of the province from which I come. The southern part of Saskatchewan has tremendous coal potentialities, and they are not being fully used. Last year I took occasion to draw the attention of the government to the fact that the Estevan and Bien-fait mining districts last summer were producing at about one-third capacity. Some of the pithead bosses told me that one mine normally producing seven hundred cars a month was down to about two hundred cars. A big briquetting plant which cost a million and a half dollars was completely closed for part of the year because man-power could not [DOT] be obtained. That condition was remedied to some extent by an appeal being made in the fall for farmers who had any mining experience to go in the mines. A number of them have gone there, and the situation has been alleviated somewhat. These men will be going back to the farms within the next four weeks, or even less, and the situation will be back where it was.
I was hoping there would be some statement from the Minister of Labour (Mr. Mitchell) as to whether it will be possible to get labour into these coal mines. The price is not so much a problem as getting the necessary man-power. It seems to me some man-power could be found that we are not
Fuel Shortage-Mr. Mitchell

using. I have in mind, for instance, some conscientious objectors in service camps, who were working in Banff putting in ski jumps and in the Prince Albert national park putting in tourist roads. I have in mind a number of cases of conscientious objectors who are in gaol. It seems to me that there is some manpower around that is not being used very beneficially. I should like the minister to make some statement as to whether or not it will be possible during the summer to have some man-power made available to the mines; otherwise next fall we shall have the same position as we have now.


Humphrey Mitchell: I will say this to my hon. friend, and the hon. member for Cape Breton South (Mr. Gillis) -will understand it better than he does: you cannot call men by phrases. Coal miners are coal miners, and we did attack this problem in a resolute way this fall. I think if the hon. member goes back to his own province he will find that we more than manned the mines in Saskatchewan last fall. We reached the point where there was an actual surplus of labour in the mines of Saskatchewan. We have 3,300 additional miners in the mines of western Canada, which is, I believe, no small achievement.
I am not afraid of the man-power situation, but I do not think it will be solved by mere declarations expressed in a few words. War in its very essence demands substitutes. Every nation engaged in this conflict will be confronted with the problem as long as the war lasts. But it can be said to the credit of the Canadian people when you view the thing in a big way on the production front-and I shall have more to say about this later in the session-when you take into consideration the agricultural production and the men we have placed in the fighting forces, the achievements of this nation, notwithstanding the opinions of some hon. members, will ring down through the pages of history.	[DOT]


Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas: These are more and more phrases.


Humphrey Mitchell: No; they are not
phrases; that is what Mr. Churchill said the other day and what Mr. Bevin stated publicly when I was in England recently. I am not afraid of any debate on the so-called manpower muddle in this country. After all, it is largely a question of mechanics. With regard to people who talk about distributing the working classes of this country, I cannot altogether agree with that. I think it far better to make a man or a woman feel that he or she is part of the war effort and that they go I Mr. T. C. Douglas.]
voluntarily where we want them to go instead of being pushed around. I have always held the opinion that you can persuade the Canadian people, but you cannot boss them too much. As far as my department is concerned in our approach to the very difficult problem of man-power, my hon. friend who comes from the old country, where they have had this background of organization of the civil services, the development of unemployment insurance, and the use of the employment offices in connection with the man-power problem of that country, w-hen he reflects on his own experiences, if he was old enough to reflect when he left there-


John Ritchie MacNicol: Was he?


Humphrey Mitchell: I do not know. I do not say that in a sarcastic way. I think he will agree that our approach to the man-power problem has been a sound approach, a rational approach, and as far as my department is concerned it will continue to be so. The degree of regimentation to which the Canadian people have subjected themselves even in the last six months redounds to their credit.
At the last session we heard about labour poaching; we do not hear about poaching to-day. We heard about labour turnover; we do not hear a great deal about labour turnover to-day. I never thought I should see the day when, within six months, we should practically move the whole industrial and agricultural population of this country through the employment offices under the jurisdiction of the labour department. It may be true that in some respects the machinery is creaking a little. That is inevitable when one considers that the personnel of the labour department in the last few years has grown from practically nothing to almost 7,000. When an organization is built up that deals with the very delicate problem of moving human beings from one job to another, people who have not had a great deal of experience with that form of machinery, I think it is to the credit of the organization engaged in that difficult task, and also to the credit of the working people of this dominion, that we have been able to face up to the coal situation, to the lumber situation. I shall talk about that later this session. I feel proud of the work of this government in manning the lumber industiy of this country during last winter. I believe we have a worth-while policy, although, of course it will not cure the situation. Good heavens; look at Germany to-day 1 I have heard my hon. friend speak about organization and regimentation. Give me the power of Hitler, and I will put, not

Fourth Victory Loan
the people in this country, but the members of this House of Commons to work. They will not be making speeches here but doing what they are told. I think hon. members get my point. Even with the powers of compulsion that they have in the countries against which we are fighting at the present time there is a tremendous shortage of labour; in Germany they have to have a mass movement of the people from the countries that have been subject to their rule temporarily; they have had to pick up the populations of whole villages and put them down in Germany and set them to work.
I think our method of approach is the correct one, notwithstanding opinions to the contrary. It is largely a question of mechanics and machinery, and as our machinery gets, as I might say, more efficient-I am not taking the position that we have a perfect machine- when the people who are operating that machine gain more experience in the movement of labour in this country, they will reflect credit not only on the discipline of the Canadian people but also on the country as a whole.
Motion (Mr. Green) agreed to.


[Stage Direction]
At eleven o'clock the house adjourned without question put, pursuant to standing order.
Wednesday, March 17, 1943